Waiting For No. 5

April 17, 2012 By 1 Comment

The cancellation for our contract on the house was processed yesterday. We were willing to move forward if the sellers would work with us on a credit toward repairs, but they were adamantly opposed to budging one bit. We’re super disappointed. We spent money on the house already, we were supposed to move into it in a few weeks, we were emotionally invested…and after looking at 53 houses and making 4 offers, we were ready to be done looking. We are tired.

So now we sit back a bit and regroup. The housing market around here has dwindled and there isn’t much to look at currently. The bright side is we’ll have more time to save up more for a down payment, I guess…

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Stream of (barely) Consciousness

February 21, 2012 By 1 Comment

House craziness aside (because, let’s face it, it IS crazy that we are trying to buy a house right now) I’m super behind. I came home tonight determined to do laundry…but I haven’t started yet. I DID put some things in the laundry basket – including some items that we brought home from the hospital over a month ago. Like I said…behind. I won’t tell you about the sheets on our bed…

It’s not completely my fault. I mean, there’s the cancer to blame. And also the fact that our washing machine isn’t working properly. I could call our landlord, probably, but who has time for THAT? Also, have you MET our landlord? He’s as hands off as they come. The roof on our shed out back caved in long ago and we’re too afraid to go out there because of the mold, anyway. Oh and let’s not forget the (poorly patched [sorry, honey!]) hole in the ceiling of our kitchen nook…that must have happened 2 years ago now.

But I can’t just wait around, avoiding laundry until we move into our new house (right?). That’s at least a month away (if we get the house – right now I’m tearing through loads of paperwork looking for David’s tax return from 3 years ago…). I’ve been through all of my back-up clothing and Jack’s moved on from pants to shorts. I need to get my ass in gear. I need to use that washing machine regardless of the fact that the spin cycle doesn’t work!

Instead I am sitting here drinking a glass of wine and writing…

Wanna hear something weird? (No? Oh well!) David had pretty much stopped looking for work to focus on Jack and school. And then a recruiter found him and he had his third interview today. AND then we heard that Joe has an interview this week – after a year of unemployment. So now we’re in a weird position. We were looking at dual unemployment as somewhat of a blessing because no one had to take family leave and miss out on half their income. And, really, this should have been a fine plan because the economy still sucks and there haven’t been job bites in ages. But then jobs just popped up out of nowhere!

When will this feeling of living in backward land go away? What alternate reality am I in that my son has cancer, we’re able to buy a HOUSE in the Bay Area on one income, and jobs fall out of the sky?

I’m pretty sure we’re going to see a zombie apocalypse soon.

If not, I’m just gonna put it out there – I could really use a new washing machine.

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We May Have Found A House

February 20, 2012 By 4 Comments

Tomorrow we very well may be putting an offer in on a house. I am freaking out about it just a bit. It takes me so long to decide on how to spend a $25 gift card at Amazon…now I’m looking at something in the $300K range so…yeah. All the questions like, “What if something even more awesome comes on the market after we put in our offer?” are running through my head. I hate missing out!

The house is awesome. It’s located in the East Bay and cuts our hospital commute down by about 20 minutes each way. It’s a 3 bedroom 1 bath house with new EVERYTHING. And I mean everything – roof, electrical, carpet, appliances, heating system, furnace, grass…the house was completely redone under a program specifically for moderate income buyers. The backyard is gigantic. When Jack saw it yesterday he ran around outside – the first time I’ve seen him run in forever. The house is located on a street named after a constellation – how perfect for our Jackonaut.

Jack declared that he wanted the big room with the door to the backyard. We dashed his hopes and he quickly decided he didn’t like the house as much. :P We’ve since let him know that we would build a back door just for him and he’s perked up again.

We came home to San Francisco and starting gathering the rest of the paperwork needed to put an offer in. They want everything – including Jack’s birth certificate – to ensure that we are truly in the moderate income category. If David was working right now rather than enrolled in school full time and staying home to care for Jack, we’d be over the income limit. The timing on this is pretty incredible.

We may not get the house. There may be an offer better than ours or a family deemed more in need than us. In the mean time, we are trying to wrap our heads around the fact that we might be homeowners very soon. Holy crap!

