- My husband and I had a nice Valentine’s Day at home eating crab legs and playing cards.
- The following night my husband and I went to a Valentine’s party at a restaurant through our church where we met some new people and went out afterwards with new friends we do volunteer work with.
- I took some time this week to get my hair cut and nails done. It’s been over a year since I’ve had my hair cut.
- I went over to Angel’s house and she made me supper a chicken artichoke dish that was excellent.
- Since my husband couldn’t be at the trade show, I went with our employee James. I don’t think I could’ve done it alone. Plus every night we went out after the show for food and/or drinks. I ran in to some friends which was nice.
- My daughter and her boyfriend, well ex-boyfriend now, got the charges against them dropped. I feel like they will be safe for now and if they are not they have other people they can call while we are gone. We talked about a safety plan going forward.
- Tonight starts a major snow storm in our area. The meteorologist said this will be the biggest storm in the last 4 years. The storm spans the whole state of Wisconsin all the way down to Chicago where we are flying out from. The airline allowed us to move up our flights. Even with moving up our flights, it’s really iffy if we are going to be able to fly out on schedule.
- I’m grateful to be able to leave earlier and not be constrained by work and kid schedules.
- By next week’s gratitude I will (hopefully) have another country and continent checked off my bucket list.
- I have been downright physically and emotionally exhausted. I feel really tired, stressed, and run down. I’m hoping this trip will allow us to recharge our batteries.
- I’m grateful for the great team we have around us. My husband and I each have our own separate counselors and our couples counselor. We have a wonderful small group of friends and family who have our back so even though things might not go smoothly while we are gone everything should be okay. We have done everything we can do. Now it’s time for us to take a break.
Month: February 2023
Doing time
It’s been a very long and stressful weekend. My daughter ended up getting arrested. It was bad timing because I had to work a trade show all weekend. But when is it ever a good time to have a child arrested??
My husband was supposed to work the trade show with me but had a conflict. He had an ice fishing trip planned before we knew the dates of the trade show. My husband has been going with the same group of guys for the past 10 to 15 years. I told him to go ahead, that I could handle the trade show with the help of James our previous employee who still works for the business we sold. He does some very part-time work for us with our new business.
Paul left early Thursday morning. The day started out fine. I ended up getting my nails done and visiting my daughter Angel for supper. After lunch it started snowing and we ended up getting more snow than was predicted. The roads were very slippery. My son ended up getting called in to work. He wasn’t home when I went to bed that night, nor was he back home at 4 in the morning when I got up to go to the bathroom. I checked my phone just in case my son texted since at that time he would’ve been working 12 hours and I thought he would be home. When I checked my phone, I noticed a missed call and multiple texts from Arabella. She said that her and Will got in a fight and she wanted to move back home. It was hard to go back to sleep after that.
I tried calling my daughter in the morning but she was sleeping and didn’t answer. I decided to go outside and start shoveling. We have a huge driveway and my husband took the 4-wheeler we use to plow the driveway. I was pretty annoyed at this point. I didn’t sleep well. I wasn’t expecting to have to worry about the driveway and my daughter. And I didn’t want to go to the trade show. Trade shows aren’t really my thing. I’m not a people person. Talking to people and selling a product to me is a form of torture.
Ten minutes before the trade show started I got a text from my daughter saying that her boyfriend and her were fighting again and she called 911. After an hour, they both were carted off to jail. Meanwhile, I was at the trade show having to smile and pretend everything was okay. Clients asked how my kids were doing. Great, just great! Smile, smile, smile. It was miserable.
The next morning my daughter called from jail. She had about 3 minutes on a recorded line. She basically told me that her and Will got into a fight. She left for awhile. When she came back, he had another girl with him at the apartment. She flipped out and beat him up. She weighs around 100 lbs. more than he does. In the process she got a black eye and bruised face. They both got arrested. She was charged with 3 misdemeanors, one being battery. He was charged with a misdemeanor and a felony. I was really worried because she admitted to what she did wrong on a recorded call. I didn’t have much time to think about it because I was off to a 10 hour day at the trade show.
