Woes

Things have been difficult around here.  A slow build up of one thing after another, with no breaks, no relief.  Yesterday things came to a head and I just broke down.  I spent some time sobbing on my kitchen floor while the kids napped.  That uncontrolled kind where the sounds coming out of you aren't even really human.  Not my best moment.

This week, DS is off in California for a conference.  Taking care of the kids by myself from dawn to dusk and then some is beyond exhausting.  It doesn't help that we've been snowed in for the past month.  Longer if you count the time before when it was just too cold to take them outside.  They're also going through a mental leap right now, and the start of those is always filled with tears.  They were better today.  We always seem to have one day of each leap's fussy phase where it's nothing but tears and screaming from morning to night.  Hopefully it stays at the one.

We seem to have a multitude of expenses since the new year.  Bear's emergency room bill came from his "I'm going to swallow a stick today" incident.  The washing machine broke.  My car failed inspection.  DS's car wasn't even starting.  Our tax return came at just the right time, but it's also a little depressing that it couldn't go to something more exciting.

Do you know until a few weeks ago I'd never been separated for more than 3 hours from my kids?  And that one day I was I was doing something I hated and actually cried while I was out.  I still don't have any close friends here, though I've gained a few acquaintances.  One of those lives close and might turn into something; we'll see.  Basically, in the last 9 months or so, the only person I've had any contact with is DS.  As much as I love my kids, they aren't company in the sense I need.  It's incredibly lonely and disheartening to feel so cut off from the world.  It's not doing good things for my parenting skills either.

I have this permanent soreness in my shoulders and neck from being tense all the time.  I know exercise would help, but finding the motivation has been difficult.  I feel so exhausted all the time.

I'm just in a bad place.  I don't think I realized just how bad until DS left and I lost the one human contact I had.  I've started trying to dig myself out.  I had a play date today, and I'm going to some mom event in the neighborhood tomorrow with the boys.  I have some workout dvds coming for extra motivation on that front.  But a lot of this stuff I just don't think I can fix.  I can't seem to find a way to make extra money to cover things like a babysitter or a night out, or even taking off some of the stress of trying to figure out how to make it to the end of the month.  I mean, I don't want to give the impression that we're poor, because we're not.  But our budget is very tight right now.

I'm trying to spend more time actively engaged with the kids, even though all I want to do is hide in another room and breathe.  I'm starting to fear that their skills are lagging behind because I'm not encouraging and working with them.  I know that comparatively, I'm not a bad parent.  They're happy, and fed, and healthy.  But I know I could be doing so much better with not all that much effort.  I wish I had some kind of "teacher's workbook" for parenting.  "Day 410: laugh 20 times, find all the red things in the house, sing 10 songs, read 5 books."  I do so much better with things when I have clear instructions.

I'm looking forward to my husband coming home.  He acts like he doesn't do much around here, but I can tell you that I wasn't hyperventilating before he left.  I'm not sure how he handles everything he does.  He's a superdad.  Also, the weather is starting to improve.  It's still touch and go, but you start to get the sense that winter won't last forever, even if it is still here.  As much as I love winter, I'll be happier to have them when the kids are old enough can be bundled up to play in the snow.

Maybe tomorrow I will list out all the good things, but tonight I just needed to get out the bad.  Sometimes it helps just to get things down on paper and off your chest.

Changes and Challenges

We have a friend living with us right now.  I don't want to put her business out there, so let me just say that life is throwing her a curveball at the moment, and we're doing what we can to help her transition.  But what this means is that she's here with her two cats.

Well, it's time for a bit of a side note.  I thought I had been documenting the fact that my cats are big wusses, especially Winston.  To some extent, I have, but there are SO MANY times he has been just outright ridiculous.  Like the time I found a kitten in the hallway of our 2007 apartment and took it in until its owner saw my fliers in the building and retrieved it (Winston spent the entire time under our bed).  Or the time that a vet friend picked up a recently fixed kitten on her way to visit (Winston attempted to hide under the bed, but the kitten wanted to say hi, so he spent the night on top of our cabinets.  Even an hour after the kitten left, I had to go up and retrieve him so he would know the kitten was gone.  He still hissed for the rest of the night.)  And apparently I never even told you about the time I was cat sitting for these same cats when they were itty bitty babies (Winston and Felix both spent the entire time hiding and hissing, both at the kittens and each other).  *sigh*  Well, now you know, Winston is a baby.