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Combing The Bay (Area)

February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We are looking for a house. I know how that sounds, considering David is unemployed and Jack was just diagnosed with Leukemia but, well, we’ve been diligently saving for it and had the purchase/move in our plan for this summer. The social worker at the hospital told me right off the bat that we shouldn’t set aside all of our life plans. We should carry on with life and keep it as normal as possible. We don’t want Jack to feel like his health is messing up our life or something. Okay…yeah.

So, we’re looking at houses. Our current place is too small for us and has some maintenance issues besides (we have a lackadaisical landlord on one hand…but really cheap rent on the other). We’d like to be in a place that is more accessible to the hospital since we’ll be spending a lot of time there over the next three years. Gas and tolls for crossing t he Bay Bridge are expensive!

We’ve gotten pre-qualified and are pretty much ready to go with a Cal FHA first time homebuyer’s loan (which allows us to get a house with only a 3.5% down payment). We’re lucky enough to be able to qualify for stuff on my income alone, which bodes well for our future once the job market recovers for realsies.

In the mean time, we are looking at houses online every day and setting up showings and attending open houses on the weekends. I know some people find this fun but I am not one of those people. Also, I’m impatient – I just want to find something that works and buy it. Not to mention I’m a sucker for a good deal…it’s a good thing my husband is more level-headed about these things.

Part of what makes this difficult is that we don’t have a particular city in this area that we love. We have friends all over the place here, I work in the city, Jack’s dad lives an hour south of the city, and the hospital is 40 minutes east of us and over a bridge in Oakland. We are central to friends, Jack’s dad, and the hospital right now…but it’s the city – we can’t afford a decent house here (with a yard for our dog) AND guarantee Jack will go to a decent school (enrollment is a lottery system, transferring is a crapshoot, and there is no way I’m driving across the city to take Jack to the school he currently attends).

So, anyway…wish us luck. We hope to find something that we love for a more-than-affordable price that is convenient and takes an adequately lengthy time to complete the buying process (this is where short sales come in handy – we want to find something now but buy months from now so that we don’t have to ask family members for “cash gifts”).

In the mean time I’ll be over here freaking out about growing up…

***

By the way, go check out Band Back Together today – Jack and the Monkey In My Chair program are featured.

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Unresolved

January 4, 2012 By 5 Comments

We had a good holiday. I missed Jack on Christmas day (he was with his dad in Washington) but we got to celebrate in our own way when he got back. Christmas day we hosted David’s sister, my sister’s family, and our friend Mike. It was our first time hosting Christmas dinner – with place mats and everything! – and it turned out pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself.

We rocked stockings this year. Our dog ate the stocking I had from childhood (two days before Christmas) and that was really sad. He also ate the stocking I had a friend create for David. Looks like we’ll be getting new stockings… In any case, it felt like a very grown up thing to be in charge of stockings in addition to the Christmas dinner. I was very much a mom, filling them with toothbrushes and hand sanitizer and such. (There were fun things, too, I promise.)

I got really depressed after the holiday was over. I wasn’t sure why at first (other than it’s December and it’s winter and I was tired) but upon thinking it over I realized a few things – the biggest of which is that my family is so small. I have David and Jack and then my sister who lives across the country. My mother is embroiled in her endless medical issues – in for tests every week and firing physicians left and right – and seems to be off on another planet. Spending time with my dad’s parents, while lovely, also underlined the fact that I don’t have a mom or dad to turn to these days. I am the grown up. How did THAT happen?

I then started feeling baby crazy. THAT was driving me mad because, holy cow, now is NOT the time! But despite the million reasons I could list why I didn’t want another kid right now, the little voice in my head and the ache in my chest wouldn’t go away. That just made me angrier – upset at my own biology, irritated at my brain grasping at straws in order to create connections that I seem to be missing.

I feel old. I feel like emotionally I’m being propelled into a reality that I shouldn’t be physically facing for another 15 years. Suddenly I’m worrying about older family members losing their minds as well as their fortitude, worrying about how many childbearing years I have left, and feeling as if I must have missed something in my 31 years. But when and where? My life thus far has been overwhelmingly full. Where is it that I could have possibly squeezed in one more thing? And didn’t I already have my midlife crisis?

