Not so Bad

Things have gone fairly smoothly since our daughter got out of jail. Her first day out was pretty rough for all of us, she had a lot of misinformation fed to her by various people while she was in that she had to wade through. She managed to locate all of her stuff and on Monday, I went & paid for her prescriptions, took her grocery shopping & to check in with her PO. She spent awhile with us & then I took her home.

We saw her again on Yule, when we had a very nice day together. We opened gifts, had breakfast & then went shopping for the day. She handled it pretty well when I told her I'd be getting a small storage unit for her property, so that we could use her room for an office. I know she harbors dreams of coming back to live here, but it just isn't going to work for any of us that way.

I'm hoping that when we get all of our daughter's stuff out & into storage, we can have a little more room for things like ironing boards, food storage and a place for small appliances. We will if I plan everything the right way & keep on Troy to put things back where they belong.

At any rate, we had a lovely Yule, both as a family & as a Circle, although the mood was very subdued and we all seemed to run out of steam pretty early on. It was fine, we all got together and had our rites & celebration & that's all that really matters.

Bluesy

I'm feeling a little stressed out & down right now. Our daughter gets out of jail early Sunday morning (like at 2am) and I'm just not ready for it. I don't have any desire to see her or deal with the hysterics and drama she's sure to bring to my house. She won't be living here, that's for sure, but it won't change her need to force us into paying her fines and for her cell phone by any means she deems necessary.

I've already decided that she won't be allowed into the house unless both of us are here, because she knows she can get either one of us, singly, to agree to her demands with enough drama, but together, we're an unstoppable force. So, if she shows up early Sunday morning then I'll offer to take her somewhere else or to let her use my phone to call for a ride, but she won't be coming in to bother us in the middle of the night.

I'm typically about the least paranoid person you'll ever meet. I rarely, if ever, suspect people of ulterior motives, talking behind my back or plotting against me, but for the past few days I'm had this feeling of unease, like something just isn't right, that maybe something bad is just over the horizon & I don't like it. I hate this feeling. It's like I know I've forgotten something crucial, but only with added danger in the mix. So, I guess I'm putting this out there, if anything happens to me or Troy & I, I hope that the police will start with Rhiannon, because she is the only person on the planet (next to her sperm donor) that hates me enough to harm me.

I hate that I even feel like I have to say that.

Frustration

On Cyber Monday, I found a great deal on a GPS for my car - I have a huge fear of getting lost, probably from traveling with my dad, we got lost, a lot - and so we ordered it & eagerly awaited it's arrival. It came while we were out Friday & I turned it on & got everything situated, and put it in my vehicle on Saturday. We had some driving around to do that morning, and while we didn't plan an itinerary on it, Troy was pleased with it. I brought it in to activate our promotion code and update our maps & that's when the problems began. It wouldn't update the maps, it kept telling me we were out of space on the GPS, then it deleted all of the previous maps, rendering it completely useless. I followed every instruction for every problem listed on the website & finally just handed it & the phone number to Troy.

6 hours on the phone later? Lots of wasted hours, plenty of frustration and no solution but to send it to them for replacement. My we should have bought a garmin zumo 665 motorcycle gps or something like it (considering I don't have a motorcycle & all), maybe we'd have a working GPS now & not one sitting in a box, waiting until we have time to get to UPS to send it back.

I'm disappointed & don't have a lot of hope for the replacement to work very well, either, but I guess we'll see. It's supposedly a pretty good brand & model.

Doing Well

I'm been pretty level these days, no serious ups or downs, highs or lows. I've managed to keep my hormones in check, so that they don't aggravate my emotions too much. I did have a rough time the other day, while we were holiday shopping. We were just about finished, after having spent an awful lot of money & were at Costco. I didn't have a very large list, but the things on it were important to me. I was focusing on things Troy had asked me to look for & hadn't finished my list when he came back, looked in the cart, and said, "What did you add? I hope we have enough to pay for all of this!" in a fairly snotty/angry tone. I immediately felt the tears start to come & told him I was done and just wanted to leave. I put back the one item I had added & told him we needed niacin & then we could go.

It was close to 5 or 6pm and we hadn't eaten since 10 that morning, we had been having a wonderful day & I just felt so hurt & betrayed. I didn't care about anything anymore. I gave up everything else that was on my list, some of which I had really been wanting & pretty much just put myself on auto-pilot to get out of the store & back on the road. I didn't want my Yule gift anymore. I didn't even want to be in the car at that point. I wanted to be at home, in my bed, in the dark, crying my eyes out.

We did get everything settled & Troy felt horrible for two days about it all & realized he should have worded things differently or just known that I knew what I was doing. It hurt, I took it hard, but we got through it. I have far fewer incidents like this these days. I can usually see them coming & head it off pretty quickly. This came out of the blue & I didn't see it coming fast enough; normally, I'd have just looked at him, made some smart-assed reply & went on about my business.