it's been a year
wednesday, december 21, 2016

~*~

this year has been...i don't even know how to describe it. definitely eventful. good lord busy (mostly because BABY!). and something of a blur. other than the last month (and, well, even some of that), i have no idea what i accomplished. really, probably not much of anything i wanted. i don't even want to LOOK at my goals from the beginning of the year because i know pretty much none of them happened.

which is why updating here really is important. it serves as a reminder of ALL THE THINGS. especially with my swiss cheese brain.

and as a side note, that i didn't update here not even as much as my usual average, is depressing in other ways. this has to be one of my favorite layouts, and it just didn't get used as much as last year's layout. yes, a new layout is being developed for next year (mostly an old layout for a now closed section of the site being reworked because of time constraints at the moment), but i may use this one again sometime in the future when i'm back to being consistent with my journaling.

most of this year has been about baby drama. our first grandson was born january 30th. hubs and i were all set to raise him, but the father was an ass, putting it mildly. it was done when he attacked and attempted to choke my husband. we decided to give baby boy over to dad (with much misgivings, but in the end, our safety was being threatened, and my first responsibility is to my son), but his other grandmother took him...for a short time. when my daughter moved in for a bit to look for work, she handed baby boy over to them but without any of the things we sent over with him to her (and to this day, we're missing blankets, toys, bibs, bottles, and other knickknacks that should have been given over to them and later come back to us). according to her, dad pretty much just wanted to be able to interact with baby when he wanted and not have any part in actual care. she finally got fed up and moved back up here with us. she has plans to eventually move out of the country, and dad will either be ready to take baby boy or baby boy will go with her. unfortunately, once he realizes she's serious, we're worried that he'll do whatever he can to try to force her to remain here. mind you, none of this is about baby boy but about dad controlling HER.

and that has probably been the second most exhausting thing to deal with this year: baby boy's dad.

the most exhausting thing i'm sure has been the most exhausting for just about everyone in the u.s.: the election. and i won't even go into that here.

and we're not the only ones having problems with dads and kids. my oldest still lives with the father of her second baby and his family even though they're not together (bad finances, bad location), and there was an incident with his grandmother that got transmitted to baby cat's school. that triggered another child services case, and it was decided that it would be best to send baby cat to spend time with her father this summer. well "this summer" turned into "we're filing for custody up here". there's just so much going on with phoenix, and i can't even begin to unpack it, especially since she has continued her separation from her famly that was started by the last two men in her life. i've been told she thinks we've done nothing for her EVER, and i try to keep in mind that she's still in denial of the abuse and control she's been through, but it's hard to have her believe/turn us into bad guys because we haven't done or have been unable to do the things she wants the way she wants (which, really, is what it comes down to, because she turns down everything we DO offer when it's not money—for example, we offered to let her stay with us with her girls just to get her out of the situation that triggered the new case, and she turned it down). i keep hoping one day she'll come back to her family. it's all i can do. i understand the damage abuse can do to your self and worth and well being. but i also know, the only way to overcome it is to actually admit the abuse, and she just won't do it. sadly, it means she's likely to get back into another abusive relationship, which will only reinforce all the damage she's already dealing with and make it that much harder for her to heal. it hurts my heart, but at this point, she has to figure it out. we've tried to reach her, and she's forcefully pushed us away.

all we can do is wait and support her emotionally as she tried to get her girl back.

middle girl, jewel, is working hard and attending college online. she's been doing really well too! her initial idea was possibly accounting, then it was possibly early childhood education/child care for a possible in home care business. at this point, we'll have to wait and see. she's working on her g.e.s mostly, so she has time to decide where she wants to go from here. her relationship with apd came to an end, and he's been a bit of dick since the breakup. i think they've finally gotten everything separated enough that they no longer have to deal with one another, and both are dating other people now. she's about to move again as well.

