Not Seeing the Ex

>> Friday, November 28, 2008

I have not seen my husband's ex in three years? Four? Something like that: 3-4 years. How nice it's been! I don't go with my husband when he drives to their state to pick my stepkids up or drop them off so I've been spared. I'm sure she's enjoying it as much as I am.

I also haven't had to hear her voice on the phone. I think it's been years! "Woot! Woot!" for me. She won't call my husband first. She'll send an email and tell him to call her (I guess she likes to pretend she can still lead him around or that the woman shouldn't call the man - like they're still in a frigid relationship or something rather than two parents apart, one who can't stand the other, of two teenagers). With the kids getting older, even their contact has lessened considerably which we are thankful for so it does get better (if you are wondering). You just have to get through all the bitter, hateful, revenge-filled crap before you get there...oh yeah, and live 200 miles away from each other.

Meow.

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Hear From Stepkids for Thanksgiving?

I did. Well, I heard from one of them. My stepdaughter texted me to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving. No word from my stepson. Am I surprised? Nope.

I did find some great posters for them so I ordered two for each of them and am having them shipped directly to their house. They should get them next week. For my stepdaughter, I ordered two Twilight posters. For my stepson, I ordered a guitar chords poster and a poster of Slash playing guitar. Even if he doesn't remember we exist 99% of the time, we are always still thinking of him. Guess that's the adult thing to do eh? lol.

I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving and was able to spend it with the family and friends you wanted to, rather than those you are forced to endure during the holidays, lol.

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Hard to Shop For Gifts

>> Wednesday, November 26, 2008

I am having the hardest time trying to figure out what to get my stepdaughter for xmas. I'd like to combine xmas and her birthday to get her one nice gift since they are only days apart. I am hoping a laptop goes on sale over the next couple weeks. If we can find her a laptop for $250, I'll grab that as a joint xmas/birthday gift. I also just now heard of something called the Sony Mylo COM-2 Internet Device. It seems like a big thing and I've never heard of it before. I must be living under a rock! I have to find out if SD has enough Wi-Fi spots around her mother's house to be able to connect for free with email, skype, Internet, etc. It looks like a possibility if, IF, she has Wi-Fi spots around her so she can actually use it. I don't know how to find that out though.

My husband wants a new mattress, but not just any mattress. He wants a sleep number bed. We really do need a new mattress. We've had the same mattress for longer than we've been married and we're coming up on our 13th anniversary next month. I should tell him if he will paint our bedroom (I've been waiting 2-1/2 years for him to do this) then I, I mean Santa, will get him the bed he wants.

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All In One Printers Worth It

>> Tuesday, November 25, 2008

I just love my new printer. My husband bought me an All-In-One Printer for my birthday. It scans, faxes, copies, and prints. I've used all the functions except fax so far (don't have a phone line hooked up to it yet).

I love the fact that I can scan photos of my kids and print high-quality photos easily. I have also used it to jazz up my envelopes (adding a cornucopia on my envelopes being mailed out for Thanskgiving). If I send xmas cards out this year, I will create them all myself - the photo cards and the envelopes. No point in spending money to have somebody else do something I can do myself now. I can also easily transfer my photos from my camera's memory card with the memory card slots on the printer so I can take a great xmas picture of my kids and create a holiday card out of it. Good idea huh?

If you are going to be looking for printers soon (wow, what a great xmas gift for somebody too), check out the All-In-Ones. They're great!!

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Husband Cheats With Ex

>> Monday, November 17, 2008

In a stepfamily, you are dealing with so many different family dynamics. You have two biological parents who are no longer together. You have a new spouse (becoming a step-parent) who may or may not have a good relationship with their spouse's ex. The new spouse may also bring children into the marriage and then you have more children with your spouse. The ex may remarry and it just continues with the family dynamics. It's a maze isn't it? It's tough work that needs all parties to agree to cooperate to make it work. Sometimes, dishonesty exists though in the most unexpected place.

What happens if your spouse cheats with his ex?

I have been sitting at my desk going through paperwork, paying bills, getting ready to take my state tests, etc. and Dr. Phil is on in the background. There is a husband on there who cheated on his second wife with his ex, the first wife! Could you imagine? Not me. What a rat!!

