A little bit of nothing

The last couple of months our weekends have centered around Sonny Boy's wrestling tournaments.  I am amazed at the amount of youth tournaments in Wisconsin in a given weekend.  Now I'm sure some of them don't draw the same amount of crowds as the ones we attend but I'd guess on any given weekend in Dec, Jan, Feb and early March there are 10-20 tournaments in Wisconsin. 

This one was a couple of weeks ago.  Sonny Boy in 3rd here but only missed 2nd place by 1 point.  The kid who won was a real scrapper and certainly had an advantage on Sonny Boy. 

Today's tournament didn't go nearly so well, in fact I don't know if I'm up to attending that tournament again.  We were in a large "field house" where the only bleachers must have been dragged in from outdoors and were only 3 levels high.  We ended up sitting against the wall - on a set of two step bleachers that were behind another set of bleachers.  Ug, between that and the fact Sonny Boy was in an 8 kid bracket which leaves little room for flubbing a match and placing well.  Today Sonny Boy placed 7th.  The first kid he wrestled pinned him very quickly, the second kid he gave a really hard time but lost by decision.  The third match he was mad, and made the kid pay, and won it but gave us and his coaches a few heart attacks by nearly getting pinned once or twice.

Couple the fact the last nights supper came back to haunt me and I had to make several embarrassing trips to a very busy ladies room early in the day left me not too humoured to be there.

Next week is regional.  Honestly I don't expect him to make it too far.  Several of the better wrestlers on the team are not going after being disappointed last year.  We've done our best to explain to Andrew that he's not likely to do great but he declares that it's just like any other tournament.  The only upside I can see is that it's double elimination and once he loses twice we go home.  Is that bad?

Hubby is trying to fit in a little ice fishing here and there.  Really only gotten out once and the kids are begging to go again.

 

 

A week or so ago he took the boys out and this little northern pike is all they caught.  I know he looks longish but they are a bony fish and must be pretty big before they are worth keeping.  Not to mention they smell, even 10 seconds out of the water they are slimy and stink.  Fun to catch though as they are pretty aggressive.

 

Currently the I can't decide what's offending my nose more.  Hubby dragged up his beer making stuff and made a batch of beer this afternoon and that smells pretty bad.  Couple that with the methane releaser we call a dog this evening and I want to put a clothespin over my nose.  Normally I have a nice candle around to try to cover up the stink but I haven't purchased a good one in a while and the cheap ones hardly have smell to them at all.

 

Tomorrow nothing is down on the "books".  Hubby said he may have to tend an broken airplane, if not it's possible he'll take the boys fishing again. 

 

 

 

 





Change your view, change your mood?

I spent the last couple of evenings going back and reading my old posts.  Geez I'm a whiney, grumpy bitch, or at least appear so on the blog.

Realizing this I am going to make a concerted effort to write a post every now and then that doesn't focus on my frustration with Mom and my lack of being able to really do anything about it. 

With that in mind it's really hard to come up with a topic because of course the frustration of dealing with Mom is usually foremost in my mind.

So with random things in mind, here's also minor things that are going on behind all the big drama.

Hubby came home with a new Ipad from his last school adventure a week or two ago.  I've spent time hunting freebie aps to put on it for the kids, mostly learning games.  The problem is that's one more screen I have to battle them about.  It has worked well for drilling Sonny Boy's spelling words as both of us hate that chore and I can load the words on there and he'll do drills with them.  Last week he didn't miss one word on the test and while he usually does pretty well, he generally misses at least one.  The app I like best is Magic Piano.  It's a silly app that straddles the line well between being hard and simple.  I play it way too much.  I understand the aps are money making ventures but I do wish there were more quality aps for free.  I did sprint $2 for a math app for Sonny Boy.  Do you have good aps for Ipad?  Preferably ones that have some learning thing to them?


Reviewing the old blog posts made me laugh, when school started I had big plans to clean out closets, organize and do all the stuff that's hard to do with the kids underfoot.  Ha, haven't done a one.  If I've done anything in the last month it's been hibernate.  I sleep during the day - a lot.  I get up, get the kids fed and off to school (some days that takes a lot out of me) and I crawl back into bed and sleep until I have to get up for some appointment or another.  I don't know if it's the weather, my habit of staying up way too late, the drugs I take for the TMJ or what but I don't have energy to do anything beyond the bare minimum.  I suppose a good amount of depression is in there as well.  Hubby is the same way, any chance either of us can find to sneak off and crawl in bed for an hour or two is taken.

