Which one of you did THAT shiz? Because you’re fired. >:-{

I don’t know why I can’t seem to write. I’m seriously starting to think I have ADD or something, because I sit down to do something, even something I enjoy doing, and I can not bring myself to JUST DO IT. (Unless not doing it will screw up my GPA. Then I can manage, but it’s REALLY FREAKING HARD.) I have opinions on crap that is happening in my world, and in the bigger picture, so why the hell can’t I just express them easily anymore? (My family would say I express my opinions JUST FINE, thank you very much. LOL)

School is going along okay…I’ve got four A’s and a B so far. Things are very much in the air though, because my campus has been in the center of a huge political storm. I enrolled here because it offered an IT degree rather than Computer Science, which I felt would have more of a theory focus than I wanted, and because it was a part of USF, which has a good reputation. Florida Senator JD Alexander has been on a crusade to break my campus off into an independent polytechnic university. I didn’t know this when I enrolled, and when the student body was polled, over 80% of the respondents were not in favor of a split, myself included. The Board of Governors or BOG, (which oversees the public university system in Florida), agreed in November to move ahead with the split, but put in place certain benchmarks to guide the process, which could take several years. Senator Alexander, hereafter known as the big bully, wasn’t satisfied with that plan and slipped a bill in that would immediately sever the school. He also proposed a 58% cut to USF’s funding for next year, (a full 20% of the $400 million dollar cuts to higher education were to be placed on USF), which many of us felt was retaliatory because USF didn’t just bend to his will. Thankfully, we have some bulldog senators who fought for our funding, and the burden of the budget cuts was more evenly distributed when the Senate was done. On the other hand, the bill for an immediate split was passed. Because of this, I really have no clue what will happen. I do know that this new institution will not be accredited for some time, contrary to what the big bully presented, which was one of the major benchmarks in the BOG’s plan, of course. No accreditation means no federal student aid, including Stafford loans, and obviously it means a degree worth MUCH less. Supposedly current students will have the option of finishing our programs at the USF Tampa campus, but the bill specifically says according to that campus’ criteria, and I don’t meet the completion ratio requirement to attend the Tampa campus…so what does that mean for me? Why do we even have a BOG, which costs taxpayers $6 million dollars annually to operate, if the legislature can just do whatever the hell it wants anyway? Grrrrr. I’m starting to get all breathing-in-a-brown-paper-bag-y about it so I’m moving on to another subject now…who the hell has brown paper bags just lying around anyway? I may live near a liquor store but I am not a frequent patron. Maybe I should be…

Moving on, guess what? My grandson is due in three weeks!!!! Wait, let me just type that again because it still feels surreal. My grandson is due in three weeks!!!! Holy shitballs. I can’t wait to see his little face. This hasn’t ever really been a mommyblog kind of blog, but y’all better brace yourselves for some bragging on my grandbaby. I think I am going to be pretty amazing at this grandmother thing. I’ve spent so much money on this little man already…I can’t wait to spend TIME with him. The kids painted their room and put the crib and changing table up…the house is ready for the takeover and so are we.

I’m not screwing around any more. This is my life, and I’m tired of wasting time. I *CAN* accomplish the things I dream of if I stop thinking of all the reasons I can’t and just start doing it. So I am. I’m losing weight. I’m kicking ass in school. I’m getting my house in order, in every sense of the word(s). I’m making this life whatever I wanting to be. Watch this.

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Location:Spring Hill,United States

I think I’m not alone when I say this has been an extremely challenging year. I’m really going to try to get back into the swing of things here because the truth is that I need a creative outlet where I can talk about what’s happening in my life and the world, at large. Since I’m still uninsured, therapy is out of the question, and hosting is under $50 a year so this is my Plan B.  I’m going to kick it off with a list of what’s happening.

