Walking to the Chair

Sad

2010-05-27T22:25:00.003-04:00

Yes, I am sad. I am not overeating right now, so I am stuck feeling the feelings. And it sucks.

I am stressed out because I have to go get some papers filled out for the worker's comp claim. I just feel like this is stressful for me. I suppose it is an imposition for me to have to do all of this work. Blah.

And STBX has a lawyer to represent him in the divorce. What the hell for? So that is stressing me out.

And my phone rang at 12:30 in the morning. I have no idea who it was. That is never a good feeling,

And STBX called me to try to pawn the furniture off on me. Bite me. I am not taking it. I don't have anywhere to PUT it. Perhaps you should have thought about that before you PUNCHED ME, Asshat.

And he always went on and on and on about how it was going to be impossible to get the wooden bookshelf that was mine that I LOVED down the stairs when we moved. And that it just couldn't be done, etc, etc. So I left it and now he calls and says he moved it down the stairs and I can come pick it up.

Again, BITE ME! This is just further proof that he was full of shit and just wanted me to be miserable. He was too lazy to move the bookshelf so he told me it was impossible, but wonders of all wonders, he has it down the stairs and waiting right now. Bite. Me.

I hate him. And if I wasn't such an idiot I would recognize the number and I wouldn't have answered in the first place. But I don't want to save his number in my phone. But my memory sucks and I can never recognize the number.

Wow, I am in a miserable mood, aren't I? I blame this on lack of overeating! Ha!

Eight years, two months and twenty eight days...

2010-05-23T22:54:00.002-04:00

That is 3008 days spent in sorrow. Three thousand and eight days of having my wings pinned down. Being told I was not good enough. Being afraid to fly.

My little 291 days of freedom pales in comparison.

Yet my 291 days of freedom are more precious to me than 291 bricks of gold.

I made a decision today. I have decided not to die young. When I sat in the bedroom last year after being treated worse than a dog, I also made a decision. Then, I decided to kill myself. I got my affairs in order and I planned my death of choice. The only thing keeping me from doing it was to think of my students and how unfair it would be to them for me to commit such a selfish act.

A year ago I decided to die. Today, I decided to live.

Days are going to come to me, they are going to add up quickly. It wont matter if I am killing myself with food or fighting for a chance to live. The days don't care, they just pile up. So I want to live a life worthy of this journey. I have had far too many bad things happen to me to allow my life to be cut short before I even get to the good stuff!

I want the good stuff!

The lessons we learn..

2010-05-04T23:51:00.002-04:00

So for a while now I have been sort of obsessing over my STBX and his life.

Why does he have money to go out to eat and buy things, when he has no job?
Why isn't he suffering for the 8 years of abuse he put me through?
Why isn't he being punished more for what he did?

Etc, etc.

Today is the 9 year anniversary of meeting him. Nine years ago today I had really low self esteem. Nine years ago today I latched on a man who paid some attention to me and was a master manipulator. Nine years ago today began the journey that would lead me to my Mother begging me to reconsider my choice, and to many friends and coworkers ending their relationship with me because of his actions. Basically, when your boyfriend starts breaking your parent's living room furniture, perhaps that might be a sign that he is bad news!!

But anyway LOL

I can focus on the regret I have- and boy, do I have buckets of it. Or I can try to allow myself to move on.

I read a passage in Guideposts tonight that lead me to the following:

Romans 12:9-21
9 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. 10 Love each other with genuine affection,[e] and take delight in honoring each other. 11 Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.[f] 12 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. 13 When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

14 Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. 15 Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

17 Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. 18 Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

19 Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,

“I will take revenge;
I will pay them back,”[g]
says the Lord.

20 Instead,

“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap
burning coals of shame on their heads.”[h]

21 Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

Okay so basically, how do I know my STBX isn't suffering? Perhaps he is having to do really unpleasant things to get his income. Perhaps his parents had to give him money and he feels like less of a man. Or maybe he really isn't having any affects and he is just happy and carefree and enjoying the lazy life? But in the end, it is none of my business!

And that concept is freeing to me. It is none of my business what his life is like now. I really could care less to never see him again- except in divorce court! God is in control of B's punishment, or lack thereof, and not me. Thinking about it does what? Nothing.

So what if his life is great from here on out? Well, great for him!

But MY life is going to ROCK. All the times I was tempted to go back to him. No, no, NO! I am strong. I wont allow him to have free space in my head.

So I need to free myself from the bitterness. Is it helping? I have to believe that God has a plan. A path. Every obstacle, maybe it means something. Maybe it meant something to pick up that Guideposts tonight.

I was looking at the clouds tonight while waiting on a red light. So beautiful. I taught my students how they formed last week. This is not an accident. It can't be an accident.

Again, I suffer from the weight of what my lifestyle is doing to me. I can't die young from being overweight, what a waste!

Pity Party

2010-05-03T19:23:00.002-04:00

I figure since people have to go out of their way to read my blog, it is okay to vent/whine/cry on here.

When I lost half of my sight, I figured I was good for a while as far as bad things happening to me. I mean, that should take you through a few years at least. Especially with the constant threat of possibly having MS hanging over my head. That should be enough.

I wonder who I pissed off.

I am cranky. And tired. Mostly afraid though. Afraid that I will be married to an abuser for the rest of my life.

I strongly suggest that no one tell me to get a lawyer. Believe me, if I had any money leftover at the end of the month, or if there was any pro bono work to be found in my area, I would already have a lawyer. The only one I could afford refused to take my case.

My Dad promised to help pay for it. Then he changed his mind. Not sure why. I don't suppose it matters, it is out of my control.

I am a little miffed at him for that. If you can't follow through, you shouldn't offer.

Anyway, it is only $160 to file for divorce. Yes, I am that broke, that I can't afford $160. WHY can't I get a second job? Why are there no jobs here?

Why do I work for $10 an hour when my test scores were off the charts and my GPA was so high? Why doesn't anyone in my family think that I am capable of moving out of state to get a real teaching job making real money with real benefits? How is my husband paying his bills when he has no job?

Okay so now I am crying.

He says I took the title to his car and he is really angry about it. I apologize because I am crying now and I can't really see the screen. The car has like, five thousand dollars owed on it and in our state they don't send a title until you pay for it. But I am scared that he will call the police and I will get in trouble, but I really don't have it. If I had the stupid title I never would have let him take the car away from me in the first place. My name is not on it. After he was arrested and he took the car from me, I bought a car in just my name. I am afraid he will take it from me too. He doesn't have a key but what is to stop him from towing it away if it is considered marital property? I didn't know anything about that or else I would have tried putting it in my parent's names instead. He says that he is getting a lawyer and that he can take my things from me. I don't have much to begin with. The only thing I own of value is my car and my Grandma's china, and technically the bank owns my car. I have a nice book collection that I owned before I met him, and the washer and dryer was mine before him too. But he says he can take that.

This was the biggest mistake I have ever made in my whole life. I don't know why I married him. I knew that he repulsed me from the moment I met him but my self esteem was so low. I didn't think that anyone else would want me, but you know what? Maybe that is true. Who cares? I would rather be alone than spend one more minute married to him.

And I have to apply for fiancial aid but I am not divorced so I have to include him. He doesn't even WORK. He hasn't worked since he went to jail. I will have to put my classes on a credit card because I can not afford to lose my license.

I am so tired of the road blocks. It is selfish of me to think that being half blind for three month should be enough. But it really should be. I don't hurt people. My husband's life is great. He is living out his dream of sitting at home all day on MY furniture *owned before I knew him* with my cats on an internet connection that I can't get out of MY name. He goes out to dinner. He can afford a lawyer. Where the hell is he getting this money? I don't have two quarters left over after paying my medical bills each month. I hate him so much. I abhor him. I loathe him. He is the most vile person on the planet. I really don't think anyone is worse than him right now. I am sure there are many worse, but right now, I just don't see it.

But there isn't anything I can do, other than save the stupid $160. Maybe over the summer I will have paid a bill off and can snowball the money. I try so hard. I want everyone to know that I try. I have been digging myself out of this hole for nine months now. And I hate him for having a better life than me. He does NOT deserve it after what he did to me. He does not deserve anything good in this world. He only deserves bad things. The things he did to me and got away with. It is so unfair.

I am tired of my coworker not coming to work. I am mad because she is going to be ranting and raving when *if* she comes back about the Mother's Day gifts not being done. When am I supposed to do those? WHEN? I WORK all the time. I never have a minute to myself, they wont pay me to work through my break and my other coworker is lazy as hell and does NOTHING while I am on break. She could have had the damn things done. I swear, if she comes to work tomorrow and bitches about those projects, I am walking out of the room.

God give me the strength to think that I deserve better than this. What are the ties that hold me here? Why did I give up my dreams for someone who was mean to me from the get go? Why did I do that? I just don't understand, why? I think if someone could tell me why I would feel better right now.

And the healing begins..

2010-04-26T21:33:00.003-04:00

The Treasure Map has been a really positive force in my life. I can already see that it is working.

I have been drinking more water, I bought some new exercise shoes, I got my teaching license out of storage, I am looking at options to continue my education *either continuing the Library Science degree at University A or going for my Masters at University B*, and people are starting to like me again.

I am blessed with people in my life who pretty much tell it like it is. Apparently I was the Bitch of the Universe when I was with my husband. I blame that on the untreated sleep apnea and having to walk on egg shells all the time with my husband.

I really let him take a big part of me. The main part of me. I am just now getting her back.

I am starting to open the door at work and actually go out and venture in to the world of people. And I have heart countless times the past few days "You are so funny." and "I had no idea you were so funny!", etc. Basically, I am funny. I already knew this. But I just never let anyone see this.

And it feels good to laugh. Gosh it had been so long since I had laughed when I was with STBX. I have a standing break time chat session with a coworker. I spend each Wednesday with at least one, if not two, others. I am enjoying getting to know people. And even if we are just all standing around complaining about the drama or the budget cuts, etc, at least I am interacting. I actually have people upset if I don't say hi to them when I walk by. Before no one could have cared less.

I feel good that I am giving myself the opportunity to be me.

I am thinking that it is probably okay if I move away to get a teaching job. I figure it is okay if I am paid what I am worth for a change, instead of always settling for a low paying job because that is all my STBX ever thought I was worth.

And I drinking Crystal Light again. I could not drink that for months, not after he threw that two gallon pitcher at me. It just representing so much hate and shame for me. I am glad I got over that hangup, because I really enjoy drinking it.

I think it is okay to laugh in the kitchen while the kids are napping. It is okay to joke with my coworkers, even though admittedly I often do not understand the music they listen to or some of the slang that they use. Which is odd because we are all around the same age. But I feel safe. I don't feel judged. No one is whispering behind my back anymore because I am no longer hiding in the domestic violence closet.

Yes, my husband was a total jerk. Yes, he was evil and he did terrible things to me. No, it does not define me. It does not take away from who I am. I deserve to smile. I deserve to laugh. I deserve to get to know other people and to let them get to know me.

I deserve to go back to school if I want to. I deserve to move out of state and get a better job, if I want to. I deserve to eat healthy 95% of the time and to have some ice cream once in a while. I deserve to move my body and to enjoy it when I work up a sweat and feel my muscles moving. Nothing is holding me down. Nothing is holding me back. Nothing is out of my reach. I am capable. I am intelligent. Just because one man on the planet was totally out of touch with reality does not mean that I must live DOWN to his expectations.

It is good to be me, right now.

However, I will admit that the thought of registering for college scares the crap out of me for many reasons. One reason is that I tend to get overwhelmed when large documents are in front of me. And two, I can't fit in the desks and getting one is a huge ordeal. However, now that my Mom works at University A, I figure I wont have a problem because she is kind of scary ;) And thinking about moving to work scares me so much.

I am trying to embrace these fears. "I am safe, it is only change" is written right on my Treasure Map. I am safe, I can do it, God wont steer me towards anything that I can't deal with. Whew.

I finished my Treasure Map

2010-04-19T20:26:00.003-04:00

And it is fabulous! I love it! Here is a link to the picture if you would like to see it :0)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=72104&l=ce578f9de3&id=100000880402818

I worked really hard on it and I think it looks good. Mainly, I am hoping to be more of my true self this year. And to work hard on establishing a healthy relationship with God and maybe finding a new church. And getting healthier is also on there. Career change, perhaps! Following my dreams!

I changed my routine around so that I can exercise in the mornings, then shower and go off to work. I am doing Walk Away the Pounds with Leslie Sansone. The DVD I have right now is called "Walking the Walk" and it has a book with it.

Things are going well for me right now. Very calm and relaxing at the moment.

Useless

2010-04-14T22:52:00.001-04:00

My STBX is useless. And no, I am not being mean again. I am just stating what appears to be a fact :P

He is only allowed to talk to me about the divorce. Other than that he isn't allowed to contact me. Fine. So I e-mailed him asking if he had the copies of the last two year's tax forms, because I need them to file for divorce.

This is off topic- but does anyone know how you can get those forms if you don't have them? I mean, somewhere, someone has had flood damage or a house fire and has lost their documents, yet they can get divorced. I need to know how they did that. Because I don't think he will ever look for them- because he is useless.

Anyhow, I e-mailed asking that several days ago.

My STBX is OCD. He would spend a half an hour arranging the shower curtain in a certain way so it would dry properly. Being disheveled is not in his vocabulary. He has a ridiculous filing system. It would take him all of one minute to open the cabinent and see if the taxes were in there. Neatly labeled, of course.

He is just lazy and doesn't want to look. So I sent him another e-mail asking if he had a chance to look yet. He wrote back that it was on his to-do list and I needed to get over my expectation of a quick reply.

I wrote back that I expected very little of him. What I really wanted to say was "Is getting a JOB on your to-do list?" Or "Well it shouldn't take you too long, since you do NOTHING."

But I did not say that, but I really wanted to. Because, you know, he is useless and stuff.

Just give me the stupid papers so I can get divorced.

Muxed Up Puzzle

2010-04-13T21:54:00.000-04:00

So we got a new puzzle some time ago at work. It doesn't come in a box, so the kids are pretty much on their own to put the picture together. The puzzle only has two shapes of pieces, so they pretty much all fit together, no matter if it makes the right picture or not.

I was sitting at the table with one of my students, and she put the puzzle together. The picture was this fabulous jumbled up mess. I don't think more than two pieces could have been in the "right" place. I thought to myself that there is no way she will be able to figure this out, because even I had a hard time with looking at it being all jumbled. I would have had to take it apart and start again.

However, she, very simply, changed one piece at a time, until eventually it was right. I just watched her and was amazed by the process. And it made me think about my life.

My life is a puzzle, and the pieces are all mixed up, for sure. But I can sort it out one piece at a time. It will take a while, but in the end I will be back together again. Thanks for giving me hope, M!

Conditional Love

2010-04-11T23:23:00.002-04:00

My computer is still in the shop, so I've not had time to update as much as usual.

Today was a bad day for me. I cried a lot. I am very frustrated.

My Mom got mad at me because I yelled at an egg. Basically I couldn't get the damn egg peeled so I threw it in the sink and yelled at it. She got in my face screaming that I have to respect her in her house. I didn't realize that yelling at an egg was disrespectful, but fine, I aplogized, whatever.

I resent being treated like a child. I can't do anything right according to her. I was trying to cook my meals for the week and she said I was doing it wrong. Well, you don't have to eat it!! She said that I had to cook the pot roast for three hours today, even though I knew there was not a snowball's chance in hell that that dang roast weighed enough to warrent three hours. But far be it from me to doubt her highness. So I put it in for three hours and she bitched about it being done an hour before dinner. DUH! I told you that it would not take three hours to cook!

I just resent the conditional love that seems to be offered by the people in my life.

My Father loves me.. as long as I am not a lesbian and I don't date any African American, Asian or Latino men.

My Mother loves me.. as long as I don't have purple hair or get my nose pierced.

My husband loved me.. (admittedly he only said he loved me about 4 times total over the 8 years, but humor me on this one) as long as I did everything that he said and worshipped him and acted like a "good girl".

Does anyone love me just for who I am? What is wrong with just loving me for me. I am not nearly as bad of a person as the Big Three people in my life think that I am!

A letter to my husband

2010-04-08T20:09:00.000-04:00

Okay so I have been working on this for a few days now. It is a letter that I wrote to my husband, and at the end to my cats, my MIL and to myself. It is a letter detailing what I wish I had had the courage to say to his face. I will never send him this letter. It is a way for me to let go. I want to cleanse the negative energy from my life.

I will warn you that it can be dark and possibly triggering and maybe even offensive to some people. If you are really sensitive then maybe you shouldn't read it. I will not post any comments that seem to be judgements against me. I own my feelings and I am entitled to them.

Dear B,
I met you when I was 22 years old. I still remember the circumstances surrounding that. I was working with a friend of yours. He thought we would get along. I had never had a boyfriend before. I had never been kissed. I was living a pretty sheltered life with my parents. I had never lived alone or really ever done anything on my own. I was taking a break from college because my Mother enrolled me when I was 17. I almost flunked out, and I think I did that to rebel against her. I resented that she would not let me do what I wanted to do. Which was go to Mortuary College. Everyone thought I was crazy for wanting that, but it was my dream. I felt that my parents had raised me to be unable to take care of myself, so it was never really an option for me to move to another state to attend college (there are no Mortuary Colleges in West Virginia).
I gave my coworker my phone number to give to you. I did not think you would ever call, but you did. I remember seeing your name on my parent’s caller ID. Immediately, you pressured me in to meeting you that night. I did. I never really felt any sparks. I didn’t feel much of anything for you, actually. You were supposed to be going away for your summer job in a week anyhow. I did not think that I would ever see you again. But you did not stay there, instead you came back. And we started what would be a disastrous relationship. I can not help but wonder how my life would have been different had you not been unhappy with the living conditions of your job and come home.
I don’t really remember the details clearly of this time. I remember always thinking that you were not very ambitious. I worked a lot, as much as I could, actually. I was always working. I started working at 15. I worked two, even three jobs at a time. You would work in the summer then just hang out the rest of the year. You played a lot of video games. And your hygiene left a lot to be desired. You didn’t see the point in brushing your teeth or wearing deodorant, and you always looked like a slob.
I truly have no idea how I ended up with you. Neither did anyone else in my life. But I suspect my childhood played a big roll in that.
From the time I was 7 I have battled my weight. My Mother used to feed me diet pills as a child. She had this obsession with me not getting fat. My Father always told me that “Boys wouldn’t like fat girls.” I truly never did think that I would be worthy of anyone loving me. My Father also told me that when I grew up my husband would beat me for not being a good enough housekeeper. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I did not think I could do any better and decided to latch on to the only man to pay attention to me.
I never felt anything. Kissing you made me feel sick. Being imitate made me feel worse. I would try so hard to come up with excuses to avoid being intimate with you. I have no idea why you would want to stay with me anyhow since I didn’t want to sleep with you. Not that you could have found another woman who would want to be with you. I really think I was the only one and will remain the only one. Many times I truly wondered if I could be a lesbian, because you repulsed me so much.
The first real abuse that I can remember was when you told me that I was worse than the terrorists who crashed in to the World Trade Center. You said that I was bad because when I was a teenager I ripped a picture of a figure skater out of a magazine. I got caught and had to pay a large fee to the library. That was the extent of my “bad side”. You were a full out cleptomaniac and admitted to stealing books from the local bookstore- however, my magazine picture was worse than that. I never could understand that- however, you were a genius and I believed that you were smarter than me. Of course you wouldn’t have passed English 101 without my help, but still I felt totally inferior in your presence.
The first physical abuse that I remember happened because I did not lavish enough attention on you in front of your friends. You were really mad because I knew a fact that you did not know. You were livid that I would do that in front of your friends. You did not speak to me for days. When I tried to talk to you about it, you backhanded me on your parent’s front porch. I felt that for days. I could feel your hand on my face.
You did not apologize for that. And when I told you later on that I would never allow you to hit me again you laughed at me. Obviously I did not follow through.
When you destroyed my parent’s living room furniture, my Dad banned you from our house. I still did not leave you, despite the damage. I was so stupid.
What hurt me the most was that you took away my choices. You made me do the dishes the way you wanted. You made me grocery shop in the order that you wanted. You made me put the shower curtain in a certain way like you wanted. You would not let me wash my car if I wanted. I was not allowed to eat some of the foods that you did not like. And what is worse, is that you made me feel ignorant for the way I did or liked things.
You called me “idiot” all the time. And “bitch”. I remember when you locked the computer so I couldn’t do my online assignments. You had a password set up and the question was “What are you?” And I would have to type in “A bitch” every time I wanted to do my homework. That broke me, B. I want you to know that that broke me. I want you to know how bad you made me feel. I want you to know how terrible I think that you are.
I believe that you are Satan. When I went blind in my right eye and they weren’t sure (and still aren’t) if I had MS, you punched me from the right side. You came at me on the side I was blind in so that I couldn’t see it coming. You are a coward. You are not a man. You never will be a real man. Real men do not hit their wives.
I remember the time you got mad at me at a gas station and you left me there. My purse was in the car. So here I am, no clue how far from home I am (we were traveling), no phone, no money, no nothing. I waited for a long time. You finally came back and asked me if I was ready to behave. If I was a good girl, I could get back in the car.
Fuck you. That is what I should have said. I didn’t. But I wish I had. If I could do this all over again, it would have been totally different.
I never stood up for myself. I never told you that I deserved better. I have no idea why. I had nothing to lose, you were already hurting me.
I ate. A lot. It was my only way to deal with the pain. I gained over 200 pounds. I don’t even recognize myself when I look at pictures before I met you.
I went back to college. I had a 4.0 GPA. I scored off the charts on my teaching license exams. I scored in the top 15% nationwide over a five-year period of time. Everyone at my University hated me because I was acing everything. You called me an idiot, and even after achieving all of that, I believe it.
But I am not an idiot. You are an idiot. You will never find another woman who will even want to go on a date with you, let alone marry you. I can’t help but think that the same will not be true for me. Because I am a good person. I am smart. I am funny and witty. I am not skinny, but I am working on it. I do nice things for people. I treat people with respect. I make people laugh. I am a motivated person. I am passionate about my career. I reach out to help people who are in the same situation and I encourage them and try to help them to see that there is life on the other side of abuse. I am none of the things you called me. I don’t have to wash the dishes the way someone else wants me to. I can hang my keys up on the keychain holder if I want to. I can wash my car anytime I want to. I don’t have to ask for permission to do anything. I am 31 years old. I am an adult. An educated, capable, fabulous grown up. I have a lot to offer the world. I dare say that the man who captures my heart is pretty freaking lucky!
And most of all, I deserve to feel good. I deserve to feel happy. I deserve to laugh freely. I deserve to hold my head up high and to be proud of my accomplishments. I deserve to be treated respectfully and to never have to live in fear of the next slap or kick. I deserve to make friends and KEEP THEM because I don’t have to be scared of what you will do or say to them to keep them from talking to me.
And I can promise you this- I will never settle for anyone less than what I deserve. EVER AGAIN! So if there is a person out there on the planet that might be for me- I wish you luck in convincing me of that. My STBX has made it that much harder for you. But I am worth it!
I have decided to forgive you, because that is a gift that I am giving myself. I have earned that piece of mind. I still think you are evil, but I can not keep playing the “What if” game in my mind. I picked wrong. I made a bad choice. It is time to let it go and move on. I put up with your abuse for eight years and 88 days. And I am thankful every single day that it wasn’t eight years and 89 days.
So goodbye. I am sure that I will see you in reference to the divorce. I will miss the cats. If you ever do meet someone, I hope that you are able to learn from your mistakes. I hope that you can treat her with respect and love. But mostly, I hope that you live alone forever, because I don’t think you can ever be with someone in a gentle, loving way.
So, this is officially it. I will no longer allow you to take up so much space in my head. I have $1.00 of energy a day, and I intend to use it on ME and MY interests. Not on my mistakes and your abuse. I think that could possibly be the best gift I will ever give myself.

