1/7-Saturday Night

Originally uploaded by ShaneeP

Whew just in time! I meant to participate in the last 7 days but completely forgot. well I marked my calendar for this one so here I am!

The baby got in on the action cause yeah she’s still awake at 11pm. Which is why this is taken with my phone. Cause it’s 11pm and I’m tired. Just got back from a Freda Payne concert. She sang “Band of Gold” , but mainly focused on hits by Ella Fitzgerald. It was a good time. This whole day has been okay. Would have been better if my oldest was home as it’s her birthday. But she’s with her dad.

Now I’m off to get ready for Father’s Day. Got surprises in store for the hubby. Laters!

Well my oldest’s baby daddy. You know, the Ex-Husband.

He’s at it again.

In a matter of like 2 weeks I went from not thinking about seeing any kind of court except the fake ones on TV, to have 2 court dates here in the summer. The 1st only weeks away.

What started it was the fact that for the 1st time in YEARS, Ireland said a positive thing about going to his house for the weekend. Normally she is unimpressed and sometimes downright against going to his house. She asks if she can just spend time with her Grandparents instead or stay home. I’ve spent this time assuring Ireland that she’ll have a good time. That if something is wrong to speak up but most importantly that family is important to spend time with and that is her time with her father.

It’s been hard to say it all without expressing my true emotions. That I’m over him and have been for YEARS. Specifically since he went on a date on my birthday about 7 years ago. I remember feeling like my world was crashing apart. But I have worked hard to make sure Ireland came first and I wasn’t going to be the one to tarnish her image of her father. I’d leave that to him.

So about 3-4 weeks ago when I driving somewhere and heard Ireland mention being at her father’s house in the future, I took notice. I asked her, like I do often, if she was looking forward to the next weekend and she said yes and in that instance I knew I couldn’t keep the “agreement” the Ex and I had made before.

The one where was he looking to sign over his rights so he wouldn’t have to pay anymore child support. But since I was not going to stop the actual case before he signed (Hey as long as your Dad, then you are responsible), we agreed to pay off his 20,000+ debt. Between the fact that I didn’t want to send my child over to him, and my child didn’t want to go we were willing to help him out and take a hundred bucks and roll it into the debt. We’d get it and then send it off again. And pay down the huge sum of money he has failed to give in the financial support of his child. Truthfully it’s against the law to do that. But when you do not trust the person you are being forced by law to send your child to, a person your child doesn’t want to be with and that person says they are done..well you help them.  I don’t know if he did but I even asked his parents to loan him the money and they denied. Lovely people.

Well Ireland wanted to go now. And really for a time I’ve been feeling like it wasn’t my place to help him off the hook of his financial obligations no matter what I wanted. But when Ireland said what she said..well I was done. And so when he next called I let him know. That finally in like 5 years Ireland mentioned a POSITIVE thing about going to his house. That she was looking forward to the future and because of that if he still wanted to sign over his rights, that was fine and of course Art would be there to adopt her in a heartbeat, but that in no way would we help out with anything financial anymore.

And he agreed!

Said he’d been seeing a change in her and was feeling like he was making a mistake. Which I knew. One of my fears here lately has been thinking about what would happen once everything went through and would be at her Grandparent’s house with her “step-brother” (Ex’s new wife’s kid) but was not going over there anymore? Why not? Oh Dad didn’t want to pay any money out for me anymore and was tired of the debt mounting so he signed over his rights? Nice. Yeah exactly. Anyways the conversation was nice. He mentioned that the money he was saving up for a lawyer to help with the rights deal he would send in for child support. I remember thinking that’s a great idea too bad it won’t happen but stay positive. You’ve prayed to God that you could both talk nicely and it’s happening now.  He mentioned that he would need for the payments to be smaller since he was having a time with money. Okay no biggie. That’s something he should have done awhile ago but later is better than never right? It was all good stuff and I hung up feeling good.

So literally like 5 days later when I got the summons for the child support, I was shocked he actually did what he said so soon, but not really surprised.

No what surprised me is when on this Monday I got a summons regarding our visitation on the reasoning I never gave him my address.

Huh? We moved 6 months ago?! Ireland has never missed a weekend. Sure his parents come and get her so maybe it’s not the 1st thing on his mind but I’m sure we told him. Yeah last month his wife had to come get her for the 1st time in a long time as the Grandparents were out of town and she went to the old place. Mistake? She called and got the address and picked Ireland up. Done deal. So why this? I mean to file the motion for the amendment he had to put my address down. Ahem.

He’s still angry. I get it. It’s hard to do some things and not have my old anger try and resurface and pull me down. I want to say things that I feel like I have the right to say but I know are wrong.He’s angry cause he feels punished for his actions. I have to remember that he has that right no matter how much I disagree. I just wish he would have come to me. Like I tried with him. But thing to remember is that I’m a child of God. I need to act like one.

And so when he called about this weekend. I was polite and calm. I mentioned the date on the support order was filed the same day as his mom came to get Ireland. If he was with her he should have gotten out to say Hi.  He wasn’t but I still said well if you are around you should see your daughter. He mentioned not knowing where I lived* and I nicely reminded him he put our address down on the form. I commented to him how nice our last conversation was and how it was seeming that we were doing much better with our crazy relationship. He agreed. Things like that. I’m not going to say anything even remotely negative to him. Just surround him with more and more positive because it is very obvious that he needs it. God help that man.