Well I must cut this short.  Sonny Boy just reported to me that a kid at school is calling him "gay".  Where do they get this stuff?  He's only in 3rd grade.  With that discussion I had to explain what "gay" in that context meant.  Lovely, now I'm off to try and word an email to his teacher that doesn't make me sound like a crazy person but takes care of the problem.  Home school is sounding better and better

Copyrighted

I hereby officially copyright my blog.  Why?  Well I figure it's good fodder for a dramady plot line and I don't want some Hollywood big wig to stumble over it and make a zillion dollars without cutting me in.  After all, it is my crazy life which keeps getting crazier.

You'll never believe the latest episode..

Yesterday I discovered that Mom has not been taking her anti-depressants correctly in God knows how long.  I figured this out as she was trying to get refills and I knew she was supposed to take two of one of the pills and she had only been taking one.  I called the doctor got the Rx's straightened out so hopefully we will see some sort improvement there.  Like I explained to the pharmacist and the doctor's nurse "she follows what's written on the bottle, the directions must be written on the bottle".  The mix up came when she had just filled a Rx and then the shrink changed dosages on her and told her to double one since she had just had it filled and with no insurance you use what you have.

The other thrilling moment came when Mom left to go the pharmacy to pick up the Rx she slipped on a patch of ice in the driveway.  She got up, embarrassed and got into her car and drove the 6 blocks or so to Walgreens.  When she got to Walgreens she felt something on her neck, put her hand up there and it came away covered in blood.  Mom drove home and came in with blood all down her neck, shirt, a wad of napkins.  A mess.  I stuck her head in the kitchen sink to rinse some of the blood away because past experience tells me head wounds bleed a lot even if they are very minor.  We got down to the gash, found a huge goose egg and a very open wound that definitely needed some stitches.  I stuck dinner in the oven, I had just finished preparing, set the timer and told Hubby to feed it to the kids and himself.  Loaded Mom into the van and off to the ER.  We get to the ER and it's stuffed, so we wait, and wait, and wait.  Then Mom moved around and much to the waiting room's horror it was discovered she'd been dripping blood down her arm onto the floor.  I told the girl working the desk who brought me some gauze which mom quickly soaked through as I held it to the head wound.  Finally they found her a place to land in the ER hallway and a nurse came by and wrapped up her head like a war wound battle dressing, just as two ambulances pulled in with two women who had been in a car accident, one of them not a very good English speaker.  In between the vehicle accident women the doctor stopped by and ordered a CT scan and Mom was whisked away for a CT scan. 

When she returned from the CT scan she was put in a room and nice nurse cleaned at the wound and stapled her up.  15 staples in her head later and she was still oozing blood pretty good.  The doctor then ordered some sort of blood clotting bandage gauze stuff put on it and wrapped up her head and ordered us to leave it on 24 hours.  Yuck, her hair was FULL of blood and there would be no real washing it that night.  We finally get home at 9:00 pm, I put Mom in the tub and wash the hair that was hanging out of the dressing and her neck, ears and the like.  We eat and all climb into bed.

This morning I awoke with a migraine, stumbling out of bed just long enough to find my miracle drugs.  I finally crawled out at 1:00 pm.  Thankfully Hubby was working from home and got the kids off to school.  Mom's dressing had come off in the night, and the wound had bled some on her pillow but not too bad and seemed to have clotted up.  I put her in the bathtub and with the hand held shower I worked at her hair rinsing blood and blood clots out and shampooing around the wound for a good long while.  What a nasty mess.  After I gave up I combed it out and there was still tons of gunk in her hair but it will have to wait as I don't think the wound needs to get wet again for a day or two.  Her hair is reasonably clean, but not good.

This weekend is supposed to be blessedly quite.  No wrestling tournaments, no projects planned, nothing on the agenda. 

Wrestling tournaments are our weekends lately.  Last weekend Sonny Boy placed third in some pretty stiff competition and was only one point from placing second.  Next weekend is another tournament that will likely be pretty tough.  The weekend after that is regional which will likely be the end of wrestling season unless Sonny Boy pulls something out his hat and makes it to state which we figure is pretty unlikely.

Well, that's my crazy life lately.  Like I said, fodder for some dramady on TV.  I really don't make this up, it's too wild for my imagination.