Cornflake, BooBerry and CocoaPuffs- I love you and I am sorry that I had to leave you behind. I was financially unable to take care of you when I left. The marriage counselor said that B loved you far more than he would ever love me, so I feel secure that you are well taken care of. I am sorry that you experienced pain or felt as if I had abandoned you. I know that you are just animals, but truly, if I could take on your pain, I would. I know that you have forgotten me, because the time I saw you, you did not remember me. I am thankful for that.
MIL- you were a good friend to me over the years. I am sorry that I can no longer maintain a friendship with you. I will miss going to see figure skating with you and the times we spent sitting at your dinning room table chatting. I harbor no ill feelings towards you or FIL. You are truly good people who tried to raise your son the best that you could. I am forever grateful for the time you helped pay my medical bills when I had surgery and no insurance. If I am ever able to pay it forward one day, I promise that I will.
Jaime (yes, me)- I am sorry that I hurt you and abused you all of these years. I am sorry that I believe what B said and that I underestimated your ability to thrive. I am sorry that I used food as a way to cope, and have put you through physical agony on a daily basis. I am sorry that overeating has caused you to commit a long and slow suicide, and I promise to try and stop that immediately. I am sorry for the pain you feel every time the kids get upset when you can’t take nature walks with them or play more on the playground. I am sorry for the isolation. I am sorry I allowed someone to stifle your laugh and your smile. I am sorry I let him break your spirit. I promise that I will never let another person hurt you in that way again. I promise that I will be strong enough to walk away. I promise that I will be strong enough to let you live your personal truth, instead of constantly trying to manipulate you in to the box your parents, coworkers and general public want you to fit in. But most of all, I am sorry that I ever let you feel like you were not good enough, because you are an amazing person all by yourself.

What it means to be dying.

2010-04-06T02:59:00.002-04:00

Every night, like clockwork. Three A.M. I wake up in pain. My back hurts so bad. From the stress of carrying my body around all day, no doubt.

It occurs to me, painfully, that I am very young, yet I must be dying. My body will eventually give out on me. My heart will stop. I will not live too long if I weigh over 400 pounds, I feel as if that is not possible.

I hate that I can't stop eating. I hate that the compulsion to finish something is always there. I hate that I have no self control. I hate that I feel powerless over food. I hate that I am going to die younger than anyone ever expected.

My heart is broken

2010-04-01T21:44:00.002-04:00

I am so dramatic. It has been drama central at work this week because the two teachers I work with currently hate each other.

I have a really bad sinus headache right now. The Neti Pot didn't help much, although it got a ton of gunk out of there. I can't take a decongestant because I have high BP, so I don't want to mess with that. Although if I am still in this much pain tomorrow, I might stop at the pharmacy and get one on the way to work. You know, one thing my STBX was really good at was draining my sinuses. He had a knack of doing it and I can't teach my Dad how to do it because he is scared he will hurt me. Something STBX obviously never worried about :P

I have a feeling that I might cry myself to sleep tonight, which is bad for a couple of reasons. 1- the sinus headache and 2- the BiPap mask. So I am hoping to type this out and release it to the Universe somehow. Maybe it will help. I tried to vent on MDC but I don't think anyone knows what I am saying because of the Swedish Chef thing. And can I just say that my church totally ruined my April's Fool's Day fun on there? I was too upset to really enjoy it :0(

So my head hurt all day and my coworkers can't be in the same room together. That was the beginning of my day. Then I come home and my Mom gets mad at me for not leaving the shower curtain open.

Well, the reason I never did is because if I had left it open when I lived with STBX, he would have yelled at me and thrown a fit and possibly hidden the curtain so I couldn't shower again. So it is sort of ingrained in me to always close it. And really, all she had to do was tell me, you can't really expect me to remember from 8 years ago when I last lived here. I have been here for 7 months, you are just now mentioning it?!

Anyhow. I have blogged before about the Worst Five Week Time Period Known To Man. Going half blind, not knowing if I had MS, IV steroids, getting punched and having my STBX arrested, having surgery and my Mom having to move me in to their house, having STBX take my car from me and losing my medical insurance. Then the ladder hitting my new car, but that was small in comparrison. It really hurt me that my church did not call me during this time. Especially when I heard about them gossiping about me. Really? You can gossip- which is in the Bible you know- but you can't call and check on me?

I have held that in for a long time now. I never spoke of it to any church friends. It is hard to go to church now. I felt that I had given so much of myself to them over the years, that maybe they might care somewhat for me when my life went to crap? I don't know. I guess overall I feel very unpopular.

Not that I want to be popular. But if you had any idea the amazing support I have received from total strangers on the internet. Really, amazing. It is because of you people that my faith in humanity hasn't been totally shot.

I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I take on my responsibility for the mess my life ended up in. And I am rebuilding. I know that I complain about my STBX a lot, but really, I take most of the responsibility for being with him upon myself. I made my bed and I lied in it for years. I had the chance to walk away from him one month in to our relationship and I did not do it.

I was desperate, I did not feel that I could do any better, and I did that to myself.

But I so badly wanted someone to call me and say "Hey, I heard what happened. That sucks. I will pray for you."

Do I deserve to have support from my church family? I have to say that yes, I believe I do deserve that. I think that I deserve to have my phone ringing off the hook. Yes, I said it. That might be entitlement speaking, but that is how I feel. I deserve to have some of the people who I went to visit in the hospital maybe come and visit me. I was totally alone. I don't think anyone understands that. I had never once in my life been alone before. Then the police came to my house and they cuffed him and they took him away. And I was alone for the first time in 30 years being alive. I went directly from my parent's house to his house. I never had been alone at night before. When he went out of town I was at my parent's house. I could have gone there, yes, but I did not want to leave the cats. So I was alone in the house and I was having anxiety attacks and I had to go on medication *temporarily, for some reason I feel the need to make it clear that I am no longer on it*, and my Dad was so angry and couldn't talk to me without yelling about STBX and my Mom was mad at me for having him arrested, and I was just really alone. So maybe I needed that damn phone to ring. Or I needed someone to come to my house after the CT surgery to help me pack. I don't know. Maybe I needed a friend? I wish I knew how to get some! Someone once described me as being popular online. Yet in real life I am quite litterally alone.

I think it's funny, the contrast in that.

So today I get a church bulletin in the mail. One of the church members wrote an essay about how people shouldn't play Farmville on Facebook. Well, yeah, so he is on my facebook list and I sort of play Farmville. I had many church members on there and I don't think any others except maybe one play it, so I am thinking "Is he talking about me?"

Then they put this note in, with an envelope, saying "Here is your envelope, please mail us your Easter offering!"

God forgive me for saying this, but my very first thought was: Bite me.

I dare say that I am bitter about this. Just a little. So basically when my life went to crap and I couldn't spend hours upon hours doing church work for free anymore, you drop me like a hot potato. But when you want some money, you think it is okay to just send me an envelope?

Again, bite me.

I don't have any beef with God. It is not His fault that some of His people are totally insensitive.

When I was in college I lived with my parents and went to church in my old town. My Mom is the kind of Christian who wont go to church when they take communion, because it takes too long, and who really only goes when she thinks the neighbors will be there and she wants to look good. Her choice. I sat in an Ash Wednesday service and the ladies behind me where whispering about how I rode the bus instead of having a car and about how my Mom never comes with me, etc. I put my head down and I cried. It hurt to hear people talking about me. Today, I would probably have just turned around and said "I can hear you!"

So I think that maybe I am just not cut out for attending church. I am not getting out of it what I put in, not by a longshot. I did not do the things for my church that I did in order to get anything in the long run- but I stand by my statement that I deserved to be emotionally supported. Which is free, it wouldn't have cost them any of the money that I tithed to them. :P

So I sent them an e-mail. It was short. I just basically told them why I would not be sending in my Easter offering. And that I felt unsupported during my time of need. And to please remove me from their mailing list. I seriously can't get any more mail from them asking for money, it makes me livid.

This has helped me a great deal because it has taught me that when the going gets rough, I can only rely on myself- and my Mother. She might fly off the handle and take my ex's calls and think I was wrong for turning him in, but at least she lets me live here for free and puts food in my stomach.

So now that I have made myself sound like an entitled brat, I am going to bed. I am reading "Dear John" right now. Oh man, how I wish I could have felt like that once in my life. The whole being in love and feeling like you have known someone forever and feeling safe. My husband hurt my feelings and made me feel kind of nauseated most of the time. I wish I hadn't given myself to him. I wish I had held out for someone who deserved me. Heck, does anyone deserve me? Maybe not. I can't help but feel jealous when I read these things. Is love really like that? Please tell me that it is. Please tell me that it is possible to feel so good about another human being? What is being in love like? Do you feel good inside? I never felt good inside. I read those words and I think that it must really be that way for some people, or else how could the author write about it?

Uh, life.

2010-03-27T22:38:00.005-04:00

I got my period today. The first since the three month long period from heck. Thanks to the birth control pills for finally stopping it.

So today is Saturday and I spent my evening watching "The Big Bang Theory" while playing Tetris on an emulator the STBX installed on my computer while chatting with my Dad. It hit me how, sort of pathetic that was. However, it is still better than my old life where I would have been hiding from my husband the entire weekend.

I am really dissatisfied with my church. On July 17th I went half blind. I was in the hospital for a while and they were thinking I might have MS. They still aren't sure about that. August 2nd my husband punched me in a rage and was arrested. On August 1th I had surgery. I moved back in with my parents on September 2nd-ish. I could be off on the exact dates. But that is close.

No one from my church called me during this time or asked how I was, etc.

This causes a great deal of distress for me, because I was so active in my church. For years I was active. Sunday school, Children's Church, founding member of various committees dedicated to safety of the kids, Wednesday night Children's Choir, made countless blankets and shawls for the prayer shawl ministry. I did these things because it made me happy to give back to something. But it hurt a lot when no one called to check on me when my life basically fell apart.

I don't feel like I have anyone to talk to about this. My Mom works with several church members and they gossiped about me a lot. It is to be expected. I was a liar and pretended to have one of those good marriages for so long. I guess I deserved to be gossiped about.

I realize that a new Pastor took over during the summer and perhaps things would have been different if the old Pastor was still there when this happened. But where were my crochet group friends? My Children's choir friend did ask my Mom about me. She was the only one who wasn't just pumping my Mom for gossip information.

I have tried going back to church a few times. It is very uncomfortable for me because so many of my church friends on Facebook are also friends with the man who abused me for 9 years. I am going to openly admit that I do expect people to take sides. It might be childish, but it is true. He made fun of my church friends, saying that Christians were idiots- including me, of course, I am Queen Idiot. I mean, if they want to be friends with someone who makes fun of them behind their backs and who only went to church on some weeknights to eat, so be it. I sincerly doubt he will ever have a conversion and come to know God. Not that it isn't possible because I believe God can do anything He wants, but my STBX is too much of a narccissist to believe in anything higher than himself.

I used to go to the hospital all the time to see church people. How many cards did I sign for people who were sick? How many prayer shawls did I make? I did this because I cared about them. So I can only deduct that I was not amongst the cared for.

But I get it, I am a liar. Hi, my name is Jaime and I had a fake wedding because I had tricked myself in to thinking that I deserved to be punched for asking to borrow a jump drive. I am a liar. I get it. Lying is a sin, whatever.

I don't know. I feel like to not be supported during this time was like another slap in the face.

I feel like I invested years of my life in to people who couldn't be bothered to check in on me when they were trying to decide if I had a debilitating disease. Which I could still have and they wont know until the spots show up on my brain. That is serious, I think. Isn't that serious?

I am probably being selfish. Who knows. I think that it is sad when coworkers that I hardly know care more for me than people I have spent 6 years of my life building a relationship with.

But I was not a member of that church. I went for years but never officially joined. Maybe you have to be a member? I don't know.

This church was not even a good fit for me, really. It was like going to a rock concert. The music was so... weird. I am an old fashioned girl, I guess. I prefer the hymnal to the rock lyrics. I like it to be traditional. I am too old school, perhaps, for this church.

And I am also not nearly as open minded as they are. Am I admitting that? I think I might be more conservative than I orginally thought. All going back to my old self, like I mentioned before. My STBX lead me away from a lot of my old pastimes and interests.

Before I met him I used to write all the time. I loved it. Poetry, short stories, I was always writing. Creating. He told me that was stupid so I stopped. I used to like to go to the movies. He said it was too expensive, so I stopped. I wasn't even allowed to wash my car. So many rules he had on me. He told me church was stupid so for a long time I didn't go. He was upset when I went back. He didn't like me to watch court shows on TV, so I did it in secret. I can't help it, I love Judge Judy. Sadly I can't watch it anymore because the VCR wont work with our satellite dish. Bummer.

I used to wear makeup. And perfume. And fix my hair. He did't like it so I stopped.

I used to wash my face and use nice lotion. He said it was stupid, so I stopped.

I had nice shower gels and I would use those. He said it was expensive so I stopped.

I used to love to scrapbook but he didn't see the point so I stopped.

I used to like to have nice scented candles but he didn't like me to burn them so I stopped. He used to throw them at me a lot when he got mad. I still have the last candle he ever threw at me in my bottom drawer. I want to keep it because I want the reminder of what I am never going to have happen again.

I used to love to draw. But he told me I wasn't good at it so I stopped.

I also liked to sing, I was in my church choir where we used to live. But he said I was bad at it so I stopped that too.

My Mother made us a Christmas wreath to hang on our door and he didn't like it so he tore it down and ripped the ornaments off of it. She made a Valentine's one too but he didn't like it so he would throw it on the floor.

I had to do the dishes how he wanted and grocery shop how he wanted and make the koolaid how he wanted. I never got to do anything the way I wanted. My opinions didn't matter. Why did I give myself away?

The only thing I liked to do that he allowed me to do was crochet. I wonder why? Really.. I wonder why was I allowed to crochet? He even let me spend money on yarn every month. What were his motives for that, I wonder?

Sorry for the depressing post. I think my point was to gather input on my church situation. Am I being a big baby? Or do I have a point? And does anyone know why I gave myself away? I would love to know that too :0(

Broken hearts and empty promises

2010-03-24T23:31:00.002-04:00

By the time I was 15 years old I already knew all of the secret parts of me. I knew what made me laugh. I knew what made me cry. I knew what I was good at and what and who I wanted to be.

Over the last nine years I let someone etch away at my soul. It sounds dramatic, but it really isn't. Not when you look at it in black and white.

I died. My soul, it was dead. I lost so much of myself to him. I let him crush my wings and he laughed about it. He took things from me. Parts of myself that I freely gave. I wanted so badly to fit in to the mold. I wanted to be married, to have a little house, a little fence, a couple of kids and an SUV. I knew I was not supposed to be that person. I knew that the thought of being intimate with him repulsed me. I knew that I was supposed to feel butterflies when he touched me, instead of the urge to pull away. I knew it wasn't right. I still tried so hard to cram myself in to that mold. The mold of the life my parents told me I should have.

I had a lovely fake wedding. I was sick. I was living in a world that simply was not there. I put my mind above my body. I watched myself laughing when the train went by. I loved it when people told me that my wedding was the nicest they had ever been to.

But at what price? Cinderella went to the ball and almost died in the process. Because she was at the wrong dance.

Every single day now, I am getting closer to the person I used to be. I have a spine now. He can no longer manipulate me like he used to. Yesterday was proof of it. I didn't feel the slightest bit guilty because "he can't possibly get a job because he has to call bank for 5 minutes." Instead I rolled my eyes. And I laughed at him. Because, no matter what he told me over the last 9 years, it is he who is the idiot, not me.

And idiot would have stayed with him for 8 years and 89 days, instead of 8 years and 88 days. He is the idiot. Not me.

Today I went to the bank and I closed our joint account. When I called my Dad to tell him, he said "It seems like you are making good progress in getting him out of your life. You made a mistake with him and now you can move on."

And that made me feel good. I am getting rid of him, slowly but surely. Eventually he will just be a bad memory.

My students walked around the nature trail at work today. It broke my heart when my favorite chicken said "Miss J, why are you not going with us?"

It felt like a knife when my coworker jumped in to say "Oh there is work to be done here, Miss J will stay and do that work. It is important work."

But it really isn't. I am glad she interrupted me, because I would have probably told her the truth. Miss J can't go with you because Miss J can't walk around the trail. Nine years of overeating and a slow suicide has made that impossible for me.

And I watched them leave. My chickens. All excited with their wagon full of water and snacks and the first aid kit. Walking single file in to the sunshine, while I stayed behind and tried to pretend that it didn't bother me.

And I feel like this trail is my demon. The devil on my shoulder that mocks me. So many people 200 pounds lighter than me can't even get around the damn thing. So in a way, I shouldn't feel bad for not trying it. It is supposedly pretty brutal. But I feel somehow inadequate for not being able to do it. For being too weak to put down the fork. For cutting out strips of paper for the bulletin board border, instead of making memories with the people I love the most in this world. The people who kept me alive during the darkest part of my world.

I believe that I would have killed myself if I had stayed with my husband. I remember the night that he doused me with crystal light. Standing in the shower, dripping with red. Knowing that it would take days to get the stains out of the carpet, off of the walls, off of my curtains. I stood in the shower and I decided how I would kill myself. I knew in my heart that it would never, ever be better for me. I was never going to be loved or even treated as good as the cats. He had broken me and I couldn't imagine living one more day in that kind of pain.

But I somehow knew that my work wasn't done here. There is important work to be done and I had to do it. It was about my little Buggy, who no one thought was mentally there until I started working with him. It was about love changing your heart and making you want to get out of bed in the mornings. It was about not wanting to hurt any of the people who might actually care for me. It isn't quite the same love that I craved- but it is still love.

So I lived. And that was the night it all changed for me. That was the night I started my plan to get out. And I did get out. And although I have looked back at times and doubted myself, I know that I made the right decision.

Does anyone have the World's Smallest Violin?

2010-03-23T19:44:00.002-04:00

Because I would like to play it for my STBX :P

He calls me Mom today. Why she takes his calls I will never know. Anyhow, he overdrew our joint account because BillPay charges if you don't use it. I haven't used the account for 8 months. He can't cancel BillPay unless I call in and allow it too. Whatever, I have been meaning to go in and take my name off anyhow, I will do it tomorrow.

My Mom then asks him if he is working yet. He says..

Wait for it..

He says he can't possibly go to work every day because he had to call the bank about the overdraft.

Um. What?

He can't work because he had to spend maybe 10 minutes calling the bank to ask them a question?

I don't suppose the fact that he is lazy has anything to do with why he isn't working :P

Or the fact that he has a battery charge for beating up his *half blind at the time, it makes it sooooooo much worse I think* wife.

There is a special place in hell for him. Yes, I said it. And I don't feel bad for saying it either!!

He really shouldn't be allowed to share the same state as me. I am thinking of moving just to be away from him.

So my Mom pointed out to him that I spent hours and hours on the phone with the phone company cleaning up his mess. He didn't respond :P

So anyway, there is a pity party starting any minute for him!

That nasty green eyed monster..

2010-03-17T21:43:00.002-04:00

So this morning I was confronted with my shortcomings and bad decision making, in a place where I least expected it.

One of my students was telling me a Bible story. I asked him if he learned that in church, because I know he goes, and he said no, that his Mom and Dad sit with him every night and they read Bible stories together as a family.

Ugh.

I was taken back by the beauty of that mental image. Yep. I was jealous.

I have this romantic image in my head of a husband being the head of the household. Wanting to protect his wife and children. Wanting to support them, not just financially, but emotionally.

I didn't get that. Because I didn't choose that. That was me. I could have picked better, but I didn't.

My husband hardly ever came home after work. Why not? He said I was annoying and he didn't like me. At first I used to cry about it, then I realized that if he wasn't home, he wasn't hurting me. So I was okay with that.

He also didn't like to work. He would yell at his boss, and threaten that he was going to quit one day and he never, ever showed up on time. So I would panic about money all the time. At one point I worked 70 hours a week. Seriously? I worked that much and he couldn't get out of bed on time in the mornings? His excuse? The cats kept him up. (The world's smallest violin *sarcasm*.)

And he didn't believe in God. He said that Christians were stupid. You should have seen the lengths I went to to get us married. Why did I bother? It was obviously a blaring warning sign when the one Pastor flat out refused to marry us.

Or when the train came by as I started to walk down the aisle- which I used to take as a positive sign, but now I see it for what it was. A huge warning. God's warning!

It doesn't get much bigger than a train.

So anyway, I don't know if God has a plan for me or not. I do know that I am going to be the World's Pickiest Person if any other man should ever show any interest in me.

I am so fat and I feel so useless. I don't think anyone will ever want me. This is exactly how I ended up with 9 years of abuse. Not thinking I could do any better.