The night before I talked to Paul and my other kids until 2 AM about what happened. I didn’t sleep well and was really exhausted. Paul was really upset and was going to cancel the rest of his trip. We were debating about bailing our daughter out. I convinced Paul we should continue on with our plans. The main feelings we felt were sadness and anger. Anger at Will and our daughter for getting physical in their fight. Sadness that the relationship they had was now over. Most people were angry with Will. But we didn’t think he deserved a felony. My daughter was at least 50% of the problem. It was very hard to see her mug shot.
Saturday was an exhausting day. Sunday was not much better. I was having insomnia and nightmares. At least it was going to be a shorter day at the trade show and Paul was coming home. Thankfully this morning we had an appointment with our couples counselor. I was worried about a lot of things. I was worried about my daughter’s pets in her apartment. They didn’t give her any of her medications at jail. She was off her meds for 5 days. We are leaving on vacation on Wednesday. Should we still go? The make matters worse, we are expecting a blizzard on Wednesday. My daughter had her hearing today. Would we bail her out or leave her in jail while we are gone? Did we need to get a lawyer? What was going to happen next? Could I get her key to check on her pets? Could I get her meds to her? One medication she wasn’t supposed to stop abruptly.
I felt like I had to put all my feelings on a shelf over the weekend. But maybe that was a good thing. The trade show was very distracting. Every evening James and I went out afterwards for drinks. I ran into some friends of mine which was nice. I didn’t have time to worry as much as I would’ve sitting home alone.
Right after we got out of our appointment with the counselor, we got a call from Arabella that both her and Will were out of jail. If they do certain things, their charges will be dismissed. They went back to their apartment. We sat down and talked to them for an hour to see if they would be safe. We came up with a safety plan. There was relief in knowing we didn’t have to make some hard choices such as if we needed to bail her out or keep her in jail while we were gone.
I was worried my daughter would be suicidal. She was on suicide watch at jail. Apparently they stripped her down and strapped her to a chair. In doing so they bruised up her arms. Her body was a big massive bruise. She was also self-harming in this whole process. Will said Arabella was banging her head against the wall and burning herself. He was trying to stop her. I was worried they might be suicidal or harm each other again. If they do, they will both be in jail for awhile.
I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the way my life is going to be. There will always be problems it will be hard to catch a break from. We are still planning on going on our trip. We might have to leave a day early because of the blizzard to make the drive down to Chicago to catch our flight. There is not much I can do right now. My daughter is an adult and my hands are tied. I don’t have much control over what happens or winter storms. But as of right now I think everything is okay and that is all I can ask for.
Girl’s night(mare)
We got past the first hurdle. We were supposed to get a snowstorm, somewhere between 4 and 6 inches. But beyond a foreboding sky, nothing happened besides a few snowflakes. That’s why living here we never cancel for what might be. Our girls night went on as planned.
I picked up my daughters, Angel and Arabella, and my son’s girlfriend Lexi. We went to a couple thrift stores. I didn’t find much. A couple days before I did some pre-shopping and found more. I was so convinced I was going to have to cancel, I decided to hit up a thrift store a couple days before to stave off total disappointment if I had to cancel.
Everything went well, at first. After we went to a couple thrift stores, we decided to go out to eat then call it a night. We were at the end of our meal when the trouble started. Arabella started talking about how the residential treatment facility we sent her to was a cult. She started to talk about this a couple weeks ago to me. She talked about how we should sue them because they stole our money. I told her that the DBT therapy program in essence was to reprogram disordered thinking. She told us the psychiatrist was the cult leader. The food there sucked. They were out to get her and she said the other girls in the program felt the same way. They used psychological torture and now she has PTSD from it.
The conversation was getting uncomfortable and Arabella wouldn’t let it go. Angel tried to change the conversation by thanking me for the meal and saying how she really liked her food. It’s a tactic I often use myself. Hey, how about that snowstorm we didn’t get? Except this time it didn’t work out too well. Arabella got angry and called her sister a bitch. She was sitting next to her sister and was loud and in her face. My heart started beating faster as the anxiety rushed in. Angel tried to diffuse the situation by not fighting back. Where was that waitress with the boxes for our food??? Arabella was still ranting as Angel hunted down the waitress for the boxes. We got out of there as quickly as we could. Things were going downhill fast.
I dropped Angel off at her house first. I was afraid she was going to be upset, and she was afraid I was upset. I talked to her a few brief minutes as I helped her carry her things into her house. I told her she handled her sister very well. She didn’t engage when her sister called her a bitch multiple times. I told her I was sorry it had to be like that with her sister. When Arabella is delusional, nothing can convince her otherwise. I try to validate her, but I don’t agree with her and I think she knows this. On the ride home, Arabella kept repeating how much Angel is a bitch and how she has PTSD from residential and her bad childhood.