German Burgers

In my hometown school district there were certain favorites made in the cafeteria, of course there was the inevitable "mystery meat" dishes but there were some that still haunt alumni of the school district.  We had REAL cooks in our cafeterias, not the heat some stuff up that I think is fed to my kids for lunch.  Our lunch ladies knew soul food and got the best out of the commodities and mediocre ingredients they were given.  The days that certain meals were on the menu it was a given that even those of us who rarely ate in the cafeteria (an option granted when we got to the high school campus in 7th grade) would show up for lunch.  Not many people can say they crave foods that were made in their grade school / high school cafeteria but there are some from a small town in the Arkansas Delta that do.

German Burgers are the one that we all seem to miss and for some reason I seem to be the only one who holds the recipe for this.  Word seems to have gotten out that I have the recipe - I do, it was published in a community cookbook sometime around 1990 and I get request for it now and again.  I will copy it here so I can simply give a link to it.  So if I've given you the link there is a chance I know you in real life, if I do, please pretend you don't know my real name.  Please understand that the blog has become more than just a communication device, it's my place to dump the things that are driving me crazy, the place where I scream to the world (my robust following of about 6) and get things off of my chest when I can no longer keep the craziness in my head.  Yes, probably a diary in my bedside table would be more appropriate than a public blog, but this started as a way to keep folks up to date on the drama of Igor's adoption and has continued as a cathartic hobby.

Without further ado GERMAN BURGERS:
maybe some day I'll make them and take artsy fartsy photographs like a food blog, but I know a former drum major who is waiting on the recipe.

2 lb ground beef
2 c grated cabbage
2 grated onions
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 small can tomato paste
1/2 cup ketchup
salt & pepper to taste
yeast dough

brown meat; drain and season.  Saute onions in small amount of fat; add cabbage and continue cooking and turning until tender, about 10 minutes.  Drain.  Combine meat, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste and ketchup.  Add cabbage and onions.  Cool.  Roll yeast dough to about 4 inch square.  Put 1/4 cup meat mixture in center of square.  Bring up edges of dough; seal to form bun.  Place in greased baking pan; lightly spread butter on each bun.  Let rise 30 minutes.  Bake at 350 about 30 minutes.

My notes on the recipe:
I usually make the dough in the bread machine, though you can probably use frozen bread dough.
If you have a food processor use it for all that shredding.
Seal the buns tightly and put them seam down or else they will split open when rising and baking.
This always seems sweeter than what I remember in high school, I think it's the use of real ketchup and not the homemade stuff that was used in the cafeteria. 
I suppose it's "german" burgers because there is cabbage in it.
This makes a fair amount, and I would say will feed 5 or 6 people easily - possibly more it's been a while since I made it.

I Get It

You know the old story where a Mom runs to the store to buy a gallon of milk and three months later they find her in California waiting tables at a Denny's?  Mom will say something to the effect of I just couldn't take it anymore and people who have never been there, or who have never had kids, or parents, or crazy jobs will shake their heads and wonder "How could she leave her kids?"

I get it.  I'm this far - from going to the store for milk and not coming home for a few days.

Last week was a little wild, luckily some things from the crazy schedule got dropped, which relieved some of the stress.  Other news trickled in that dug the depression / anxiety  hole even deeper.

Mom heard from Social Security and she was denied benefits.  This despite the fact that two different shrinks concluded she is unable to effectively hold a job.  Today we went to the attorney's office to sign papers for an appeal.   The attorney was optimistic she will eventually get benefits but we may be looking at another 8 months or so, especially if the appeal fails which is statistically likely.  The attorney gave me a rather large questionnaire to fill out on mom's abilities and I am going to have her former boss write a letter that states he could see her work abilities failing.  I doubt it will hurt anything, but I wish we'd done it in the first place.  Today marked her one year anniversary of living with us.  Yay, about 6 months too long.  If I had a sibling it would be his/her turn to take care of Mom for a while.  As it is I'm considering contacting her brother and buying her a plane ticket for a nice long visit.

Last Friday was the Blue & Gold banquet for the Cub Scouts.  I made a giant cake.