• The Boy and his girlfriend are having my first grandchild, a boy, in March. I won’t even be 35, neither of them will quite be 18 yet. But, no point in being upset now, so I’m looking forward to having a baby in the immediate family again.
• The Boy violated his probation when he was pulled over in the next county. I am expecting him home in early December. I’m praying becoming a father really helps him focus on staying out of trouble. Please pray too.
• My stepson went to live with his mom. We are still waiting for final confirmation that DCF will allow it, since his mom has an old case plan that wasn’t complete. We miss him, but it has definitely reduced the stress in the house.
• I finished my AA over the summer and I started at USF in August. I am carrying all A’s and B’s, which is awesome because the transition from a community college to a university is TOUGH. I literally work on school 6-8 hours. every. day.
• I’m sure I have lipedema, and it explains SO MANY issues I’ve had over the years. But as much as a relief as that is, knowing how little control I really have over my body is a tough pill to swallow, especially since I can’t afford any treatment.
• I’m starting a clinical trial tomorrow for a new depression medication. It will pay for my gas to St Pete 2/week for classes, which is a huge plus. I’m hoping that if the med would help me, the powers that be make it so I get it and not a placebo.
• We painted my living room/dining room, and it looks SO MUCH BETTER. Can’t wait to put the floors in. I really hate this house, and coming home to it makes me panicky sometimes. (I know, I should be happy I even HAVE a home right now.)

This is an extremely long, and emotionally charged post.  I was raised to believe that the police are there to protect us.  I have always known there were some bad cops, but I believed they were the exception.  I believed that if you tell the truth, you will prevail.  Maybe I should have known better, looking back.  But these are ideals ingrained long before I ever had any personal contact with law enforcement.  In order to understand the impact what I am about to tell you has had on me and my family, you have to know about two prior incidents.

When he was 14, my son was convicted of something he did not do, and spent five months in a juvenile program in North Florida.  He believed that the videos would prove his innocence.  When they didn’t prove either him or the ‘victim’ right, they were sent to the state attorney’s office, along with statements from the ‘victim’ and her friend, who wrote another boy’s name on her statement.  We never thought the state would file charges, but they did.  His public defender, (who handled every single juvenile case I ever saw get a public defender at five court dates over five months), essentially told us the judge wouldn’t believe him and our best bet was to take a plea deal.  Since juvenile cases do not have juries, we were scared.  We know that you tend to get punished even harder if you go to trial and get convicted, and he was having some other issues at home, and so we agreed it would be best to plea out.  To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure if he really was innocent, until the day he pled out.  When we arrived in court and his name was called, the victim’s advocate stood and said the victim agreed to the plea deal, but only because she had been harassed at school by my son ever since she reported him to the school resource officer.  I knew she was lying then, because he never set foot back in that school after that day.  He spent five months in that program, knowing he was being punished for something he didn’t do.  The strain on my family, emotionally and financially, was immense.  He learned then that the law is not about the truth.  He learned then that the law is about the perception of the person you are dealing with, and once you get involved with law enforcement, the truth doesn’t matter anymore.

My son was also assaulted while being held in the county jail, awaiting transport to the juvenile detention center in Ocala, Fl.  I saw bruising on him, and made a complaint.  The sergeant I spoke with initially was in charge the night of the incident, but he denied there being any incident to me on the phone and told me there was no video surveillance in the area in which my son was taken to and assaulted.  He did help me make the complaint, however, and a few days later I received a call from a detective from the jail, who told asked me to explain again what happened.  I did, including the conversation with the sergeant, which confused him because he did have an incident report.  I asked to see the video of what happened before my son was removed to an unsupervised area.  In a day or two, he invited Brian and I to come view the tape.  He showed us the area in which the incident took place, and then showed us the video.  I was torn after watching the video.  To Brian and I, it proved the officer was over aggressive, and what was described as my son aggressively waving his arms was actually him raising his two hands, palms up, as the officer approached him.  It was not arm waving…it was surrender.  When you lie about one thing, how can I believe you about what happened once you were out of the camera’s eye?  Nothing I saw refuted any part of my son’s story.  I wrestled with what to do.  I could have obtained a private attorney, or asked for an IA investigation.  Neither my son nor I wanted to ruin this man’s career.  What we wanted was an acknowledgment that he was wrong, and most importantly, that a regulation be introduced that prohibits taking an inmate into an unsupervised area for ‘redirection.’  We received neither, but I chose not to pursue the matter, because I was naive and I believed in what law enforcement stood for…I thought it must have been an isolated incident.  He went along with it because he believed that the truth of what happened didn’t matter; it was his word against an officer’s, and he was very familiar with how law enforcement took his word.  Now I regret that decision very much.

On Sunday, June 24th, at around 8-ish pm, Brian and I and our two daughters, ages 7 and 9, returned from a BBQ and pool party at my friend Adam’s house in the Orlando area.  It was a great day, and a quiet trip home, as everyone slept but me.  Our two teenaged sons had been home while we were gone, with several friends over.  I don’t recall the house being a mess or anything upsetting when we got home; it was just a nice peaceful ending to a fun day.  Or so I thought.