A spouse cheating is heartbreaking enough but if a spouse cheats with their ex, I think it magnifies that hurt tenfold. If it's with the one person who has tried to make your life and marriage hell, what do you do?




To me, cheating with anybody isn't an option. I honor my vows and I expect my husband to do the same if he wants to keep me and our family the way it is. If cheating were to occur with the dreaded ex after everything we've gone through because of her and others with her, no way in hell! The anger would magnify beyond reason I think. That is the ultimate of ultimate betrayals.

Good thing that DH didn't much like sleeping with her when he was with her so it's not even a blip on my radar but for some stepmothers, it may be.

How would you deal with it? Could you?

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Hot Monkey Love & Bud Light

>> Sunday, November 16, 2008

A friend sent me this video...

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Dallas Jobs

>> Saturday, November 15, 2008

If you need a job and live in the Dallas area (or want to relocate to the area), there is a job site just for you called DallasJobSite.com. If you are an employer and want to review the talent in your area, there are Dallas resumes waiting for you here.

I loved Texas when we vacationed there. I didn't care for the red ant hills we almost stepped in, or the poisonous snake that was scaring the horses away from the pond, but the rest was all good. We saw a rodeo while we were there when we went with family from Dallas. We swam in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a nice place to visit with friendly people.

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Newest Internet Sensation - Puppies on Live Cam

When a San Francisco couple put a puppy cam up on their puppies, they had no idea the hit it would make. As I type this, there is one going nuts over one of his toys...really cute.

If you want to see what this is all about, click here and check out the live feed on the puppies. These are Shiba Inu pups if you're wondering.

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10 Best Diet Pills

How many times have you stopped in the diet pills aisle at the store only to bypass it due to not knowing their effectiveness and not wanting to take the chance because they can be expensive? PricesExposed.net offers information on diet pills - product description, rating, additional benefits of a product, and the least expensive Internet price. Their site shows the 10 Best according to their information.

I have never taken diet pills because fear of the unknown stills my hand from buying them (though I could certainly stand to lose 20 lbs.). Having confirmation of the safety and effectiveness of anything I ingest is a must-have for me.

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Entrecard

Do you use Entrecard? What do you think about it? Does it help your traffic?

I get some traffic from it but I'm not a big card dropper so I may not be utilizing it fully. I do have almost 4,000 Entrecard credits saved up so far. Should I advertise with them or can I hold a contest with them and give them away? Hmmm...not sure yet.

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Lifetime Vacation Goals

The end of the year is almost here and before you know it, it'll be tax time. Tax season already! Ugh! I'm hoping after we file our taxes this year to be able to take a family vacation. We haven't been able to afford one in a few years and we're way overdue to get back to the mountains.

We usually stay in town in Gatlinburg but I'm tired of all the tourist-y stuff. I want to haul my Swiss Army luggage to a cabin out in the mountains outside of town instead and just enjoy nature and my Smoky Mountains. Another part of me wants to go to Montana. I've never been there but just feel drawn there like I am to the Smoky Mountains. A future trip, when I am brave enough to get on a plane, would be to see the green hills of Ireland.


Those are the three places that I feel I "have" to see, so we've done one out of three so far. I'm sure the one place the kids feel they "have" to see (and hubby too) is Disney. I'm sure we'll make it there eventually (when we have money coming out of our Mickey Mouse ears I guess).

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Dad's School Pictures of His Kids

>> Friday, November 14, 2008

For the stepkids' elementary school years, we bought our own separate picture packages (separate because going in on pic packages together with bm and dividing things up was just too much cooperation for her to handle) so we would be able to have our own rather than depend on the BM to decide if dad warranted a wallet-size pic of his own kids. Now that they are older, the junior high and high schools don't work that way and bm sure isn't going to ask dh if he'd like any part of the kids' portrait packages to buy on her form (that would take too much cooperation, ya know?). Too many teachers, responsibilities, number of students, etc. that the personal relationship we used to have with the schools is now a bit impersonal. We get the interim report and report card and then a newsletter once in awhile (these are online so it's not a biggie) so getting a second picture package for each child is out it seems.