Needless to say, the new year is here and I am unprepared. I’m doing what I always do – marching on as best I can – and hoping things fall in line. I just wish I could feel like I have more of a say in where that line is going and what tune is being played.

Filed Under: Domesticating, Growing Up, Holidays Tagged With: , , ,

Mixed Bag

October 31, 2011 By 4 Comments

We had Jack’s parent/teacher conference almost two weeks ago and things since then have been fairly calm.  I don’t know if it’s the fact that Jack knows we adults are working together to keep him in line or if we are all just being more organized and routine about everything.  In any case, the conference was pretty positive, even with the mixed bag of “your kid is brilliant but he has trouble staying motivated to finish his projects.”  His kindergarten teacher is willing to let him read special books that we provide if it will encourage him to finish his work, and she is supposed to be moving his desk so that he sits near some girls who are better at finishing their work and cleaning their desks.  We’re hoping their habits rub off on him.

School went really well last week.  Jack got a happy note every single day!  Woo hoo!  We no longer hear “I hate school!” all the time.  One morning when we were running late and I had to break the news that Jack wouldn’t get any playtime prior to the bell ringing, Jack surprised me with, “Well, Mom, that’s okay! I’ll have recess later!”

So things seem to be improving there.  I’m cautiously optimistic because, as the parenting gods have taught me, as soon as you say something positive about how well things are going, it all falls apart.

Honestly, though, things aren’t exactly going GREAT.  My husband lost his job on Friday and that is also a mixed bag.  The job was pretty awful and causing major stress to him and us so it’s not like we’re sad.  I’d been encouraging him to look elsewhere for some time but, as I’m sure many of you know, it can be difficult to look for work while working full time, taking classes, and dealing with family stuff.  In any case, the job ended rather unceremoniously on Friday and we traded the stress of him having a shitty job for the stress of him having no job.  We are angry at his ex-employers yet relieved he doesn’t have to go back there.  We’re happy that he has plenty of time to find a new job now but worried that the lack of job will be a liability in getting a job.  And, of course, the financial implications are not fun to think about.  That house we wanted is now pushed further into the future.  But what are ya gonna do?

As for my mom’s health, her various organ and head scans came back clear and so it doesn’t look like she has any evil diseases lurking.  She got a hysterectomy Friday so she is recovering from that and once I am both less stressed and less ill (I spent a good month transitioning to a new preventative migraine med; now I’m fighting off my second cold in 6 weeks) I will go visit her.

So, that’s life lately.  This, and my work with Band Back Together.  We went non-profit, did you hear?  We got our state designation and have applied for federal recognition.  I’m on the Board of Directors, as well.  I’m damned proud of the growth over there.  If you don’t know what the heck it is – I encourage you to check it out.  It’s a group blog where we invite everyone to submit stories survival and get support and kudos for being all ‘eye of the tiger.’  We have stories about post partum depression, cancer, bullying, friendship, hope, single parenting, caregiver burnout, etc. and are expanding all the time.  I would like to formally invite you to join our Band.

By the way, Happy Halloween.  I’ll be over here eating candy corn and peanut M&Ms.

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All Grown Up and Nowhere to Hide

September 28, 2011 By 11 Comments

I keep sitting down to write and nothing comes out.  It’s been the same with talking.  David told me to talk the other night and I didn’t know where to begin.  I guess I’ll begin here with what I said first then – I said one thing and everything else just flowed.

I hate our house.  It’s too small, too drafty, too difficult to keep organized, and kills my allergies.  We’d really, really like to move.  We are saving like crazy in the hopes that we can buy a house next year.  Meanwhile the market isn’t looking as promising as it was earlier this year (hopefully that’s just because it’s nearing the end of the year) and it feels like our savings plan could be derailed at any moment…which brings me to…

David’s job sucks.  His commute is an hour each way and the job is high stress.  Prior to Jack starting kindergarten, David had arranged to start working from home in the afternoons so that he could pick Jack up from school.  This hasn’t been the best arrangement, honestly, since a lot of David’s work is on the phone and Jack gets bored when David can’t play with him and doesn’t like to stay quiet.  But, well, we figured it was a temporary solution and there were a few changes that would be coming down the pipeline that would make it all easier.  Except then a change came that said that David couldn’t work from home anymore due to asshattery by others.  Arg!  (We are still in limbo waiting to see if this is negotiable.)