So really, I need to plaster that to my ceiling somehow. I CAN DO BETTER! I DESERVE BETTER!

Hooking again

2010-03-15T00:02:00.001-04:00

I finished a baby blanket for my coworker last night. That is my first project since my first surgery on April 1st of 2009. I did make a small potholder when I taught one of my older students how to crochet in November LOL

I am having a bit of numbness in my arms. I am hoping this is just from relearning how to use these muscles. It took a long time to make that blanket, I wanted to ease in to it.

Right now I am working on a hose cover for my BiPap machine.

I am also making one for my Dad's machine.

I would love to find a way to make money crocheting, but I don't see it as a possibility. I checked out Etsy today and wow, are those people talented! My crocheting stinks in comparison.

I have never made anything for myself before, so this hose cover is the first thing just for me :0)

Top 10 Reasons Why I Am Thankful For My Freedom

2010-03-13T22:58:00.002-05:00

1. Onions on my pizza? Sure! Onions in the meatloaf? Why not?! Onion flavored toothpaste? If I wanted to!
2. Being able to grocery shop in any damn order I want to! If I want to follow the layout of the store, I can. No more of this walking back and forth 10 times nonsense.
3. Being able to dry the dishes and put them away! I hated his rule that I had to let the dishes sit in the strainer for 24 hours. What a load of crap. Not judging anyone who does this- but really, we wont DIE if I dry the dishes and put them away. Or else my Mother and all of my Aunt's would be dead by now. And my Grandmother wouldn't have lived to be 80 :P
4. Not having to get the third degree if I styled my hair. "Why does your hair look like that, are you trying to look young?" As a matter of fact, I AM YOUNG! :P
5. No more backseat driving! Whew. I can't believe I drove at all before I met him, to hear him tell it :P
6. Leaving the shampoo in the shower if I want to.
7. Being able to put my keys where I chose to put them. Instead of where I am forced to put them.
8. Being allowed to wash my car if I want to. I don't have to beg for permission.
9. Watching all the reality TV I want to.
And the top 10 reason why I am thankful for my freedom:
10. I can hang my car keys on the key holder!!!!!!!! It seems like such a little thing, but he told me that if I hung my keys on the key holder that we would be robbed and it would be my fault, etc. I was always so jealous of people who were allowed to use a key holder. I had a nice one, too, but was forbidden to use it. When I move to my own place, I will be hanging the keys on it for sure! :0)

People say the dumbest things

2010-03-12T23:01:00.003-05:00

Yes, I said it. There are some people in this world who are just stupid.

A coworker spent 10 minutes yesterday going on and on about how every relationship that fails involves both people being at fault.

I take offense to that, because I truly don't see my marriage failing as being my fault. I stayed with him for 9 years getting hit and always thinking it was my fault and trying to somehow fix it and make it better. If only I was better at this, better at that, etc. And I paid $225 an hour for marriage counseling that he didn't want to do, etc, etc.

So it really hurt my feelings that she was saying that I was somehow at fault for my marriage breaking up :0( I spent 9 years thinking I was to blame, but now I know it is all him, kids. He doesn't know how to use his words, that is not my problem. If my students are smarter than he is, then that is not my issue.

Ugh.

So anyway. I am moody lately. Really moody. Now that court is over I am angry. Almost seething. I feel pathetic for taking his crap for so many years. I feel weak, pathetic, stupid, etc. I feel like I wish I had had the nerve to stand up for myself. I think if I felt the way I do now 9 years ago, none of this would have ever happened to me. I would have dropped him like a hot potato the first time he slapped me on his parent's front porch.

Two things I regret in this life:
1. That I never saw him carried off in handcuffs.
2. That I didn't get to see his mugshot.

So yeah, I am pretty angry with him right now. I am sort of doing that whole thing where "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!"

Run Forrest!

2010-03-10T23:14:00.002-05:00

So yesterday I was way proud of myself for going on a 10 minute walk. Yeah, I rock.

I made the mistake of telling my coworkers that I wanted to start exercising. So today when I was outside with the chickens happily sitting on a comfortable bench watching them play a game where they basically run laps for exercise- my coteacher had the kids grab me. Two were pushing and two were pulling, but yes, I ran some laps.

The logical part of my brain says that no one who weighs 400 pounds should ever be able to run. But I have seen the Biggest Loser, so I know it is possible. I just never thought it would be possible for me.

But it was. Dang those chickens are fast little buggers! And freakishly strong, too! They had me running laps with them, laughing the whole way.

And then it hits me, this is not torture for them. They are running laps, but they are having FUN at the same time. Nothing about it is torture for them, like it seems to be for me.

So then I was sweating and gasping for breath. I finally started breathing normally again, when I picked up one of my kids- 45 pounds of kid to be exact- swung him over my shoulder and walked a lap that way. So then of course I had to do it with like, 10 of them. And I did! I picked them up and swung them around, and walked a bit with them.

Yeah, I am typing this now because I wont be able to move tomorrow ;)

But I had FUN! The chickens had a blast. I haven't really been active with them since my two surgeries. I used to do this kind of stuff with them when I was a lot thinner. It felt good to be able to do it again.

Man, I stink though. I was sweating a lot! LOL Shower time!

Putting the pieces together again..

2010-03-07T23:25:00.000-05:00

Well I have to say that I have made great strides recently to put my life back together again.

I have really done a lot with the sewing room that I live in LOL I have put away all of my Mom's sewing machines. I have put away all of my clothes. I have put away all of my yarn :faint:

I have dusted and vacuumed and turned the broken bathroom in to a nifty storage closet. It is far from complete, but it is a huge start.

I have to admit that I miss being married at times. Before you flip out on me, I want to add that I do NOT miss being married to my STBX. I just miss the act of being a wife and having a home to take care of. That is what I miss.

I miss my dinning room table. I had a fabulous table. Well, it is his now. Fine. But I always made it so pretty and it was just like looking at a magazine.

A lot about my old life was like looking at a magazine. Picture me, always smiling, always happy. My house was spotless and I was this domestic goddess that people were probably secretly irritated by. But behind the glossy picture lurked a miserable person. And I do not miss being miserable!

Rockstar

2010-03-02T22:54:00.002-05:00

So I have decided that I am a Rockstar. I feel so good right now. I am on a total emotional high.

I feel like I can do anything right now. I won. I doubt my H is ever going to change. He will probably abuse the next girl he meets. I feel bad for her :0( I hope she doesn't take it as long as I did. But as for me, right now in this moment, I feel great.

And I deserve better. Not just in relationships, but for myself in general.

This morning showed me a lot of parallels in preparing for court and preparing for my wedding. Indulge me a little here ;)

I am sitting in my room and I am putting on makeup, my best perfume *and really, I never wear perfume so that says a lot right there*, panty hose, a totally awesome outfit, fixing my hair, putting on earrings and a necklace... even walking in with the same guy at my side- my Dad! It was kind of creepy how similar the two events were.

And I looked at myself in the mirror and I thought- yeah, I am fat, but I look nice!

And I really noticed a corralation *ugh, this is not coming up on spell check for me, I have no idea how to spell it* between trying to look nice and how I felt.

Except for the shoes. I was not feeling those shoes. If I want to start dressing nice, I have to get better shoes. These are "Wow I am going to a wedding and all I have are Crocs, oh, look, here are a pair of $2 black flats". They were super uncomfortable and I was always a split second away from falling on my face.

UPDATE: My STBX got his judgement, today marked 7 months of being abuse free AND my period stopped. All in the same day. Wow, talk about excitement! It was almost like my body knew and was waiting.

So anyway, the moral of this story is: Maybe I don't always have to look like crap. LOL

One thing I have always had going for me is the fact that I am spoiled. When I was with STBX I had money. I have a great wardrobe, even after downsizing it. I have so many nice things that I don't wear. Sure, the odds are good that I am going to get some things ruined by glue, paint and markers. But I either keep them looking great and in the closet and no one ever see it, or I wear it a few times and it gets ruined, but hey, at least I wore it!

Justice was served..

2010-03-02T10:59:00.001-05:00

Here is the whole story for anyone else who has to go to court and doesn't know what might happen to them.

My Dad and I arrived at the magistrate office. He went through the metal detector first and they found a...

wait for it...

bullet in his pocket! LOL

My Dad had gone hunting last YEAR and he had this bullet for one of those tiny little guns in his pocket. For some reason he carried that around all the time in his pocket. He forgot it was in there. The look on the security guard's face when he found it was priceless. I am really surprised that he let him in after that LOL It was nice to laugh though, it helped lighten the mood.

Then they told us to go to a window with the summons. When we turned the corner I saw the AssHat. He was sitting at a table with his parents. I let a "oh Jesus" slip and immediately turned my eyes towards the clerk. I did not actually *look* at the AH. Not at all, really, just saw the side of his head and turned my eyes. I did not even know who was sitting with him until my Dad told me later. She told us to sit down and I turned the corner again so I did not have to see him. There were no seats left that were not in his line of sight. Frankly, he doesn't deserve to share the same air that I breathe, let alone the luxury of seeing me for the entire waiting time. So I just stood behind the wall.

There were a few other people there with my last name *it is pretty common here* so I was listening to people argue with each other about water lines. Then finally some people got up so I was able to sit. My Dad, however, wanted the AssHat to see him, so he sat directly in his line of sight. I think he was trying to make sure that he knew he was there and was ready to protect me if need be.

Maybe five minutes later a man called my name. He was the prosecutor. He took me down a hallway with my Dad and asked me if I had talked to the AssHat since then, and if I was trying to work it out with him. I told him no, that I had spoken to him a couple of times about settling the bills and that I was going to file for divorce as soon as I had the money. He asked if the AH was working and I told him what I knew about him being laid off and that I had not talked to him so I wasn't sure if he was or not at that time.

Then the prosecutor told me that he was charging my AssHat with battery, 60 days suspended sentence and one year's probation. Did I think that was good?

I know from the years of working for the shelter that that is REALLY good! I couldn't believe it!

Most of my client's abusers didn't get even THAT. So I was shocked.

I told him that my main concern was that the AH was going to my church and that I would like to be able to go without seeing him there. The Prosecutor asked me how long I attended and how long the AH came- I told him the specifics and mentioned that the AH claims to be an athiest and I think he only goes because I am there.

The prosecutor walked away, talked to the AH's lawyer and said that if AH shows up at my church all I have to do is call him, he will be arrested and spend the entire 60 days in jail.

Try to take my church from me? Don't think so!

So that was my victory. I was tired of being intimidated out of going to church. I won it, it is mine.

It is a small victory, but darn it, I wasn't going to let that jerk walk all over me anymore

The prosecutor told me that was it, I could go home.

Then some lady came up to me, asked me how many miles did I drive to get there today. I said maybe 4 miles, tops. She handed me a slip and told me to take it downstairs. I took it downstairs and they paid me $10.90 for being there for the 20 minutes. Ironically enough that is way more money than I would get for a half hour's work LOL

So although I didn't actually do much today, I feel like I won. I finally, after 8 long years of his abuse, STOOD UP FOR MYSELF!!!

I remember back in December of 2008 telling him that if he ever, EVER, hit me again that I would call the police. He didn't think I had the balls. He was wrong. As soon as his fist hit the side of my head, I knew that I had to follow through with my promise. I knew that he was like one of the children that I teach. That he was never going to learn unless I followed through with what I say. My 4 and 5 year olds know that when Miss J tells you you had better not do something, or X will happen, that X is 100% going to happen if you do it! I had to treat him like the child that he is.

I want to scream "WHO IS THE IDIOT NOW?" at him!

Every name he called me. Every slap, every kick. All of it. I won. I did what I said I was going to do. I finally followed it through the end, no matter how many threats he issued. I did what I said for once, not what HE said. He bullied me out of my house, he bullied me out of keeping the cats, but I am not going to be bullied out of my church. And I am NOT going to be bullied out of my half of what is MINE. I am calling the divorce attorney today to set up a consultation. Yay for me.

A post that ended up being a blog post..

2010-03-01T22:37:00.001-05:00

I posted this on a message board I go to. I did not intend for it to be so long, but it felt like a blog post.

It should be illegal to watch the Bachelor finale the night before you have to testify against your husband in court for hitting you.

I am jealous. I can admit it. I burst in to tears at the end of the show because I realized that no one has ever loved me before. I have never experienced that. I wonder what does it feel like to be loved? To be treated with respect? To be treated like you are important enough that someone doesn't ever want to be away from you?

I am depressed :(

I wonder if I will ever be loved? I hope so. I would like to feel that.

I don't really know how to love people. My family was never one of those affectionate type families. I am sure they would maybe love me if I was the daughter they wanted, but I am not.

The term "love" is a pretty foreign concept to me. I know my students love me. I walk in the door and they all run towards me and almost knock me over hugging me. They do not do that for any other teachers or for their parents. So I feel like they have to love me in order to do that. So I guess basically I want to be loved by a man the way my students love me. They think I hang up the moon at night. And they would never hurt me on purpose and I would never hurt them. And there isn't any fear of being hurt between myself and them.

So that is what I picture grown up love to be like. Not having to flinch because you don't know if you will be hugged or hit. Not having to wonder every time you go in the car with a person whether or not they are going to leave you there. I hated that a lot. Just being left at gas stations or grocery stores. It was so humiliating standing there, calling his cell phone begging him to come back and get me. Not thinking that it would be possible to call my parents and admit that my husband hated me so much that he left me stranded somewhere. Because that really is hate. He hated me. He still does. I think he would be happy if I died. And for a long time I agreed with him.

And for some reason the hitting and kicking and being choked and being left at gas stations does not compare to having the two gallons of Crystal Light thrown at me. I keep going back to that one incident in my mind. Standing in the kitchen, soaking wet, with the walls and the carpet and the appliances dripping in red. It was an entire year before I could drink it again. I couldn't even make it for my students at the family Christmas party. How stupid is that? I couldn't even make the stupid fruit punch.

So tomorrow I have to go to court and it angers me a lot when people in my life ask me about my "court date."

Because, you see, it is NOT my court date. It is not "mine". I do not own that. I am not the one in trouble. I did not do anything wrong. I feel like it is rude to say out loud that I have a court date. No, HE has a court date. Because he punched his half blind wife in the side of her head. That is why I have to go to HIS court date. :eyesroll

And I am probably just extra moody about it. But it really irks me to hear people phrase it like that :irked

I feel like there is a very real possibility that he will try to approach me. He might try to grab me. I am pretty confident that my Father can take care of it if he does. But the fear is there. He is a good liar, and a good manipulator. And he consumed me for 8 years, 2 months and 28 days. That is a lot of time to forget who you are.

That is also a lot of time to eat.

I have such a love/hate relationship with food.

It kept me alive. I really think that if I hadn't been able to overeat I would have killed myself. I know that as sure as I know my own name.

There are so many things that I used to do before him. I used to write, believe it or not. A lot. I was good, too. At least I think so :bag

My teachers always thought so. I loved poems the most. I wrote poems freely and people would read them and love them and ask to read more. And I was working on a book. I had so many ideas. I had so many dreams.

I wanted to be a teacher. I am a teacher, but not the kind of teacher I always wanted to be. I went in to the program knowing that I would have to move to get a job, and I was okay with that. I had dreams. I wanted that. I wanted the chance to go somewhere else, to figure out who I was.

And my test scores. I don't like to talk about them because I don't want to be seen as someone who is like a peacock and bragging. But everyone hated me, I scored so high. All of my professors, everyone was so proud of me. I had a future.

And he tore it all up. He told me I was stupid. He said that I was an idiot. He said that no one would want me and that I was lucky he put up with me. He told me that I wasn't capable of moving away and being without him. He told me that if I was not smart enough to grocery shop or do the dishes the right way, that I would never be smart enough to get a good job.

And believed that. I don't know why I did. I think he fed in to a lot of insecurities that my parents laid for me. And added to a very unpleasant first student teaching experience. I was in a place where I thought I was lucky to have him even talking to me, so I believed him.

And I know how crazy people think I am. I think every boss I have had is shocked that I work there instead of moving to get a good job. It has always been like "Um, you want to work here?" I never did better because he convinced me that I couldn't do better.

And I am raw. And I am weak. And I never push the limits of myself because there is always that voice in my head that says I can't fly. That my wings are weak and will break.

I don't love myself. I weigh 450 pounds, that is hate. I was not always like this. I used to be under 200 pounds, and I was active and I had cute clothes. And no one stared at me when I walked down the street. And I knew who I was. I remember that. I knew who I was inside. I knew that I was a good person. I did not doubt for a minute that I was thought highly of in my community and my church and my University. I had a lot of things going for me.

And I feel like he fucked it all up.

But I can't really blame him, because I let him do this to me. I let him tear down my confidence. I saw it chip away like lead paint. It fell to the floor and got swept up in the dustpan and thrown away. And before I knew it, I had a new layer around me. Only this time it was fat. And it kept me alive, so I appreciate that.

But I feel broken. And I don't know how to fix it. No matter how much therapy I have had- and believe me, my therapist's kid can go to whatever college he wants to- I never hear the words that fix me.

So maybe I need to fix myself.

I need some super glue.

No turning back now

2010-03-01T18:44:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow morning I testify in court. Please pray for me.

Feeling better

2010-02-28T23:03:00.002-05:00

Wow I had a massive anxiety attack last night. I haven't had one of those since B was arrested. I had a lot that first week alone.

I am having bad dreams that he tries to grab me at court. My Dad is going with me and even though he is older, I have full confidence that he could protect me from B. B is, after all, a coward. An actual strong and tough man usually will not hit a woman. So I think under it all he is a coward.

I deleted everyone from church but two people that I know would never even think of friending him on Facebook. My Dad says that I am punishing my friends. I don't see it that way. I see it that, if they were my friends, they would not be speaking to a man who abused me for 8 years. That is just my humble opinion on this issue. I believe that people need to pick a side in an abuse situation. If we were just two people who didn't get along, fine, be friends with both of us. But after being choked, kicked, punched, etc, I doubt the character of anyone who is okay with that. And if they don't believe that he did that, that is basically saying that I am a liar. I don't want to be friends with anyone who thinks I am a liar.

So as far as my church goes- he can have it. I can find a new church. I should have done that in the first place. I did not feel a lot of support from them when this happened. I can rebuild my life elsewhere. He used to act inappropriatly at church all the time, so it is only a matter of time before he stops his good behavior and goes back to how he used to be. Perhaps then people will realize that he is only after manipulation and a free meal.

Besides, he claims to be an atheist. What can he do to help the church? He used to say that all Christians were idiots- especially me. I was the biggest idiot of them all. But if they want him sitting at their table, so be it.

I am cranky because I feel like he has taken everything from me. I had to leave my home. I had to give up my car *although in the divorce I plan to get half the value of it*, I had to give up my cats, I had to give up my medical insurance. Now he wants my church. He would probably prefer it if I dropped dead, but I refuse to give him that satisfaction. And I think about that every time I am tempted to overeat!

I feel like I really only have 100% support from my Dad. Even if he doesn't understand why I don't to be FB friends with people he is friends with, at least my Dad is 100% on my side. My Mom, I can't really say that about. Of course my coworkers are all on my side, but they aren't really in the position of giving me emotional support right now. And my internet friends. Really, this is my only outlet sometimes. I really need to get out more. I think I will once I have some money. When I start getting some of these medical bills paid off, I am going to start going to dinner with friends or to the movies or something.

The main problem is that I don't really have any friends. And not for lack of trying! B always scared them all away when we were together. My coworkers don't seem interested, although I have mentioned doing things with them, no one seems interested when I ask.

Oh well. I don't even really have a pet. How sad am I? I am a country song!

Tired

2010-02-27T23:57:00.002-05:00

I am very tired.

So tonight I click on a friend's wall and I see my STBX in her friend's section. Why did I do that? I would never have known if I hadn't clicked to see her wall.

I am very uncomfortable with this for a few reasons.
1. Well, he never spoke to this person hardly ever before. Why the sudden need to be friends with her now?
2. Is everything and anything I say somehow getting back to him?
3. Can he see what I write to her on her status updates?

I have to accept the fact that he won. He claims to be an athiest *I have no idea how to spell this but it is too late to fight with spell check*, yet he keeps showing up at the church I have gone to for 8 years. And now he is friends with one of my good church friends?

Okay, he won. He can have my church. Take it, it's his. He needs it a lot more than I do, apparently.

I think I have to move. I need to find a real job in another state and move there. I will have zero support there, but I will be safe. I wont have to worry that he can stop by my house any time he wants to like he can right now.

I am also thinking that I might change my name. That is how serious this has been in my life. It seems to be a joke to some people. "Oh I have been friends with J for years, and her STBX never spoke to me the entire time I knew her, but I am going to be FB friends with him now that she left him, even though he beat her. Good for me." But it is not a joke to me. :0(

Does anyone know how they handle things like pre-existing conditions when you change jobs on medical insurance? I don't own my BiPap machine yet. I would hate to have to give it back if I get a job out of state and I move. Not that I could get a job, but maybe, you never know.

I am thinking about deactivating my FB account.

Well, his initials are B.S

2010-02-24T00:02:00.002-05:00

Maybe my in laws knew he was going to be full of it when they named him. I think having the initials of B.S is just perfect for him.

So, to update everyone.

We had a huge credit card in our marriage. We were never spenders, we never had cable or internet or anything fun. But what we did have was a whole lot of medical bills. Mostly mine. Okay, all mine! But when you have the choice of emergency surgery or dying, you take the surgery, even if you don't have medical insurance.

And a lot of the debt was because he had this strange idea that it was okay to drop 4K in to fixing a car that might have been worth 1K, which never made sense to me. But according to him, any car under 20 years old was still young enough to put work in to.

Sooooooo. This huge credit card is all in his name. When we separated (that does not look right but spell check is saying it is) I was paying half of the minimum payment. Until the point where I was tired of him screaming and cussing at me every time I tried to talk to him about it. So I was like, Whatever, my lawyer doesn't think I will have to pay it at all, so go ahead and keep screaming at me! I will stop mailing the checks! And I did.

I suppose it is just a huge coincidence *sarcasm* that he calls my Mom a week and one day before I testify against him in court to tell her that he cashed in his 401K and paid off the bill.

Which is what the lawyer would have made him do anyhow, because half of that 401K was mine anyhow. So him doing that saves me money in having to pay her to do that for me.

