Wednesday, April 2, 2008

New Addiction

I have a new addiction... Second Life.

OMG. Its making the days become shorter and the time away from Hims so much easier.

And keeping me away from here. LOL

*smile*

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

WT?

We have a joint account, and today I tried to get my new married named added to it so that could cash cheques in that name. The bank has t'ed me off for the last time. I was told that I would have to get my husband in and he would have to give his permission in order for me to add a name.

That made me furious. I had my certificate of marriage and all I wanted to do was use my married name on things! How hard is it to add in that combination of names?

Whatever. They refused to cash the dentist's cheque and I had had it. As soon as I find a new bank, I will walk away from them with glee. We had good credit when we opened the account and still they wouldn't give us an overdraft. I've paid enough in fees for the last few months because bills have come out the day before money was put in, or, they rewind the bank tapes and backdate bank activity that puts us into overdraft. We pay 5$/mo min for overdrafting, yet we aren't allowed to have one. It blows my mind! We pay $13 for userfees for the account before the $5 fee is even added on. Just makes me mad.

So, as soon as I get our montly, and biweekly deposits, moved to another bank, I will kill those accounts and if they refuse to close the joint account, I will walk across the street to the courthouse and small claims it. As his legal wife, and the person who deals with the finances, it is my decision as to which bank we use.

The stupid thing is that if it had been a male teller, I could have claimed sex descrimination. Instead, it was a woman. But still - how hard is it to add a woman's married name to a joint account?

E.xecutive E.mail C.arpet B.omb a la the Consumerist. It worked earlier for Ma bell. It might work for our bank.

And meet Rita, my new laptop.

I hope my contacts come in tomorrow. I don't want to be driving on the highway of hell wearing glasses when I go to pick Mister up.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

That Laptop

As I type this, the place we got the laptops from has my laptop. Acer said that they can do a repair, but it would take 7 days to several weeks to replace. Since the laptop is less than a month old, I took it back to the store for a replacement. They didn't have one in stock, but another store did. I should have a laptop again by Friday.

I got the deposit from the hall back for the use of the kitchen. We broke a dish, but they expect damage like that. All the manager cared about was that we left the place clean. I'm so glad we did, cause that's another 50$ in my pocket.

DS was ... having fun this morning. I got him to school late, but not too late. And my sitter had to cancel, so I have the girls today. I'm going to see if I can get her for Thursday night so I can go get Mister and spend some time alone with him before we need to be parents again.

On Friday, we have someone who is a Microsoft Oem tech coming over to deskunkify all the working computers and make sure there aren't any hidden traps anywhere.

I also went to apply for daycare subsidy and realized I had left some of the needed paperwork at home. Figures, eh?

I talked to Mister and we're trying to figure out his schedule and when can he come back for visits.

I also just called up the dentist we used to go to in order to find out if there was any deposit left. If there is, because we plan on moving in two months, I can hopefully get whatever deposit is left back.

Money's tight. Not too tight, I hope.

Monday, March 3, 2008

A day of stress

I go and pay my rent today and my landlord, the new guy, accuses us of not paying rent. So I go home and search for the emails I sent the management company. I find them, and send them to my laptop to print them. I drop them off.

A couple of hours later, I go back to talk to him and again, he accuses me of not paying rent - specifically Feb 2007. We had bounced a cheque, but made good on the rent before the end of that month. Yes, we are behind from last month, but this one is supposed to be paid up. I promised to work on paying off the arrears from last month. Anyway, he shows that we never paid back in Feb 07. Which makes me mad, because we had, including the NSF charge they gave us. After all, his boss gave me an eviction notice and it was one where if we did not pay up in 10 days, we'd be evicted. If I hadn't paid, we would have been then. That should be proof, right?

The problem is that back when we first moved in, someone made a mistake in accounting and applied August's rent for July even though we didn't live here in July, except for the last two days. When we moved in, there was no heat, no hot water, no fridge - that arrived the next day. We were missing drawers in the kitchen and there was a broken stair that still hasn't been fixed. There was no smoke alarm and more.

Now, the smoke alarm doesn't work, and I've been accused of not paying that rent. An accounting error! Since they applied August to July, we therefore didn't pay August until we paid for September, and so forth. Which got me mad when the original nasty letter came in.

So the landlord and I get into an argument. I'm furious. He's showing me that the previous landlady made a mistake in her records or something. The problem is that it all balances to show that we had paid. Its because the amount is in the accounting papers, not the records they keep seperate. So he's going to go through the tons of receipts - she didn't always give them - and see if there was a receipt issued for February 07.

I am thinking about going to residential tenancy over it. And if I do, I'm going to claim stress for being on threat of eviction for two years has added to my stress level and more. I'm going to go for monetary compensation because there have been other broken promises by the management company. Half the units look to be unrented too, and I sure as hell will not be paying a penny for them to renovate the place so they can charge more for these crappy, mold ridden places.

Then DS started to act up when he got home from school. Then again, he started it when he got up this morning. He had a temper tantrum over going to school, so this morning started bad anyway for us.

When he gets home from school, I swear he brings chaos in behind him. Its as if he is an agent of chaos. He continously breaks the "no food upstairs" rule. I found crushed cereal - corn pops - in my bed. My Bed! Yes, there is a tv in my room and yes, the kids can watch it, but they aren't supposed to be eating there. Or playing. Or throwing clothes around. Just sit and watch tv.

So he got punished. And he threw a tantrum. And more. I told him he has to 1: listen to me, 2: obey me, 3: follow my rules, and 4: do the dishes for the next "two" weeks so he can go on the school field trip. The entire school is going to go see "Horton Hears a Who." They've rented out the entire theatre. If he throws a single tantrum between now and the 10th, he is not going.