After dropping Arabella off, I spoke to Lexi the rest of the ride home about Arabella since she has never seen her like that. I told her Arabella does not have PTSD but she thinks she does. We had a good conversation. The strange thing is that both Lexi and I do have PTSD from our childhoods. We can relate to each other with similar stories of trauma and triggers that no one else seems to understand. I want to help her with my own experiences, but I think she really needs professional help.
I feel upset that Arabella does not appreciate the sacrifice we made financially to get her residential treatment. I still think it helped her and probably saved her life. I will not agree they were out to get her.
But, in all honesty, I do feel some sense of relief in her accusations. She accused me of abusing, torturing, and starving her before. She even made those accusations against me while she was in residential, which being a mandatory reporter, the therapist shared she had to contact child protective services. It was devastating and anxiety provoking.
I know some people believed her by the way they treated me. If I didn’t know her, I would probably believe her too. Good thing she is obese because it gave less credibility to her starvation accusations. Being accused of doing things I never did…I can’t even describe to you the pain that caused me as a parent who tried everything in my power to help her. She caused me a lot more trauma than I ever caused her.
When she started the accusations against the residential treatment facility, she sounded paranoid and delusional. I saw the parallel between that and her accusations against me. No one in their right mind would believe a word she says. But she believes it and is adamant about it.
I think it will be awhile before we have another girl’s night.
Gratitude week 163
- I’m grateful we didn’t go to the yurt and were able to get a lot of stuff done. Lisa said it took 4 hours for them to hike into the yurt on a snowy hilly path with wind chills of 20 below. Then they left early, only staying one night instead of two, because they couldn’t get it to warm up more than 60 degrees inside the yurt. We picked another weekend to get together.
- I’m grateful that we found Arabella a car and I got it all registered and insured. I let my daughter use my car until I got it registered. I ended up driving her car to get it registered at the DMV without plates. I thought for sure I would get pulled over especially after a squad car pulled up behind me at the gas station. He didn’t even bothering glancing my way more than once and didn’t follow me. Only proves I’m a middle aged lady not even a threat at all for committing a crime. I strike fear in no one. Sad! LOL.
- My mom took Paul and I out for hibachi/sushi to thank my husband for helping her with Matt’s bookkeeping. I had crab rangoon sushi which was amazing.
- Volunteer time.
- Paul and I went to see our couple’s therapist who is very insightful. I think she can help us. I actually made my therapist cry when I told her some of my childhood stories. She wants me to join a woman’s group she is having and I think I will give it a try.
- We were supposed to get a snowstorm on the night I was planning a girl’s night with Angel, Lexi, and Arabella. We had plans to go out to eat and thrifting. The 6 inches of snow turned out to be about 6 snowflakes, so I didn’t have to cancel.
- I had some good finds thrifting. I was able to replenish my supply of candles and I found a murder mystery party game. Angel found multiple Stephen King books she didn’t have.
- The guys were able to make a lot of headway fixing my son’s car.
- I spent some time working on my book and feel more organized about it.
- I just finished a really difficult puzzle.
- Angel and I are going to spend some time together this afternoon sorting donations at the place I volunteer at.
Observations of a clean freak
Clean out your cars people at least before you sell them. Last night my daughter Arabella stopped by and basically called me a clean freak. I had to chuckle over her negative(?) comment. Last night we got done with supper really late. My husband made his famous pizza as a thank you to my son’s roommate for doing a welding project in the restoration of my son’s car. It seemed like all of his friends also heard about the project and famous pizza because before you knew it there was a lot more than a couple people. So it got very late indeed…so I said screw it, I’ll clean up in the morning. Then I had the thought…what if my house was on fire…and all these buff firemen came in my house…instead of saving us they would exclaim how dirty my kitchen was. I’d probably go back to clean the house before it burned to the ground.
Now remember for just a second that I grew up in a house that people have commented was gross or disgusting. Not only did my parents have a propensity for mild to moderate hoarding, they kept a dirty house as well. Tables were too cluttered to eat on. Chairs too full of papers to sit on. Dirty dishes, rotten food on the counter, uncleaned toilets, piss on the floor type of thing. They didn’t throw anything out. To them it brought comfort, to me it gave a fear of walking around barefoot. Strange how I still feel like people are going to judge the cleanliness of my house.