There is an option of an after school program for Jack.  That costs money, of course…and that would mean delays on house buying.  It also means Jack is in school for longer during the day when he already doesn’t care to be there.  (On the plus side, his homework would be done before we picked him up for the evening.)

We’ve thrown around some other options but nothing has really crystallized yet.  So we wait and hope that the working from home option is reinstated.

Meanwhile, we’re still in a bit of agony over this school maladjustment.  Jack’s been acting out more and his teacher always has some piece of criticism, it seems.  It finally dawned on me that it might be a cultural thing, as the school is pretty strictly focused on academics (Jack’s classroom has homework 4 nights a week, and the other classroom has it 5 nights a week; I know of another school in the district that sends home activity-based homework for the weekends only).  The teacher (maybe the school?) seems to have an attitude of “what skill can’t this kid do yet?” rather than “what skills can this kid build upon?”  I am not the only class mom to notice some worrisome behavior with regard to self-esteem in the kids.

While I do think that Jack will learn a lot at this school, I’m wondering if emotionally this is not a good fit for him.  He is a sensitive and emotional individual and that isn’t likely to change (i.e. see his parents).  On the other hand, maybe he’ll learn some coping skills that could be useful later?  (He has to learn them from someone other than me; I am notorious for my crappy coping skills.)  And, regardless of whether it’s a good fit or not, do we even have the option to be choosy?  It is public school, after all.  And, really, would private school be different and different enough to be worth it?

And that’s when I go back to wanting the house like NOW.  ‘Cause we’ll move out of this neighborhood almost certainly and he’ll move schools almost definitely.  We’d have some sort of indication of whether this is just what a kindergarten transition is going to be like for Jack or if it’s THIS kindergarten that is the issue.

So, we’re in a holding pattern on the school front as well as on the job front.  In addition to those two things…

I spoke to my mom last night.  She has been dealing with ongoing health issues (the medical mystery tour, if you will).  Some time ago, probably close to 10 years ago, it was discovered that my mom had a benign tumor on her pituitary gland.  She was given hormones to shrink the tumor and then sent on her merry way.  When other weird issues started cropping up, they were dismissed as peri-menopause symptoms; however, recent tests show she is a good distance away from menopause still at age 49.  Unfortunately, she is already showing signs of bone loss and she now has a CT scan on her pancreas and an MRI on her head this week to look for tumors.  Not to mention that she is going to have a hysterectomy as soon as she can because of complications from endometriosis (except she has to wait to see what’s up with her cortisol – she may have Addison’s Disease!).

Needless to say, I feel very much like I want to crawl into a hole and hide from all of life’s complications.  I am young, dammit, and I don’t want to be dealing with all of this shit.  I feel overwhelmed and ill equipped to handle even one of these things at a time but all of them at once?  Ugh.

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Letting Go

August 11, 2011 By 2 Comments

Today is Jack’s last day in daycare.  He’s been with G for over two years (a miracle when you think back to all the daycare dramas early on in his life) and made some awesome little friends there.  G’s house is basically Jack’s third house – there were many weeks there where he spent just as much time there as he did at my house or his dad’s.  G feeds him and teaches him and celebrates his victories and birthdays.  Jack was potty trained there before he was at home!

In the last 2+ years, G has taken only ONE unscheduled day off – for Jury Duty.  One day, you guys!  She is simply amazing.

I’m having a hard time walking away from this lady.  She is one of the most reliable, dependable, trustworthy, and caring people I have ever known – it has been a BLESSING to be able to put Jack in her care.

I don’t think it’s hit Jack yet.  He knows today is his last day and that he’ll have a goodbye party, but all he could say was that he was hoping for presents.  :P   We tried to tell him this isn’t the kind of thing you get presents for.  In any case, he starts school Monday and I’m guessing somewhere in that week he’ll really start to miss G.  I know I will!

