Hurricane Status

We are less than 24 hours away from knowing whether or not Hurricane Frances will hit our area badly or not. We are in Melbourne. This storm is a category 4 right now and it's over the Bahamas as I type. I am leaving my home and going to the building where I work which is an independent living facility in South Melbourne. It is built to withstand a category 5. They will delegate apartments to us and we will ride out the storm there. Hopefully we will make it through the storm the size of Texas!

Hurricane 1

Yesterday, we braced ourselves for Hurricane Charley. By the time I got home from work at 4:00 pm. it had been upgraded to a category 4 hurricane. It was expected to hit the Tampa area, so thousands of people evacuated from there to the Orlando area. However, it turned slightly and after landing on shore in the Fort Myers, Punta Gorda area, was headed towards Orlando!
We live in Melbourne, which is SE of the area the hurricanes hit. It went through Orlando, through Cocoa Beach are and into Daytona...which are all North of where we are. The most we got were some high winds, heavy rainfall and a pine branch through our family room window! Not bad considering the devestation others are experiencing at this moment. This was a bad hurricane and lots of lives, homes and automobiles were lost.

Work and Home Challenges

School started again...today is day three. I am beginning a new schedule at work. I will be working Monday thru Friday from 7am to 2pm. I look forward to being off weekends. However, the week is going to be challenging. I have to get the girls to their school by 630 to attend before care...school starts @ 9pm for them. The to work by 7. I get off at 2 and will have an hour and 1/2 before having to pick them up. Since the school is not too far from work, it's pointless to go home first and then come back.
So we will be getting home around 430 each afternoon. Bedtime has been challenging, but if I stick to it..I am sure they will eventually tire of hearing the same speech night after night and come to enjoy the quiet time we will have together. Sometimes it's difficult to do this with Chris around. I love my son so much, but he is becoming increasingly more difficult to manage. He is vulgar, agressive and completely non compliant. I am out of ideas at this point. There is no calm in the home when he is here.
I feel bad because I don't know what to do and doctor's keep giving me the runaround.But something has to give. I need to do more research on thsi and get him the help he needs before it breaks the whole family apart.

Saturday

Today was relatively uneventful. I have been in pain for a few days ..there seems to be something wrong with a spot underneath my shoulder blade. Everytime I move or turn a certain way, it hurts like the dickens! Sure wish I had that health insurance so I could see the doctor. It gets old not feeling well. I don't seem to have near the amount of energy I used to. Cleanign the house seems to take days instead of hours now. Sad, but true. Plus, the stress of these kids fighting all the time doesn't help! Samantha is becoming more mouthy everyday....sometimes I just don't know what to do. I am beginning to wonder if she needs medicine herself. It may do her some good. She can be plain mean sometimes. Amber trys so hard to do what's right and her brother and sister make this next to impossible for her sometimes. I feel bad for her. She just wants everyone to get along and tries to keep the peace. But it's hard when no one listens to a single word you say. Another hard thing is getting them to bed...it's around midnight before this happens each day. I don't know what to do anymore. I am soooo tired. I can't spend time with Dan, or alone, or just rest. I have to constantly watch what people are doing or pay for it later. It's almost like they can't be left alone for 5 minutes. God forbid I ever become ill to where I have to stay in bed or anything....no one would survive....it's like they don't even notice you're not feeling well or plain just don't care. I am going to continue to try to make them see the right way to do things and how to respect themselves and others. I can only try. I am waiting on a behavioral analyst to work with them and then see if therapy will help. I have to get to the root of the problems before I have unruly teenagers to deal with. I don't think I"ll survive! I love you all...I just wish you'd see that and try to work with me. I only want what's best for all of you.

Another day in the life of Debi.

Monday, Monday

Just another manic Monday! Searching for shoes and just the right clothes as usual! My girls go to a charter school where they wear uniforms, but they STILL have problems choosing their clothes...LOL. Off to work in hopes something more adventurous will arise.

Sad Day

Today was a sad day. Started out normal enough, but then I found out our family cat, Patches, passed away last night. Apparently he had a frog and some grass stuck in his throat. I know that sounds out of the ordinary, but he was always trying to catch frogs and lizards, so I can see how this occured. However, my children were very upset. This is the first death, people or animal, that they have experienced and it broke my heart to tell them the news. We got Patches as a kitten right when we bought a new house, so he kind of came with the package. He was only 2. I tried to explain it to the best of my ability. I told them that Patches would be in a happy place and my mother, who passed away in 1991, would take care of him for us until we could see him again someday. I believe they will be ok as kids are resilliant.

For now, we will have to hold him in our hearts and remember the time we had with him. We will miss you Patches.

Today is going to be busy for me. I have alot of cleaning to do. It's spring cleaning time...isn't that joyful? I have to work tomorrow from 7am till 2 pm. If all goes well, I will be done by 1:30, but I'll have to hustle. I need to be back here since we're having guests. Dan invited his boss and coworkers.We're going to sit out by the pool, grill dinner and chill. Makes for a nice Easter!
Samantha and I are getting ready to play a quick game of Polar Bowler. It's a cute shockwave game.
Time to get going. Hopefully I will have this place cleaned before 2005! More later.

watching family feud and playing the interactive game...how's that for a saturday night??

WHY???

Why is it when you're trying to exit a driveway into oncoming traffic, that people insist on rushing to the obvious RED light and pull as close up to the next car as possible, blocking any chance in hell you may off of making it across the road while the light is red?

Why is it that people insist on waiting till the total is rung up before beginning to write their check? Can't you fill out everything but the amount beforehand?

Why is it that a store will offer a buy one get one free sale, but if you only want ONE you can't get it for 1/2 price? I can't figure it out.

Why is that possible hires aren't made to take a test to show whether they can count back change in the event the computer stops functioning and they actually have to do it using their heads???

Why is that Burger King claims you can "have it your way" yet completely screws up your order almost every time?

Finally, (and most frustratingly), why is a bank can charge you $30 if you bounce a check, but if the make an encoding error that causes your checks to bounce, that they are only responsible for covering the costs of the bounced checks to the companies they were written to. I think they should pay ME $30 for THEIR screwup AND contact the credit bureaus to have the blemish removed from a credit report.

Ok....I'm sure I'll think of more of these frustrations....pet peeves....etc!

Simply Saturday

Today was my day off. I finally got frustrated with my computer and AOL software not letting me log on. I made several attempts at calling a tech to find out what the problem was. The first time didn't work, so I called again. My portable phone decided to lose it's charge and cut me off after 10 minutes of waiting and another 10 on the phone with the tech. So I put it back on the charger and tried some manual fixing. No avail. Sooooo I said screw it all, did a system restore to 2 days earlier when it worked JUST fine, and reinstalled the software. Gee, works like a charm now!

After all that crap, I decided to take the kids to do some thrift store shopping. That went well until my son couldn't find anything he wanted. So he proceeded to drive me insane in the store.....until I told him he could rent a PS2 game later that night. We dropped the girls off at their grandma's house, rented a game and "Bruce Almighty" for me and then headed home. Wanted to watch the movie, but fiancee told me to wait a little while, then fell asleep watching the David Chapelle show...go figure! So here I am writing my first journal entry....woo hoo...that's my Saturday night!

More to come in the interesting days ahead!