I feel a lot of anxiety when strangers come to my house. I even felt a lot of anxiety when the guy came over to take my son’s car to the salvage yard. Although my son cleaned the car out, I secretly cleaned out the car some more. After all, the car was in my name. As if the guy was going to come back and say he changed his mind the car wasn’t clean enough for his junkyard. I do honestly worry about those types of things.
Recently we bought cars from private sellers. I am now realizing that perhaps I am a clean freak for cleaning a car for the junkyard. I’m going to tell you the condition of my kid’s cars when they were purchased.
My son’s car was purchased in November from a guy who was right around my son’s age. I think his medical records said he was 21. Yes, he left his medical records in the car. He was fully vaccinated if that is a concern of yours. He also left pertinent info about the car in the car so I had to read through some stuff because it was important such as where he bought the car from, for how much, how many miles, and the car facts such as it was never in an accident. You know, the good days of the car before someone ran a red light and totaled it.
I tried hard not to look at his medical records. I did notice the guy was being treated for anxiety and suffered from an allergy so bad he needed an Epi-pen. Now I surmised his anxiety was probably not as bad as mine because otherwise why would you leave your medical info in your car when you sell it. He also left all of the information regarding his speeding tickets. I knew what auto insurance company he was going through. I had his full name, address, and date of birth. He also apparently liked cheap cigars and had bad taste in music. I found it utterly horrifying he left so much personal info in the vehicle. I glanced over everything and kept anything pertinent to the car and threw the rest out. I was thinking about driving to his house to return it but I think that would be more mortifying to him. I felt guilty about having to go through all the stuff he left in the car. Like it was my fault he left a gold mine for someone to steal his identity.
My daughter got a car this past weekend. We purchased the car from an elderly man whose wife passed away. The car belonged to his wife and he was no longer in need of it. She rarely drove it. While we were on the test drive I checked out the pockets in the back seat. Apparently that is a spot people forget about. Inside the back pocket were two little shooters of whiskey, one empty one full. On the floor was a cushion that I caught a whiff of piss on. There were other things like a pump you would use to blow up an air mattress. His wife’s sunglasses in the cupholder. Masks under the visor. Receipts and napkins in the center console. Paperwork of repairs done. The jackpot was a handicap parking permit that expires in 2026 which I hope my daughter doesn’t use when she is feeling lazy.
Seriously, if I was thinking of selling my car the first thing I would do is clean it out. But maybe that is just me since I even do a clean out for the junkyard. Since it was a cold day, we went inside the guy’s house to exchange the money and title. The guy said his wife was a collector. He asked if I wanted any teacups, decorative spoons or thimbles, Avon figurines, or stuffed animals. He tried to sell my daughter a stuffed animal that was older than her dressed in Christmas clothes and played an annoying tune for $10. I told him I wasn’t much of a collector. He seemed like a lonely man who didn’t have a lot of people to talk to. His house was warm and clean. He was playing country music and possibly had a cup of straight whiskey on his end table. He had a Bible sitting out nearby. He told us what he did for a living before retirement and talked about a successful son who lived far away.
Buying cars from people sure gives you an interesting look into the lives of other people. Maybe more than I wanted to know. But that’s just my observations as a clean freak.
Gratitude week 162
- A spa day with my mom. We went out to eat before and the food was really good. (I had a veggie burger, and if that was very good!!!). I decided to take the extra survey for a chance to win a $250 gift card. I didn’t seem to win it yet though…Wouldn’t that be something?
- The longest and hardest month of the year, January, is finally over.
- I’m starting to work on my book again.
- Although we didn’t make it to the yurt, we found a car for Arabella.
- I’m grateful to be getting my car back. I let Arabella and Will borrow my car quite often.
- I’m glad the cold snap seems to be over. We are going to have a few days above freezing. The sun is shining too.
- I’m glad Angel has an appointment with the wellness clinic I went to a couple years back. I think she will be able to address some health concerns she is having. I was able to visit with her quite a bit this past week and will be seeing her a couple days in the week ahead.
