Yes it is interesting. It can also be a lot harder to convey certain feelings over the internet, due to the lack of intonation in voice. That's one thing that will be nice in a sense, but at the same time means I will have to get my thick skin on to be yelled and screamed at. Oh boy.

Today we decided to take a random trip out of town, which we haven't done since October. It's been THAT long since we've done anything. We got Terra some new clothes for summer, grabbed some window blinds and a curtain for her room, things like a replacement bulb for the stove's overhead light, double-sided tape, so on and so forth...

Felt good to get out! Tomorrow it's back to the grind. I need to cram an entire semester's worth of work into one day. I'm definitely not ready, but I don't have much of a choice! Coffee will be my savior. ;)

For the time being... gotta continue unpacking the bedroom. Almost done. So much progress tonight after we got home! :)

Progress feels wonderful! I fell asleep about 3:30am-4am and somehow stumbled out of bed and had a couple cups of coffee at 10am. (Aaron says this is fairly 'normal' and welcome to the rest of the world....pah.) I felt pretty weak and just nauseous. I guess stress and lack of sleep? I had a bowl of grapenuts, and then literally a piece of bread for lunch. Dinner I felt a little more adventurous and heated up a potato in the microwave and nuked some of that chilli to go over. Still hungry so I'm making some chicken soup and then plunking the leftovers in the fridge for Aaron. He should enjoy something to eat when he gets home.

My mother ended up not coming. She left a voicemail on my machine that I didn't check until my lunch break this afternoon. By that point I had been cleaning pretty rigorously. Part of me was glad, but I was also kinda sad to not see her as I was looking forward to it. She said she needed to get her car fixed, and once she does that she'll come out and visit....just to visit me too. Which shocked the hell out of me as for the 5 years I've been with Aaron she has never made a trip out here specifically to see me. I understand as there are farm animals, but my dad does most of that and she has a job where she can schedule herself off for a couple of days when she needs it. It'll feel really nice to feel like she's come out of her way to visit me, just to visit me...and not a trip where it's 'hey look, Tara is on the way!' kind of thing. Always secretly made me a bit sad.

Anyways, This weekend sucks. The house is cleaner, but not to the clean I would like it. I will try to tackle things throughout the week as I get bored and have the energy to. Maybe having Aaron out of the house as much as he will be will be a good thing. I'm more motivated to clean!

I'm also kinda dreading getting to Friday as we're down to literally our last $40, and my husband thinks he needs half of that for gas to get him back and forth to work. The cupboards in our house are very bare. He's also only getting one days worth of pay on Tuesday, and that is not going to cover his child support. (That right there makes me feel sick - screw us, screw the fact that their mom works full time and her 'boyfriend' owns her house and pays the bills. I'm not quite as pissed off at her as she agreed to lower it outside of court, but still I think she should just drop it altogether if she's going to keep the living arrangement she has now. It would make it a HELL of a lot easier on us. But anyways, I'll not rage on that too much...If it weren't for the kids I don't think Aaron and I would of gotten together. I don't think he'd ever had grown up and still would be the asshole he was when he got with his ex.)

*sighs* Well I guess I can start counting down the days of this assignment! Week 1 of 3. We can do it!

Ohhh and this is last week for chat support, so I will be back on phones come a week from today. Why does everything have to change at the same time? ~_~

Sometimes I wonder if the world tests everything all at once just to see if we can make it. It's definitely not right.

You know, I find it easier to clean with an empty house too. I'm not sure how or why that is. I have today "off" to myself, but I need to get that paper written and the presentation put together. It's likely going to take me all day. I'm still sipping my coffee, not procrastinating exactly, but not rushing to begin. I need to get at least one load of laundry going, too. Terra had a nosebleed this morning, and I treated her pillow case and pajamas with one of those Tide stick things. Point being, I need to get laundry going. Brand new bedding and pajamas can't go with stains like that.