But then he asks my Mom to ask me to file taxes with him so he wont have to pay so much. Um, as my chickens would say "Too bad, so sad, sorry about your bad chicken luck!" (I have no idea where AJ got that from, but his Dad is blaming his Mom, but he taught all of the kids to say that and they now think it is hilarious. I added the chicken luck part because it sounds better than just saying "Sorry about your bad luck!" LOL)

My Mom was not sure what to say to him so she told him she would let me know and I would e-mail him.

Well I think that anyone reading this blog right now knows that I am paying off HUGE "going blind is expensive" bills right now and him punching me in the side of the head probably didn't help my sight much, so if he thinks I am filing with him to make his life easier, he is totally crocked in the head. I want his life to be difficult. In fact, now that the marital debt is gone, I am tempted to go after him for half of the value of the car he took away from me. Seems fair, I had to buy one when he took it from me.

I realize that people might look down on me for this, or I could lose readers for this... but.. I kind of want him to suffer a little bit. For every punch, every slap, every kick, every time he stole my keys and my check card and my wallet and every time he embarassed me at church and every time he made yet another friend stop talking to me because he made them uncomfortable or treated them rudely, for every name he called me and for every single time I heard myself called bitch, moron, idiot and stupid, and for every candle he threw at me and for every piece of my parent's furniture and my personal property he destroyed, for every time he treated the cats like humans and me like a dog- I want him to suffer.

And I can honestly say that I can sit in front of a judge today and tell them that, without guilt or feeling bad or feeling like I am not taking the high road.

So the fact that he calls a week before court to tell my Mom that he has paid this bill- oh, he paid it two MONTHS ago- is not lost on me. You see, this is manipulation.

I have been a good little therapy student and I can now recognize that he waited this long to tell me and planned it for this week because he wants me to have good feelings towards him. He wants me to forget all of the bad things he did to me. He wants me to walk in to the court room with that old familiar "Oh he isn't that bad, maybe he has changed" thought running through my mind.

Well, the day one of my students lays a golden egg is the day he has changed. :P

So I send him an e-mailing explaining that I am unable to file jointly with him, because I already filed and paid them. I did not mention that when I wrote the check I also wrote "FREEDOM" because it was $426 worth of it. But just that I had already paid and that I hoped the cats were doing well.

Just the cats. I did not say that I hoped he is doing well because I really don't hope he is doing well. I hope he is doing horribly. I hope that he stays awake at night replaying every vile thing he ever did to me. He isn't, but I hope that he would.

Then today he calls my Mom again *okay, seriously, she has caller ID- I really find it beyond aggrivating that she takes his calls and my Dad just about freaks out every time he hears about it because he thinks that B is below the very scum of the earth, but I can't control her* and he tells her that I was mad at him in my e-mail and he doesn't understand why I am mad at him.

Um, you have a degree, you tell ME why I am mad at you.

Again, he is trying to manipulate me. If I had any money I would send my therapist flowers. I could not have gotten to this point without him.

So now, dear readers, you might think less of me. I can not believe I openly admitted that I really can not stand my STBX. But I think that it has been a long time coming for me. I really needed to let it out that yes, I truly can not stand him and I loathe him. I abhor him. And yes, it does make me happy to know that he is still out of work, poor and basically miserable. And he has no cable, thanks to me. Wow, I just laughed at that thought.

I promise you that I am not really a bad person. Two months ago I was still talking to him and he was telling me what to do and threatening me all the time, etc. He told me he would file a restraining order against me if I cancelled the cable in a house I hadn't lived in for 4 months, etc. I have just reached the point where I have zero sympathy for him. I used to have a lot of sympathy for him. Now I have none.

I think I need to feel that way heading in to court. If not, I fear I will not tell my whole side and he will get off once again without any consequenes.

When I grow up..

2010-02-21T00:40:00.002-05:00

I read somewhere that children who are sheltered often end up with jobs that don't pay well because they never really think they are able to do more complicated jobs.

Well, that is sort of what I read, I can't express it the way the author did.

Anyhow. So let's talk about my life.

I was always an overachiever. My Mom enrolled me in college before I finished high school. I ended up on academic probation and almost flunking out.

I took a few years off, then went back and started digging myself out of that whole. Once you trash your GPA it is really, really hard to get it back up.

I am going to be honest here and say that I really wanted to be a funeral director. A relative of mine owns one *although he is super unhelpful as far as me wanting to go in to that line of work* and I have spent a lot of time seeing the inner workings of one. But to be one you have to leave the lovely state of WV. I never thought I could do that.

You see my Mother and I have this unusual attachment to each other. When I was 4 she almost died of Cancer. She basically thought she was going to die and everyone else thought she was too. She was very sick for a long time. She used to make me promise to put my wedding bouquet on her grave- and I was 4 so I pretty much had this bizarre fascination with funerals from a young age. She gave me very specific instructions on what to do when she died. Yes, I was 4.

But she didn't die, obviously, nothing can take that woman down, she is a machine ;) But she never really allowed me to grow up. She wanted more children but the Cancer took away that opportunity. So she kind of babied me to the extreme.

She does not let me make decisions for myself. I am 31 years old and she tells me when I have to wash my hair. As if I am totally incapable of deciding for myself when to wash my own hair. She also picked out my car and my car insurance after I left my husband. I did not get to decide for myself, even though I am paying for it.

I mean, sure, I CAN make my own decisions- if I want to be miserable and listen to her complain all the time. It really is just easier to do what she says than to live with the aftermath of it all.

Needless to say- I really, really did not want to move back in here. And if I had any other options other than a shelter, I wouldn't have.

So back to my job. I don't make any money. I am not paid what my education and test scores are worth. I think I could probably easily get a job in a state that has teaching jobs in surplus. But I am too scared to go out on my own. I just don't think I could do it.

Because I was raised to think that I can't do anything for myself.

Now let's talk about my past employment history. I was a Nanny for a long time. Someone hired me and paid me to help them raise their child- I worked a lot of hours.

Then I worked as a shelter manager and I was responsible for the safety of hundred of women and children during the time I worked there. In a situation that could literally be life and death for them. I made decisions all the time.

I am a teacher right now. I am responsible for 17 lives every day. What I do and say can shape their lives.

So yeah, I am obviously not a moron. *I can't spell, but that is a whole other blog post ;)* I wouldn't be hired to do these jobs if people did not trust my ability to make decisions.

So why am I so afraid to apply this to myself? And why is my Mother so afraid of letting me decide when to wash my hair?

Thoughts?

Pity Party time

2010-02-19T23:45:00.002-05:00

So as it seems with me, as soon as I start to feel really positive about my life, something comes along that just makes me feel sorry for myself all over again. I annoy even myself at times.

I tend to be over critical. It no doubt stems from my STBX. After all, I couldn't grocery shop correctly or even do the dishes right LOL And I was worse than the terrorists responsible for September 11th. So naturally, the list of things I was good at was small ;)

And of course my Mom- nothing is good enough for Mom. But that is part of her overall charm. ;)

We had drama at work today. Basically the school I work for is responsible for a 7 year old flunking out of the second grade. It is a bit of a stretch, considering we teach 4 year olds. But today I had just reached my fill on rude people, I guess.

I went to the pharmacy to pick up my blood pressure medicine. I only mention it being for BP because this transaction probably caused it to go way up LOL

They told me I had no insurance. Um. I had it last week? Walmart's pharmacy thinks I have insurance. They filled another medicine for me two weeks ago. I gave them my card and the lady was a bit rude to me. Like I was wasting her time. Well, maybe I was. I mean, I paid full price for the medicine, I think it is her job to at least try to run my insurance through. I figure it has something to do with the fact that they can not spell my name correctly- something I have told them a thousand times but it is never fixed. Anyway, I had to pay $14 for medicine- I don't have $14- so I was frustrated by it. I used my gas money because going without my BP medicine falls in to the emergency catagory for me. The medicine is under a dollar with insurance. Of course the insurance company is closed and wont be open until Monday- during my work hours so I have to miss time to call them.

So anyway, I came home and cried. This wonderful, sobbing, blubbering cry.

I can admit that sometimes I hate the entire world. That sounds harsh. That is harsh. I felt sorry for myself because I was going in to the whole "Hey, what is up with this?! Can't someone else get dumped on for a while?" kind of mindset. So I am admitting that I was acting like a gigantic toddler. It is okay, I didn't do it in public. LOL

Sometimes I feel so sick of being inconvienced for other people's mistakes. This is either my boss's fault, the insurance company's fault or the pharmacy's fault. Not my fault. I pay my insurance premiums every paycheck. They got their money from me. I just think it would be nice if everyone could do their part of their job and that way it would work smoothly for me. Wishful thinking?

Am I just a huge brat today? I think I might be!

I am obviously very cranky right now. It is going on three months of the period. Can we all agree that I have earned a little crankiness?

Bills, bills, bills

2010-02-17T23:27:00.002-05:00

Well my health insurance is going up. By a lot.

I crunched the numbers. I will be lucky to clear $20 a paycheck, and that is going to go towards medicine and shampoo most likely. I am a bit scared by this, but then I think, "Eh, what do I really need to buy, anyhow?"

The tax bill was a huge set back for me, financially speaking. I am hoping to pay off one of the hospitals by July, that will free up $80 a month. I am also not giving my ex a dime towards the credit card we have together. Mainly because he kept screaming and cursing at me when I would try to talk to him about it, and because I did not have proof that he was using the money to pay it. It is in his name. Sooooooo. Plus the lawyer I went to thinks that I wont have to pay it anyhow in the divorce because of his retirement that I wont have. Not that it matters, I don't have a tree to yank that $65 a month off of anyhow LOL

I need to maybe find a second job. I have to really concentrate on that.

I fear having to relocate to get a good job. I mean, let's face it, Pre K doesn't pay well. I have a degree. I can do so much better for myself. In another state. It is just getting the courage to do that, that is the problem.

A post on MDC really hit home for me tonight. About how unmotivated my STBX was. He never really wanted to better himself. He had a degree but refused to use it. Meanwhile I would have loved to be able to use mine, but here, it isn't happening. But he could have used his degree here easily but he wouldn't. He would threaten to quit his job a lot, never went to work on time and had the bad habit of yelling at his boss, plus he did not get along with anyone. Ever. What a mess. And when he was at work he was on the internet a lot of the time. I can't believe he didn't get layed off sooner than he did.

I can remember being so bitter because I was working 70 hours a week. Seventy hours. And he was barely "working" his 40, and then going home and playing computer games all night. Just so he could be late again the next day.

Can I just say that I am so thankful to be out of that situation? So yes, I will take my $20 that I have left over and I pay these medical bills, and I will rejoice to have it. Because the money I had when I lived with him is not worth the misery I suffered. No way, no how.

My Dad likes to tease me about "working for nothing". It does seem as though I do go to work and I don't actually have any money to show for it. I could write a country song, maybe? "My ex took my car, had to buy a new one. Going blinde is expensive, and I am singing the blues." Do you think Carrie Underwood would record it? ;)

But my smallest hospital bill is now $400. Can you believe it????????????? I will soon own all of those MRIs they did on me LOL So when that is paid off, that is $80 more a month I will have. Yay for me!

Tonight I got teary-eyed in the living room. I was crocheting a blanket while sitting with my Dad watching Bill O'Reilly. I just blurted out "I love you Dad and I am so thankful to be sitting here instead of at my old house with my abuser!" And that is so true.

God has blessed my, that is for sure!!

Snow way!

2010-02-15T19:50:00.003-05:00

Can it possible snow any more than it already has? I don't think so!

Hypocrite

2010-02-14T14:23:00.000-05:00

My cousin almost killed herself last night binge drinking alcohol. My first thought is how stupid she is. Why does she want to kill herself with her habits?

Of course I am the same way. True, I don't drink so much that my blood alcohol level is 400 and end up in the ICU. However, I almost died from sleep apnea, which is caused by my weight, and my blood pressure is high and my body always hurts, etc. So I am pretty much the same. Every time I drink a soda or eat something high in fight and low in nutritional value, I am doing the same.

Rest in peace Hermies and Mr. Krab

2010-02-14T00:05:00.002-05:00

I got an Urgent Facebook message today from the parent of the chicken who was crab sitting this weekend. Apparantly he forgot he took them home and left them in the car... overnight.

The crabs are now in Crabby Heaven, having lived a full life of being Pre K class pets. Said parent feels terrible and is replacing them before next Tuesday when the kids are back at school. The ground is frozen and covered in a foot and a half of snow, so we wont be burrying them like the other class pets. The Dad offered to upgrade us to a better pet, but state laws and my allergies pretty much limit us to fish and crabs. Although I would have preferred the turtle he offered, the regulations say they carry disease and what not. So crabs it is!

I have felt sick the past couple of days. Nauseous and really tired. The stomach flu is making it's rounds here, so it could be that. The period that wont go away is still here. At yet another doctor appointment she encouraged me to wait another month. Hopefully it stops once I start a new pack of pills. I think I need to up my iron, that could be a lot of the yuckiness right there. I am just so tired of dealing with my period. Is it very heavy so I change clothes and shower more than once a day. I change my sheets a lot because it is so heavy. I go through packs and packs of maxi pads or I wash Mama cloth every other day. One is expensive, the other a chore. Blech. I will be so glad to have three weeks off, if that ever happens. I mean, it has been two months. TWO MONTHS!

I have $429 worth of...

2010-02-12T00:00:00.002-05:00

Well tonight I wrote a check for $429 to pay my taxes. It depleted my entire savings. I had to rob Peter to pay Paul, sort of. I took most of it from my medical bill fund. However, now I don't have to talk to my soon to be ex husband and file jointly with him. So I bought myself $429 worth of peace of mind. Or, $429 worth of freedom :0)

And it felt good.

Who knows how long it will take me to pay down again on the medical bills. It could be a while before I can go back to Weight Watchers :0(

I went back to the doctor today because my period will not go away. She did an exam and told me to keep taking the BC pills. To give it another month, then come back if I still have it. Ugh. I am not looking forward to having my period for another month. Hopefully it will stop soon. She told me to eat around 2,000 calories a day and I should drop some weight that way. That is not as many as I am getting doing WWs.

One of the parent's was 20 minutes late tonight to get her kids. I had to give her a late fee times two. They are new, so I felt bad about it, but they have already been late once and were told that if it happened again they would be charged. She told me it was impossible for her to be there on time. She is going to be charged every time she is late. The director explained it to her up front, twice. I don't understand why people sign contracts if they know they can not follow them? Obviously our center is not a good fit for her. There are a lot of others in the area a lot cheaper than us open longer hours. It makes sense to go with a place that fits with your schedule. I did the math and if she is 20 minutes late every day for 5 days a week, that is an extra $200 a WEEK in late fees. But it did not seem to phase her, maybe she has the extra money to spare??? Yikes.

Now, I am not normally a stickler for late fees. I have only ever given one other in my year and a half working there. And that was a repeat offender that you have to give one to once in a while to remind her of the rules. I gave her her last warning tonight too, I was on a roll, apparantly LOL I have had parents up to a half hour late when I did not charge them. However, that is a half hour late one time in the whole 5 years they had been going there, because of traffic problems, and they all had called repeatedly to let us know what was up. So fine, I did not charge them. And in each case it never happened again. So I am not just being Mean Miss J or anything. But I felt mean today. She did not even call and her kids were sobbing because they knew she was late- 5 year olds are a lot smarter than people sometimes give them credit for. And I had no idea what to tell them because I had never met this lady before *I was not at work all week*, she did not call, and I could not get ahold of her. Please at least call :0( So I can tell your kids that you are a few minutes away, etc. If you don't call I assume you are coming ASAP so I tell them that, then I am a liar when you don't show up.

I talked to my boss and she was not pleased that we had kids that late. The cleaning crew can't come in while we are there, so that is a problem, the guards don't want people there past time, and she has to pay the extra fees like electric and overtime for the staff. What a mess.

So Mean Miss J reared her ugly head today. And from the sounds of it I will have to do this every. single. day. At least until she gets her bill and sees that all of those late fee papers she has signed are adding up big time on her bill!

Hellooooooooooooo

2010-02-11T00:03:00.000-05:00

I am so over the snow. I want to go back to work and have my nice, normal schedule again!

Here's hoping I get my 8 hours in tomorrow!

Thanks to owing taxes this year I cannot afford to go to Weight Watchers. Naturally I go to one weigh in before getting the tax bill. I can't find a part time job to work around my hours so now I am back in stressed mode. Just when I crawl out of the financial hole enough to see the light, I get knocked back down again. So I am sort of depressed about that. And the birth control pills aren't working, my period is still here. I just can't swing another doctor copay right now, not after missing so much work from the weather and eating up my time off.

So, yeah, welcome to my pity party, can I offer you some water with lemon? LOL

I am trying not to get down about it. I will one day eventually pay off these bills. I have to, right? I mean, it's not like the hospital is charging interest or anything.

I thought I might just keep going to weight watchers anyway, but my Mom keeps telling me that I can't afford it :0( Perhaps I prefer to live in denial about it?

I am so confused in my head about everything. I wish it was a dry erase board and I could just wipe it clean somehow.

A bit depressed

2010-02-08T22:05:00.002-05:00

Today is depressed day for me. Stuck at home for a snow day. We are expecting more snow tomorrow. I am a creature of habit and I don't like for my schedule to be out of sorts.

I have not spoken to my STBX since December 21st. I need to avoid watching shows like "The Bachelor" because they depress me. I feel like it would be nice to have someone be nice to me. Someone to see me and care for me on face value. Not someone who wants to constantly point out everything I have ever done wrong in my entire life. I find that exhausting. I wonder if love exists at all.

So I had my taxes done and I owe $400. I would get a refund back if I filed with my STBX. But I think it is worth the $400 not to have to talk to him.

I feel very empty right now. I ate terribly today. Candy, cola, junk. Perhaps that is coming out in how I feel right now. I also had a ton of fruits and veggies today, ironically enough. I am so strange sometimes.

I feel very alone. I don't like that feeling.

Hoky vegetables, Batman!

2010-02-07T19:07:00.002-05:00

I just got out the menu at work to help plan my menus and I find the following items have been added for snacks:

Raw veggies with dip
fruit smoothies
jello and fruit
cut up apples with dip

:faint: I will believe it when I see it. As in, I am not holding my breath that this will actually happen. But if it DOES, how wonderful?!?!?! Much better than Rice Krispy Treats and cake, which still made the menu but not as much.

Why are people rude?

2010-02-07T18:36:00.002-05:00

I don't get it. I think that there is a huge amount of moody people that seem to surround me. Am I doing something to attract the moodiness? I hope not!

We have over a foot of snow here. Is it my fault? No. I think God is going to do what He wants to do without needing any input from me :P Most of the teachers at my center have been without water, heat, phone and electricity for several days now. I am not one of them, praise God, but I am keeping them in my prayers. It must be very difficult to go without so many comforts in this harsh cold and snow.

So, we can not open tomorrow. Only two of us can get there, me and the girl who lives across the street. We have 100 kids. Yeah, that is called illegal. A lot of the kids live near the school and will probably be able to get there. The teachers, not so much.

So my boss calls me and asks me to call the after school aged kid's parents.

Up until the point all of the parents have always been wonderful- at least to my face, behind my back is a whole other story ;) (I once had a chicken cry because his Dad made fun of me at their house and it upset him. Blah.)

So I call and the Mom is not there, so I talk to the Dad. I have never actually met him. I do know that he doesn't usually work. So if he doesn't work it shouldn't be too much of an issue for him to stay home and watch his kids.

He reemed me out for "How dare I close school when his wife has to work?" etc, etc, etc.

Um, okay. First of all I did not have anything to do with closing school. I flatter myself to think that God's snow storm and our director's title took care of that for me. I am only the one passing along the news. And two, YOU DON'T WORK! You sit home and watch TV all day, why can't you take care of your own child????? Good grief, people are rude.

Of course I did not say that, I just bit my tongue. But blech, he is so rude.

And this lady is late every single day to get her kids and I have looked the other day. Guess what? That stops. Now. I will rain late fees down on her like the snow falling from the sky. If they can not extend courtesy to me, I no longer feel like breaking the rules for them.

On another note, no weight watchers tomorrow either :0(

Thank goodness today is over!

2010-02-04T23:00:00.002-05:00

Today was a very stressful day at work. When I pulled in to the parking lot I saw my coworker outside in the freezing cold digging sand out of the sandbox. I actually said outloud: Today is going to be a bad day.

Guess what song was playing on the radio? "I've got a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night!" So I had to laugh at the irony!

The people who came to evaluate us showed up at 7:30. I think we run a pretty well oiled machine at my school, and most Kindergarten teachers rave about our program. The school board has ideas that I don't find practical, however, we have a contract so we do implement them. But the whole system is new for us this year so it was scary to have the check. Thankfully for us we are on government property so we at least had a head's up as to when they came, because they could not get past the guards without notice, the other places just have random checks. So we are fortunate in that respect.

I am a pretty AP teacher, if that is a catagory. I know that schools sometimes frown upon affection, so it was hard to turn that part of myself off today. My humble opinion is that if the parents are okay with it and the children are okay with it and the teacher is okay with it, then there is nothing wrong with hugs, fond nicknames, etc. If any one of the three is uncomfortable then, and only then, does it become an issue.

They asked a ton of questions. Some things I am sure impressed them. Other things, not so much. The one lady was repulsed when I told her that the kids brush their teeth at the same sink that they wash their hands at. Um... do you have a seperate tooth brushing sink and handwashing sink at home?! I doubt it. Sure, I have had Master bathrooms with two sinks, but even then one was not just for brushing teeth and one was not just for washing hands. Good grief. I have been using the same sink for both for 31 years now and I am still alive ;)

And I did not have enough books out. I checked that list and I could have sworn that I had everything they wanted, but I guess not. So we will be dinged for that.

At any rate, this morning one of the Dad's leaned over and whispered "No matter what they say you should know that you guys do a great job!" That was nice and set a good tone for the day!

Tomorrow- weather permitting- we should have our results.

