26 posts tagged “frustrated”

This word used to bring a funny story to mind...  Back in college when OneUnbrokenBrow took over his girlfriend's CB radio on a car trip and started messing with truckers...  Hilarious...  This weekend, though, "breaker" means nothing but worry and frustration...  You see, a good section of our electrical box is dying...  Why?  Rain... Rain water is literally following the wires into the house and rusting out some of the breakers in the breaker box (then dripping out the bottom -- which is how Clark found the problem)...  When NYSEG did us the "courtesy" of re-attaching the electrical wires to the house after the ice storm last winter, they never notified us that the job wasn't actually finished...  You see, it is technically OUR responsibility to do anything between the pole and the house...  Well, I know that, but I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth...  Had we known that the job was unfinished, though, we would have gotten someone out immediately so that they could attach the "weather head" (I think that is what the guy said it's called) to keep the rain and snow from getting inside via the electrical wires...  I am so angry...  Now, we have no electricity in the 2nd floor of our house and have to wait until the electrician can come back tomorrow (our neighbors know a guy and he was kind enough to come check it out in the freezing/pouring rain to let us at least know what had to be done and whether it was safe to turn the main breaker back on)...  We have no idea how much this is going to cost, and I am really nervous that even the parts are going to be crazy expensive, let alone the labor...  This guy deserves every penny for his work -- don't get me wrong...  But I wish that NYSEG could be held accountable for their part in this...  Sure, they did a nice thing by getting the wires out of our yard -- but at what future cost?!?  Is it too much to ask that they let people know when they will need to do more to make their house safe?!?!?!?!?!?!?  Later days...

When exactly it was that my mom started smoking crack...  Not literally...  At least, I don't think she actually is...  But, let me elaborate...  Today, I had the day off...  So, I decided it would be a good idea to get over to my parents' house and finish setting up the computer we passed on to my dad...  He has a special program that he needs for work, so I had to have a time to go through the export from the old computer to the import on the new one...  I knew it would be simple enough for me, even though I was pretty sure it might have made his head explode...  So, after I managed that, I went through and finished finalizing all his settings...  Then I started cleaning the living room because OCD + pregnancy = the perfect time to attack my mom's clutter in order to make it possible for the children she babysits to not die from an avalanche...  I was in the middle of a toy bin that was full of animal crackers, plastic wrappers, and scrap papers (as well as some toys) when my mom started getting all huffy and asking what happened to her "screen saver" of Maui...  Umm...  She meant the desktop photo...  So, after I calmly tried SEVERAL times to explain to her that it was a whole new computer and that I would have to find that picture to download and turn into the DESKTOP image and also change the setting for the SCREEN SAVER so that it did a slide show of images, I gave up and just did it...  Once everything looked like it had been on the old computer, my mom [who is always oh so eloquent] said, "I guess hate is the wrong word, but I hate you for being able to fix that so quickly when I spent a long time trying to figure it out."  Yeah...  Well...  I tried not to be a jerk about it by pointing out that she knows dick about computers, so I said something along the lines of, "Well, I guess I had better have picked up some computer skills with the tens of thousands of dollars I spent on college and grad school."  Her answer almost made me shit my pants...  She literally said, "I guess I wish that with the tens of thousands of dollars I spent on your education, I would have liked to get a little bit of it through osmosis!"  What?!?  When the fuck did she spend tens of thousands of dollars on my education?!?  She and my father took out a loan for a couple of thousand of dollars for my first semester of college...  Maybe the whole first year...  MAYBE...  And, then she continued on to say that my student loan was one of the things she has fallen behind on paying and it's a good thing that they can't come back and take away my education...  HOW THE FUCK have they not paid that off in the last 9 years?!?!?!?  Part of me wants to ask my dad if he wants to get her head examined, and part of me wants to ask my dad if there is some way that she managed to take out money "for my college" and then spent it on something else...  I just don't get it...  She manages to piss me off more than I would have thought was humanly possible for someone who is 1/2 responsible for bringing me into this world...  Thank goodness she has that title, or I may have broken down and punched her in the face long ago...  I know...  I'm all violent and shit...  So, sue me...  The woman makes my blood boil, and she is the only mom I've got, so I have to try and play nice or I will end up feeling guilty for not trying hard enough...  Gah...  Later days...