On a note of randomness, I'm curious about the exchange rate from USD to JPN. The yen rate is all the way up to 96 now! I'm super happy for that. I used to purchase hobby things on Yahoo! Japan but when the exchange rate fell under 80, it was just too expensive. Twelve years ago it used to be around $1.00 USD to 130 yen. I'm hoping, deep down, this means our dollar is slowly rising again to be worth something. Likely not, but I can hope.

Mind, not that I have money to blow at the moment, and won't for quite some time. I'm not holding my breath, but secretly hoping for a high paying job right after graduation. The place I'm interning at has a grant program which runs for another year/year and a half. I work with a lot of folks within the grant, and I'm curious what happens after I'm done interning. I doubt I'll be offered a job as most agencies around here are suffering, but who knows.

Cole's first up. He graduates in just a couple weeks. I think he's going to take a couple weeks off to refresh himself, then he's going to pursue work while waiting for his RN licensing exam. He'll probably do CNA work or something while waiting for the "big" job.

I do hope come this September our money worries are gone. We'll have loan repayments of course, but we shouldn't be like this. I'm really working hard to make this apartment "home" for the next two or three years. Lots of decorating left to do. I find that if I decorate and make it "mine", I get attached. Maybe that sounds silly... xD

I'm super excited to see that Cole has reached his goal of graduation! I'm sure he's uber thrilled as well. Now he can get his hands dirty and find himself a better job.

I think Aaron and I are slowly figuring out how to work on these different shifts. It isn't fun, and we do miss eachother a lot. I found out his major adversion to sleeping in the kids room was that he wasn't next to me. Whether he's saying that to butter me up, I'm not sure, but he seems sincere. It does feel odd going to sleep in an empty bed, and then waking up to an empty bed. He'll saunter in at 7:30am and kiss me on the cheek before going to sleep in the other room. It wakes me up, but even so I remember feeling really happy and smiling before I immediately dozed back to sleep. I think he said he loved me...I don't remember. I honestly was barely conscious to remember the kiss and smile.

I went and checked on him this morning to make sure he was sleeping. I wanted to go up to him and give him a kiss too, but I know how light of a sleeper he is so I let him be. Got the dogs around to go potty, then got myself ready for work. Once again another 6 hours of sleep. I'm not liking it, but I'm getting use to it.

I think I'm going to be just fine through this whole assignment, it's just testing me to see how much both I and my husband can take. I feel bad for him as he says the Walmart gig had him mopping floors last night. He said he was pulling apart shelfing and mopping underneath/around it too. He said you wouldn't believe how dirty the store is there and he is not going to be shopping there. Not only that but because he doesn't believe for what walmart stands for. I don't blame him on the last part....

Same. It's almost as if Walmart has become the thing we "can't" refuse because we don't have other options. But you know, I'm just as guilty. I don't shop at Walmart often (2-3 times a year) and yet I'll do tons on Amazon.com. How is it different? I'd like to buy local WHEN I can afford to do so. We have a lot of small shops here that are ridiculously overpriced. Yet, it's an excuse. If I purchased less Dunkin' coffee I'm sure I'd save the $20 a month that could buy a more expensive gadget locally.

It's tricky when the big corporate stores have things in stock the small spots don't. Kind of being pinned...

You guys will pull through. It's all about tests of strength, and you've come this far. Better times are ahead. <333

My presentation is almost done, minus editing. I forgot my paper isn't quite due until later. I may start it anyway... depends on when I can get dinner going. Making a big beef stew! :)

Woot on nearly done with your presentation!! \o/ That means more time to put your feet up and relax, or if you're up to it you could tackle something else around the house.

Man I've been getting sleep between 4am-10am and I'm feeling pretty lagged over. I'm going to make it through today, but I may end up crashing super early to try to make up some sleep. I got to get myself into a better rhythm as Sunday I go back to phones. D: I can't really hide my tiredness as well on phones as I can on chat. I'm going to miss it.