*Tonight in church I realized he couldn’t really do that as if we see him driving as he’s not supposed to be doing we’ll be calling the police. I mean sorry, I’ll always promise to say nice things  but I’m not promising to look away when he is blatantly disobeying the law. And he hasn’t had a license in years due to the non-payment of support so yeah. Law breaker. So oops on my part.

I’m pretty sure I just lost some years from my life.

Sat we got a house phone. I haven’t had a house phone in 10 years? Anyways thankfully the number is super easy! The last 4 digits are in reverse numerical order. Easy!

Well I’ve been calling it while out cause I can. Hello! New toy! Which can I just say my husband is still not answering my calls! Whatever!

So tonight, I’m sitting here at my mom’s watching movies. We’re on a break, making smoothies, when my phone rings.

I look and I see what is MY OWN HOUSE NUMBER!

1st thought-Killer in house!

2nd thought-OMG they are going to hurt Sweet Pea!

3rd thought-My house was clean and they are gonna mess it up!! ARGH!!

And this was like in 3 rings. So I pick up and hear a nice lady voice,

“Did someone call me from this number?”

….???!!!?????

I look and see “my number” but in a different order….OH that’s why Hubs didn’t answer the phone..I dialed THE WRONG NUMBER…Ohhhhhh

“Oh sorry, it was a wrong number!”

Hee Hee! No more scary movies for someone..

That’s what Mother’s Day is all about really. You live, you breathe, you smile and all because someone birthed you.  A Mother.

So this year just like the last 3 years we had a Mother’s Day lunch that was lovely. This year I hosted as the past few times my friend Jenn hosted. she loves to host but her life has been crazy busy these last few years and like I good friend I took on the weight of throwing together a little party for us.

I absolutely love to host, but my Hubs does not. I think I’m slowly changing him of this but it has been a long and slow task.  Anyhoo.

Due to being so sick here lately, I kept the menu very simple. I made ham & spinach quiche, ham and turkey pinwheels, fruit salad, deviled eggs (my mom really made these, but at my house-does this count?!) and lastly an Angel lush cake that is glorious! It’s my go-to Spring/Summer dessert!  I also made this rocking punch. I saw it in the March or April issue of Southern Living and just knew I had to make it. It’s Raspberry Beer Cocktail.  Go make it right now! I used Natty Light aka Natural Light cause after a brief discussion with my own local Brewmaster aka Hubs it was decided that a cheaper beer would have a more neutral taste letting the raspberry shine through more. Also CHEAP! <—A winner in my book! LOL. Everyone LOVED it and I know I’ll be making it again.

The convo was amazing as it always is. We talked about how I’m too old to be watching MTV (NEVER!) and what scary movies have scarred us for life (The Exorcist came up a lot!) and oh summer plans. Vacations and trips to Busch Gardens. When and where will we be meeting up over the summer. Which I can safely say any place that allows the consumption of alcohol is a sure thing!

It was a lovely party as always. I truly love my friends. And every time we get together I’m in awe in how different we are but how well we compliment each other.

Before the party was CRAZY. When I agreed to host the party part of my reasoning was the fact that I needed to get the last of the boxes out of my living room. I knew with a party it would be done.  Well getting sick did not help my procrastination AT ALL and after my spa appt Sat. morning things were crazy. I had to skip a baby shower, mostly cause EE was also teething and being a total baby butt. Seriously thought about shipping her off..but love, mother’s day, blah, etc. To help cope I did what anyone would do. Had a glass of wine. Maybe my glass help almost the whole bottle and because of that when our church’s youth pastor knocked on our door I was TOASTED! Like speaking slightly louder then necessary toasted. Ha!

See the youth pastor lives right across the street with us and so when he got a flat tire he came over to see if Hubs could help. Every place he was calling in the phone book was closed or over priced an he wanted to know if we knew of any place. Problem was we could only think of locations, not names so I ended up calling my mom to help out. Thankfully she remembered a name, they called found out they would stay open for him and so Hubs took him and his flat tire over there to be changed out. While they were gone, the baby woke up and cried and so I finished off the bottle of wine I was drinking and maybe called some people I haven’t called in awhile. Woohoo fun!  Anyhoo while they were gone, something said make up a tasty side to go with dinner which was “Drunken” chicken except we used orange juice and not beer(I find this hilarious! cause I was slighty drunk..me and not the chicken! LMBO!) . So not drunken more like Vitamin C filled chicken? I put some rice on in the rice cooker added some chicken base to make it tasty and then threw some frozen veggies in the steamer part so they all cooked together. When done I mixed it all together with cheese! Yes it was awesome..except for the fact that some of the chicken base didn’t actually mix and we had what I called “Pockets of intense flavor” and what others called “salt mines!”. So as you can gather the YP was invited over for dinner. The house in it’s Pre-party glory. Me in a pink headscarf, white and yellow striped tank top and navy blue athletic shorts from college days. We were quite the sight but we had a GREAT time. My mom showed up and brought chocolate cake for dessert and we talked and laughed. All the while my house looked like a tornado!

Next morning we just barely made it! I might still be recovering from the crazy.