Namely,my (soon-to-be-ex)S-I-L.

I guess I should start at the...beginning. I don't remember if I mentioned anything before, but Neal's wife Kim filed for divorce. They've been separated for a while now and both have dated others. Anyway, at the end of November she filed the papers. Neal has no problem with that. In fact, he was hoping she would so he wouldn't have to spend out the money. Her mom/mom's family hates him so much (for no real reason) they payed for it. Anyway, like I said, he has NO problem with that. But before she did that, or rather, before she told him about that, she went and got a restraining order against him. For her and their daughter. Right before Thanksgiving. She called the cops and told them that he had threatened to take Catilena and go to Michigan and never bring her back. Okay, he said that, once, in the heat of an argument, like a few weeks or months prior. She knows he says things he doesn't mean when he's mad. It's a condition of his brain damage. But she decided to get to him by keeping him from seeing his daughter. Not smart. Even though this old threat was an empty threat, her family backed her up. They had a court appearance on Dec. 1st about it. She tried to tell the judge that she had never meant for Catilena to be on the restraining order. Except she had specifically told him and our cousin (while I was there) that she did. Anyway, they wanted her to get full custody. The judge didn't go for it, since there was no reason and they're still married. But Neal said he didn't care if she had temporary custody as long as he had visitations. The judge agreed. Then they wanted to do the exchanges of her at the police station, trying to make him seem like some horrible monster. She just made herself look bad, since the police station has no parking lot and the only parking spots are on a busy street. The judge told her how stupid it was. Neal suggested the Kroger parking lot. The judge said that was fine. Kim and her family were not happy because nothing went their way. The judge gave him every Wednesday and every other weekend. Not that's actually legal, since they aren't divorced yet. But, whatever.

Anyway, now that you know the backstory... Neal is supposed the have Catilena from Christmas Day until Jan. 4th. Only he doesn't have anywhere to stay with her. He could stay at our house, but we have no heat. We're supposed to, but the heater kind of broke. OH, yeah. Our electric got turned on and we got a tank of propane, but the heater suddenly won't work. The flame and pilot light keep going out. Dad thinks there may be a little water in the tubing. He needs to look at it. So, hopefully soon I'll be able to go home... Back to the story. Neal is supposed to have her for 9 days, but has no where to sleep with her. He tried to be responsible and tell Kim that he can't care for her properly right now, can he keep her for a couple days until he figures out something. She refuses. She is making her daughter be homeless for a week and a half because she doesn't want the inconvenience. Also, apparently her new boyfriend is gone and she's sleeping with some other guy. And letting Catilena see her go into the bedroom with him. Luckily she's only three and confused him for the boyfriend, but still... She's so stupid. She keeps INSISTING that the visitation thing says he HAS to take/keep her when it's his time. She just doesn't get that what it says is that if it's his time, she has to let him see her. So even though her daughter has no place to stay, she's making him keep her. Just because she doesn't feel like taking care of her.

IDK, it's just irritating.

Still at brother's. Dad came to get me last night, but they weren't back at 2:30am, so he had to go home, since he works today. I fell asleep before they got home, which was probably about 4 or 5am. The way it looks now, he'll be taking me home after he gets home from work tonight. He's putting in deadbolts right now, so he won't have time to take me before work. Whatever. Doesn't really matter to me.

I'm feeling very melancholy today. I know part of it is because I'm tired. The rest, I don't know. I'm just sort of... Blah. Guess I'm just in one of those moods. Maybe it's the prednisone. It can cause mood changes. And fatigue/insomnia. Which would explain how tired I've been lately. Maybe I'll feel better later. All I know is that I need to tell the Dr. that the pain is getting worse again, see if I need to start on the Naproxen again. Or something. I don't know. We'll see what he has to say.

On the book front... I've fallen way behind with this last book. I'm only about 1/3 through it, though under normal circumstances I'd be just about done with it, or maybe done. I just couldn't concentrate on reading yesterday. I couldn't hold my eyes open and actually had to take a nap in the early evening.