I had a difficult time coming up with a gift that conveyed how much we love G.  What we ended up with was this poem made into an artful poster by Etsy artist MySoulShines and matted/framed:

They Will Remember

by Eileen Koscho

I take care of your children.
I love them.
I teach them.
I clean them, and I feed them.
And when nighttime comes,
my heart worries about them
I take care of your children.
I see their first steps.
I hear their first words.
I share their happiness, and
I feel their hurts.
I take care of your children,
as if they were my own.
And when they are grown, and
no longer need me,
My love will be a part of them
deep within the heart of them.
They will know that I was there for them unconditionally.
And they will remember!

 

This morning it occurred to me that I should have had a coffee mug or something made with Jack’s artwork to give to her.  Dang it!  Maybe I’ll ship that to her…

Here is a picture of G with Jack on his birthday (she is so cool – she got him the alien space ship Legos):

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Truthiness Day 14: Goodbye to you

October 20, 2010 By 3 Comments

Day 14 → A hero that has let you down. (letter)

Dear Dad,

Where do I begin?

When I was a child you were the person I looked up to the most.  You were smart, good looking and talented even beyond music, art, and sports.  My world revolved around you; when my mom told me to go to sleep so that I could wake up and see Mr. Sunshine, I thought she was talking about you.

With all that you had going for you, I don’t understand how you could do the things you did.  You seemed to carry so much life, yet you destroyed that light with drugs.  You then left the evidence behind for me to find and I had to ask my mother, “Why is daddy sniffing sugar?”  How could you pack your things and leave my mom while she was 6 months pregnant with your third child together?  Do you know that she had a panic attack when she came home to an empty house?  You then proceeded to max out the credit card buying things for your new girlfriend while my mom worked the night shift at the gas station to make ends meet…while your girlfriend was being swathed in the fur coat you bought for her, my mom was held up at gun point on more than one occasion.

You were neglectful and reckless.  You left me in charge of my younger siblings while you went out to party before I was even 9 years old.  You nearly drove us off the side of the levee into the river in your VW Bug regularly just so you could get a thrill.  I still can’t get anywhere near the side of a cliff without dealing with panic and vertigo.  I also can’t pick up the telephone without suffering severe anxiety thanks to your yelling at me for forgetting phone numbers when calling Information on your behalf.

Recently I learned that you hit me in the stomach because I left the table without asking for permission.  I was 3 or 4 years old.  I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that one.

I’ve heard a lot of excuses for the things you did, and so much blame has been shifted to others.  I think my grandparents still put you up on a pedestal, believing that you were their golden boy who could never do wrong.

I missed you for a long time after you died.  Now I can’t help but think of how much more damage you would have caused in the lives of others if you had lived past 30.  I barely remember the good things because there is just so much bad to eclipse them.  I wish I could still pretend that you were a good dad.  I wish I still had my hero.

Sincerely,

Crystal

Filed Under: 110 in 2010, 30 Days of Truth, Family, Issues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Truthiness Day 9: Drifting

October 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

My cousin CJ was my best friend through junior high and high school.  We are about a year apart in age and both have suffered from depression.  During our teen years we totally got one another.  We were the only people like us that we knew, and seemingly the only ones to challenge our family’s status quo.  We always felt like brother and sister, and closer to one another than the rest of our family members.

Sometime after high school we started to drift.  Wait, maybe it was after my wedding.  CJ walked me down the aisle along with my brother.  About a year after that,  I moved to the Bay Area.  CJ didn’t tell me back then, but he didn’t like my husband.  I only learned that when Joe and I split up.  Of all the things CJ understood about me, he never understood why I married Joe or why I moved out of Sacramento.  I think both of those things made him feel like I was abandoning him.

CJ is married now and has two children whom I have never met.  He’s met my son twice.  We’ve been out of practice in speaking with one another for so long now.  We’ve made a few phone calls back and forth in recent years and visited a couple of times, but our lives are very different from one another’s now.  I know CJ is there if I ever need him.  I can call him up at any time, ask him for help or just an ear, and I know he will do what he can.  Despite that, our relationship just isn’t easy like it was when we were kids.  There are hurt feelings and family politics in the way of any sort of comfortable silence.  That will always make me sad.

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