I'm surprised they haven't been forcing their hand at mandatory jump offs. So far everything is on a voluntary basis. I would LOVE to take them up on it, too, if we weren't kinda scraping the barrel this week. Once he gets a paycheck in we should be OK, and I'm hoping whatever his temp agency sends him on next there will be very little time inbetween jobs so we're not hit so hard.

I try to get to bed by 10pm, and I wake around 6:30am or so. Some nights that doesn't seem enough. Six hours doesn't cut it for me, that much I'm certain. Hang in there. <3

My presentation is edited and done. I have a paper left, but it's going on 2pm and I doubt I'll get much done. I'll probably go spend a little time with the hubby before he gets the baby. And get dinner going, because I forgot again. Oops.

That sounds like a plan! I'm hoping this weekend to get to spend some time with my husband. I don't think anything major is planned.

I'm feeling a bit down though as I looked at the calendar and J-Fax (our local anime convention) is in 2 months and I want to be able to take the kids as it is a family ritual of ours. With money being the way it is....Yeah.

---------- Post added 04-22-2013 at 02:44 PM ----------

That being said - it is free to enter, and if I can squirrel enough for gas and maybe a little spending money for each child we may just pull it off anyways. The main thing is it is something we've done together, every year, without fail. The kids love it, we love it....I want to keep it up.

I'll PACK our lunch and we'll have a picnic if we have to.

Picnics rock anyway. Seriously! What's better than plentiful, homemade food?

We don't have traditions like that yet, mostly due to the money and time factor. I am hoping, at the very least, sometime in the summer we can take a two-day mini vacation away, likely to the Bangor area for shopping and good food. Something simple yet fun. They have a great children's museum there, for example. Terra loved it when she last saw it, but it's going on a year now. She's grown so much since then that I imagine she'll get more out of it now.

Sooo sleepy. Guess it's time for more coffee.

She's also still really young. Wait until she really starts to develope on a higher level. She's able to tell you about what she likes, and what she doesn't. Wait until she's in gradeschool and telling you about the kid drama there. Some of it is just kinda funny because you can remember being there at their age, but some of it is just plain cruel.

I told you Tristan has Poland's syndrome right? Well the kids make fun of him for it and it really makes you want to go and have some stern words for their parents. This one kid said that Tristan pleasures his mom with his small hand. Ok he's only 10 years old. I have NO idea the age of this kid, but I already really would love to give him a piece of my mind. Poor kid. He's put up with a lot of BS over it, and in all honesty he is no worse off than any other child. He has small differences and it is mainly just a cosmetic thing.

---------- Post added 04-22-2013 at 04:17 PM ----------

Sorry for going over into that. I think I told you about that. Made me sick though.

The kid is such a sweetheart though and I love both him and his sister lots, even though I'm not their birth mom and I've had to do a bit of growing up. I'm still growing up in some aspects.

Haha. If only you knew what drama she brings home and what likes and dislikes she talks about already. Her memory is so sharp. She's been having issues with a little girl that's a bit younger than her, who is currently going through a difficult phase of pushing, hitting and the such. She talks a lot about that. The important thing to remember with kids is that socialization begins at birth, and regardless of language development, kids still communicate their concerns. It's been happening over here for a long while.

It'll of course change. I'm not looking forward to the elementary school drama you described. Kids ARE cruel. Makes me want to home school or "unschool" her, but it would mean sacrificing my own work and more money. It is something I'm passively thinking about though.

As you know I didn't get to see them from age 0-5. It has me somewhat forlorn as those are very pivitol moments I missed. Other than that, I don't really find myself these days upset over not having a kid. I'm just trying to enjoy my freedom, and enjoy the moments I get to spend with the kids. I get the best of both worlds.

I'll tell you one thing....raising kids isn't something everyone should do, or can do properly. I wish more people were more mature and hang that towel up if they're not able to step up to the plate.