Twenty minutes after they left, one of my kids tripped on her own feet and gashed her head open on the table :0( We were playing a game and she was just walking and I am not sure if one of the kids maybe put their hand behind them and she tripped or if it was a shoe issue, etc. I actually did catch her but she had already hit her head at that point. So I picked her up and was rubbing her back, talking quietly to her, thinking that she would have one huge goose egg. Then my coteacher turned a bit pale and my chicken moved her hand and blood was just going everywhere. I sat her down, ran to grab gloves and towels and we got the bleeding stopped. I called her Dad and she needed two stitches. She came back to get her brother and she was happy and bragging about her trip to McD's after the stitches, so it is fine. It was nice to see how well my coteacher and I work together using nonverbal communcation. We handled the injury quickly with no drama or confusion. None of that "What should we do?" panic stuff that sometimes happens when people see blood.

Then later on in the day another student had a small party at snack time because his birthday was today. He is having just a family *and me* party at a pizza place over the weekend, but he wanted to have cupcakes with his friends. After the cupcakes he presents me with the biggest chocolate bar I have ever seen. He bought them for all of the teachers. I mean, seriously, this thing was huge. Easily a pound of candy.

I did not have any of it, but man was I tempted!! Thankfully I had tried my coworkers rice pudding and it was sitting in my stomach like a huge rock. So that helped keep me from trying the candy LOL

I still have the World's Longest Period. I broke down today and bought disposable maxi pads. I know, I am all about my Mama cloth, but something has got to give. I can not handle that much laundry every couple of days. I have to wash them twice to get the blood out. I got the super gigantic overnight extra long pads so hopefully I wont be running to the bathroom every hour again tomorrow.

As an update, in case I forgot, the Provera did not work long term. It stopped it for a couple of days but it came back in full force. So my doctor called in Birth Control pills for me. I have taken them since Monday and still it has not slowed down. I am hoping it will soon. It has been two months and the process is making me sort of nauseous. It would not be so bad if it wasn't so heavy. I have to change the sheets every other day and I can not wear any light colors because it is so unpredictable and even the super thick Mama cloth is not containing it. Crazy! In all of my years I have never had staining issues until now.

And perhaps someone can educate me, but where is it coming from? I realize that when you are not pregnant the lining sheds, I get that. But that can not take two months. It just can't. What is up with my body? :0(

I am filing my taxes as married but filing seperatly. Unfortunatly that means that I owe $400 instead of getting money back. I could get a refund if I file with my H. However, I have not spoken to him since before Christmas and I do not want to start again now. I am going to have to find a way to get $400 before April. But it will be worth it not to bring his negative energy back in to my life!

Some people shouldn't be allowed to talk

2010-02-03T21:00:00.000-05:00

Okay so one of my coworkers mentioned some problems she was having in her marriage, when another coworker said "I just don't understand why Jaime put up with what she did. She should have just kicked his butt."

Um, okay, you really shouldn't talk. You have no idea what you would do if you were being mentally, emotionally and physically abused. And for the record I did try to fight back once and got hurt. I learned. Ugh. I just can not stand when people say those kinds of things. Like, hello?! Do you not SEE me sitting there across from you? She needs an edit button.

Six months ago...

2010-02-02T19:46:00.002-05:00

Six months ago..

- was the worst day of my life.

- was the last time I will ever be slapped, called cruel names or have things thrown at me.

- was the first time I ever truly leaned on someone to be stronger than myself.

- left me feeling scared and uncapable.

- saw a million of my tears.

- started a whole new life for me.

Today marks six months of freedom. Six months of learning what my laugh sounds like again. Six months of not worrying that people will stop talking to me if my H treats them badly. Six months of being able to cry when I want to and laugh when I want to and pray when I want to. Six months of never ducking a candle flying through the air at my head, or frantically searching for possessions either stolen or destroyed. Six month's worth of not having to walk on egg shells for fear that I will be left somewhere or hit or kicked or screamed at.

Six months of being able to breath.

No, it is not my birthday, but it is still a very important day for me :0)

I joined today

2010-02-01T21:41:00.000-05:00

I joined Weight Watchers today. My weight on their scale was 460 pounds even. Up a bit from my doctor, but I am trying to remind myself that all scales are not going to be exactly the same.

Does anyone know what tomorrow is for me? :0)

Updates galore!

2010-01-31T20:58:00.002-05:00

Okay so in the home front:

I have turned my broken bathroom in to a storage closet. I have a bunch of stuff I would rather not look at in there- like pictures of B.

I have put away my Mom's sewing stuff.

I moved my Dad's stuff in to the closet.

I bagged up 12 pairs of pants, 13 tee shirts, 10 sweaters and 4 purses to donate to an older woman my friend knows of who doesn't have any clothes.

I have put some of my books on the the hard to get to bookshelf.

I framed a picture of my Buggy and it is sitting on my desk right now. I just love that his Mom keeps me in pictures LOL Buggy is the only thing I had to live for for a long time there. He is not even in my class yet, but I just adore him. She gave me a 5 by 7 picture of him for Christmas. I can look at it every time I am on the computer now :0)

I am joining Weight Watchers tomorrow. Yeah, I know. But I need some help here because nothing is working at the moment.

I have organized my mini closet. It is roomier now that I have gotten rid of some of those clothes.

All of my clothes have a home now either in the closet or drawers.

About 100 skeins of yarn have homes now in the drawers. I still need to get two more gigant bags of it out of storage. But it is not getting over 30 this week so I will wait a while longer.

That is all I have for now :0)

Thinking

2010-01-30T17:51:00.000-05:00

Will there ever be a time when I don't think about him? When I am not wondering what he is doing or how my cats are or whether or not his parents went on another cruise?

It stinks.

Even though he abused me, he was my only friend for a long time. Not exactly a good friendship, but when he was the only one there, that was all I had.

I am trying to make friends but it is hard for me. I always have this assumption that no one will like me. One of my Mom's coworkers is my age and he calls her Mom too and he wants to take me to the movies and to dinner. Not a date by any stretch of the imagination, just wanted to clear that up before I start a scandal in my blog LOL I have been talking to him on Facebook and he seems nice enough and we have a ridiculous amount in common, I think we actually have the same life, sort of. It is strange, but anyway, I should probably just go and try to have fun. But I don't really know how to do that.

So duct tape is okay then, right?

2010-01-28T22:58:00.004-05:00

The board of ed is coming next week to evaluate us. Today I was flipping through the book to make sure that our cots were spaced correctly and that we had enough minutes of music, etc. When I read the following: You are not allowed to tie the children up as a form of discipline.

Okay, seriously, what Pre K on the planet needs that bit of information spelled out for them?!?!?! LOL

My co-teacher didn't believe me until I showed her myself. My initial snarky reply was "So duct tape is okay then, right?" LOL

And that reminded me of a conversation I had last year with one of the kids who went off to Kindergarten this year. The kids wouldn't stay in their seats so I asked them "What is it going to take to keep you chickens in your chairs today?" Without missing a beat, R replied "Duct tape would probably work, Miss Jaime!" Remind me to never make him mad at me ;)

So that was my laugh for today.

Here are some other funny things that happen at work:

For Halloween I let the kids grapheti my tee shirt with Sharpies because I was going as a rock star. One of my students said: H. O. I just wrote H and O on your shirt Miss Jaime. What does H O spell? Does it spell Ho? Did I just write "Ho" on your shirt Miss Jaime? Isn't that nice. Ho, ho, ho, just like Santa says!"

I somehow convinced him to add another "O" and a "P" to make "Hoop." :P

On water days in the summer the kids normally wear their bathing suits under their clothes. The boys generally just wear a regular shirt and wear their trunks as shorts since they are so long nowadays anyhow.

Me: Okay kids, time to go outside for water day. Boys, take your shirts off, let's see those muscles!
S: Nipples Miss Jaime?!?!?!?!?! *shocked*
Me: Um.. mus...cles?
S: Oh.

During artist week I told the kids that one artist had died in the early 1970's.
S: Miss Jaime, was my Dad alive when he died?
Me: Maybe. How old is Dad?
S: He is 44.
Me: Okay, yes, he would have been alive then.
S: What about my Mom?
Me: Probably, do you know how old Mom is?
S: 24.
Me: Are you sure *I know her Mother well, I didn't know her age but I knew it wasn't 24 LOL She was at least in her late 30's*
S: Yes, she is 24!
Me: Um, no, then she was not alive then.
From that day on her Dad started referring to her Mom as his "Trophy Wife" LOL

We were playing an animal guessing game. It was zoo animal week, but I thought I would trick them but throwing in a farm animal.

Me: Okay, what is a little bit grouchy and might kick you if you make it mad? (donkey)
T: A Miss Jaime! Right E? It's a Miss Jaime!

One of my after school kids showing me her sheet music for choir:
M: Miss Jaime, this song here is from the olden days when you were a kid! (the song was released in the early 1960s. I was born in 78.)

Another after school kid talking about her sister:
I mean really, what kind of person wears Crocs in the winter? How stupid.
(I was wearing my Crocs. The look on her face when she noticed this was priceless).

T, at Walmart with his family after bumping in to his teenaged sister's boyfriend:
"My sister and Miss Jaime and Miss M *my other coteacher* don't have peanuts because they are girls and girls don't have peanuts, only boys have those." At least I wasn't there, his poor sister was mortified!

E, leaning over and whispering in Miss T's ear: You are the best teacher ever.
Two seconds later, he leans over and whispers in my ear: You are the best teacher ever.
He did not expect us to compare notes ;)

A: You have boobs Miss Jaime, just like my Mom. Only yours are much bigger.

I was looking at a craft magazine that sells in bulk then tells you how much per item the cost is.
T: That right there is 55 cents Miss J.
Me: That is a lot. Do you have 55 cents?
T: No, I don't have any cents at all.

M, after visiting her Aunt in the hospital after having a C Section: I am never having a baby when I grow up because I don't want anyone to cut my tummy open. Well, except for my Mom, she pooped me out.

One of the students in my class has the same last name as me, so I call him by a different last name as a nickname, as a joke. I told him that I am not sharing my name with him LOL One of my other students, E, drew a picture for me and this is how she described it:
E: Miss J, if you marry John Davis you will be Miss Jaime Davis Davis *not our real last names* So I drew a picture of you and John wearing pajamas. This little boys is your son and John named him John Jr. And the little girl is your girl and John named her Junior Jaime.

Another one from E: She drew a large golden start and asked me how to spell some words. I realized that she had had me spell out: Miss Jaime goes first.
When I asked her what I go first for, she replied "To the bathroom!" We still have no idea about that one!

Every year we make phone books for the kids who go to Kindergarten with all of their friend's numbers in it and even the teacher's numbers. It is a BIG deal and the kids love to call each other. Well E isn't going to K until this year so she did not get one. She asked me what my number was because she had picked out a nice book from the prize box. I gave her my number and I overheard the following conversation:
A: Those are not her numbers, she is only teasing.
E: Nuh uh, those are her numbers. I am going to call her tomorrow and prove it.
A: No, there are too many numbers for it to be real *I think the area code, which is now required in our state, threw him off*.

The following Monday:
E: A, those really were her numbers, I talked to her on the phone and my parents were there and they can tell you that I called her on a Saturday and we talked about the food channel.
A: Wow, they really were her numbers!

LOL

I always tell the kids that I get paid in hugs. It happened to be payday when my boss handed me my check. Since I have direct deposit, the check always reads "Zero dollars and zero cents." and has $0.00 on it. Well she handed it to me and asked me to check something on it so I opened it. E was behind me and saw it and said "Oh my goodness, she really does get paid in only hugs!!" LOL

I have a hundred more but I am tired. Enjoy!

This is a TMI post. You have been warned!!

2010-01-27T22:42:00.002-05:00

Seriously, this is period related and it is not pretty. So I am including a lot of spoiler space for you.

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Okay so yesterday I felt like I had been backed over by a mack truck. I was beyond miserable. So I decided to take a shower at around 8 PM and just go to bed.

While in the shower I started my period again. Yeah, it had gone away, so I did not take the medicine. Well it came back. And it was mad at me!

I started passing these giant clots in the shower. I got out and put on a Mama Cloth overnight pad with two extra inserts. I walk up the two flights of stairs to my bedroom, bend over to pick something up off of the floor, and I start to see blood drops hitting the brand new carpet in my room.

Yeah, you read that right. Two flights of stairs, less than what, two minutes? And I had bleed through that thick pad.

And was bleeding on to the floor!

It soaked all the way through the pad and was on to my underwear. I mean, really, I am 31 years old and I just don't have a stained underwear problem with the Mama cloth. I ordered the largest ones because I am heavy, they cover pretty much everything. So it was shocking that I had bleed that much.

So I put on a new Mama cloth and dash downstairs for some carpet cleaner and some towels.

I had to put towels on the floor, over my sheets and on the computer chair. I had to change the Mama cloth every few minutes. As soon as I was able I took one of those Provera pills.

It looked like someone had lost an arm in my room. I am going to have to wash the bedspread this weekend. The sheets had to be changed. The carpet was stained. And about six towels were stained. I had to do the Mama cloth load and the towels load TWICE tonight to get it all off. What a mess.

Thankfully it stopped overnight and I am now just barely spotting.

So lesson learned. If this ever happens again I will take the medicine even if the period stops.

And today I was so sick all day. Nauseous. Yuck, I just felt vile.

I am praying this Provera helps. If not, I will just have to go back on birth control pills. How ironic that I have not had marital relations with my soon to be ex since before he went to jail, which was literally sometime in the summer, and I might end up on birth control pills LOL

My mind just goes to wondering where on earth this stuff is coming from. I mean, my Grandmother was a nurse and would always say "Jaime Leigh, it is probably nothing more than a teaspoon's amount of fluid." But trust me, this was way more than a teaspoon!

So thanks to the hormones, I was in a lovely mood today. I managed to not be too cranky until after nap time. Which I spend laying down next to one of the chicken's because I felt so gross. I got up, prepared the snack- which took a while because the cheese sauce was ice cold, so I thought it would be nice to warm it up for them. And of course with health code regulations nothing is as simple as just tossing something in the microwave. So I took the time to warm everything up, came back in, set the table- all while my coworkers did nothing, but I was okay with that because I had been sick for the half hour of nap time that was not my break.

Well it was time to wake them up, because they had already slept for a half hour longer than they are supposed to. I go to turn the light on and my coworker was like "oh let them sleep longer." Um, okay. I said "Oh well I was just following the schedule." She said that we can do whatever we want back there.

Um, no. We really can't. Not when we are taking the State's money, we can't. If we were still in private school status like last year, then by all means, do whatever you want. I just think it is an ethical issue when we don't even try to follow their rules. Plus I don't want the parents upset tomorrow because their kids didn't sleep tonight. Plus I did all of that extra work for nothing. By the time they got to eat snack it was cold again.

But fine, she has worked there longer than me, she gets the final say. But I am a stickler for rules, always have been. Grey does not exist. Black and white are fine, grey is not. I have a lot of sensory issues, plus I might be book smart, but a lot of times I get overwhelmed when things are not organized. So it helps me to have a schedule.

So I just walked out of the room and went in to the bathroom to sulk about how I can not stand that my coworkers are so flippant about the schedule ;)

But we got this memo last week saying that we are going to get fired if we disagree, so I hope I don't get fired for this. So that is why I just went to the bathroom because I have a very expressive face.

I figure I am just cranky because of the hormones to stop my period.

I could go the whole rest of my life following that schedule to the letter and be happy as a clam. I just don't understand how people can be so carefree. Not that it is wrong, if that is what you like. I am just not that person.

I also have a problem making exceptions in life. I mean, people say that there are always exceptions to the rules- I don't agree. I feel like you either follow the rule or you don't. Why am I like this? Why can't I be more open minded?

This is why I was not good at managing the domestic violence shelter. I couldn't figure out how to see grey things. Like we had rules, but some people could break them and not get in trouble, but other people would get in to trouble right away for breaking them. Never made a bit of sense to me. And it seems that that puts too much pressure on the person who gets to decide who is in trouble and who isn't.

If client #1 doesn't do her share of the house chores and gets away with it, then why is client #2 being called in to the office over it? Just because client #1 has (insert reason here). It was way to hard for me to be the one to decide who I made follow the rules and who I didn't. I could not handle that.

Maybe there is a technical name for this disorder LOL

So that is the latest on me. I am cranky and I have to wash the bedspread, blanket and mattress cover in my room on Saturday because it was like a crime scene in here last night.

And please, no one post anything about how I might be dying of some kind of strange disease or something. Because if you do, I will have anxiety attacks. :0) Maybe one day a doctor will actually do some tests on me instead of dismissing everything as being caused by my weight. You have a hangnail? It is because you are overweight! Stubbed your toe? You are overweight.

And on that note, I am going to bed! :0)

Two in one night?!

2010-01-26T00:11:00.002-05:00

I can't sleep.

I have this overwhelming urge lately to have a life that is not wasted. This feeds in to my previous post a little, so bare with me.

I just feel like there has to be some reason that I am alive. God doesn't just throw people here randomly. There is a reason I was born to the parents I was and that I married the man that I did and that I teach the children that I do. I really believe that.

I don't really believe in coincidence.

I just wish I knew what my purpose was. Like, if God could send me a sign or something, that would be most appreciated ;)

Which is why I want so badly to live. I don't want to die young from being heavy. What a waste. I don't want the 8 years I spent being treated badly to be for nothing.

My Mother lost both of her breasts to cancer when I was 4. And when she tells women to do their monthly self exams and to get a mammogram after a certain age, it is like, "Okay, great, thanks." But when you see someone who is being abused by their partner, there are not a lot of places you can go with that. I mean, hello, a good friend of mine is a therapist and told me a year before I left that it wouldn't matter what he said to me anyhow, because I was not ready to hear the message.

So sometimes I get frustrated because I want to reach through the computer and say to someone in a similar situation "Hey your life doesn't have to be like this. It is scary now, but it doesn't have to stay this way. You can do it!"

But I remember when people said that to me when I was still in the thick of things and I remember being very annoyed by it all. So I am left to wonder if that is what God wants me to do with it? What does He want me to do with this life experience?

So then I think that maybe it is my students who will have the benefit of this knowledge, even though they wont realize it now. If I teach them now that they should always be respected and treated nicely by their friends, maybe that will leak in to their lives when they are older and they wont stick around if a boyfriend/girlfriend is treating them badly. Sometimes I just want to hold them and tell them that they are strong and deserve to be appreciated and loved. And that they should never let anyone make them feel bad about themselves.

One of my coworkers today said outloud "I am a bad person." And I was like "What?! No! You are not a bad person!!!" That is like nails on a chalkboard for me. All because she forgot to mention something that I wouldn't have even thought twice about. And it is such a powerful thing to say in front of little kids. We have to be so careful what we say in front of them. So much of my life right now is rebuilding my self esteem. I was told that I was bad all the time by the ex. I didn't even wash the dishes correctly. Oddly enough my Grandmother, Mother and all of my Aunts wash/ed dishes the same way as I do and they are/were not "bad". But he just found fault with every single thing that I did. So my motto right now is "There is nothing wrong with me!"

This is who I am. I can be a little moody when I don't have enough sleep. I am a terrible singer but I love to do it. I can't hide a single emotion as it is always written all over my face. And you know what? That is fine. That is me. I don't want to be anybody else.

So what is my purpose of being here on the planet? I will let you know as soon as I figure it out ;)

Bored?

2010-01-25T23:32:00.001-05:00

Yeah, I am.

I work, come home, play online and go to bed. Nothing too exciting.

I feel like there are so many better things that I could be doing with my time. I need a distraction maybe? I don't know. I have been doing Bible study every day, that is helping. I just feel very unfocused at the moment.

Any tips, suggestions, comments? Let me have them :0) I am open to change here. I need some change. Right now life feels like one big waste of energy! I wonder what I could be capable of if I actually *did* something.

New schedule

2010-01-24T22:54:00.002-05:00

So I am going back to my old schedule of 8:30 to 5:30. I am only doing it to get an hour break. When I was only taking a half hour, I felt rushed. I couldn't do anything so more often than not I would just stay in the classroom.

But I think I need that hour to decompress. To kind of mentally gear myself up for the rest of the day. Maybe take a walk. Or go to the *empty* cafeteria for a diet soda and some Bible reading. Something. I felt that I worked better and enjoyed it more when I had the longer lunch break.

So tomorrow starts back on the old one. Hopefully traffic will not cause me to regret my decision :0)

Today was a great day. Church was wonderful. I was asked to co teach Children's Church in March and I accepted. I joined a Sunday school class. My first ever adult one. I normally taught the kid's class. But at this point in my life I want to have adult study. I am happy to do a month in Children's Church, that happens during the regular service. But I am craving study with other grown ups during Sunday School time.

So I went to a birthday party today. I ordered a cheeseburger and onion rings. The one thing I noticed is how heavy that meal was. It has been a LONG time since I have had fast food. And this food just sat in my stomach like a rock. Which is proof that my body is functioning better without it.

I got a lot of activity today moving my room around. I have decided to actually unpack. I figure I am not getting out of here any time soon. And I want to come at this with a greatful heart. Also, I am totally unorganized now. Such to the point where it is leaking over in to my work life. I think a lot of it has to do with a natural relaxing I did after leaving my H. Kind of like "Oh no one is constantly putting me down anymore critisizing every move that I make, so I can do what I want now!" kind of thing.

But I think it is important to at least try to make this feel like home. So I moved all of my Mom's sewing machines in to the closet. Now I have the entire sewing desk empty. I a not sure what I am putting up on it.

I put my excess stuff in the attic. I put some of my books on the bookshelf. I am bagging up a bunch of clothes that I don't wear anymore.

It is ridiculoulsly hot in my bedroom. I think I am going to have to take off my flannel sheets. Not that this comment fits in with the blog tonight, but I just realized that I am sitting here sweating LOL

Returning to church

2010-01-24T01:19:00.002-05:00

Sorry I deleted my last post. I just didn't want to look at it :0(

I have decided to go back to church tomorrow. Or, today, technically. I will have to deal with that one group of people eventually anyway. So I might as well just take the plunge and get it over with. I can not continue this self imposed solitude. I need to get back to my life's routine.

I am trying my best to get my room more organized. I have become quite messy now that I have my freedom. I think before I had to be organized and neat as a survival technique. Now that I don't have someone constantly breathing down my neck and pointing out my flaws, I am a little too relaxed.

I have turned my broken bathroom in to a storage closet. It is going to cost way too much money to fix. I can't even use the sink in there. So I might as well utilize the space. I have my scrapbooking supplies in there. My large picture frames- seriously, why are they not in my storage unit?! I also have some bins of off season clothing and yarn to stick in there.