We were unable to determine the baby's sex at the ultrasound...  Neither Clark and I are exactly thrilled with the prospect of having to wait so long to find out if this is a boy or a girl kickin' around in there...  But neither one of us knows whether we care enough to go for it and pay for one of those 4D ultrasound "photo sessions"...  They are available in our area...  And we can afford it with minimal penny pinching...  But, I keep wondering "what if" the baby doesn't cooperate there either?  Am I willing to spend a lot of money to get my hopes up again?  But, then I start thinking of the fact that I am only about 1/2 way through this pregnancy...  (I was exactly 1/2 way through at this point for Boogie, and just didn't know it yet) ... People have a lot of theories about why this MUST be a girl, but I am doing my best not to assume anything so that I won't end up feeling disappointed that I was wrong for X number of weeks and have to turn my brain inside-out again...  I will be perfectly happy with a boy or a girl...  But I just wish I knew which one it was, you know?  For Boogie, I just had that feeling that he was a boy...  I was certain of it...  And I was right!  But, for this kid...  I got nuthin'...  Bah...  Later days... 

Because:

1. Boogie's daycare sent him home with a fever
2. Boogie acted fine all the way home
3. a sheriff pulled me over for driving through YELLOW blinking lights on a school bus
4. Boogie puked in the driveway after we got out of the car
AND THEN
5. my cell phone slipped from my hand and landed in the puke

I wonder if I really am a good enough mother...  Some days, I question whether having another child will make my "bad days" more frequent; if another child will only shorten the half-life of my good days...  I am sure that being nauseated all day for nearly all of the past 9 weeks [yeah, it started at about week 6 this time] has done quite a number on my patience...  I am also sure that ending my work day by puking in the staff bathroom was not the best way to prepare for a long car ride with a tired pre-schooler...  I would like to think that my logic would help me to recognize when my nausea is compounding something that is not really a big deal, but logic seems to be on maternity leave already...  I can only pray that never getting pregnant again will help me to be a better mother when I have both children to deal with in future years...  I feel like I have been nothing but a moping, whining bitch for probably the last 3 or 4 weeks, but I just feel so damn terrible that I can't psyche myself out of it for more than a couple hours at a time...  Clark has been really understanding...  Too understanding, probably...  But I still wonder if he is being nicer on the surface than he really feels...  When we got home today, after Boogie had whined for the entire 40 minute drive, Clark and I both kind of met the end of our patience...  Boogie would not take the cheap [most likely lead-laden] dinosaur figurine out of his mouth, so I took it out of his mouth for him and brought it into the kitchen with me...  Boogie, then, proceeded to throw himself on the floor and scream/cry while simultaneously refusing to move out of the doorway so I could keep the cat from getting out onto the porch...  I moved on to filling up water bottles and adding water to the vase on the counter, in an attempt to remove myself from the frustration of the moment, but I managed to knock down an open bottle of water...  As I reacted with a clenched-teeth grunt of frustration, Clark was coming through the front door and told Boogie and I that we both needed to go up to our rooms to chill out...  That's where I keep my phenergan, anyhow, so I decided to follow through with the "suggestion" and hope that I would feel better by the time Clark finished cooking dinner...  So, now, I am just sitting on my bed, crying, and trying to "blog it out of my system" while trying to ignore Boogie's procession of Star Wars bobble heads that I already told him I didn't want to see right now...  I know, deep down, that he just likes Star Wars so much that he is hoping it will cheer me up, but it really isn't helping...  And, now, Boogie has just broken my heart by asking me, "Mama, why do you have tears?"  I answered that "I am having a hard time dealing with feeling like I am going to throw up all the time," and he replied, "Yeah.  It's hard work making a baby." after which he took down the bobble heads and went to his room to entertain himself...  Nausea + frustration + guilt = one hell of a night for Bee...  Later days... 

I offer free booze, and no one shows up?!?  Not even the people who said they would?  I mean, maybe they are just coming later...  But how damn late do they think I stay up?  I am lame, people!!!!  Later days...

Supposed to be out watching a movie with my boys...  Instead, we are home...  Why?  Because our radiator "blew up" on the highway as we headed to the mall tonight...  Luckily, I was not far from work, and Nice came to pick us up...  Clark rode with the tow truck guy, and we borrowed Nice's car to get him...  Clark's sister came to the library to get us, and now we just have to hope and pray that the repairs will not be crazy expensive...  The shop was closing when I called, but I did get someone -- and he told me that they would "try to squeeze it in tomorrow"...  This does not look good...  So, now, we are missing Clark's family reunion tomorrow and we have no idea how much the car repairs will cost...  Lame!  On a side note, Clark is starting a Justice League video to watch with Boogie, and he asked if Boogie knew who the woman on the screen was...  Boogie didn't know, so he told him it was "Wonder Woman"...  Boogie asked, "Is it because she wonders about everything?"  Awesome...  Later days...