This was not my best work, in fact I was all for scraping the icing off and starting over if I'd had time.  Alas I did not. and took it to the banquet.  It was very well received with many pictures snapped but I can't say I was proud to have my name associated with it.  Associated with it though it was, I got a phone call on Monday morning from a local higher end grocery store asking me to come in for an interview as cake decorator.  Now, I had applied to this store in September of '10 and never gotten so much as thank you for your application, and a few weeks later saw a write up in the local paper that the store had hired some girl with pastry chef experience. I can't compete with that and never gave it another thought.  The day before the banquet I noticed the store was looking for a cake decorator and with life so nuts I'm not about to go looking for more trouble and just breezed over the ad.  I don't know if somebody from the store was at the banquet, or if they were mining their old files and found my name or what but I was called up.  I went to the interview on Monday afternoon and go back for a second "try-out" interview to test my skill this coming Monday.  If I manage to land the job it will be part time, and might be a God send for my sanity.  In the meantime I've been practicing my buttercream piping skills and plan to bake a cake and time myself decorating it grocery store style.  I figure if I can put a decent cake out in 20-30 minutes time I might land the job.  I do worry about smoothing the buttercream as that is an art that drives me to distraction.

Beyond that, Hubby and I spent Valentine's day alternately getting along nicely or at each other's throats concerning taking a vacation.  The vacation I so much wanted to plan for RIGHT NOW he proclaims must wait on the kids to be out of school for spring break since they have missed so much school this year.  (Sonny Boy missed most of last week with bronchitis)  Now it seems it won't happen on spring break either as the only place we have to plant the kid's is at his sister's or mother's and they are either out of town or overwhelmed with sports tournaments.  Now my vacation I wanted to take RIGHT NOW is held off until at least June, which gives it whole new set of requirements because I'm not going to go south and broil on some beach like a grilled lobster.  Mom doesn't get why we just don't leave the kids with her, but the fact she couldn't remember what time the attorney's appointment was, gets items on the calendar mixed up constantly, and gave a baby aspirin to Sonny Boy the other day as he was coming down with his bug (Hubby was home working in the garage) despite the fact that the bottle says "Do not give to children or teenagers".  I just don't trust her with the kids if I can't get back to them quickly with a phone call.  Not to mention they would live on frozen pizza, video games and questionable TV the entire time we were gone.

In other news Igor got a note home for wrestling another boy in the classroom during class and the two got marker all over each other.  Sonny Boy hasn't had anymore bad reports but we have a teacher conference next week so we'll see then.  I got a "new" haircut and color, nothing drastic just shorter and with some red highlights.  Sonny Boy has a wrestling tournament on Sunday which is likely to be some tough competition.  It's 1:00 am, I'm going to sleep now.

I'm a Sucker

Winnie

 

1974 - hopefully a date in the distant future

 

Devoted Daughter, Wife, and Mother

 

Never met a volunteer opportunity she wouldn't sign up for

 

 

That's what will be on my tombstone. I don't know why I do it.  I'm not one of those people that have a hard time saying "No".  I probably say it 100 times a day, but give me a volunteer job and well; you know, I'm there.

 

By the end of the day on Saturday I will have worked two 3 hour shifts at two different high school wrestling tournaments - note: my kid is not a high school wrestler.  I will have played teacher's aid in Igor's kindergarten classroom for 1 hour.  I will spend untold hours baking a LARGE cake for the scout banquet and several hours setting up and tearing down said banquet.   I will have gathered a fair amount of awards for the banquet and gotten them labeled as well.

 

Oh yeah, did I mention I'll now be committee chair for the cub scout troop?

 

I think I should get a "real job" so I don't feel so obligated to do all this stuff. 

 

Here is a sneak peek at the topper I made of polymer clay for the scout cake. 

 

 

 

So if I go missing in the next couple of weeks never fear, I'm lost in a nightmare of volunteer work, buttercream and going at it solo (yeah Hubby is on a work trip this week).  I see many nights of take-out happening in the near future.





I am going NUTS...

and no amount of pharmaceuticals are going to bring me back to a normal place.

I have given up the fight of getting Mom to do anything and therefore now she doesn't.  She only dresses 3 maybe 4 days a week.  She does no exercises or PT for the bad shoulder and regularly gets stuck in her clothes and I have to pull them off of her.  I wash her clothes, cook her meals and she comes to the table, eats and puts her dishes beside the sink.  On a rare occasion - when I ask she will load the dishwasher however she never really cleans the kitchen, just puts the dishes in the machine and turns it on.  She never washes the few dishes that I don't allow in the dishwasher or wipes down the counter tops.

The thing that drives me the most insane is the incessant chatter and noise.  We put a TV in her room which has been quite helpful as she was mad we wouldn't let the kids watch shows like CSI.  The problem now is it runs all the time at a fairly high volume.  When it's not on she's chattering to the dog, herself or trying to make inane conversation. 