Pretty cool, I think.

I am also weeding out some unflattering clothing.

I just want to feel comfortable up here. As it is I spend very little time in my room. My Dad dropped a lot of money getting internet up here, and getting me a new monitor. I just need to make the area comfortable *as in, not walking around boxes* so that I want to be up here.

I put another sewing machine in the closet. So now I have the empty sewing table to use. I put a framed picture of me and Buggy on it.

Tomorrow will be busy. I am getting up early for church and Sunday school. Then it is home to wash both my BiPap equipment and Dad's CPap equipment. Then I will drop Mom off at the mall, run to one of my student's birthday parties for a brief check in, then back to pick Mom up, come home, put some laundry away, do a bit more organizing then cooking dinner. Whew!

Okay, so the reason I am only dropping by this party as opposed to staying for the whole thing is that I can not fit at the restaurant's tables. Yep.

They have those annoying chairs that are like, bolted to the floor that swivel. A heavy person's worst nightmare. Rumor has it that they do have two regular chairs there, but with all of the parents who will be there, I figure the odds of getting one are slim. And it is not like I am going to say anything like "Hey would you mind letting me have your chair, I am too fat."

Yes, another one of life's fun moments totally trashed because of the weight.

It is so sad to me that I have to think about these things. You know I figure the vast majority of people would just go to a party. I have to think ahead for things like this. I have to call and ask about their seating. Make arrangements, etc. What a waste.

But anyway, I am working on it. Maybe next year will be better :0)

The BiPap machine is really helping. I am no longer like "Ugh, I need to take a break while washing dishes." I actually have more energy. And I have lost weight since getting it, so that is fun.

I better head off to bed. The alarm is going off early in the morning. Goodnight friends. Drop me a comment to let me know if you are reading. Sometimes I wonder if anyone is LOL

2010-01-20T23:14:00.003-05:00

Disaster

2010-01-19T23:32:00.000-05:00

Seriously fasting is not good. Not for me anyway.

I actually didn't feel hungry at all until about 5 PM. Then I was starving. And weak. And dizzy. So I ate the only thing I could find at work. Leftover chicken nuggets. Yum.

So yeah, now I feel even worse.

But it was interesting to finally feel hungry. My stomach did not growl or anything, which was what I was expecting. But I was really lightheaded- although I drank juice all day long, so I had some sugar.

So anyway, today was bad. Tomorrow can only be better!

Fasting

2010-01-18T23:03:00.001-05:00

Well as of 7:30 PM tonight I am fasting. I am having some blood work done in the morning. I plan to continue on a juice fast throughout the rest of the day.

I bought some yummy juices:
regular orange juice
organic cranberry juice
organic apple juice
organic tomato juice
and organic morning mix, which includes pineapple juice, which I want to drink to support my kidney function

I have bottled up my juices and am ready for tomorrow after my blood work is done.

I hope to eliminate some toxins from my system as well as use my eating time for prayer and meditation. It will be nice to know what it feels like to be hungry for a change.

Thank you for reading :0)

Movie Day!

2010-01-17T22:06:00.002-05:00

Yummy. Popcorn! :drool:

I am taking one of the chickens to see the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. He has decided that we should have popcorn and candy AND maybe stop at McDonald's too. Yikes!!

I have not really had much "bad" food lately. I am pretty sure this theater doesn't butter their popcorn, they have a place where you do it yourself, so that is good. And they have salad at McD's. Gosh I have avoided fast food like the plague. I am going to a Burger King birthday party next weekend, ack.

This will be good practice to see if I can manage to handle being in a tempting situation.

I am planning a fast this week. I am having blood work done so I plan to just continue throughout the day. I would like to see if my body can actually be hungry. I have no idea how that feels and I would like to learn. I am getting some V8 tomorrow to drink that day.

Favorite chicken

2010-01-17T00:10:00.002-05:00

Teachers are not supposed to have favorites. And for the most part we don't. But I would be a total liar if I said that E did not have a special place in my heart.

We go way back. The first week she met me she asked me why I was fat. My coteacher freaked and took her to the side to talk to her, probably saying how that isn't nice, etc, etc. I don't know, I have never been one to have an issue with an honest question. I would much prefer an observation from a child than a rude comment yelled out of a window by a grown man. You know? :0)

When I worked the early shift she was usually the first one to arrive. Often times we would be the only two there for a half hour or so. She is very bright, so she is easy to talk to. We both love onions on our pizza and mustard on our hamburgers. And she is moody, like me LOL

And she was with me when I went blinde. So I am pretty sure that I will always remember her, because a moment like that is going to always be in your head. Just like I remember where I was when I learned about 9/11. You don't forget those things.

Every year we make these phone number books for the kids who go to Kindergarten. All of the kids write their numbers in the book with their names, and the teachers do it too. They love this because normally they have never talked to friends at this point in their life, and how cool is it to call your teacher? So it is something the group that stays in PreK for one more year looks forward to doing.

So the other day, E reminded me of the books we would make and asked me what my phone number was. I told her, she wrote it down, then another student announced "She is teasing, those are not really her numbers." LOL I think the area code threw him off. It is mandatory now in my state that we use area codes, that was a recent change. So most of the kids don't remember our area code. So he thought I was teasing because of the extra numbers.

Anyhow, today I come upstairs to find message on my cell phone. E's Mom is in a panic, stressing out that she can't believe she is actually calling me on a Saturday, but E just had to find out if I was lying about my phone number or not LOL I called her back and E was very happy to know that I told the truth, and she can't wait until Tuesday to tell the other child that I really did give her my "numbers". LOL

I guess E's Mom thinks I have a life :0) But I don't, so it is fine LOL

In August we will make these books again and my phone will ring off the hook for about 2 weeks. I love how kids are on the phone, very abrubt.
"What are you doing Miss Jaime?"
"Oh, I am making dinner."
"Okay, well, goodbye!" Click.

Love it LOL

So today was pretty boring. I slept in. I felt that my body needed the extra sleep because I am fighting a double ear infection. So I had some guilt free extra snooze time.

I spent most of my day redoing my Farmville Farm on facebook, then redoing Mom's. Exciting stuff ;)

This part is maybe TMI, and for women only. I doubt any men are reading my blog, but if they are, they have been warned!

I normally only get my period twice a year. My doctor feels this is a weight issue. Well I have had it for almost a month now, and I am going to have to make an appointment, I guess. Not heavy every day by any means. More like light spotting most days. But occasionally I will have a really heavy bout, usually in the evenings before bed. Large clots sometimes come out in the shower too after these heavy times.

I doubt there is anything that she can do. I am not willing to go on birth control pills, which is what they did when my period would not stop when I was 19.

I just wonder what my body is telling me. I mean, I am out of a stressful situation because I left my husband. That is a positive. I am using a BiPap machine at night so my sleep is actually restorative and healthy. Another positive. I have lost weight. Positive. So what is my body telling me? I feel a lot healthier now than I have been in years. So what is up with the month long wonky period?

My Mom thinks that maybe because I only had two a year that perhaps I have a lot of build up. I am not sure. If anyone out there has an idea, I would love to hear it.

"We put icing on everything at Bible School!"

2010-01-16T01:11:00.002-05:00

One year I was teaching Vacation Bible School. We would have a snack every evening and we always tied it in to a lesson. One day we were eating soft pretzels for our snack, with icing on them. One of the kids seemed shocked at having icing on his pretzel. This prompted M, one of the people in charge of snack, so say "Oh honey, we put icing on everything at Bible School!" And she was right, it really was on everything that week LOL

The food at my pre school is junk. I understand economics. So much money comes in, so much money goes out, etc. I get it. I also understand that because we are located on government property, that it is just easier to hire the same catering company that feeds the DOE in the cafeteria. After all they are right there. No hassle getting them in and off site each day to bring food.

I am not asking for a miracle or anything, but some better planning would be nice. The main problem I have is that the director seems thrilled with the food. Yuck.

We make breakfast ourselves. And by "ourselves" I mean one of the early teachers tosses something in the microwave. It is the following every single week:
cold cereal *my class always gets cheerioes, which is much better than the Lucky Charms the other classes get*
frozen pancakes
frozen waffles
frozen french toast sticks *which are really, REALLY good LOL But so bad for you!
English muffins with melted cheese on them
bagels that are just covered in butter, really, dripping, soggy with butter
mini blueberry muffins that are frozen

That is it. They rotate these choices.

I know that there are some of you out there who will post what your kids eat, and that it will be much, much worse. So I will try not to complain too much.

Lunch (recent ones I have served at work):
Today:
fish sticks that are mostly bread. And they aren't sticks, they are crumbs. I serve them with a spoon. Maybe I should start taking pictures of this. Really, it is very gross. They are soggy and usually cold. I would be embarassed to admit that I took money to serve those to people if I was the catering company.
canned green beans that are cold
grapes- yes, they were actually fresh, that is rare! I was happy with those.
Thursday: meatballs on white hotdog buns.
mixed veggies from a can- had potatoes in it too. It smelled so bad. As a teacher, I know it is important to eat in front of the kids, but you could not have paid me $1,000 to eat those veggies, they smelled that bad.
canned pineapple
Wednesday: chicken tenders- fried in veggie oil. I know this because of a peanut allergy we had, so they told us what oil they used.
Canned corn
canned pinapple
Tuesday: grilled cheese on white bread. Soaked with butter.
tomato soup
canned applesauce
Monday- the worst offender LOL Beef tacos. Basically cold meat- that is the highest fat content they can get because it is cheap- stuck in a flour soft tortilla. They can't be bothered to add anything like lettuce, tomato, nothing. Yuck.
canned corn *yes, again*
canned pears

Snacks from this week:
rice krispy treat
cheezits
cinnamon toast crunch cereal
pudding with graham crackers
raisins and saltines
Other snacks are:
cake
cookies
brownies
Trix yogurt maybe once a month

And I am expected to eat all of these meals at the table with the kids. And lose weight? I don't think so.

I actually can't eat 90% of it without litterally running to the bathroom. The beef days got so bad that I was having to use the kid's bathroom because the staff bathroom is always full- 19 females + one toilet = huge line- and it prompted one of y students to draw the following for me:

Huge yellow star "award" sign along with the caption: Miss Jaime always goes first.

I asked her what I always went first for.
Her answer: The bathroom! LOL

I don't have a gallbladder so anything that greasy makes me very sick, very fast.

I am spoiled because on the rare occasion that I eat meat at home (I might have eaten red meat maybe once a month when I was living with my husband) it is grass fed, organic, hormone free meat raised on my Aunt's farm, treated like a family pet and not a cash crop. You know, a happy cow! LOL

I have a weight problem because I make bad choices in the food that I eat. Really bad choices. I ate junk food and fast food because it tasted good.

I just think that we are setting these kids up to have health problems.

This is why I am dead set against using food as any kind of motivation. In fact, for the first year I worked there, I flat out refused to do it. I broke our long standing tradition of getting a piece of candy for doing so many practice sheets, and was giving out cute erasers instead. The kids hated it. Eventually I stopped because I figure that if their parents don't care, then maybe it was not my place to be preachy about it. And I don't think that one lollipop a week from us is going to do long term damage. But at the core level I disagree with using food.

Not that I think that any of my students is going to end up weighing as much as me. I don't. But I think we are setting one huge bad example for them.

I am more forgiving in the public schools because in my county, a lot of the kids there only eat at school. Yes, you read that right. They might only eat at school. The poverty level is huge here. The school tries to pump them full of calories so that if they don't get dinner, they are still okay.

However, I teach at a private school. The parents drive cars that are worth more than my last house. None of them are at poverty level, not one. I have been to their houses, I have been given expensive Christmas presents. Maybe some of them are in a bad financial state and are very discreet about it, but still not poverty. So I think that we can get away with serving a decent salad once in a while. And no, I don't mean some bagged iceberg lettuce that is brown on the edges. In a bowl. Just the brown iceberg, nothing else- although once I saw half of a cherry tomato in one.

I can't save the world. All of us at work have complained about the food. It isn't going to change any time soon. They used to pay out the wazoo for a company who- believe it or not- made FRESH FRUIT a DAILY snack. Who knew?!?! Yes, it was expensive, but come on, I consider this an investment in the future!

I will continue to work on my my boss. But in the meantime, I can only complain here and hope to get some sympathy LOL

But this is why I can not eat at school. I generally eat the fruit and that is my contribution to the whole "Family style eating." I feel that it is important for them to see us eating what is served, because I know that a lot of parents don't really want to cook two meals, one for them and one for the kids. But I think the food is pushing it. Oh and the hotdogs, I have nightmares about those. They are supposedly all beef, but my coworker with the pork allergy always breaks out in hives if she eats one, so I wonder what else they are misleading us about.

We get a LOT of physical exercise there. The kids are super active. We have an awesome playground set up. So they are working their little bodies and having a great time. I just wish we could fuel those bodies better!

Good update

2010-01-15T20:27:00.000-05:00

Okay so my Mom did some digging around. She is NOT his lawyer. She is strictly a divorce attorney. However, when he was in jail and was trying to bond out, her name was next on the list to represent so she had to do it. I guess all of the lawyers here have to do a certain amount of free work? But that is the only time she saw him. He had to hire another attorney once he got out of jail because all she does is divorces. That made me feel a little bit better! But still she could not talk to me because his case is not yet closed.

Tragedy, comedy, you be the judge!

2010-01-14T20:37:00.002-05:00

I am in a good mood right now. I shouldn't be, but I am LOL

I took time off from work today, time away from my beloved chickens, to go see this lawyer. I knew it was a bad sign when I walked in and a huge dog jumped on me. Seriously, what is up with all of the dogs in my life lately??? Crazy!!

I have been allergic to dogs for years and never have I encountered them so much as I have in the past month.

Anyway, I ended up leaving Mom inside her office while I waited in the freezing cold because once I am exposed, it is over. I itch, sneeze, cough, my eyes swell, etc, etc.

It was so cold outside but I couldn't go back to the car because it was so far away, so I just sat out there and contemplated living a new life in a bubble ;)

And the crazy thing is, is that I like dogs. I really do. My friend has a hypoallergenic dog that I just love. And I have been known to take some extra medicine on hair washing day and play with the neighbor's dog. So when I see a dog in a confined space, they want to come up to me. Can you blame them? They know I am awesome! LOL I am just so allergic to them :0( And I always feel bad because it is not the dog's fault that their owner did not teach them good manners.

Anyhow, Mom told her I was allergic so she took me to another office that the dog was hardly ever in. We talked for about 20 minutes. She asked me my story. I told her about him keeping our cats and I started crying. Every once in a while it hits me that the cats are gone. And I loved them so much.

Then Mom says "Oh honey maybe B will let you see them once this is said and done." And the lawyer was like "Oh wow, I can't go further, I have a conflict!"

Yep, she is his defense lawyer. Ugh.

At least I know who will be trying to make me look bad when his trial comes up. That is good to know. I don't really respect a woman who could defend a man who treated his wife so poorly and abused, choked and threatened her. But it is all about money anyway, it is not like she does this to make changes in the world or anything.

I cried. A lot. And I prayed a lot.

She is really the only one in my price range, so I have a lot of praying to do before I decide what to do next. She is more than happy to do this for me after his trial, but again, I guess I automatically don't like her or assume that she does not have my best interests in mind.

Anyhow, I tagged along with my Mom on her doctor's appointment. We have the same one. I weighed on her scale at 462, down from 478 the last time. She has evening hours every other Thursday which I did not know, so from now on I will be going there to get weighed. Their scale is digital so there is less chance of human error on my part. Plus, they can check my BP too at the same time.

I accidentally had the "kg" pushed instead of "lb" and I was like "Wow, I lost 200 lbs, go me LOL

My doctor is on board with my weight loss. I don't really count calories. At my size I don't really have to. Just making my portions look like other people's portions works well for me. Except some of my students eat a LOT LOL But I watch my Mom and I tend to let people put food on my plate for me. Like my Dad plates breakfast when he makes it.

I try to eat three meals a day and one snack. And I try to make it a good one, not some of the junk they feed the kids. I am sorry but a brownie is NOT a snack.

I keep a bottle of water with me all day. I sometimes drink hot tea in the afternoons.

My main problem is eating a lot of something or eating twice. Like I would eat breakfast at home, then get to work and grab what the kids were eating, etc. Or I would eat lunch with the kids then grab lunch with my coworkers *it would shock you how many of my coworkers eat two lunches, and some of them can get away with it but not me*. And I would eat at night before bed.

I try to add as many veggies as I can to whatever I am eating. Meat can make me sick so I have to watch my intake. There are some foods that I can not eat at work, so I bring PB that day *thankfully no nut allergies in my room this year, that will change next year*.

Salad, salad, salad.

I try to avoid eating anything that comes out of a box. I try to avoid dairy products because they cause ear problems.

That is my only "plan" right now, if you can call it that. I find that if I put myself on a super strict "I must do this, I must do that" then I just have a disaster.

For exercise I try to walk more on the playground and when it is snowing a ton like now, I try to mall walk. I try to do less sitting and more playing. And sleep I think is very important. Since getting the BiPap machine my energy levels are up and I am not relying on a constant sugar buzz to keep me from nodding off.

My blood pressure is a lot lower since being on the BiPap as well. I am hoping to eventually be off of the BP meds.

And this sounds gross, but I try to monitor my bathroom habits. I am not whipping out a notebook and a pen or anything, but if I find myself running to the bathroom 3 times after lunch, then I am taking that as a sign that I either 1) ate too much of something or 2) shouldn't be eating it at all.

I try to note how I feel at night. Not tired? Too tired? Jumpy? I look at all of this.

Back from the murky depths of the computer repair shop

2010-01-13T21:50:00.002-05:00

And it seems to be working. My Dad got me the serious hookup on a new monitor as well. I am spoiled.

And the actual computer fix was only $52. You can't beat that price with a stick.

I have been eating so well lately. I keep waiting for it to end. Like, I can't be in control ALL of the time, that is so unlike me!!

What is normal?

2010-01-12T22:55:00.002-05:00

This will be brief as I have a double ear infection. Yucky! I woke up today feeling so crummy. I have had fluid in my ear that I just could not get to drain no matter what I tried. I am on antibiotics. I always say that I am not going to take them, but when the ears hurt this much, I run for the pharmacy LOL

Any-who. Today at lunch I ate an average portion of tomato soup and one grilled cheese sandwich. I never do that. I usually overeat, a lot. I did take seconds on the fruit. But I was satisfied. Honestly, I think most of my weight issues stem from the fact that I never actually chew and enjoy the food. I just shove it in like an after thought. Today I had good conversation- well, as good as can be expected from 4 year olds :0) But I ate, felt fine and that was it. No overeating required.

And on that note, I am super tired. Goodnight :0)

Long day tomorrow!

2010-01-10T22:44:00.002-05:00

Don't you just love it when both of your coworkers call you within two hours of each other to call off for the next day? ;0)

Looks like another 10.5 hour day tomorrow. It still doesn't compare to the 15.5 hour days at my old job LOL

Here is to hoping that my little chickens use their listening ears, their indoor voices and take looooooooooooong naps for poor Miss Jaime :0)

Ah, in a perfect world, it could be "Movie Day"! But we watched one last week, and since I am the anti TV Queen, they would examine my head if I took it out again. Sometimes those self imposed rules just bite you in the backside, you know? LOL

It will be too cold to go play outside. And if the county has a delay then I will have 6 additional children from the Elementary School. Yikes. I hope there is extra staff tomorrow, because I am going to need it!! :0)

Oh well, I need the money, with the computer on the fritz.

I better go to bed. I am going in 2 hours earlier than usual. Goodnight friends :0)

waving the white flag

2010-01-10T20:29:00.002-05:00

The computer won!!

I am officially giving in. I tried hard, really hard, for three days. I really wanted to do this myself. I wanted to do it myself so that I could be like "Yeah, STBX, I don't need you!!"

Well, I need Phil, the computer guy, because this thing is a lost cause! LOL

My Dad offered to take it in and I took him up on it. I can't get the thing ON anymore. Yikes.

On a positive note, Phil is single. Just saying! LOL

Who knew? He was right about something..

2010-01-09T23:21:00.003-05:00

If you have read my whole blog, I am sure that I have mentioned that my STBX thought he was God's gift to computers. I constantly heard how much of an idiot I was, etc, that I wasn't smart enough to use a computer. He would unplug things so I couldn't use it when he was mad, etc.

He always told me that if I left him, my computer would stop working in a week.

It is a point of pride for me that my computer has been hooked up at my parent's house for TWO weeks and it just now broke LOL

It has a virus.

I am only admitting this here because I WANT people to tell me how crazy I am; I actually started to call him tonight for help. Yep. Even though I would have been laughed at and cussed at, I seriously dialed his phone number.

Then I was like, what am I doing?!?!?!?!?!

Do I like punishment?

So now I am pretty much at a loss. I can not figure this out. I wish I could, believe me, it is almost something I feel that I need to do for my self esteem. I found a couple of friends online who pointed me in some directions that could help. I will try that. If it still wont work, then I will take this as a sign that God does not want me online so much, and I will just have to use the family computer like I am now.

I can't afford to take it in to the shop. Someone tell me that one day I will have two quarters left over at the end of the month again, please.. because this whole using my entire paycheck to pay medical bills thing is really getting me depressed!!!

My parents are very critical of me. It seems like they are both always in a bad mood. I don't want to live here any more than they want me to live here, but I can't do anything about it, I don't have any where else to go.

Part of me wants to start looking for teaching jobs out of state that pay more than I make now. Anyone live in an area where they need teachers and have a couch I could sleep on while interviewing? LOL I love to do laundry :P

Thanks for providing a safe place to talk. I would go nuts if I did not have it some days!

I usually have a good sense of humor..

2010-01-08T17:36:00.002-05:00

Really, I do. I can joke with the best of them, even about my weight. I have a running joke with a coworker that she is too short to hang things from our ceiling and I am too fat to stand on the chair. I can laugh at myself, I can!!

However, my Dad said at dinner tonight that I don't have a "real" job. Maybe it stung so much because my job was litterally the only thing I had to live for for a long, long time. That when I was cramped uncomfortably in an MRI machine for an hour and a half to find out if I had MS, the only thing that kept me from having an anxiety attack was thinking about my students.