Well, I guess it's time to go take my prednisone and find some lunch.

And the "D" stands for "Dey is moving". :P

They're actually taking a van full of stuff right this moment. Still a few more things, mostly big things like the fridge, freezer, washer & dryer. Dad told them that since we won't have power for a while, they can use the dryer so they won't have to buy one right away. They're already going to have to buy a kitchen table, a couch, some chairs, beds for the kids...

Anyway, the power gets turned off over here sometime tomorrow. We think we may have an idea for getting it turned on cheaper, but I have to call little brother to see if it's possible first. It'll still be a couple weeks until we can get it on if that works. Gotta wait until dad gets paid again. I'll be going over to brother's at least once a week to check my mail and internet still, so I won't be completely out of the loop.

Oh, and dad has and Alternative Power Source he got from somewhere. He plans on plugging the well pump into it everyday so we can still have some water for (cold!)showers and whatever else for a little bit every day. I'll probably try to find a clean bucket to fill so I can have water to heat and wash dishes with, if I need to. Or anything else I might need water for while he's at work. He'll take it to work to plug in to charge at work.

I have to send out my application for food stamps/medicaid today or tomorrow. Even if I can get temporary medicaid until I get a decision on SSI, that would help immensely. And even $10/month in food stamps would help. I know I can't eat more than $50/month so... Hopefully I'll get an appointment with them soon. I'll have to call my Dr.s office tomorrow and have him write me a letter describing my conditions and why I can't really work so they don't try to put me through Job-find. That program is a CROCK. NO ONE gets hired through Job-find. Anyway...

You know, I think I might make a small solar oven so I can bake some stuff from time to time. Maybe try to make some brownies in it or something. It'll give me something to do anyway. It's not like we won't be able to eat, because we've got a propane camp stove we'll be using for now, but sometimes you want something baked. And then I could make biscuits or something. Okay, I'm getting too excited over some cardboard and foil. :p

Anyway, I'll be on-and-off most of the day today, but after that, no net for a few days. :(

Eh, that's all I can think of for now.

Got my toe taken care of this morning. Woot! \o/ The podiatrist cut off both sides and part of the top. Man, that needle with the numbing stuff in it HURT! That was the worst part. He bandaged it up with lots of padding. Says I should be down to normal band-aids after tomorrow. Luckily I have some Darvocet because when the numbness went away, it started to hurt. It's okay right now, just a slight stinging pain. I really need to get off it and rest it though. He said walking on it would make it bleed. After I finish up with this, I'll go lie down and put it up a little.

Just getting a chance to stop in here now. Dad had a job interview after my appointment. It seemed to go well. He's hoping to hear about a second interview soon. Hopefully he gets it because if/when brother moves out, we're going to need the money. Speaking of...they went to the bank yesterday and a loan for this one house looks good. They're going for a Rural Development loan because it's a house out in the country. Hopefully they'll get approved.

That's it for now. I need to go get my foot up.

My grandma just called me and asked if I'd want to drive down to Norfolk, VA with her in late June/early July. She wants to go visit my uncle (the one in the Navy) and she needs someone to share driving with her. My uncle (that she's married to, other side of the family) just started his job and doesn't have vacation for a year. My mom was gonna go, but just found out she has to be around for work, just in case. One of my aunts volunteered and grandma told her she wouldn't be able to smoke in the car, but she said that'd be okay. Uncle and his wife said 'NO!' to her coming b/c she is a chain smoker and they don't want her to stink up their house. Yes, she's actually that bad. I guess mom called grandma back today and said she had the solution; she should ask me. I have nothing better to do and it would get me out of the house.

It's not concrete, since her finances are a little low right now. If she decides to go it will only be for, like, 4-5 days or so. She won't know until it gets closer to the end of June after taking care of a few things, so we'll see. She just wanted to know and give me a head's up. This could be fun.