Anyhoo, I asked my stepdaughter the other day about getting a school picture of each of them. She said her mother was sending them out with christmas cards. She (stepdaughter) said she could try to get them earlier for us but that's not sd's responsibility so I just told her whatever her mom thinks is best and maybe sd could take a pic of her and her brother with her cell phone and text it to us, which she did right away.

What I was REALLY thinking is that this is their DAD, not an uncle or second cousin, which is how you send pictures out with christmas cards to other family relations, usually more distant ones. DAD! You don't hold school pictures for a couple months and send a wallet size pic of a man's children to him at Christmas! She's always treated the father of her children like he was nothing so I shouldn't be surprised.

4 Years, 6 Months, & 16 Days to go...

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Bad Celebrity Role Models for Kids

>> Monday, November 10, 2008

Well, there goes another one. I'm talking about positive celebrity role models for kids. My daughters are HUGE fans of the Cheetah Girls. They love the movies, the songs, the dances. I am sure when my 11 year old comes home from school today, she'll be talking about how one of them (Adrienne Bailon) had naked pictures hit the Internet. Supposedly, they were stolen from her laptop in an airport.

Um, if you are going to have naked pictures taken of yourself, shouldn't you make sure you keep that laptop in your own hands at all times out in public (or better yet, don't bring that thing out in public to begin with...it's not like she can't afford to keep her nekkid pics somewhere else) rather than leave it sit where somebody can allegedly steal it. I know I don't take my naked pictures out in public, lol.

Hmmm...stolen? I don't know about that. It seems like the girls who have naked pics stolen from them end up bigger stars. Look at Paris Hilton. She's useless but she's a huge celeb. because of the video.

Dumb things that people get famous for.

Here's the article.

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Should we cover it?

>> Thursday, November 6, 2008

My husband's truck hasn't been used in a couple months. The muffler is hanging and we can't afford to fix it right now. After opening the hood and jumping my own car a few weeks ago, now my husband's hood latch won't close and he couldn't drive it like that either way (we did have the hood latch fixed last year which obviously wasn't fixed right). Seeing that his car is sitting and will likely be sitting for at least another month, should we use a car cover to protect it from the elements?

It's definitely not like my sporty Trans Am GTA I used to have where car covers would have been a great idea. It's a truck. Should we still cover it?

I'm not sure but if we don't come up with the money to fix it soon, we should probably at least clean out the garage and pull it in there I guess.

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Sad Over Outcome of Stepson

Last week I was in Wal-Mart and there was this little baby (under one years old) that looked like my stepson did when he was a baby (he's 13 now). It hit my heart hard to see this infant. It made me very sad that things turned out the way they did when they never had to. Seeing this baby so sweet and innocent, reminding me of my stepson, made me hurt for the way things should have been.

When my stepson was an infant, he was a very good baby. His behavior didn't change negatively until he started feeling pulled and saying words in his toddler/pre-k talk about "mommy crying at home without me" and stuff like that. When he was put in the middle of a negative campaign against his dad and dad's family, his personality changed. He became angry, hyper, obstinate and distant. That followed him thru his elementary years and affected his relationships with teachers, students, and his own self-esteem and then followed him into middle school year and shows up in the D grades he receives and negative comments from his teachers. This bright boy who it was determined was above grade level in several important subjects now getting D's.

It never had to be that way. He should have been allowed to have a relationship with both of his parents and families without the interference and emotional warfare he grew up in. Sad.

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Finance Considerations If You Pass Away

>> Saturday, November 1, 2008

If you have children, I think it is very important that you have life insurance to cover things like your mortgage. That way, if something happens to the insured parent, the mortgage is covered and the remaining parent and child or children have one less financial worry. Term life insurance is a very good idea if you have a mortgage. I would encourage you to get term life insurance quotes to make sure your family is covered should something happen to you.

We have term insurance, employer provided insurance through my husband's employer, and a universal life policy. I think we're pretty well covered so our children aren't left with nothing and sent to a family member's doorstep with nothing to care for them should the unthinkable happen. It's the responsible parent who does what they can to protect their children's future as well as they can. I was really surprised to find out how inexpensive it is too.

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