feeling lost, trying to find me or at least direction

Yesterday it was a phone call from a collection agency, looking for Kenn Gean, have not seen or heard from that man for years, like Thanksgiving weekend 1999. A man who always lied, who chose to never live with me, to never provide a home I could relocate to and live with him and who chose to demand I accept his idea of a 'good marriage' or live without him.
My finances and self esteem improved greatly when I chose to ship his few items to his employer, never had a real home address for the man, nor a home phone number, it was short, expensive and stupid, and he is still having financial issues that get calls to my phone number, living in a state he never lived in, in a home he has never seen, a phone number he has never had.
But, then, I seem to make a lot of crappy choices in the men in my life, my life is a track record of crappy and stupid choices and then my working to clean up the mess, fix the financial issues, I even made a very crappy choice in the contractor for a new roof on this old house and it cost me about double what a court judgement finally awarded me out of the large deposit I made on that contract.
But I am keeping my bills paid, and I am slowly digging my way out of debt, and I am slowly fixing this old house, might even see sheet rock/drywall start going up in the attic space this weekend, not much but even 1 sheet is a start, right?
And I keep going to work every day, days I hurt, days I feel a bit under the weather, days my mood sucks and I want to call in and just ditch work.  I go to work and I do my job, and I keep working on staying stable, on dealing with what I have to deal with, 1 thing at a time, 1 day at a time.
No law says I have to be happy and cheerful all the time, no law says I have to always like myself and my life, or other humans.  I do like me, and my life, most of the time, and there is a very short list of other humans I really care deeply for, a longer list of those I like somewhat and a huge list of those who don't really matter to me.  And that too, is ok.
So, again today I am showered and dressed for work, and I will again go to the plant and do my job, and be ok with that, and know the money makes a difference in keeping the bills paid and in having a few dollars extra to buy something I want, to do a bit more work on this old house, add some music to my tunes collection, or a book, or meal out.
Huge difference from the skipping meals to feed my young children poverty I had when Stormy was small and Bryon was a baby, and a big difference from when I lived in Green City MO, and thought I would always have plenty of play money.
Much quieter life than when I lived in Idaho Falls, far better life than when I lived in Charleston S.C. or Maine.
Lots of years, lots of miles and living, and I am ok with who I am and where I am, but I don't want to go to work today, want to stay home and play in my attic, move stuff to get ready for the weekend project, shelves behind the future bathroom there, want to work on my shelf boards, 3 left to round the edges and sand down a bit, but no, I won't do that.  I will go to Cargill and work, and I will spend most of that time alone with tunes cranking in my ears, that iPod Touch I bought myself playing my choice of music.
 

whining about the cold and see the funny side

So, yesterday was over 70 and I ran my scooter around town before work, today it was below 40 when I got up and I am whining and wrapped in a lovely, hand knit, from hand dyed yarns shawl and know my life is pretty good.
The bills are paid, extra paid on those I pay this week, 1 account once again paid off, still funds in the bank, gas in the truck and a job to keep earning the funds that support this life.
I did give Ben the Apple nano6 that was sent in exchange for my nano1, it has software issues, I reload the software and for a while it will play through and then it is back to repeating the same song, I change songs manually but that really stinks at work, very inconvenient.
I know I still have my iPod Classic that has 80g drive and lots of room for more music than I have in it but I want the new Nano, but there are no cases yet for it, skins, yes, at DecalGirl, even the library shelves skin that matches what I have on my Kindle and on my iPad, which is still not yet paid for.
So, no reason to whine, I can turn the heat above 71, the attic has sun streaming in the south window and is very cosy, the skies are blue and the temp is coming up, but I want to whine about the cold and about wanting a silly little techie device I do not need.
So, maybe I will pay a bit more on my Lowes account or my account that has the Apple devices, or maybe I will just be smart about money and remember that I have plans to go to a Mall next Sunday with the Cargill bus trip and that I wan to do soffit work the next weekend and the bill for the materials for that are over $260 which currently means pulling from slush funds to help pay for the materials.
I have plenty of great yarns for knitting, food in the house and I can afford to buy more, the phone and internet bill is paid for this month, the truck and scooter both have full gas tanks.
And I know even with the overtime slowing down or ending in mid-December, I can still pay the heat bills, the water bills, keep food in the house, gas in the truck and like the life I have, but I am going to whine a bit today about the drop in temps and know we here have been very fortunate with our weather and know I have a really good life.
Small issues, and a really manageable life with far more good 'stuff' in it than bad. 

Blue but working through it

I don't have a reason, I don't know where it came from or why but I am again battling the blues once more.  Finances are ok, work is ok, old house is making some progress, my life is stable so no reason to be blue.
We are working every Saturday so it might be just that my body is getting tired, pain levels are ok, in fact, considering the long hours I am on my feet at work, pain level is very low.
The knitting is going ok, starting the heel on a sock for Jake, Sharon's shawl is doing well, and I have plenty of yarn and needles to play with.
No problems with the dating relationship and so far this fall, we are not bitter cold or drowning so I can't blame the weather either.
So, I work on doing what has to be done, here and at work, and I know this will pass, I pay better retention to my eating choices, and keep my finances in order and know I will be ok, it will lift, the clouds do lift, and I get ok.