I had a 4.0 in college. I scored in the top 15% Nationwide in my teaching exams. I have a license that is valid in any state in this country to teach anywhere from K up through 6th grade. I could get a good job no matter where I live. It wont pay much, but not everyone is motivated by money.

I spend a huge percentage of my free time trying to think of creative things for my students to do. I spend money that I don't have to make up the differnece when the school wont provide us with decent supplies. I spend 100% of my effort respecting, listening to and validating other people's most precious gifts. A point of pride for me is always doing right by my students and not just doing the easy thing. Coworkers are jealous of me because all of the kids rush in to me when I arrive, cry when I leave and the parents compliment me and seem to really love me. I get invited to birthday parties when no other teachers do. I have kids taking pictures of me so they have one at their house. I get invited to dinner. They ask me to babysit. When the weather is bad I have several families who give me directions to their house and offer a place to stay if I can't get home.

I am responsible for shaping the minds of the future of this country. I worked my butt off getting a quality education. I do all of this and I still make less than my 17 year old neighbor who works fast food.

So don't even try to tell me that I do not have a "real" job. Because really, he has no idea.

Thank you for letting me vent!

Feeling gross

2010-01-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

Most of my problems with losing weight stem from the fact that I don't want to be seen as attractive. No amount of therapy is ever going to erase the fact that I was molested during two different time periods. Adding to that the fact that my husband was cruel to me, making any intimate moments with him traumatic. No matter how many coping tools I have, I just can't shake the one way I can get people to stay away from me. My weight.

Don't get me wrong, I do think I am pretty. I just realize that the weight is a great barrier in getting people to stay away from me.

I also assume that people don't like me. My STBX always told me that people didn't like me and that I was a "bad" person. He compared me to the terrorists. How many people died during 911? And I was worse than the ones responsible for that? So yeah, I always felt like I was the lowest person on earth.

Then I got this job that I have now and a coworker who was leaving to work at a new center said to me "I really hope that I can be the Miss Jaime of my new job because everyone likes you. The kids, their parents, the employees."

And that was shocking to me, like, what? Really? People LIKE me? Of course people liked the fake me. The me that was pretending that life was perfect and my husband never called me a bitch or "punished" me by destroying my property, etc. Fake Jaime was easy to like. Fake Jaime didn't EXIST!!!

So the bulk of my therapy sessions over the last year have surrounded the fact that no one actually knew the real me.

But when B went to jail, I told my boss, because I knew I would have to go to court and miss work. I am sure she meant well, but she told my coteacher. Who told someone. Who told someone. Then it was in the newspaper. Then the people at church knew. Then my Mother was comforting me on Facebook, so then everyone I have ever known since childhood knew. Then I started crying in the bathroom during nap time. And of course my Dad asked my Uncle if we could borrow his truck to move my stuff, so then the family knew. The neighbors already knew, they had known for years.

So everyone knows that I am a liar and a fraud. Enter all of that "I always thought B treated you so well." Well, DUH. Of course he did in public. But seeing as you only spent an hour a week, at best, with him, you really have no idea what is going on behind closed doors.

Then comes the "Why didn't you just leave" stuff.

1. You really have NO idea what you would do until it happens to you.
2. How is that statement helpful? Really?
3. Are you offering a place to stay? Because if not, then just stop.

So I got a little moody! And I started hiding from people. I stopped talking. And I wasn't fake Jaime anymore because my fake life was over, so it was pointless. Once everyone knew I think I went in to shock a little bit. It is violating having your privacy invaded. Yes, I know, I am blogging about this, but I don't "Know" any of you in the way that I see you every day, so I feel it is different somehow.

And I don't think that people like the real Jaime. The one who gets really tired of being the only one who does dishes at work LOL Or the one who gets overwhelmed when you use too many words to say something.

This is why I like working with children. They are easy to understand.

I don't think people want to deal with me if I can not be happy all the time *pretend to be happy all the time*. It is very, very difficult for me to be myself.

So anyhow, this fat protects me a lot. And I like it for that purpose. It is a daily struggle to fight with myself because I want so badly to keep the one thing that keeps people away from me!

I am, as always, a work in progress.

The Tuesday Blahs

2010-01-05T21:04:00.002-05:00

I am blah-ey today. I don't think there is any reason, I just am.

For one, I miss my cats :0( I know B is taking care of them, but I still miss them :0( And no Mom, BooBoo does not make up for my three furrybabies. I love my parent's cat, but he is THEIR cat. My three were my babies. I also feel guilty for having so many medical bills that I can not move out in to my own place and take them with me. But there is nothing that can be done about it so I need to get on with it.

And this weather is making me feel blue. Snow, snow and more snow. Worrying constantly while driving. Seeing accidents. Sad :0(

And just feeling lonely.

Okay, now that I have depressed everyone LOL Carry on! :0)

Monday

2010-01-04T22:51:00.002-05:00

Today was a so so day. I woke up an hour early with back pain. I get back pain daily now that I have the BiPap machine. Before I used to toss and turn every few minutes. My body is not used to sleeping in one place. The mattrass is brand new and never hurt me three months ago before BiPap, so I know it is not that. I am hoping that the more weight I lose, the better my back will feel. I am sure it will :)

Tomorrow we are having grilled chicken for lunch. I am probably going to eat that. I will have a slim fast for breakfast. No clue on dinner, I wish this house had a meal plan. When I lived with my husband I had the meals planned a month in advance. LOL

My Dad has already requested that I make chicken fajitas again. He is off on a quest to find the right seasoning, they stopped carrying the one I like at the one grocery store. I usually eat them without the chicken, I love the veggies so much. So it works out for us.

I am having a hard time giving up meat. I think it is a laziness and lack of planning issue more than anything. I feel that the cow that my Aunt raises every year is at least treated ethically on her farm. They treat them like pets. But still, I am sure he suffers when he goes to the slaughter house :( And I call my students "Chickens" so I will have the following conversation tomorrow with E:
E: Miss Jaime, is this dead chicken?
Me: Yes, honey.
E: You call us chickens :(

Yeah, I do call them chickens. Blah! I hate that. Of course the fact that she understands the chicken is dead does not seem to make her not want to eat it LOL I have no idea why she is so interested in this lately, maybe her parents are saying some things at home, but I am pretty sure they eat meat in that household. I just always feel like such a hypocrite eating meat. I need a plan, ladies. If I started planning this would be easier.

Veggie Haters :P

2010-01-03T22:18:00.003-05:00

I love veggies. Raw, cooked, seasoned or plain. Love them!!

My Mom is a veggie hater :P I made dinner for my parents both Saturday and Sunday. My Dad seemed to enjoy it. My Mom wouldn't even eat my spaghetti sauce because it had blended up veggies in it. Seriously, no one ever would have known. She told me she wanted to stop eating meat, so I just assumed that meant she would be in to eating vegetables ;)

My Dad made a gorgous salad tonight too. He makes some impressive salads. He grows most of his own salad fixings in the summer. Yum!

I even put meat in the sauce because they are both big meat eaters- it is meat raised on my Aunt's farm, grass fed, hormone free, as good as it is going to get meat wise- but still she wouldn't eat it because of those silly vegetables.

:0(

But I will still try again next weekend. There has to be something I can fix that she will like. I figure maybe she just generally hates my cooking- which very well may be true, I never really learned how to cook properly, however, my STBX is 320 pounds so I must have been doing something right LOL

Tomorrow's food:
Breakfast:
organic almond butter on an english muffin *Dad goofed and got regular instead of whole grain.. oooops!*
Lunch:
turkey and one slice of cheese with brown mustard on a whole grain sandwich thin
baked beans- I have to eat with my students, so this is my contribution to eating with them LOL
whatever fruit they serve at school
Snack:
Kashi Go Lean Crunch, plain (as in, no milk)
unsalted almonds
Dinner:
If there is any left, I will have my spaghetti and a salad. If Dad eats it for lunch, I will have either have what Mom makes or a vegan frozen meal.

Five months free!

2010-01-03T00:47:00.002-05:00

It is after midnight, so technically yesterday marked five months free from my abuser!

And it feels great!!

Today was a good day. I made dinner tonight, chicken fajitas with lots of peppers and onions. Yum! My Dad seemed to like them but not so sure about my Mom. She doesn't eat a lot of vegetables so that threw her off, I think.

Tomorrow I am making spaghetti.

I am a bit bummed out because one of my favorite sets of winter pajamas do not fit me. Not even close. But that is okay, they will fit me soon enough!

I can not thank you all enough for your supportive comments. It means a lot to me that people are reading and sharing my pain and happiness. I don't feel that I have a good support system in real life, brought on by my own embarassment over the abuse. So it helps to have people to share my feelings with :0)

Stats as of 12/28/2009

2010-01-02T00:29:00.005-05:00

Okay, here are my stats:

Date: 12/28/09
Weight: 458
Neck: 17.5
Bust: 65
Waist: 67
Hips: 75
Thighs: 30
Calf: 23.5
Upper Arm: 21

Pictures:

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T00:55:00.002-05:00

I approach this new year with mixed emotions. On one hand, I plan to make this the best decade ever. On the other hand, January 1st is my husband's birthday, so I am feeling out of sorts about it.

I am happy to not have to endure the annual birthday trip to PA to eat at a restaurant that I don't like with his family who were usually rude. So yeah, that is good for me :) I am tempted to call him to wish him a happy birthday- I told you I was sick. That is such a sick thing. I wont call him though, don't worry.

I prefer not to make a list of "resolutions" because they are pretty much just made for breaking anyhow ;) Instead I have some New Years goals that I would like to work towards:

1. Getting in to bed by 10 PM.
2. Walking 3 times a week for exercise.
3. Getting in to a routine of daily Bible study again.
4. Daily journaling, either online or with pen and paper.
5. Working towards my long term goal of eating vegan.

Those are a few things I am working towards this year. Wish me luck! :0)

Finally home..

2009-12-30T23:00:00.002-05:00

So tonight I am upstairs in my room and I am looking around. I realize that I haven't really bothered to unpack here, and that I don't really consider it to be home. It doesn't look like my room anymore, because it is now a sewing room LOL But it is, in fact, my HOME now. I am not going back to my husband, and I am not financially able to live on my own until these medical bills are under control. So I have to wrap my brain around the fact that I am home.

So I need to give myself permission to go to my storage unit and bring my boxes of books here, and put them on the bookshelf. I have to give myself permission to take some of my parent's misc things out of the drawers and pack them away to make room for my clothes. I have to give myself permission to put my tylenol in the medicine cabinent. I have to give myself permission to hang up some pictures, some drawings the chickens make me and some of my things that make me say "Hey, this is where I live!"

I moved a lot as a child so I never really quite got the concept of unpacking, and it shows!

I need to come at this with an attitude of gratitude.

Saturday will mark five months since my husband was taken out of our home in handcuffs. It marks the day my entire world shifted. It marks the day that I had to learn how to stand on my own two feet- even though my parents would rather do it for me ;) It marks the worst financial crisis of my entire life (seriously, he was a terrible husband, but he at least made income enough to pay these bills LOL). I keep thinking "Hey if I was still with B, he could write a check and pay this hospital in full right now, as it is I am paying them for the next year!" But at what price, though? My emotional and physical health and stability! Not worth it. I will gladly make my monthly payments, forever if I have to, to live in peace with myself.

I had a comfortable financial life with him. But I was not supported in any other way. Thankfully he lost his job after I left so that I was not tempted to go back.

Which is a terrible thing to say, I know. It hurt me too, I lost my insurance. But I think that he needed to be knocked down a little bit, because he still maintains that it is my fault that he hit me, blah, blah, blah.

In the end, it all comes down to my husband not being able to do what my 4 and 5 year old students learned a year ago.

Use. Your. Words.

But right now I am sad. I feel lonley. I don't understand why I feel so drawn to this man who has given me the worst decade of my life.

I just need to unpack. I need for this to look like a bedroom. I need to be able to have more than the 5 outfits that I rotate because I can't find anything else to wear. Maybe I need a hobby. It still hurts to crochet. The surgeon said I would be clear by December, and it is almost over, but still it hurts a bit. I think maybe it is because the muscles are weak.

I am out of sorts because my schedule was different this week. My co teacher was out of town and I miss her. We have extra students and that throws us off.

And can I just say that I really want the Super Mario Brothers game for my DS? LOL One of the school aged kids brought it with him today and I was playing it. It reminded me of when I was a kid, playing Nintendo. My Mom says that I should just buy it with my Christmas gift cards that two of the kids gave me, but I can't justify spending $36 on a game when my parents have to buy my groceries. I mean, I gave my Mom the gift cards, but she said she will give them back to let me get this game. She even offered to go get it for me tomorrow. But I just can't do that. It feels irresponsible. I tried to get it used, but can't find it anywhere yet. Maybe I will keep looking. Eh, it is a silly game, but it sure was fun! LOL

Anyway, it is time to live here. As much as it is possible to. I can probably squeeze a lot in to this sewing room if I try hard enough! :0)

Controlling my environment

2009-12-30T19:31:00.001-05:00

One issue that I had today was the abundance of food around me! Mainly at work. The parents are sending us pizza, cookies and donuts for the holiday season. Okay, it is over now, no more goodies until Teacher Appreciation please!!

I need a better plan. It is so hard for me to resist the yummy foods they serve at school. I need to start packing a lunch. Breakfast is okay because I am usually not there, and I told my Dad to stop cooking for me in the mornings.

So now I need to take control of lunch! Wish me luck.

Got weighed!

2009-12-29T19:36:00.001-05:00

Sorry I did not post yesterday, we are having some internet issues in our house right now.

I got permission to use the scale at the Urgent Care. They showed me how to use it. I weighed 458, which was less than I thought, so that is good!

I am working on making better food choices. And I walked around the mall once yesterday :) I plan to do it again tomorrow :)

Let's make a deal...

2009-12-27T23:45:00.003-05:00

My Dad and I have made a deal. He is going to quit smoking and I am going to try to lose weight.

We have been eating these ridiculous breakfasts together lately, bacon, eggs, toast, etc. We have both gained from that. So from now on we are going to have oatmeal with apples. And he is not going to slip outside to smoke!

Wish us luck!

Also, my wonderful Mother called the utility companies for me, and pretended to be me. Not ethical, I know that- but I could not miss any more work to deal with them and she was off and willing. The great news is that the phone company admitted that they were in the wrong to send me to collections like they did. I mean, I never got the bill, my name wasn't supposed to be on the account AND it hadn't even been past due 30 days yet! So they said that my credit is totally NOT going to be affected. Yay for me!!

And my STBX has not contacted me in one blissful week. It has been heaven not dealing with his nonsense.

And I got served to testify against him! I wasn't home but they left it with my Dad. I told them that I wasn't missing any more work to chase them down to get my papers, so I guess they got the hint LOL Our new court date is in March.

My Dad also told me that he is going to help me pay for the lawyer. What a relief! I was going to have to get a second job to pay for this process of getting divorced.

I am still broke as a joke, but the medical bills are getting paid down. And the lawyer seems to think that I wont be responsible for any of the marital debt because of the money he had in retirement. Yay! My students gave me a lot of gift cards this Christmas and I gave them to my Mom to help her pay for groceries. It hurt a lot that I could not contribute to the household. At least this way I can help offset the cost of feeding me. LOL

My Dad put snow tires on my car. That is a worry off of my mind for sure!

I am still loving my job. Some days I am shocked that I get paid to do this. It is the hardest job ever though, but I love it. Those kids bring me so much joy!

Tomorrow I am going to see if I can get weighed somewhere, since I am working the early shift. Then I will take some pictures to post.

I hope that everyone has a great week!

Please take my advice

2009-12-21T22:51:00.002-05:00

I know it is almost impossible for most people to ever imagine themselves in a situation where they would have to leave their husbands. No one ever wants to think about that. I didn't think that I would ever leave mine and I was being abused the whole time.

But if you are ever in a situation where you leave a home that utilities are on in your name, please just cancel them. Do not rely on the utility company to change the name, there is always the possiblity that human error will happen and they will somehow mess it up.

My credit is dinged. I am responsible for all of these bills at a house that I have not lived in for four months. And when I tried to call him about it he screamed at me and hung up. Not just a putting the phone down, a SLAMMING the phone down. Like he really needed to do that. Very childish, but what should I really expect from him?

God wants me to be strong. I am doing it, Lord, even if I am crying the whole way.

So as I am sitting here crying, when I should be sleeping *seriously, my Dad can open my mail from now on. I just wont do it, I can't stand getting hate mail after work when they are closed and I have to wait until the next day to call about it* something has clicked in my head.

I have gained 250 pounds since I met my H. I ate because it made me feel better. I did not have another outlet. If you read my last blog you will know that I basically lived a lie for 9 years. I pretended to have a good relationship because I felt that it was my fault that things were not going well. So I ate it. All of it.

And now I weigh over 400 lbs and it hurts to walk. I lost half of my eyesight and I almost died in my sleep from the apeas. I feel like God keeps giving me wake up calls about this and I keep ignoring them. But tonight, as H was screaming and me and hanging up on me, I realized that as long as I allow this to happen, I will continue to be an abused woman. Even if I am out of the house.

He may not be hitting me or slapping me, but I am still cowering and taking the blame for everything.

And I am tired of it. I am functioning at the cellular level right now. But that is not good enough for me anymore.

I want to thrive. I want to hold my head up high and smile at people. I want to be the person my chickens think I am. They bring me so much joy. It is my belief that those kids have kept me getting out of bed in the mornings. I just don't know where I would be right now without them. And I know that they probably wont ever remember me, because they are so young. I don't think I have any memories from when I was 5. But they have made a huge impact in my life.

Why didn't you just leave?

2009-12-13T22:05:00.002-05:00

Those are the most hated words for an abuse survivor to hear. I am ultra ironic because I used to manage our local domestic violence shelter. So basically, I should have known better.

Should have.

About 5 months in to our relationship, my husband told me that I was worse than the terrorists who flew in to the World Trade Center. I was shocked at first. I could not believe that I could possibly be worse than those people. The worst thing I had ever done in my life was ripping a picture of a figure skater out of a magazine that belonged to the library when I was a teenager. Yep, that sums up my "bad" past. I am not condoning what I did, but certainatly it could not make me worse than terrorists!

But B was very smart. He only had to go to high school for one year when he graduated. His grades were always very high and I believed that he was smarter than me. So I believed that I was worse than the terrorists.

The first time he hit me was because I did not treat him well enough in front of his friends. I guess I was supposed to be more of an adoring girlfriend. I wasn't adoring enough because I disagreed with something that he said. Basically he said something that he was wrong about and when I corrected him, he flipped. He backhanded me two days later for it, after ignoring me for those two days.

One time we were at my house- I was living with my parents- and I realized that there wasn't any toilet paper in the bathroom. I opened the door a bit and asked him if he could bring me a roll from the hall closet. He said no. He said that it was my fault that I wasn't smart enough to look before I used the bathroom. He started yelling at me for being ignorant. Then he demanded that I take him home, but I was scared to get in to the car with him because he was in such a rage. So he picked up my purse and started taking things out and throwing them out the door in to the yard. Then he picked up a lamp and started smashing the living room furniture. He destroyed most of it. There was stuff everywhere. My Dad came home then and I just drove B home and I was shaking the whole time.

He was banned from our house from that point, for a year or so. I don't know why I did not break up with him. I think because I did not think that I could do any better. He was my first boyfriend. I was 22. No other men had wanted anything to do with me. I am overweight, although I weighed much less then than I do now. My Father- and yes I am over this now but it still hurt nat the time- used to tell me that boys wouldn't like fat girls. So at the time I was just thankful that someone liked me, a fat girl.

I always thought that he would change if I was only a better girlfriend/wife/person.

Once a friend of his kicked our cat. I asked him later why did he not say anything? He hit me.

He used to call me idiot, stupid, bitch, etc, all the time. He used to have our computer set up so that the password prompt would pop up and say "What are you?" and I would have to type in "A bitch" to get on. That was so humiliating.

If I would cry, he would kick me out of the bed and on to the floor. He choked me once because I would not pet the cat. I think the worst thing was having things thrown at me. I hated that. He would throw things all the time, or break my things. I was always afraid to let him know that I liked something, for fear that he would destroy it.

A little boy at my work gave me a teddy bear last year. At the time my heart was empty. This child had never really spoken to anyone until I started working with him. I felt and still feel a bond with him that can not be expressed in words. He fills me with such joy and loved me even when no one else did. He gave me this teddy bear that I cherised. I was always so afraid that my husband would destroy that bear. In fact, I remember once thinking that him destroying that bear might be the ONLY thing I would ever leave him for. That teddy bear was physical representation for me that another human being in this world loved me. And darnit, some days that was all that kept me alive.

He would leave me sometimes if we would go somewhere. Like once we stopped at a gas station on the way to visit his family. We were far from home. He got mad at me for something, I don't even remember what I did, and he left me. He left me there with no cell phone, no money, no nothing. My purse was in the car. I will never forget that feeling. He finally came back and said that if I was good, he would let me back in the car.

The worst happened last December. I think maybe a year ago yesterday, perhaps. I was making his Crystal Light. Fruit punch flavored. The jug it was going in held two gallons. I added maybe 2 ounces more water than he liked. It couldn't have been more than that, because the pitcher itself wouldn't hold much more. He was so mad at me. He started screaming at me, saying that I was a stupid bitch. An idiot. Something in my head clicked. I KNEW I wasn't stupid. To get your teaching license you have to take a series of tests. I scored in the top 15% over a 5 year period of time nationwide on this test. My University made a big deal out of it, and I got awarded this special certificate, etc. My grades were high, I had a 4.0. I knew I wasn't stupid, even though for years he had convinced me of that. So I told him that I wasn't stupid.

I knew that was a mistake. As soon as the words left my mouth I knew that I was in trouble. He threw that pitcher of Crystal Light at me. It was everywhere. We had carpet in our kitchen, a light blue. It was red. There was fruit punch on the walls, on the fridge, in the pantry, on my beautiful apron that my friend made for me. It was all over me. In my hair and on my body. That was the worst thing he ever did to me. Of all the times I was hit, kicked, slapped, called names, choked, abandoned at various locations, this was the worst.

I decided that night that I was going to kill myself. I took a shower. Then I got a knife from the drawer. He called the police. They are in my house and I remember being so embarassed because I had laundry in the basket that I hadn't folded yet. I had to promise that I wouldn't kill myself. They saw what he did to the kitchen and they made him leave. I spent the next two days cleaning the carpet. It never did come out and to this day it is pink.