Social Security sent a letter last week and they are sending her to her their own doctor for evaluation on Feb 11.  It will not come soon enough.

The ONLY thing she's handy for is a body for a babysitter, but she just lets the kids play video games, or watch TV till their eyes bug out.  Honestly they can manage that on their own.

Sonny boy is in a spell where I'm ready to strangle him.  He is so disrespectful of me and no amount of grounding is working.  I called Hubby this morning and said we have to come up some sort of punishment that gets through to the kid.  He's also had some problems at school as well and I am not amused.

Well I better get up and do something.  I spent most of the day hiding in my room sleeping as that keeps my stress level at a minimum when I'm not looking at a person who does less than the dog sit and watch TV all day.  We got a little snow this morning and I need to go clean that up.

A Guest Post

I thought a tongue in cheek post by Callie might be fun.....

Hi blog readers I'm Callie.  I've been back living with Mom & Dad for about a month now and I can say it's not so bad, though I do have to say the eating is not near as good as when I lived with Grandpa and for some reason nobody lets me sleep with them or on the couch either.

I'm adjusting, the short one - Mom told me to call him Igor here - and I have finally made friends and  has quit acting like I was going to eat him every time he came near and since then he doesn't make me so nervous anymore.  I don't like the short one an awful lot, but he's OK I guess, he doesn't do anything mean to me and he's all about giving me treats so it's fine. 

The bigger kid - Sonny Boy - is really fun.  He plays All. The. Time.  I really get kind of tired of it, I'm not the young pup I once was.  I'm never bored when Sonny Boy is home.

Most days I sleep a lot.  Mom got me my own cushion and told me that was my place and won't let the kids play on it.  The cushion is really comfy and the calluses on my elbows are starting to look better.  The other day Mom gave me a REALLY BIG ham bone.  IT WAS SO GOOD!!  I chewed on it for 5 hours straight and Mom said my teeth are looking better already.

Mon thru Fri is pretty calm during the day, the kids go to school, Dad goes to work and it's just Mom, Grandma and I.  Grandma is pretty Ok, she takes me outside often cause she's going out to puff on that smelly stick a lot.  I run around the yard and she yells at some dog named Winnie to come in, but I just ignore that because my name is Callie after all.  Grandma gets mad and fusses at Winnie - whoever the hell that is - and I lie down on my bed.  I really like the afternoon as Mom lets me ride along when it's time to go get the kids from school.  Friday we went to a place where a woman was behind a big window, I "woofed" at her and Mom told me to "hush" and then the lady in the window sent me a cookie in her slider tray thing - I want to go back there.

Mom fusses after me.  The other day she took me outside and stuck little flags in the yard and every time I went past one the black box on my collar would beep.  I think Mom was making the box beep but it's clear I'm supposed to stay inside the flags.  I hear her say she's gonna put the shocker things on the collar in a day or two whatever that means.  About once a  week Mom makes me sit down and she brushes me and then sucks all the hair off of me with a really loud machine with a hose.  I don't like the sucker machine, but like most things here things may be a little scary but they don't hurt.

I keep hearing I gotta get used to people.  There are a lot of people here, they walk by the house all the time and I can't figure out why.  Sometimes they even have dogs with them!  How dare they come near my turf,.  I bark and bark and everybody always tells me to "hush" and "knock it off".  Doesn't everybody see these people next to the house?

Anyway I guess it's Ok here.  Not that I have much choice anyway, at least I'm someplace I know and I get lots of attention even if the grub isn't that good.

Back in the Saddle Again....

Well I suppose we've returned to a somewhat normal schedule with school, work and activities.  The dining room table is still somewhat of a mess as Hubby has decided to type out all the letters his father wrote home from basic training and Vietnam.  Hubby sorted them all out by date, and what he's translated (FIL had awful penmanship) scanning some items as he goes to add to the record.  A big project, but I think it's cathartic for him and helps him understand the emotional trauma that was inflicted on his dad at 19 years old.

Sonny boy is in full fledged wrestling season.  Last Sunday was spent at a tournament and the next two Saturdays are booked and more will likely be booked.  Sonny Boy wants to attend regional competiton this year but he really needs to make huge improvements in the next month.  The kid that won his bracket pinned him in 23 seconds and pinned another in like 30.  I hope we don't come up against that kid again but it's a real possiblity as it seems most people show at the same tournaments.