Then there's the girls. Baby can get over babygates now so they aren't useful anymore. She has bad diaper rash still and I'm trying an anti-excema cream to see if that will help since none of the diaper rash creams I've used have helped. While DD was into a serious "no" phase today.

And to top it off, my laptop died. The worst part is that it had all the wedding photos on it. At least I had copied them onto His laptop over the weekend. But still... I'm just a bit upset.

Thank goodness my old desktop still works.

Stress? Today? oh yah... Let's hope I get a good night's sleep...

The Wedding Ceremony...

Our lives? normal? even our wedding wasn't normal. Baby howled through the entire ceremony, yet the MC took it in stride.

Someone was supposed to demand that he pay for me and they forgot. People who had said they'd show didn't. One that did complained they were underdressed - I told them to look at our son. The Boy was wearing a button up shirt, two day old pants he refused to change, his grubby shoes and carried in the ring pillow. Preschooler was in white. Baby was in white and blue. Hitomi's son, was in white shirt and dress pants. One complained that if they knew they could have worn garb they would have! Someone else called what Mister was wearing "epic." He was in his court garb. I was in the Victorian white dress with veil.

Baby wasn't feeling well and she leaked through her diaper onto my dress 15 minutes before the ceremony. One of Mister's coworkers did some miracle work and got the stain off before it could do any damage. I had a borrowed veil and stole, my lucky sixpence safety pinned to my back and an old pearl necklace Mister gave me years ago. I also wore what was actually my engagement ring from him - a bracelet he bought me. I can't wear it for long because it catches on everything.

Preschooler and Hitomi's son walked out first arm in arm like the cutest couple possible. Then The Boy, carrying the rings on the ring pillow. I had done some impromptu knots to keep them in place. Then Hitomi, in red with her pink scarf went out. Then Snowy, a friend of mine for a decade, walked out. That's when I could hear the music - "Bed of Roses" by Jon Bovi.

I walked out. Somehow I managed to not stumble over my dress to the front. Baby spent the ceremony in one set of arms or another. We tried someone else, but she just howled louder. And louder. But our MC got through it all in stride. I even paused when I was asked if I would take Mister to be my husband. It was a breathless second for the audience! We exchanged rings, lifted the veil, signed the register, etc.

We kissed again, then the MC announced us to the world. "May I present Mr. and Missus!" Mister stood there in shock! His face was bright before that announcement, but it was as if a 100 watt bulb lit off in his face. He didn't think I'd take his name. The kids want to use mine, but we're going to let them choose. Legally, I'm going to add his to mine the same way the kids are, but I'm now Missus.

Pictures. They didn't turn out so great cause of the lighting and being both in pain and on anti-cold/flu drugs. I had enough in me I think I was high. Some pictures were good, but others weren't so great. There's one of the two of us looking at each other that is just beaming.

Mister and I sat down and had some food and drink. Then we had our dance - "Time in a bottle" by Jim Henson. D, M and G's son, asked Preschooler to dance. It was just adorable. I didn't mind that the kids, all the kids that wanted to dance, and were dancing with us. All I could see was just the two of us dancing together. It was the second song that I realized the kids were dancing with us. G was in tears from all the cuteness of the kids. The innocence was just too cute. The second song was "Unchained Melody." Then we got into some rock with "Life is a Highway."

The garter toss was interesting - Hitomi's brothers' didn't want to even look at it cause they were too young even though one of them had it come flying right at his face. The bouquet toss was... bad. Hitomi boasted that she had caught 3 of them and was sure she was going to catch this one. The one that did, asked to have it thrown again and the same one caught it again. So I threw it a third time and finally, Preschooler got it. She passed it on to the other little girl there who wasn't feeling so hot since she still has her flower girl bouquet.

I went upstairs after the cake was cut to give some of the flowers off the cake to the women of the legion. They were doing karaoke and requested a dance with the bride and groom, so I went to get Mister and we had a dance there as well.

The older kids went to Hitomi's mom's for the night. We took Baby home with us and she was asleep within minutes. It took us a while, but we finally figured out how to get me out of the dress without destroying it.

I'm still waiting for more pictures to come in.

wow... I'm married... I never thought that would happen...

Missus and the 3 Rs

I really should have started this blog last week. This is a blog about my time as a single mom while the other half is working and house hunting a hundred miles from here.

The Missus is me. The Mister is he. The three Rs are our three kids - the kindergartener, or "the boy", and the two girls, the preschooler and the baby who isn't such a baby anymore. She's 16 months old.

Just over a month ago, I turned to the Mister and said to him "Leap day this year - let's make the leap." So we did.

That was Friday. I'll post more on the chaos that lead up to that.

I'm a flybaby. I have both a desktop and a laptop that I can take with me as I need. The boy is a hyperactive 5 year old who makes my life interesting. He comes home from school and I swear there are tornados in his path that sweep through my house and destroy all my hard work.

The elder girl is a 3 year old dora lover who on the one hand is all girl and love girly girl things, yet on the other hand, hates having anything done to her hair.

The babe is currently a howler monkey. She is sick and has such bad diaper rash from her tummy problems that she spends most of the day howling.

The Mister is training for techsupport at an multinational company, hence the need for us to move closer to where he works. My job is to search for housing listings while he actually does the physical look.

I get the not so enjoyable task of being a single, stay at home mom while he's away. If it wasn't for flylady, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Today is the day we start with our dining rooms and, trust me, mine needs it. I have a diaper to change, and once I do, I'll start to work on cleaning it.

More when I have time...