It's really been 3 weeks? EEP! It's taken me the last couple days to catch up. I skimmed over all/most of the posts, but I didn't really get to read many of them all the way through.

Finally got my comp hooked up, so I'll be able to get on more often now. Brother went and picked up a monitor from the house. Instead of the monitor that came with this comp he grabbed the 19" that dad had sitting on the porch. Luckily it works. OMG! Pics, especially Hi-res, look AWESOME on here! And I can read the text from practically halfway acros the room. And that's with the type set normal. I just wish it was a flat screen b/c it's set up in the living room on the coffee table and now I won't be able to watch TV while I'm laying down to go to sleep. Boo. :(

( More updates under the cut. )

That's about all I can think of right now. Maybe I'll think of something later.

Just wanted to post a shout-out to my Cousin marina. She just joined LJ land as marinaf22. *waves*

So last Saturday my brother Paul and I went half-way to Columbus (Bucyrus) to see our cousin whom we haven't seen since she was a tiny baby. We basically sat there in her living room for 3 hours. Paul wasn't talking because he doesn't talk when he's not in a comfortable surrounding. Cousin didn't talk because she and Paul had talked on the phone before and he'd answered all her questions.

I guess I should explain a little. The reason we haven't seen her since she was a tiny baby is because of her parents. Her dad, our uncle, had her mom stealing from us and our grandparents. Because of that, he was disowned by grandparents. Shortly after cousin was born they moved and no one really cared. A bit later we found out that they had gotten a divorce and that's the last we heard of cousin.

A few months ago, she contacted all of us that are on MySpace and her and Paul started talking occasionally. Last week, Catilena got ahold of his cell and accidentally called her so Paul talked to her and she asked if he wanted to come out over the weekend. He took me because he hates to drive anywhere by himself. So we went and no one really tgalked and we watched TV with her family. Then it started getting late and Paul decided we had to leave.

So that was my weekend.

Sorry I haven't been on in, like, FOREVER. Lots going on this week. But before I go on, thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday. *hugs f-list*

And on to the stress and reason I haven't been on.

On Tuesday morning I went downstairs to go to the bathroom, but Uncle was in there. No big deal. WAited for a while, couldn't hold it anymore, had to improvise. Went back upstairs and started to drift off to sleep. Just about then, dad got up to go to the bathroom. I told him that about half an hour before Uncle had still been in there, so good luck. (Uncle had been pretty sick for a few days, so I didn't think too much of him taking a long time in the bathroom.) A few minutes later, dad calls me downstairs, so I go down. He's all "Go see if you can get a response out of him, I can't." So I went to the bathroomn door and called Uncle's name, no response and he was breathing funny. Dad called the ambulance. We were afraid he'd had another stroke. The ambulance finally made it here (is it bad that our town's main EMS workers just have to hear our last name and know where to go without an addy?) and got him to the hospital. Our little backyard guest made his way up by that point and we were talking about stuff while dad was getting ready so it took dad about an hour to get to the hospital. After a while, I went back to bed and had a small nap. When I got up I called dad to see what was going on.

Apperently, Uncle had been losing blood over the last week (he just had a 2 unit transfusion last Monday) and his blood pressure was so low that he was passing out. And where he thought he just had a bad cold, he had pnuemonia in one lung. They had to put him in the ICU to get rid of that before they could find out where he was leaking blood. He had 3 units by Tuesday night.

Well, just a little bit ago, dad got a call saying that they didn't think he was going to make it through the day and he didn't want to be alone, so he just headed off to the hospital. It's sad, but it's not really unexpected. He's been so frail lately and he just started Chemo about 2 weeks ago. Dad and I were kind of expecting this.

Well, now that I've thoroughly depressed you all, I have an appointment later and I still have to program the DVD player into our new Universal remote. I should get downstairs.

I went with dad to his 'other job' yesterday, just to get out of the house and, as is our practice when we're away from home, we talked about Uncle Sam. The man is driving me nuts.

( FREE - One annoying uncle )