Callie has settled into the household routine quite well.  She was a little mopey for a week or so but has adapted.  I believe Sonny Boy has taken the place of her canine playmate that was FIL's other dog.  Igor is becoming less scared of her and that in turn has made her less nervous of him.  Our biggest hurdles now are her crazy need to go pottie in the middle of the night and the fact she barks and growls at all the walkers she sees going by the house during the day.  I don't really think she needs to go pottie so much as that she wakes up and realizes we are no longer hanging out in the living room and she thinks we should be.  Last night I stayed up very late reading -1:30 - and let her out just as I went to bed.  An hour and half later she was in our bedroom pacing, waking us and Sonny Boy up like she needed outside.  Hubby yelled at her to go lay down and she did and we didn't hear from her till morning.  We've even gotten to the point of not refilling her water in the late evening but that has had no effect.  She keeps her middle of the night wake-up calls going she's going to find herself in a kennel at night.   I believe she'll start adapting to the walkers soon, it's a good thing she came in winter when there is much less foot traffic by the house, but I had to go chasing her through the yard in my slippers the other day as she had her hair all up at one our regular canine passer-by.  Luckily Panda (the other dog, do not know the person) was kept on a short leash and I got to her and grabbed Callie pretty quick.  We are discussing some fence stuff soon.

Well Hubby just walked in, no supper is even thought about and I'm hoping he'll say " Honey don't worry about it I'll get"  but I doubt I'll have that kind of luck.

Christmas by the numbers

2 Funerals
2 stashes of drugs
1 call to the county sheriff
20494893 curse words
1 rude t-short worn by me
34 day notice to vacate
1,000 miles on the mini-van
1 90 lb dog
1 huge TV
1 u-haul trailer
LOTS of taxidermy (some still to be stuffed we learned)
21 gun salute
30 hairy bikers
too many rounds of ammo
2 nerf hail fire guns
2 new games of farkle
1 birthday party

and a stuffed partridge on Grandma's wall.

The last two weeks have been a nightmare blur.  After getting the call that father-in-law passed I loaded up the kids and Mom and we went North.  We weren't even an hour from the house yet and it started snowing heavily and the radar on my phone looked like we were in for it for a while and the radio was predicting large amounts of snow in the next few days so I decided we would drive till we just couldn't go anymore.  Luckily the snow while quite heavy at times decided not to muck up the interstate and we cruised along at happy pace through the flakes and came out the other side several hours later to don our sunglasses the last half of the trip.

While I was driving Hubby and SIL made funeral arrangements setting the funeral for the Saturday before Christmas.  The next day or so Hubby and SIL started packing up the things that were in FIL's room.  - Here is where I must digress and explain FIL's living situation.  FIL had been living with "G" for about 18 years.  It had started out as romantic relationship that went very dysfunctional in the last 10 years or so.  G is a hoarder, like the kind of hoarder you see on TV, and had basically managed to squeeze FIL into one room of his modest home.  Couple this with the fact that FIL had a shopping thing, buying every gadget and gizmo for hunting, fishing or tool known to man and you know what kind of mess we were facing. - Between FIL's passing and the funeral Hubby, SIL and I went in nicely simply packing up the things that were obviously FIL's in the room and garage but knowing there was obviously things around the house we would need to be separated from G's stuff as she moved out.  The day before the funeral I went over with Hubby leaving Mom with the kids at the house we were staying at (MIL is in selling her house and moving into Grandma-in-Law's house, Grandma moved to assisted living) and unloaded the ammo cabinet into boxes - we will never need to buy shells for any gun again - and generally packing up trivial stuff left around the room.  I emptied a junk drawer with reading glasses and key chains, pocket knives etc, found a chicken rotisserie (???) that G asked me for 6 times but I declared she must speak to Hubby or SIL as I was simply a laborer, and just general junk we all have floating around.  The end of the day came and my van was stuffed to the gills, FIL's truck that Hubby was driving around was stuffed and it was late so we left a few boxes stacked in his room and left.