youngest is back with us, along with rk for the moment. she's back at work at wendy's (and there's talk of possibly putting her into management, so she says) and is informally apprenticed to a tattoo artist. the current path is to get a second job, get herself a car, then move out to her own place. she eventually wants to move overseas, with or without rk. she even has a timeline she hopes to accomplish each step. i suspect it'll take longer than she thinks, but haven't said anything. last time i tried to prepare a kid for a possible long time for meeting goals, i was accused of not being supportive, then she stopped even trying. with froggy, however, i am concerned her lack of patience will trip her up. in that, she's a lot like i was at her age, and i ended up dropping my dreams for a lot of years because of lack of patience. hopefully she'll be more determined than i was.

so, baby, baby takes over my life, baby moves out, froggy moves out, middle girl starts college, froggy moves back in with baby.

my weight has been in a holding pattern (well, some gains, but hopefully it's muscle), but as someone on lose it pointed out, i've had A LOT on my plate. taking care of an infant was whoa and sucked time like nothing else. now i baby sit when she works, so he still sucks time, just not quite as much since she cares for him when not working. i've got to get the weight thing back on track if i can though (although i'm still trying to figure out what "on track" means since i'm doing lifting in addition to cardio). we're losing our a.c.a. insurance next year because hub's made too little and georgia is one of the asinine states that refused to expand medicaid. there are huge concerns about this, especially for hubs, but not much we can do. we've been directed to some low/no cost clinics to hopefully help keep us on our meds, and our last doctor has tried to make sure we're on low/no cost options for those meds. for me, the biggest problem is the bp meds, and i've gone without before, but that's why the weight has got to start coming off again, preferably without losing the muscle i've gained.

i actually got an offer on one of my books by a small press, but had to turn it down in the end. the contract was predatory, with the press laying claim to things they in no way had right to claim as well as saying one thing about payments while having something else in the contract. and they wouldn't negotiate any of the half dozen or more points that were so problematic, and even argued about what i said those things were claiming. i had a contract lawyer look it over, and i'll take her word over a press that is making huge rights grabs. it was depressing to turn them down...then they shut down a few months later and i didn't feel so bad. still throwing said manuscript out there. while working on other stuff (one of which is driving me crazy in its difficulty in getting the plot sorted out).

we did go to con this year, sort of. i only went one day with kiddo, who again had a wonderful time meeting celebrities. on the one hand, i missed being able to go the whole weekend and spending time across the con, but i admit to not missing all the crazy running around and the cost of the thing. lol

we're also having another bad bug year. the fleas were crazy earlier, and now we're trying to sink the money we need to into the proper meds for them every month. it's tough, but rogue was getting sick, and the others weren't doing much better. we've also had a renewed attack of the roaches, which i can't do much about until we get next year's tax return. the plan at this point is to get plastic crates, and do in depth cleaning and repacking from the bug friendly cardboard boxes to the crates. the tax money will buy crates, spray, and the roach gel, and we'll vacuum, steam, unpack, clean, and repack. it'll take time, but it should help make it easier to keep things clean and help reduce or eliminate any new infestations of said stuff. between now and then, though? going nuts! hate the damn bugs.

the complex we're in has also been sold, which has me really nervous about next year's rent increase. it was raised by $65 this year, and there's talk of all the stuff they want to do to improve the apartments, which can only mean a bigger increase to cover the new mortgage and all the supposed upgrades that we're unlikely to see in the apartment we're in.

finally, hubs is thinking of moving on in his career. maybe. things look pretty unstable because of the election results, but he's been overlooked for promotions at both places this year. he's really feeling like he's in dead end positions. now we grant that he's been part time at e.t., but he did mention being open to returning to more hours recently and has yet to be taken up on that offer. meanwhile, he's coasting along at the coffee shop, but while he enjoys the TYPE of work he's doing there, he's pretty miserable in terms of the environment.

so, yea, it's been a year, with most of the real crap hitting the fan from september onwards.

and, honestly, i don't even want to THINK about next year.