Kids coming home to stay

I keep trying to get the baby birds out of Mommy's little nest but Ben is back living here, he is working and now Jake is coming home from the Marines, about 2 weeks or more sooner than I had expected, nothing here I had hoped to have done is done.
Ben has my attic space a huge mess and that is where I will be moving up to when Jake settles in here for the next 6 months to a year.
The utility area is a disaster area, metal roofing that will do most of the front porch is down there, along with both Ben and Jake stuff.  They also have a lot stored in my attic space, which is far from a finished studio.
My finances are very tight, no finds for materials, no funds to hire help for what I need help with or just cannot do.  The attic bathroom is not even framed in yet, the runners between cross ties are not in so there is no place yet to attach the top 2x4 that it takes to build the north and south bathroom walls. Both fall between ceiling supports.
Tearing my hair out will not gain a thing, today I will get the new filters in the water filter and the furnace, might even get some work done with foaming the remaining draft from where the house and foundation join.  It is a crawl under the west side of the house, with a trouble light, dusting away cob webs as I worm under there.
But it is also a job I have put off for years as all the rest has been insulated, I only have 8-10 feet to deal with, first foam and then later insulation blanket.  It will make a difference in the heat bill, make the downstairs (and only) bedroom more comfortable and I now do have the foam in a can so need to get the blasted job started.
Work is going ok, we just did 3 weeks of someone out and overtime, work harder and faster, now 6 days of every one there or should be, I then have 2 days off for a medical test, 1 day with all of us there, Bonny off, the weekend, another week of all of us at work and a week of someone gone every other day.  Should be fun, I have 2 of those 3 days off, 1 to get Jake in Chicago and the Friday of Labor Day weekend to play with Larry.
And somehow, sometime I need to start some massive house cleaning and moving stuff before Jake is home, his gal pal is here with him and my house has far too many people, not enough space and I am going insane once again.

Being angry at Jake's dad, again

We have been divorced almost 18 years now and he still can rattle my little world. You just do not all the way free when you have kids. This time Sam 'borrowed' money from Jake for flight back to the states from the Phillipines, his choice to move there, not Jake's. I know Sam loves Jake, but that does not stop him from using him, nor does it make Sam put Jake first, what Jake needs or wants. Sam's wife spends money like it is water and Jake ends up shafted over it. Not Jake's marriage, not his job to hand over his hard earned savings, but it is his money and his choice to make. It burns my that Sam would ask, again, and I am not mad at Jake, Dad has him by the heart strings. If you cannot afford the flight costs, you need to stay on one side of that Pacific ocean or the other. Sam and Cynthia made the choice to sell out the farm and move to her country, now they need to live with their choices, pay their own way and let Jakevwork on making his life work with no farm, horses or ranch future to look forward to. And once again Sam has me crying, stressed, depressed and what he does to MY son makes a mess of my head, again. His son too, and he is using him like his family did to Sam, he vowed our boy would never be used that way....and now is doing the same damn stuff to our boy as his family did to him. Not much I can do but love Jake and keep being Mom.

dealing with real life

It's June and I still don't have matters settled with the roofing contractor and small claims court.but we have a court date in late July and I hope I find some Justice and repayment of some of my funds.
The budget here it tight and will be even tighter as I work in the cost of paying for the carpenter who did finally put a roof on my house and possibly even the home inspector.
But I just could not let it go and do nothing, the contractor is not honest and I am not the first person he has ripped off, without my taking him to court there would be no legal record, no chance for others to not trust him with a huge deposit and then get shafted on the job he agreed to do.
Work also has it's pressures, I do like my co-workers but wish for more brains and more actual management from our lead person, and more understanding costs and how tight each department has to watch the man hour costs in the department.  They cannot create more opportunity for me to have overtime, there is only 1 person in our department getting consistent overtime and her late come in needs to be a rotation position if any of the rest of us are to have an opportunity for overtime, and so Barb will have to accept giving up some and accept that it is not her overtime but company time that all of us are entitled to a chance to earn some of it.
I will push for being able to work that late come in as a weekly rotation and accept that it will have some of my very small department in a snit with me.
It's not a bad life here, and I do like who I am, where I live and work but today  I could easily curl up somewhere and cry, nothing really wrong, so imagine it's tired and body out of balance, I need to remember to take my vitamins more often.
I am working to make better, more practical financial decisions, avoid wasting money when I know I need to pay all the extra I can on the debt load so it will go down faster and I am going to put the blue Honda Passport up for sale on the Yahoo bike group I am in.  Selling is is a wise choice, I don't need 2 bikes, I don't have a place to store it so it lives over at Larry's who does tinker with it,which might be part of the reason it's not running right. 
And Larry taking over working on my bikes, without me being there, or asking/wanting him to do that irritates me.  I don't know what has been done, I don't learn anything and he has 3 bikes of his own and none of them have the battery in yet this season.
But I am doing more 'social' stuff with people outside of the plant and not just Larry, Sharon and I have done the local play several times and I helped serve at the alumni banquet last weekend.  I might not be willing to join the work crew for meals together but I go to Cargill to earn a living, not for a social life, my meal break is my time and I do not want to join their little 'parties' now and then.  I do have the right to opt out and will continue to do so. 
There is a lot here I need to deal with, weeds outside, mess inside, projects to finish, 2 pair of socks started and also a market bag in process, and some of that 'head sorting'  But I am making better progress on some of that too, and it's ok if I have some moody blues now and then.

Huge splurge

I really have put a very tight budget into a much tighter jam with buying the newest iPad but I am already using it every day/night and am so much more comfortable with it than the Toshiba Thrive tablet I own. This year I am not putting in a vegetable garden but will work on the neglected landscaping and on quality time with Larry. Work is ok, hurt a lot today but part of that is due to ahard fall on concrete while walking over to Larry's place. Life is ok,finances are snug but I will manage to keep the bills paid and not starve to death. I love my life here, it has so much quality and value.