So with her cats here again, and pretty much adults this time, things are tense.  I thought mine could use some socialization anyway, now that they don't have much of a choice about it.  We've only been shutting her cats in her room at night, and letting everyone mingle during the day.  Winston spent most of the day under the bed; lots of hissing and growling.  Felix spent the day in a corner staring everyone down and hissing whenever someone had the audacity to come within her view.

Winston, the first time he met these cats back in July.

Today though, things seem to be a bit better.  Both of my cats seemed to follow their general day time routine, which admittedly involves mostly sleeping.  But they did it in the living room with me, and ate, and only hissed if the kittens came within six feet of them and kept walking in their direction.  There was even a moment where Winston slept on the couch, and Carmen hung out for a while about 3 feet from him.  I was so proud.  They're still pretty stressed out, but there's definite improvement.  We might make them social yet.  Or at least tolerant.  I'd be happy with tolerant.

I've been pretty busy this week.  Band practice, working out, bead shopping...  I'm attempting to sew a couch cover for my friend Sarah.  I've never done anything like this before.  We found some covers in the as-is section of Ikea that she thought would fit her couch, but they're actually too small.  Luckily, we got two different ones, and we're attempting to dye the lighter one and take them all apart and then put them back together in a way that fits the couch.  We're thinking mostly the blue with grey panets running down the edge next to the arms.  I'm nervous about screwing it up, but excited to try something new.  Also, First Friday is tomorrow, so I'm trying to prep for that (in addition to all the galleries opening, artists set up shop on the sidewalks all around the neighborhood).

Also, Saturday we leave for our first group snowboarding trip since the first one I attended back at the end of 2004.  I had no gear for this, so I've been attempting to accumulate cheap, used gear that was in great shape.  I'm excited for this trip, because I know how much DS used to love snowboarding.  And pretty much all of his friends from SC do it, and they have this trip every year.  But I'm nervous, because the only other time I've tried it, I had to go to the doctor afterward to find out I had two bruised ribs and a bruised tail bone.  Either way, it will be fun, because both our SC friends and our SB friends will be there.  I just really hope all this working out in the last year will have me ready to be at least marginally successful.

Lots of things happening!  We are working hard to make sure that all of these challenges becomes paths to better things.

A Cautionary Tale of Switching Banks

DS and I recently decided that we wanted to go back to using a Credit Union.  We used one in Madison, and were very sad to say goodbye when we moved to CA.  There weren't a lot of options in Santa Barbara, it's a small place, so we went with Wells Fargo because it was easy to access.  We didn't love it.  They charged us fees for everything that the UWCU used to do for free, and this was before the crash that made banks decide to create a bunch of new fees.

When we moved to PA, we talked early on about finding a new CU now that we're someplace bigger (and, we're assuming, with more selection).  But we are apparently lazy at heart, because Wells Fargo was everywhere (they existed here alongside Wachovia before the merger, and so after the merger, well.. ) and it was easier to stay.  Then we get a notice that their policies are changing, and we should login to our account online to read them.  It's a good thing I did, because they were major changes.  The most notable being that basic checking accounts were going to cost $15/mo.  Yes, you read that right.  Per month.  That's $180 a year just to have a computer manage my money.  Money that the bank uses to make more money while it sits there.

We decided this was reason enough to finally make the move.  A word of warning if you decide to do this.  Switching banks takes time.  I wish we had started sooner, because we ended up with a deadline based on when we would get charged for having the checking account.  It made things more stressful than they needed to be.  I'm not sure what's standard, but the new credit union holds check deposits on new accounts for 7 business days, and accounts are apparently "new" for a full month.  There is also a further hold on checks over $5000, and specials holds for personal checks.  This meant that the way we did it, closing the old checking account, getting a cashier's check, and depositing it into our new CU, with weekends and holidays included, kept us from having any access to our money for 14 days.  Kind of ridiculous.  I sort of wish we'd just paid the Wells Fargo fee to electronically transfer the money to the new account.  But at the time, I was very turned off by the $20 fee.