I have been trying my best to keep my cool and to not let things get me down, but it has been a rough couple of weeks...  Last week, we found out that we could not close on time with our home refinancing because the previous owners' lien on the property had not been properly cleared when we purchased our home...  That resulted in a .25 point increase so we could keep our locked-in rate...  Yay!  Then, this week, we were still not sure if we would be able to close "on time" (by the end of the extension) because the records department at one of the legal offices involved ended up sending the incorrect file back from storage...  That got all worked out, but now we are being told that they somehow miscalculated the pay-off value for the mortgage and that they had to roll in another $2500 that we didn't expect...  Do these people have any sort of training to do what they do?!?  Every time we turn around there is some sort of "surprise" that even the so-called professionals didn't see coming...  I can understand the lien surprise, btu how the eff do you miscalculate (by $2500!) when you have an official close-out letter from the mortgage company?!?  On top of that ridiculousness, I received a notice from my insurance company (yesterday) stating that I owe about $1200 for the ultrasounds I had done in January...  When I called to see what was going on, they said that I used an "out of network provider"...  WTF?!?  I went to the same damn OB/GYN office I have been going to since before Boogie was born...  The same provider group, in fact, for which I was already cleared to have my surgery at the end of the month...  Somehow, my certified nurse midwife (from that office) is no longer in network?!?  So, I asked if the doctor/surgeon I see in that office is "in network" -- and she is!!!  How is that possible?!?  Grrrr...  Now, I am being sent on a wild goose chase as I try to figure out with whom I need to speak about getting the claim re-submitted to the insurance company...  I tried calling the center where the ultrasounds were performed, but they said I needed to call the hospital's "out patient billing" office...  When I spoke with a woman in that office, she said that I actually needed to speak to someone in a different office (because I did not receive a bill directly from the hospital yet)...  I don't even know the name of the damn office for the newest contact -- I just have a name and a number...  So helpful!  The next person, of course, was not there and I had to leave a voicemail...  Freakin' lovely...  Add that to the fact that I still had to work until 9pm last night, even though I could not have the super-fun program I'd planned (because of electrical issues which resulted from a nasty car accident nearby), and you have one grumpy gus over here...  Clark is all trying to tell me to lighten-up, but I am just not there right now...  I am getting closer to the date of my surgery, so I am starting to get all nervy about that, and all kinds of other annoying things keep happening too...  ::deep breaths::  Yeah...  I know this isn't the healthiest way to react to all of this, but I think I'm just gonna get drunk tonight so I can try to forget about everything for a while...  Good times...  Later days...

So, it's crazy to think about how my changes in faith are going to actually effect my holiday celebrations...  I never considered how many of our family's traditions had a basis in Christianity...  Oh -- I don't think I have mentioned that on my blog yet...  I have officially stopped referring to myself as "Christian" because, though I still believe in God, I am not sure about all the other stuff Christianity assumes...  Anyhow...  I have been working on a timetable for our Christmas Eve plans and I am all like, "What is it gonna feel like when we don't do the Christmas Eve service?"  Christmas is secular enough now that I don't feel like a complete hypocrite celebrating the holiday, but I am still a little conflicted as to how I will answer Boogie when he starts asking about what Christmas means and everything...  Do I go into the fact that some people are celebrating the birth of Jesus even though the general "good will" and "peace on Earth" themes are MY reasons for celebrating now?  Boogie already "knows" about Santa from people at school and such, but he has already come to the conclusion that he doesn't want Santa to give him anything (and we are more than OK with that)...  But, yeah...  I worry to much about crap that doesn't necessarily matter...  Later days...

Seems to follow me at every turn...  Yesterday, we got several bills that were wrong...  We got a phone bill that wasn't right (after they had finally, supposedly, "fixed" the problem)...  We received a bill from the radiology company that did my PCOS ultrasounds in June -- because it said the insurance company has not paid yet and they wanted to make sure they had the correct information...  We received an invoice from the company that cleaned our boiler -- even though they had been given explicit directions to use up our credit from last year's oil budget and then bill the rest to my Visa...  We received an invoice from our new oil company telling us that we were a month overdue in payments, even though we were not... AND we still had to call the furniture company to figure out the sectional disaster...  The good news is that a lot of this has been sorted out and the rest is pretty close...  I got through to a customer service person at the phone company who seems to genuinely care enough to look into it and get the problem fixed...  I spoke to someone at the radiology company who found a notation on my account that looked promising enough that she told me to "disregard the letter"...  I straightened out the payment arrangements with the boiler cleaning people (surprise, surprise -- they found the note about the credit and the instructions to charge my Visa when they actually looked at the freakin' service order)...  When I called the furniture store, I was bitchy enough to get through to a manager -- instead of a manager's voicemail -- for once...  Even better, he ended up being both sincerely apologetic AND able to figure out the problem so he could place an order for the correct piece of furniture...  Other than that, I am just waiting for a phone call back from the telephone company...  I have the woman's name in case I need to call her back, but I think she will follow through...  OMG...  I will be so happy if I can go an entire month without some sort of billing debacle!  Maybe October 2008?!?  (I have my fingers crossed, but I certainly won't be holding my breath)...  Later days...