The freedom sacrifices are huge, but I also know it won't always be like this. In a blink of an eye she's going to be out on her own. Same for any other kids we might have. Just never know!

So, what's on your agenda tonight? Not much here. I just cleaned up the kitchen and have some coffee... trying to relax for a few before Terra's bedtime routine.

Nothing tonight. Maybe throw in a load of laundry, and a load of dishes..just to keep up on it. I don't really feel up to any rigerous cleaning and I'm hoping to call it a night earlier to make it easier on myself tomorrow. I really don't want to struggle through work every day this week. That being said today wasn't too bad, it just took me awhile to really wake up. I still feel a little laggy.

Our check came in the mail for our taxes. $283 dollars worth...$250 belongs with H+R but they have yet to bill me and until they hit me with a bill I'll go ahead and put to use to help pay for Aaron's registration tags, and the other half I will squirrel away for J-FAX. If I have to, I will pay it off in incremints and while they won't be happy about it it will get paid one way or another.

---------- Post added 04-22-2013 at 07:44 PM ----------

Oh by the way - how are you doing on EIs? Do you need a little help catching up? I got my set and what commons I want and what I have is extra, so I can help pitch in if needed.

I don't have any EIs.. haven't had enough tokens. x_x

Cole files our taxes, and it's a luxury I don't appreciate nearly enough from the looks of things. That's a huge bill!

Yes it is...It will also be the last time I use them. Just Aaron's employment was all over, he cashed his 401k out, and then he was behind on child support so it seemed like the smart thing to do.

Was there any EI you wanted more than another? Otherwise I'll try to collect what I can and send it to you. I may be able to get enough to get a second or third depending on how long i sit and chat.

Check your trades. :) I only had enough for two, but if I squeeze out enough for a third I'll pick my next favorite unless you tell me which one you want/need.

Wish I had enough to get the full set for you. I was hoping to get a little more time in last night but you were absent and I really sometimes struggle to find a thread where I feel comfortable in. One where I feel like there is some form of intelligent, meaningful conversation. Otherwise, I feel like I get washed up in a sea of tweet type posts that honestly give me a headache to read.

Awwwwwww... ;_; You're beyond generous!! Thank you!

Yeah, sorry about disappearing. Evenings are sometimes sketchy with the kiddo. I'm always in and out it seems. :(

You're welcome. :) It's the least I can do.

I ended up passing out shortly after work. I was made to leave an hour early due to how slow it was. Two more days left and the forecast is to be similar if not worse. I'm wondering if I'm going to be forced to go home a half day's worth of work or more. Either way, we'll figure it out. Won't be ideal, but nothing in life ever seems to be that way.

I spent the past 3 or so days only getting 6 hours of sleep a day or less. I'm hoping to make up for it tonight. I've had about 5 and a half already, and I'm hoping after a little time awake I will lie down and have at least another 5 more.

Hopefully you're able to get a decent paycheck. And sleep! <3

I'm trying to get motivated to get dressed and ready for the day. I need to get both Terra and myself ready in 30 minutes, yet here I sit. xD

Sleep I did not get. I fell asleep at 6:30pm and woke up at Midnight. Then went and took a short nap from 8am to 10am. I did get sleep, but not the restful long period of sleep I was hoping for.

So far I'm still working. They've been offering jump offs all day but I've sat put. None of them have been mandatory. That's fine as I would rather ride out the last two days here.