We are going to have this little Christmas sing on Wednesday for the parents. Then afterwards we are inviting them back to our classroom for punch and cookies. I can not make the punch. I just can not do it. I can not look at fruit punch or drink fruit punch without thinking about that night.

So we went to marriage counseling. Not just any marriage counseling, we had the Dean of the psychology department at the University to meet with us in his private office. No one, and I mean NO ONE gets in to see this man. In fact, my friend is a therapist and he did not believe me when I told him who our counselor was. He only has one appointment, during lunch time one day a week and as luck would have it, the couple he had been seeing stopped going the day I called. He was $225 an hour. I thought for sure our marriage would be saved.

B called me names in front of the marriage counselor too. Blah. He told me that in his professional opinion, B loved the cats more than he would ever love me. And that he felt that B was the kind of person who wanted to be alone.

All of these incidents- he never once apologized for what he did. He told me that I made him hit me. I made him do these things. It was my fault. No one else would want me.

When I finally left him after the arrest, I arranged to go to the Water company to switch it in to his name. I had to see him in person to do this, but it was important for me that the cats have water in the house, so I did it. I also called the phone company and jumped through hoops to get the telephone over in his name.

The cable I left because he was paying the bill. When I found out he didn't pay one of the phone bills from when it was in my name, I decided to cancel the cable. I explained why, and they said that they would give him five days to call them and get it in his name, so there would be no interruption in service. However, he would have to pay the current rate, not the $5 or so cheaper rate I had locked in under my name.

He flipped out. The only way to avoid him paying the extra $5 was for us to go together in person and switch it. I didn't want to do that. The office is in another town. It was my day off. I work hard during the week. Plus, I don't want to see him. He threatened me and told me that I would get in to trouble with the court because turning off utilities is frowned upon. Then he said that he would put a restraining order on me if I didn't do what he said.

At first I was scared and I almost went and did what he wanted. Then I thought about it. I DID arrange for the actual utilities that were in my name to be switched, the water and the phone. I don't consider cable to be a life or death situation. And they gave him five days to call them. And $5 a month? He deserves way more punishment than that, so cry me a river. I was worried that he would file a restraining order on me, when my Mom said "And that will tell you to stay away from him... and you already DO stay away from him, so who cares? Let him do it! You haven't done anything to warrent a restraining oder!"

And that made sense. I mean, I haven't stalked him, harassed him, nothing. HE is contacting ME. Not the other way around. Besides, I would LOVE to tell my story to a judge right now. Let him file for one. I kind of hope he does just so that the judge can see what is really going on.

But back to my original statement. The question: Why didn't you just leave?

I didn't leave because I didn't know how.

If you have ever been floored by someone in your life telling you that they are a homosexual, you might understand where I am coming from. I had to come out of the domestic violence closet, so to speak. Here I was, a former employee of a domestic violence shelter, telling people that for 8 years of my life, I was a victim of domestic violence. Those are not easy words to say to people!!

I am basically a liar. And a hypocrite. Well, it's true! I counseled women and gave them advice that I wasn't willing to take myself. For what it's worth, at the time I thought that my abuse was not nearly as bad as the women's in my shelter. I always felt like my situation was nothing compared to theirs.

But abuse levels the playing field. It equals us all out. It doesn't care about race, religion, gender, education or economic class. That doesn't matter. It makes us all the same.

I was a good actress. I lied to everyone. I pretended to have a wonderful marriage. I made up elaborate excuses for his behavior. I defended him to my family. I would beg and plead with him to please be nice when he met my new friends. I lived in a constant state of fear that my illusion would come crashing down on me. And it did on more than one occasion.

I used to make myself sick with worry, always the worry. It was a horrible way to live.

My parents already knew he was a jerk, because of the fits he would throw in front of them. His way of isolating me was to turn my family and friends against me by acting terribly.

Why didn't I leave?

1. Where would I go? He knows where the shelter is because I used to work there. He knows where my parents live. He knows where my friends live. Where my Aunts live, even where some of my coworkers live. I couldn't afford to move somewhere, or else I would have. And this is coming from a person who HAS family to go to. Some people don't even have that.

2. What am I relying on him for? Money, for starters. He made almost twice what I make. I am a teacher. I love my job and truly I can not imagine doing anything else, but let's face it, it does not pay much. I am paying off bills now over a year long time period that I could have paid in full if I was still with him. Luckily for me he got laid off shortly after I left, so money wasn't something that was luring me back, like it had in the past!
Medical insurance anyone? I love my job but their insurance stinks. I lost my insurance when I left him.

3. I drove his car. He took it from me when I left. I had to buy a new one and then it got smashed by a ladder. Read a few posts back for that story LOL

4. I couldn't take my cats with me. My parents wouldn't allow it. I had to leave them behind and I mourn their loss :(

5. My freedom? I live with my parents now, so I am now back in to that following their rules thing. I wanted to dye my hair pink for Halloween, my Mom said no. I want to go shopping, Mom says no. At least I am not getting beat up though, so it is not so bad. But some people don't handle going back to their childhood as well as I have.

6. Divorce is expensive. I have no idea how I am going to pay for the lawyer I am going to in two weeks. I have no idea how I am going to pay for most things right now LOL

7. Everything I own is in storage. Fun.

So there is the short version as to "Why didn't you just leave". I could probably ramble on even longer about it, but I will spare you!

But please understand that no man or woman ever lives this way on purpose. They just can't see a way out at the time!

Christmas Crafting!

2009-12-13T18:30:00.006-05:00

I made ornaments for my students, whom I lovingly call my Chickens. I am not a great crafter, but what I lack in ability, I make up for in enthusiasm!

Here are the fruits of two days of labor :)

I put their names and the year on them too.

Here is mine, on the tree :)

Shopping..

2009-11-22T22:15:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I wasn't supposed to be born a male. I dislike shopping. Women are supposed to enjoy shopping, right? For me, it is like torture. I am fine to click a mouse and order online for the things that I need. But putting me out in the malls or shopping centers truly is like torture.

That being said, I live with my parents now. So I have to fit in with them. My Mom loves to shop. She wants me to go. I go because I want her to like me, but I can't fake enjoying it. I just can't. I dislike how people do not look where they are going and almost knock me over. I dislike spending 3 hours trying to find a gift for an Aunt who doesn't really need anything anyway- seriously, gift cards are my friend! I dislike it when cars try to hit pedestrians. And when registers don't ring up things correctly. I am not creative enough to shop. I also dislike getting gifts in general, I am always trying to reduce my items, not increase them. So maybe that is why. At any rate, my Mom told me today that we have nothing in common. I just want so badly for her to like me. I feel so bad that nothing I do is up to her standards. I try, but my interests are so very different from hers.

Maybe I would like shopping more if I had money. LOL Catch me once I dig my way out of these medical bills and have money to spend. Perhaps then I will like shopping. I doubt it though.

I also do not enjoy decorating for Christmas. I know that is just wrong on so many levels. I rarely put up a tree when I lived on my own. I think maybe I have sensory issues. Too many things around me make me uncomfortable. Plus it was just another thing for the cats to knock over. And my marriage was so bad that he was hardly ever home. And when he was he wasn't happy to see me, or the house. So decorating just wasn't my thing.

I am probably depressing people. I am not trying to! I just really wonder if I should have been born a man, since so many of my dislikes are shared by men LOL

Good news..

2009-11-16T22:10:00.002-05:00

Well my chickens are rocking their Thanksgiving play rehearsals.

My sinus infection seems to be clearing up as there is no longer a marching band playing in my head :-) It is draining out my throat though so I am coughing. I have officially lost my voice. Today is day two of silence. I think I have ultra sensitive vocal chords, as I lose my voice a lot, about 4 times a year LOL

If anyone has any suggestions on how to ease the wicked pain on the left side of my chest and around to my back (from the coughing) let me know. I can't get rid of it with IcyHot. I guess it is a muscle very deep in the lungs. It is aggrivated.

Things are looking up for me. God is in control and I trust Him. Thank you to all who read/pray for me.

Feeling better

2009-11-15T15:54:00.002-05:00

Well enough days have gone by that I am no longer freaking out about my car. The damage is only cosmetic. I can't afford to fix it, but I am remaining thankful that the damage wasn't worse. A friend told me "It's just a car." And it is.

I had a long lunch with my husband today. We actually managed to get along. I have laryingitis though so we communicated via my writing and him talking. He is still looking for a job. It must be hard being laid off right now. We still agree that we can not mend our relationship. We are both happier without being in that volitile situation.

I am still on the medicine for the sinus infection. I have been coughing so much, that is why I lost my voice. Last night I could not wear my BiPap mask for several hours and I woke up every few minutes. I don't know how I managed to live my life like that for so many years and not even realizing what I was missing out on. Eventually at around 5 AM I was able to breathe enough to wear it and salvaged about 4 hours of sleep.

I cleaned my room yesterday to get it extra clean. The slighest bit of dust bothers my allergies. I am washing all of the bed linens today as well. I can not wait for more frosts to kill whatever it is that I am allergic to outdoors.

You're kidding, right?

2009-11-12T18:47:00.001-05:00

My life feels like a joke sometimes. Other times I wonder what I did wrong to be so punished? I feel punished sometimes. Today I do, anyway.

I was sick so I made an appointment with my doctor. As I was driving on the highway a ladder flung in to my car. My new car. I bought it because my husband took my other car from me. So it was new and it was actually mine and not his. And a ladder flew in to it and damaged the front. I can not afford to pay for it. I wonder if maybe I just do not deserve to have a nice car? It just seems that I have never had a nice car and when I finally got one, he took it from me, so I got one of my own, and then a ladder flings in to it.

Then I had to pay $75 for the medicine. I don't have $75 so I wont be able to pay someone out of my next pay check. I am praying for strength. I just don't know how I can get through this life anymore. I feel like every time I pull myself up I get knocked back down again. And I have to wonder what on earth I did to somehow earn this. The blindeness, the apnea, the thousands of dollars in bills that I can not pay. It is hard not to just curl up and die.

Thank you, Veterans!

2009-11-11T20:29:00.002-05:00

Thanks to everyone who has served our country and their families :-)

Today was a boring day. I relaxed for most of it. I read some. I did some dishes. Nothing too interesting. It was a nice change of pace, having a day off in the middle of the week.

I am sniffling and coughing. Not sure what is up. I lost my insurance with my soon to be ex, and my new insurance is not good at all. So I am praying that I wont need to see a doctor. I am barely paying the medical bills I have already.

Court was cancelled on Friday. It will be rescheduled for after the new year.

I got 100% on the first month of BiPap machine use. So basically it pretty much fixed my sleep problems. Now the trick is keeping it when I can't actually pay for it LOL That is in God's hands :-)

Hobbies

2009-11-10T22:51:00.001-05:00

Okay, time for something lighthearted for a change.

I am addicted to this game called "Farmville" at Facebook. I don't know, there is just something about planting, plowing and harvesting that really excites me. And the whole making fake money thing is cool, too.

I have one cow and two chickens. Plus a ton of crops.

I also enjoy the "Happy Aquarium" game. I have 9 fish and one crawler. Okay so basically I do not have much of a life right now LOL. But this stuff keeps me amused.

I dislike the word "victim", BUT!

2009-11-09T21:22:00.002-05:00

When I left my husband I moved. Obviously :lol: Yeah, duh Jaime, of course you moved. Anyway...

I moved and I was worried that when my husband went to court, they might need to call me as a wittness. Therefore, I went out of my way to call the PA and make sure that she had my new phone number and address. Truthfully, I could really do without going to court at all, but I was concerned that one day I might get pulled over for a speeding ticket and get arrested for not appearing in court LOL

They said that they would be serving me with the papers telling me what day, time, etc. I already knew the day because my husband told my Mom the day his hearing was. The sherrif called and asked if I could meet him last Friday at a gas station to get the papers. I was there, he forgot the papers. He asked me to come again this morning to do it. I was there. I waited. He never showed.

So I call and the person who answered was so rude to me. He told me that the person who told me to meet him was off this week. Um, okay. And that maybe they would get me the papers by Thursday.

I am sorry but that is way beyond unacceptable. What if I have a boss who is demanding proof before letting me have the day off? I don't, but that isn't the issue. I don't know where in the world I am supposed to be. I don't know what time to be there. I don't know what they want from me, etc.

So he damanded that I come by this morning to get them. Um, I am already going to be late for work because your guy did not show. Now you want me to go 10 miles in the oppposite direction from my work?

He was so rude.

So I called the PA's office and told her that this was happening and that I was the victim and was being treated like a criminal. The only thing I did was get punched. I was not on trial. I did nothing wrong. I just do not understand why the police in my town can sometimes treat victims like criminals. It is not just me who feels this way, when I worked at the shelter I heard it a lot too.

Anyway, long story short, they said to come in tomorrow to get the papers, again going out of my way on my own time. Then they called to say that the case was continued and cancelled for Friday, I will get new papers.

I didn't even get the old papers.

But anwyay, next time they are coming to ME. I am not doing this again. They are earning a paycheck to serve papers to me, not to have me come in when they can fit it in to their schedule and to come in and have them cancel on me, etc. So either they drive them to my house, or they lose their wittness. I feel rude for feeling that way, but that is just how it is going to be!

Health and other assorted absurdities..

2009-11-08T22:19:00.004-05:00

I have had some unusual health issues this year.

In July one of my students was crying at nap time. She was upset because she thought that her Dad was going to pick her up early to go to Grandma's house. I kept reassuring her that he would be there later, but she was convinced that her family had gone to Grandma's without her. :-(

I finally sat down and told her to go get another gigantic pillow from the book corner. I held her and eventually she fell asleep. I closed my eyes too. When I opened them, my right eye felt funny. It hurt a bit. I assumed it was from the detergent we wash the pillow cases in, because I am allergic to it.

Then that evening I went to another student's house for dinner. They have a dog and I am allergic to dogs. My eye felt worse. I assumed it was the dog, so I took some Benadryl and went to bed.

The next day I had lost a chunk of my sight. My husband insisted that I go to the doctor. I went to the local drop in Urgent Care clinic. The nice doctor there did a really thorough exam. He was looking for debris or any irritation. After about a half hour he gave up. He found nothing. He suggested an eye doctor and told me that if it got worse to go to the ER ASAP.

Later that night it was worse. The pain was pretty bad. My husband took me to the ER. Because I was able to read the eye chart, they did not believe me. They did a CAT scan and did not find anything. They gave me some muscle relaxers, told me that the eye doctor would be calling me and sent me home.

Two days later I was blinde in that eye.

The next day I was called by the eye doctor at the local hospital. I did not go to work that day, and my husband came home to go with me to the appointment. The nice nurse there had me do a color blindness test. I failed with my good eye. I could not see a thing out of the right eye.

The eye doctor walked in. Looked at the result of one of the tests the nurse had done, and told me that I probably had MS.

He didn't even know my name. He just glanced at the result of one eye test and told me I had MS. I stopped listening at that point. I started to cry. I wanted my Mother. My husband called her. She was there 10 minutes later.

They had to do another test on me, this one required that I lean in to a view finder and push a button when I saw flashes of light. It was hard to do with the tears streaming down my face. I failed. I think maybe I got one of them out of one hundred or something.

They called the neurologist upstairs. He was the one who had done the testing on my arms when I was being referred for carpal tunnel surgery. He got me in right then and there. I was a mess. I was crying. I was seriously irritable. He basically told me that the other doctor could not possible diagnose me with MS without any actual MRIs or testing. He admitted me to the hospital for heavy doses of steroids.

I did not enjoy that. I hated being there. They would not give me my medicine for my blood pressure. Then they put a sleeping aid in my IV without my permission. So I was up all night- I am one of "those" people who have the opposite reaction to sleep aids. I think I am like, the 5% or something. I was soooooooooooooo hot. The steroids make you feel like your insides are on fire. I figured my insurance was pretty bad so I knew I would be out the next day. They needed to do four MRIs though. I was too fluffy- for lack of a better word- for the hospital's MRI machine. This nurse came in and kept saying that I was too fat for the machine. She said it over and over again. Finally I said "Yes, I am too fat for it, I heard you the first 4 times." and she stopped.

My Mother drove me to another hospital with a bigger machine. That nurse had humiliated me. The new people were very kind. They did not use the word "fat" or make me feel bad at all. I was in the MRI machine for about an hour. It was very loud. They were worried that I would have an anxiety attack because it was pressing down on my stomach. I closed my eyes and started running the names of my students through my head. They make me happy. My marriage wasn't making me happy. That was all I could think about to keep me from freaking out. That I wanted to live to see my students again.

I missed a week of work. My Dad drove me to the hospital every day for 4 hours of steroid treatments. I was in the chemotherapy ward. They are very nice there. They probably have to be. Anyway, I was in a nice recliner, I had a TV, some magazines, they brought me lunch. I sat there and had the treatments for a few days. I remember one day I got back on the elevator to meet my Dad downstairs and a very surprised woman said "Oh, you are leaving?" I said: "Yes, I am only blinde in one eye, I do not have Cancer." and that made me laugh to myself. I was thankful for being blinde in one eye because I know that other people have it much worse.

I went home and I waited for my sight to come back. About a month later I asked my husband if I could borrow his flash drive for the computer. For some reason I wasn't able to get it to work. He called me names, like stupid, idiot, etc. Then he threw two candles at me. They made dents in the wall. Then he ripped a wire out of the computer and it stopped working. I wanted to print my lesson plans so I could leave. I don't know why it was so important to me to get those lesson plans, I mean, like, my boss would not have minded, especially if leaving right away would have prevented what happened to me next. I could not see out of my right eye at all. He came up on my right side. I did not see it coming. I did not see him punch me in the side of the head. But he did. I fell out of the chair.

I don't know how I got up, but I did. I think I knew that I had to stay alive. I was disoriented. I ran to the bedroom and grabbed the portable phone. I dialed 911 and he ran in after me and yanked the main unit from the wall. My cell phone had fallen out of my purse and I noticed it on the bed. I grabbed it and the call went through before he could take it from me. The police came. They arrested him. That was on August 2nd, 2009.

I have never fully regained my sight in that eye.

The police filed a restraining order on my behalf. When he finally got out of jail he went to live with his brother. I would have taken him back that night. I really would have. That is the sickness that is domestic violence. The next day I had an appointment with my therapist. He had been working with me for a year to leave this relationship. He told me that he had only ever given a direct opinion a few times in his career- they are not supposed to tell you what to do, that is not their job. But he looked at me and he told me: "I believe that he will kill you if you do not get out."

That was enough. I knew I had to leave.

Unfortunately I had to have surgery first on my right hand. Have you ever tried moving after carpal tunnel surgery? It is not possible. My Mother did most of it for me. If not for her, I just have no idea what I would have done. She is an angel. I swear she has wings. She packed me and moved me herself.

In September I moved back in with them.

Not exactly how I pictured my life. But, speed bumps, right? Not mountains.

Anyway, when I went for a follow up for the eye thing with my neurologist, he mentioned my other symptoms, my nasty morning headaches, etc. He suggested a sleep study. I went, and it turns out that I don't actually sleep. My oxygen levels were 49%. I stopped breathing 72 times an hour. And on a scale of 1 to 100, 25 is considered to be severe. I was at a 97. They told me that I must have really good moral character to be able to function in society, and that it was a miracle I hadn't been in a car accident. That was so scary for me. I almost died from sleeping. I laughed then too. I mean, who almost dies just going to sleep? Absurd. I have to laugh at these things, or else I would just cry or go insane.

I got my BiPap machine. I can't pay for it, but I have it LOL. I was dropped from my husband's insurance. I was able to get on at my work but it isn't as good and doesn't pay as much. I am looking for a second job and literally don't have two dimes to rub together at the moment. But I am alive. I am no longer living in fear of my husband. I am sure he could come here and try to hurt me, but if he can get past my Dad, more power to him. I am also not really afraid of him, I was more afraid when I was in his house than I am outside of it.

God is going to take care of me. And what is going to happen is going to happen. No use stressing over it. I get up, go to work, come home, go to bed and repeat. I find joy every day at work. Sure, there are times that I feel sorry for myself. And I have locked myself in the bathroom at work to cry a time or too. But overall, I am blessed. And I am walking to the chair.

Welcome to my blog!

2009-11-08T18:32:00.000-05:00

I love to blog. I used to blog every day before my life fell apart.

Well, it did not fall apart exactly. It just changed dramatically.

My boss says that I am at a speed bump in the path of my life. Sometimes it feels like a mountain, but speed bump works!

Walking to the Chair

Sad

Eight years, two months and twenty eight days...

The lessons we learn..

Pity Party

And the healing begins..

I finished my Treasure Map

Useless

Muxed Up Puzzle

Conditional Love

A letter to my husband

What it means to be dying.

My heart is broken

Uh, life.

Broken hearts and empty promises

Does anyone have the World's Smallest Violin?

That nasty green eyed monster..

Hooking again

Top 10 Reasons Why I Am Thankful For My Freedom

People say the dumbest things

Run Forrest!

Putting the pieces together again..

Rockstar

Justice was served..

A post that ended up being a blog post..

No turning back now

Feeling better

Tired

Well, his initials are B.S

When I grow up..

Pity Party time

Bills, bills, bills

Snow way!

Hypocrite

Rest in peace Hermies and Mr. Krab

I have $429 worth of...

Hellooooooooooooo

A bit depressed

Hoky vegetables, Batman!

Why are people rude?

Thank goodness today is over!

Some people shouldn't be allowed to talk

Six months ago...

I joined today

Updates galore!

Thinking

So duct tape is okay then, right?

This is a TMI post. You have been warned!!

Two in one night?!

Bored?

New schedule

Returning to church

Disaster

Fasting

Movie Day!

Favorite chicken

"We put icing on everything at Bible School!"

Good update

Tragedy, comedy, you be the judge!

Back from the murky depths of the computer repair shop

What is normal?

Long day tomorrow!

*waving the white flag*

Who knew? He was right about something..

I usually have a good sense of humor..

Feeling gross

The Tuesday Blahs

Monday

Veggie Haters :P

Five months free!

Stats as of 12/28/2009

Happy New Year!

Finally home..

Controlling my environment

Got weighed!

Let's make a deal...

Please take my advice

Why didn't you just leave?

Christmas Crafting!

Shopping..

waving the white flag