the walls are threatening to come crumbling down

what a week.

I am finally sending off the gravestone wording - i'll post a picture of what we decided to go with in the summer when we go visit and take pictures. lots of tears, but a sigh of relief too, that its done.

had to spend $1700 to fix the truck and get the credit card out of hold for not paying the bill. we just got another bill for over $2000. not sure where that is going to come from. I don't have a job for July or August, and was told on friday that the student I work with isn't returning, so no job to return to. I put my name into the ring with other applicants for a position starting in sept, we'll see how that works. hubby has no prospects that he is willing to consider, job-wise, but he's looking into going away for a few months to take a course.

I should be able to cobble together some subbing jobs and part-time work over the summer to bring in a bit, and we can cut out a few bills and use the food bank.

I'm dreading the conversations in the next few days as we tackle this though. we get through our relationship by not talking. avoidance is a marriage skill that works for us. working things out has never worked. now that we actually have to come to some decisions, who knows what will happen. i envision total chaos, the end of the world as we know it!

knowing our track record, we will procrastinate long enough that no decisions will need to be made. either things will work out, or matters will be taken out of our hands.

i'm crossing my fingers that the walls of our relationship, our dreams of living in this town, and our selves - our ablity to hold it together, are strong enough to survive this summer.

on hold

well, my ongoing attempt to 'get a life' is going on 'pause' again.

i got off my zombie medication and learned better coping skills for my depression. then i got sick right away, and didn't leave the bedroom for 8 months.

i'm just starting to see the beauty in life, to look forward to stuff, to care, to interact, to feel again.

and tomorrow i start the zombie med's again.

i need them to keep working. hubby is still unemployed. his latest plan is to leave for 2 months of excavator school, then finding work wherever it takes him. its a pretty good plan. we are pretty broke.

but i'm working long days, and am so exhausted i can hardly exist. it was just manageable when he was here to take care of everything. i won't manage as well on my own. my summer work is going to be stressful, and i'm worried about how i'll handle it. and working with kids, i don't want to take any chances. i've already crossed the line, not able to cope at the end of the day.

so its back to zombie mode. no feelings. safer for the job, sadder for my family as i disappear again. i'll try hard to keep connected, but its difficult. at least there's no depression mixed in with it. and hopefully its only short-term.

the deadline (no pun intended)

i have to decide on what to put on christophers gravestone. my dad has paid for it, and has been asking since christmas for the wording. there is still a hole in the ground left for it, and the cemetary people have to fill it in.



and yet i just can't.



its the last thing, and then we're done.



i guess i don't want to be done, because i can't make myself tell my dad to go ahead and do it.


but time has run out, so this is what i'm thinking. i want the words to convey that he changed our world, that we took good things from his being here, rather than negative things.

space is limited.

maybe . . . . 'love endures all things' or 'he touched our hearts'. oh, i know. his grave is next to my nana's, and hers has 'forever in our hearts' under the date. i'll put 'love . . . it lasts forever'.

above the name, where my nana's says 'in loving memory of our dear mom and nana', i'll put 'he touched our hearts'.

i'll run it by hubby tomorrow. he's drunk right now. i was researching fetal alcohol syndrome for my job yesterday, and ran across a chart. he doesn't qualify for an addiction. he's just a heavy drinker.

my mom grew up with a family, extended family, all the people her family hung out with, of alcoholics. she has bad memories. so i grew up thinking that drinking was bad. hubby's family, extended family, friends ect. were all heavy drinkers, only a couple of alcoholics. so they think drinking is okay until it gets out of control.

i know that hubby is drinking a lot, but that he has not crossed into the 'problem' area, so i will relax and not worry so much. he has shown that he can control it when he needs to. and with me always in the background, he will get lots of advance notice when he gets close to crossing the line!! :)

our world

See. . . . . I told you we have snow!

of course, it melts off within a few hours.

But still.

Snow?!

We have started going on picnics and exploring on the weekends.

This is a lake about 40 min.'s from our place.

It is spring fed, so the most amazing color, incredibly clear, and apparently very, very cold all year round.

There were people fishing who told us that. they also showed us the fish they caught. some nice sized, some huge. but the huge ones weren't for eating. they were old breeding fish from the hatchery nearby, which had been released when they became too old. they also had had their noses and tails cut off for some reason. very weird. we felt like we had stumbled upon some escaped mutants from a secret laboratory, like in a horror movie. There were even black globs all over the bushes, that are insect cocoon things. I guess soon, bugs will start coming out of them. we just needed some monster to rise up out of the lake, and it would have been complete.

We live very close to the Rocky mountains. When we lived on the coast, these are what I missed the most. The tree's, the snow, the fresh air, . . the mountains. It's nice to be back.

All the photo's were taken by hubby.

spring

spring is here. well, its been snowing all week, but the tulips and daffodils came out last week, so its technically spring.

baseball and soccer started this week. COLD!

second daughter is the only girl in her baseball league, and loving it. I thought she might drop out, but she is proud of being able to do what the boys do. What a tomboy. And she is such a skid - remember the eighties' skid? Tight jeans, ratty t-shirt, long stringy hair, attitude. cracks me up!

little boy is in soccer. last year all his friends were in it, this year he is so excited to be joining them. He's had one practice. He was one of 4 kids out of 50 who spent most of the time sitting on their ball, wandering around, picking up interesting sticks. I thought he didn't like it, but he was like "why is it over, i was having fun!" He's always off in his own world. hmmm, come to think of it, i need to get his ears checked. he's been having difficulty understanding us lately. maybe that explains some it!

big girl is getting braces and a tonsillectomy/adnoidectomy in the next few months. poor thing.

hubby is still unemployed, and not happy about it. I worry about his drinking, but he hasn't got himself into trouble. we know a few people who have just lost their kids or jobs because of drugs or alcohol. hubby doesn't cross that line. drinking sounds so 'bad', but is it really that different than spending lots of time blogging or scrappbooking or making minature trains? he hates that i 'judge' him. but i'm always watching to see how many he's having. i hate that i do that, that i'm so aware of it. i guess i'm like a back seat driver, afraid that if i stop pointing everything out, he'll crash. maybe i should just 'look out the window', and let him be.

i am okay. the elephant in my room is getting easier to see around. i am moving forward.

that said, i can't wait to be 5 years in the future, and through the worst of it. everything now is either compared to last year, or anticipating the next milestone.