I just ordered Aaron's Bday pressie. Hoping it gets here in time. It can take 5-10 business days, and there's technically 7...so there is a very good chance we will be good. I could of paid extra to ensure it, but I'm going for the most economical. Since I ordered technically over $60, shipping is free. I had a 50% off code for a teaset that has four 1 oz bags of their most popular teas and includes a booklet and a perfect tea scoop (I know he has one or two of those already, but hey its free!). I ordered the 30 days of different tea for him and he really enjoyed it. That set was $22 with the discount. Then I got him a Takeya pitcher for $25.00 so he can do icetea as all the teas can be enjoyed hot or cold and I figure with the warmer weather he would enjoy it. I also looked at bother the Takeya ice tea set and the other tea pitcher set and jotted the othe flavors they bundled with them and purchased samples of each. With the Tea gift set, pitcher, and the 7 samples it came to $53.93 with free ship. I know it sounds steep but I saved $22, and got him a really well rounded selection for him. He was getting kind of low on his tea and I know he enjoys it.

I probably should of not spent money, but I want to do something even if it is small to give him something to look forward to.

Oh gosh I have more exciting news about a job prospect. I'll type it here shortly as I'm on my way to lunch in a minute.

---------- Post added 04-24-2013 at 01:50 PM ----------

Oh the website is goldenmoontea.com -- the giftset code is MOTHER and I can show you which one if interested, and if you want 15% off your entire order the code is 'realtea'. You can't stack both. I tried. They have some EXCELLENT teas there and aren't quite as expensive as Teavana.

---------- Post added 04-24-2013 at 01:54 PM ----------

Oh the 30 days of tea is a different set, but it is awesome and you could use the 15% off for it. (If you're even interested)

If you are a tea drinker, this is an excellent site.

OK so I'm back to fill you in on more (now that I'm not busy working, and don't have to worry about chrome timing out on me -_-).

Aaron has an interview for a perspective job right her 10 mins away by car from house for an assistant electrical engineer. He literally found out about this today. It's the same company who was considering him for clerical work which is now looking at possibly hiring him in on a short term 3-6 month temp contract, with the prospects of it turning permanent. It would only start at $10 an hour but I think it would be more suitable for Aaron as it would keep him on his toes as far as being intellectually stimulating. He was thinking at one point in going back to college for his engineering degree...this may give him that extra edge and if he is hired in they may even try to foot the bill on some extra education. That would be a dream come true for him!

They had contacted the temp agency last week about a prospect in the clerical, then got back today saying that they are thinking more towards this area. The temp agency worker got back late this afternoon to book an interview at 8am with him. I'm thinking at how fast this progressing they must be fairly interested in him and what he's got on his resume.

I know there is one other person they're interviewing, who is from a temp agency other than the one Aaron is through, and I don't think they typically use them? I don't know how he stacks up with this other person but my fingers are crossed that Aaron blows them through the roof. It would be starting in the next week or two, and it may mean Aaron can stop doing this shitty 3rd shift at Walmart. I'm hating every minute of it. Not getting to sleep next to one another in the same bed just feels really...strange, and empty. Even if he keeps on hogging 2/3rds of the bed and elbowing me in the face, I still enjoy him there...snoring and all.

I should switch to tea because it's healthier, but I'm a coffee drinker. >>;

Oooooh. I really hope this lands him a better job. Anything to get you guys feeling better, so long as he's comfortable at work and feeling okay!

I'm exhausted tonight. :<

I'm wiped too! I didn't sleep well. I got off two and a half hours earlier but ended up digging out the massage table and giving Aaron a full body massage almost (ok well minus the arms...because at that point I Was pretty damn tired!). I then brewed up a cup of tea and let him sit and relax. He says his legs don't hurt as bad.

I got made to leave 2 and a half hours early today, and I'm expecting something similar tomorrow. It's going to be sad to finish tomorrow, as I've been doing that for a year and a half now. I'm hoping I can get my grove back on while on the phones. It shouldn't be a hard transition.

---------- Post added 04-24-2013 at 07:38 PM ----------

I'm hoping my friend doesn't ask for the massage table back as I rather like it. :< I offered to buy it from her but she's like I can't cause it was a present.

We'll see...maybe she will eventually change her mind. I won't push the subject, but having a massage table is so much easier to give massages. Who'd-a-thought?