The next day was the funeral.  It was a very nice service and it seemed half the town and large contingent of bikers took up one section of the church.  The pastor got a little long winded, so much so that many of us paid way more attention to the woodpecker and the black squirrel playing in the large windows behind the alter than what he was saying.  A couple of Hubby's uncles spoke, a cousin in his Air Force blues and another cousin that had become close to FIL in the last year as he had seen combat in Afghanistan.  Lunch was served and there was a quick prayer (thankfully, it was around 8 degrees) and an honor guard folded the flag, taps was played and shots were fired.  After the funeral SIL brought pizzas over, a couple of uncles showed up and all the cards were gone through and people were identified.  It was late by the time the house settled and we were exhausted both physically and emotionally.

Sunday dawned and Hubby and I went back to his father's place.  When I arrived I opened a box I had not quite filled and the chicken rotisserie was missing along with an old wooden fishing lure that was in the box of keychains and pocketknives etc.  I thought I must be getting senile.  I decided though I better take a gander of the nightmare that awaited upstairs and snuck up the partially blocked staircase without turning on a light when G wandered out to the garage to harass Hubby.  I didn't have a flashlight so I used the flashlight on my phone and the first thing I spotted were some camo duffel bags that I knew belonged to my FIL - I had actually purchased one as a Christmas gift a few years ago.  I suddenly saw bloody red, grabbed the bags and confronted "G" who declared that FIL had given her the bags.  I knew she was lying  and told her so without mincing a word as BIL was walking in the door.  BIL called his wife - Hubby's sister - and she arrived as I was telling G we were going to clear the steps because we "ARE GOING TO GO IN THOSE ROOMS" that were blocked and I wasn't going to break my neck trying to go up a stairwell that was half covered in junk.  SIL then stood at the bottom of the stairs as I was ahead of  G and we unearthed the wooden fishing lure I had packed, a checkbook with FIL's name on it, a bucket of change that had been in FIL's room, hunting decals, a pegboard I had packed, little stained glass window hangers and assorted other junk we all recognized as being FIL's personal stuff.  I won't go into all the details of the things we found hidden because you don't want to read an itemized list but I promise it was enough to make you lose all trust you might have had in a person.  Highlights of the day included finding a 27" flat screen TV covered with a blanket hidden on the couch (we agreed she could have the 36" TV that was set up in the living room) and my SIL counting her down like a child to make a decision on which TV she wanted since she was hiding the little one.  When we finally managed to get upstairs into the rooms they were UNBELIEVABLE.  There is a bed under there.

We managed to squeeze around junk in the room that G declared was all "mine" and I found a cleaning caddy full of tools, this after we agreed we would give her some basic screwdrivers, hammer etc.  The closet still had tons of FIL's clothes hanging and as I worked my way around the room I found three large plastic envelopes of pill bottles prescribed to FIL full of heavy duty narcotics.  I did not know my SIL could swear like that!  With that find SIL called the police and a county sheriff showed up.  I must back up here again and tell that after FIL passed SIL specifically asked G where all of his drugs went because she planned to dispose of them and G told her she had thrown them in the woodstove.  I sacked up the drugs in a plastic bag and turned them over to the sheriff while G explained that she was going to "give the drugs to other vets who were taking the same thing so they wouldn't go to waste".  Yeah, and I'm tinkerbell.  While the sheriff was there we came to the conclusion that it was late and there was no way we cold get all of FIL's stuff out that room so we would lock it up so G couldn't get in there.  G declared that all her clothes were in there and that's where she got dressed etc etc so I handed her a box and told her to pack herself a couple of days worth of clothes so the sheriff followed her up the stairs and watched her pack clothes.  After the sheriff left BIL came up and put a lock on the door, he was having a hard time of it and needed a different tool so I unearthed to tool bin G had stashed and he recognized it as coming out of the ice fishing house that had been moved BEFORE  FIL had passed.  She had been stealing BEFORE he was even dead yet! 