Of course, had we started earlier, we could have gotten DS's direct deposit set up in time to go through the CU for November, which would have prevented all of these issues.  It didn't help that we did most of this on the first of the month, which gave us maybe 2 days to play with before we needed all that money to pay the monthly bills.  Thank goodness for parents and excellent CU customer service...

On top of all that, when I went into the bank to close my account, the person that helped me (who was, admittedly, very nice) did not ask which account I meant, and took it upon herself to only close the checking account.  So the savings account sat untouched, with a zero balance, which is a $5 monthly fee when under $200...  I didn't even know it was still open until Mint.com told me I had a low balance of $.14.  I guess I got an interest payment?  I contacted the bank again and told them of the mistake and that the savings should have been closed.  I was informed I'd have to do it in person, because the balance on the account was not zero, or I could mail them a notarized letter and they could send me a certified check.  For 14 cents.  Which I shouldn't even have had if they'd closed the account when I asked.

So what I'm telling you is this.  If you decide to switch banks, find out what sort of waiting periods your new place has, and plan accordingly.  If necessary, get your old bank to give you enough cash to get by, instead of a lump sum cashier's check.  And remember that direct deposit changes and potentially take 3 weeks to go into effect.

What?

It's been over a month since I last posted? Hmmm... that means it's been over a month since I last took any photos off my camera. In that time, I have had visits from my bestest good friend from Madison, Luke, and my mother and her husband (not at all at once). I sewed 8 panels of curtains for my living room and an entire baby quilt (I'm pretty proud of that quilt). And I decided to quit my job.

The idea of course was to get a new job. A full-time job so that we could maybe do fun things like visit friends in the other places we have lived. However, the getting a new job part is not going well, and it's been long enough now that my current employer thinks tomorrow is my last day. *cry* I am so freaked. Why did I think it was a good idea to let him know I was looking for a new job? I can't help but feel I should have stayed quiet until I had a job, except that would have really screwed up the office. When it's just two people, planning is important. Stupid responsible-ness!!!

So yeah... I don't know where the last month and a half went, but there you have it. Hopefully I can do some back posting at some point to fill in the gaps, but for now, it would appear I'm on full time job searching patrol.

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P.S. Apparently, Zemanta saw the word day in my post and decided that my post might be about Felicia Day. Which, it could be, as I am certainly in love with her and secretly hope she'll notice me following her on Goodreads and Twitter and instead of being freaked about it think, "she looks like a cool gal, and we live relatively close to each other, let's be friends!". But alas, I meant the normal kind.

P.P.S. If you ever wanted to pay me to make you something, now would be a good time.

P.P.P.S. The wind is blowing so hard I would normally think it's about to storm here. Except it never does. Ever. Just like it never rains. California sucks.

ACK!

The fires have been appearing mild during the day, when the winds die down. By evening, the fire explodes with amazing speed. We drove back to Ventura today to pick up the improved car. By the time we got back, the fire had spread west. It's insane. The photo above is of the newest boundaries. It's far enough west now to include us, but not far enough south. The air at home smells strongly of smoke, and my eyes are burning like when my allergies are bad. It's raining ash.

Image by penner42 via Flickr

As of right now, we're supposed to be safe. Here's a photo from the tubes, because mine aren't great. Too much smoke.

Boooooo

I find life in general to be challenging these days.  Work is turning into a disaster.  I'm being told simultaneously to start letting go of my responsibility and not to "check out" too early.  As one might expect, I'm failing.  When did caring about the company you work for become such a bad thing?

The upcoming move is starting to scare the crap out of me.  I have no idea where we're going to find the money to actually get there, much less live there.  And it doesn't help that so many people we know are getting married this fall.  Not that the weddings in and of themselves are bad, but none of those weddings are anywhere near here.  

I can't seem to maintain interest any much of anything either.  My brain has decided that it can't do anything new until after we move, pushing me into a sort of limbo that is highly uncomfortable.  I can't make myself start a new book, or make jewelry, or even finish setting up my craft desk.  I did finally start playing Soul Calibur IV, but that, Soltrio (a solitaire game on xbox live) and watching the Olympics is about all I can muster at the moment.

Can it just be next summer already?