- I’m grateful Dan helped in the process of finding Arabella a reliable car. We looked at a listing by a private owner and when we got there someone else was looking at it. I thought we were out of luck. I’m hoping the car will last a long time. It’s a 2008 Sonata with less than 100,000 miles on it in the exact price range. It was meant to be! What a deal!
- My favorite comedian is coming to the area next month…so guess who bought tickets??
- Fires in the fireplace on cold winter nights.
- Our friends still went to the yurt. It took them 4 hours to hike in with all their gear. They found it to be very challenging. They are younger than we are, almost 10 years younger than my husband. As hard as it is to admit we can’t do everything we want to do anymore, I think we made the right call about not going without a working snowmobile. It’s amazing the difference a couple years can make at our age. Funny story, I couldn’t open a jar yesterday so I asked my husband to help me. He pulled a muscle getting it open. That was confirmation. If we can’t handle opening a jar, how were we going to hike 5 miles through the snow with all our gear??
Yurt not trusting me
This weekend we had plans with friends to stay at a yurt. It seemed like a great idea after a few drinks while talking with Tom and Lisa at our daughter’s wedding. It still seemed like a good idea when Lisa booked the trip in February the next day.
The yurt is located in the middle of nowhere in some state park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was going to take a couple hours to drive there. Apparently it does not have electricity nor does it have running water. Winter camping at its finest with a vault toilet nearby. The only amenities are a couple bunk beds, a table, and a wood stove with wood to keep a fire going so nobody freezes to death.
Freezing to death…it’s been a cold week here in Wisconsin. I’ve heard of several reports of people freezing to death within this past week. Will, without a car, was still planning on riding his bike to work. Not only is it cold, it is icy because salt doesn’t melt ice well when it’s 20 below. I don’t think I could live with myself if I saw a picture of him dead on the morning news. So I let my daughter borrow my car so he would have a way to work.
I gave my friend Lisa a call this week to plan the trip to the yurt. Lisa said their snowmobile wasn’t working. They ordered parts they thought might fix it which were supposed to show up on Tuesday but didn’t arrive until Wednesday. To get to the yurt, we would need to hike almost 5 miles on a snow covered path or breeze in on a snowmobile.
I reminded myself of the not so fond memory of the last time I ‘ran’ 5 miles over a year ago. It was the last race I ever did. I almost didn’t finish. Not too long before that, I finished my first 50k. Yes, a 50k! It was at that point I knew something was wrong. I ran about half the race then I had this horrible pain in my ankle where I could barely walk. I found out later that under exertion I have a bone spur which hits a nerve. At times I can barely walk and the next minute it’s fine. I also had a terrible backache.
Back in the day, Lisa and I used to run together. That was before her daughter died, before she moved away. Those days were some of the best times in my life. We trained together. She was a better runner than me but she kept me on my toes. Between the two of us, we could place in almost every small town race. I typically placed in the top 10% of my age group in 10k’s and half-marathons. I was finally able to achieve at a sport after always being picked last as a kid for teams in gym class. I even had to do extra credit in middle school to pass gym class. Turns out I was better at writing book reports than doing any kind of sport. But running I guess you could say I ran with it.
Now my daughter Angel is training for her first half-marathon. At times I see her hard on herself if she has a bad run. I too was very hard on myself on bad running days. Recently I told her that even a bad run, she is still able to run. What I wouldn’t give now for a bad run. These are things you can say once it’s gone. But it is truly not gone because I am able to enjoy the process through her.
The part for the snowmobile came in and it didn’t fix the problem. Today Tom bought a new battery and it still didn’t work. Now they are thinking the starter on the snowmobile needs fixing and they will need to take it in somewhere to be fixed.
Today I made the decision to not go to the yurt if the snowmobile wasn’t working. The high for tomorrow is 3 with lows below zero. Maybe I would’ve gone if I didn’t have to walk 5 miles through the snow in subzero temperatures with all our gear and try to get there before dark. A couple years ago nothing would’ve stopped me. But now I can’t even trust myself anymore. With spotty phone coverage, who knows? I might end up on the news and not in a good way. Although I’m a planner, I haven’t given too much thought to my funeral yet.
I feel bad for wimping out. But I also know my limitations. All the self-discipline in the world won’t change a thing when my body doesn’t listen to my mind anymore. Looks like I’ll have some time to take Arabella car shopping after all.
Outrunning my demons 