I think what upset the very most was what happened next.  Few things have made me say I hate a person since I've been an adult but this really moved me to the sphere of hate.  When we went up Thanksgiving we had G unearth a box of old family pictures because we knew we wanted to make a slideshow for the funeral.  G did unearth a box that held a fair amount of old pictures but I thought it odd that no more pictures of FIL existed when he was a child, if you watch the slideshow in the previous post that is literally all we had.  FIL went through the pictures with Hubby and SIL and his brothers and memories were shared, it was a nice family time.  FIL kept insisting that his father's WWII footlocker was upstairs and it contained his father's Navy uniform but G kept saying it wasn't and Hubby went and dug around in the garage finding an old chest that contained other junk.  G said she remembered the chest but didn't think it really had anything in it.  So back to the evening of Dec. 23rd as BIL was fighting the lock on one bedroom I see G slide by and go into the other room and dive to the bottom of the closet.  I go in behind her and lo and behold she's got the damn trunk.  She fidgets and fusses around like she can't get it out.  I all but shove her out of the way and yank the trunk out.  The door was so blocked with crap I had to lift it over my head and scream for BIL to come get it from me but I got it out.  After that the guys got things locked up from G, SIL went to the house where Mom and the kids were and unloaded our vehicles and cursed G.  SIL then went home to mind her brood that she'd left her 13 year old of in charge of all afternoon.  Hubby popped in, unloaded the trunk and some other stuff and then went to move stuff into an uncle's garage.  I couldn't help but look in the trunk and waves of nausea broke over me.  The trunk was stuffed with family pictures from when FIL was a child, letters and pictures he'd written home from Vietnam, and his father's WWII Navy uniform.  I literally bawled so hard I was gasping for breath.  So many memories and stories that bitch stole from Hubby and my children.  I hate her.

Christmas Eve came and went with lot's of snide remarks made about G and discussion.  A nice meal with shared with SIL and her family, MIL, grandma-in-law, Mom and of course us.  SIL and I took Sonny Boy and a her two oldest to the 10:30 nativity service at their church which is always very nice.

Christmas Day came and after Santa had done his duty bringing Nerf Hail Fire guns,  frankly we didn't have any plans.  Grandma-in-law came over to supervise Mom and the kids.  Really she just wanted to play with the kids, at 92 she still has a magical way with young 'uns.  MIL, Hubby and I went over to FIL's and started boxing stuff.  MIL was amazed at the amount of stuff hidden away.  While MIL never called G a lying lazy bitch - something SIL didn't hesitate to tell her to her face - she did yell at her and I've never seen my MIL do that.  While G was preoccupied with MIL going through one room I went at the other room unearthing more gems that belonged to FIL.  Hubby and a family friend worked in the garage and did the heavy lifting and we managed to clean out some of the junk in the rooms so we could actually move.  By the end of the day we no longer felt the need to lock her out of the upstairs rooms.  During the day I found a T-shirt I planned to wear the next trip over.

The next day I went back taking Mom along to pack the last of stuff.  I wore an old T-shirt of FIL's that said " Caution, Don't Fuck with me - I Fuck back", of course under a zipped up hoodie while the kids were around, when I got there it was hot as hell because the pipes had frozen overnight and big heaters were rolling so I had ample opportunity to point it out to G.  I planned on hitting two closets that were packed.  One of the closets was FULL of boxes that G had ordered off of E-bay and never opened.  ALL of the boxes were addressed to FIL.  G claimed she had used his paypal account and then repaid him, hard to believe because she only held a job for about 8 years of the 18 they lived together and never paid for anything.  We figured since the boxes were addressed to FIL and unopened they were legally his and therefore belonged to his heirs.  Mom got an earful as G and I argued over the contents of the closet but I just pointed to the T-shirt and took the boxes to the van.  Later SIL I opened some up, postmarked 2003 mind you and found outfits like this:

I couldn't resist putting that on.  SIL had some girlfriends over to open the rest.  I had planned on attending that little event but that day had dragged out long and I didn't make it over to her house. 

After the last day of loading E-bay and a supply closet that contained huge amounts of cleaning supplies that had dire need of use in the house I concluded that there was nothing else left in the house worth the argument.

Friday, Hubby did some chores related to securing stuff and attended the funeral of the FIL of the best man at our wedding.  Saturday was spent picking up the dog from G and getting her groomed, renting a u haul trailer and packing. 

Sunday we drove home, emotionally and physically exhausted with a huge new flat screen TV, misc stuff, and Callie.  If you look back far enough in the blog you might find a picture of her as she lived with us the first 18 months of her life.

For now we have served G with a Notice to Vacate and pray she will get out without further action needed.  Our house resembles FIL's tornado mess after coming home and unloading.  We still have tons of stuff to sort through, yard sale, and the like.  For now things will be in storage here and there until spring when we can sort it and get rid of it.

Well I must make like Callie, she's honestly snoring pretty loudly, gosh get Hubby's nose fixed and ad another snore to the night time noise.

If this wasn't a Christmas to remember I don't know what was.  With all the stress not one picture was taken Christmas morning, in fact we didn't even take the real camera with us on the trip.

I hope your Christmas was better than ours and I hope the new year brings us all some peace.