It being summer when it is easy to lose track of the days, (especially since I am not working and am on break from school, too, and Brian isn’t working regularly, either), and since I had mistakenly told the boys the party was Saturday for several days before I realized it was Sunday, the kids didn’t realize it was Sunday night.  My son and his girlfriend went to the corner store to get a drink, but when they got there, they saw it was closed and realized their mistake and headed home.  There was a car parked there, with four or five boys in it, who said something to them.  When my son’s girlfriend saw three boys jump out of the car with a weapon and run for my son, she screamed at him to run and she screamed for me.  He ran around the corner and made it to the edge of my yard before they tackled him and began to beat him with the weapon.  His girlfriend was trying to call me, but in a panic she must have misdialed or the call wouldn’t go through and somehow in the melee, one of the boys grabbed her phone out of her hand and threw it.

Brian was having a cigarette out front and he saw the boys running after my son, but he thought it was just some of his friends goofing around.  Until he saw one swing at my son’s ribs with a weapon, and my son hit the ground, the three boys on him.  He ran screaming toward them and pulled the boy with the weapon off, pinning him to the ground, while a close friend of ours who had just been dropped off pulled another boy off, who started screaming at Brian that the boy he had pinned was a minor.  That minor had the crow bar, and he hit Brian three times with it in the head and face, striking him on the top of his head, under one eye, and in the mouth, chipping his tooth.  The boys still in the car had pulled it around by now, and my guys released the boys they had.  When they ran to the car, one of them reached in, yelling, “You want that fire??!!”

I didn’t know any of this had happened.  I heard Christian come in and order his sisters and our friend’s son into a bedroom, later I realized it was because he was afraid the boys had a gun, and he didn’t want the kids in danger.  I didn’t know what was happening, but I could hear in his voice that it was serious, so when Emily started objecting, I yelled for her to do as she was told and came out to see what it was.  I saw my son, covered in dirt all over his back, wild eyed and out of breath.  And then I ran out front to find out what was happening.

I will never forget the warzone I stepped into when I stepped out of my house that night.  I saw a red car careen from my yard down to the next lot, pull a u-turn into an empty lot across the street, passing between a power pole and an electrical box, and then head toward what I thought was the back end of Brian’s car.  I stepped forward, and the tree between Brian and I no longer blocked my view.  It wasn’t the car they were racing toward.  It was Brian.  I was barefoot, but I took off running, and screaming.  I screamed so loud in those seconds that my urine ran down my legs as I thundered toward the car, running through broken glass but never feeling a thing, and my voice was gone for almost a week after.  I don’t know what I meant to do…but I wan’t going to tell another child that their father was dead without doing something to try to stop it.  I didn’t know it at the time, but he had already tried to hit him once and missed.  He pulled that u-turn to try to hit his mark again.  He accelerated as the car flew toward my daughters’ father.  There were no brake marks, when the dust settled.  Brian jumped out of the way, but the fender hit his ankle.  He didn’t even realize it right away, because of the adrenaline pumping through his veins.  I called 911, frantic, panicked…and I learned what had happened before I came outside.

I really thought they would help us.  I thought they would find the kids who did this-we knew two names, for crying out loud!  I thought the police were there to protect citizens against violence and crime.  But I was wrong.  I’m not really sure *who* the police protect, but I learned that week that it sure isn’t me and my family.  The true attack was yet to come, and Hernando County Sheriff’s department allowed those boys to use them as a weapon against us in a second, more devastating attack.

To be continued, when my heart can take it…

I am going to be very raw and real here and to be perfectly honest, I am not sure I can even post this once I write it.  If I do, I may not leave it up for long.  But I need to write.  I need to try to organize my thoughts and feelings and try to make some sense of it all.

I’m struggling.  I usually do that when our finances get in a mess, and they are *really* in a mess right now.  I was denied food stamps, more than likely because DCF’s fax line was busy every time I tried to fax them the verification they asked for. For the full week before the deadline.  And I’m not even sure if what I had was acceptable anyway because how am I supposed to prove child support paid privately, instead of through the courts?  And why didn’t they want that in December when I applied the first time?  So I’m appealing and hoping the food stamps I still have from May are enough to feed us until then.  And how long am I going to wait to get a decision from unemployment about reinstating the benefits they suspended, not because I did not submit the information they asked for…but because I thought that the red starred items marked “required” were the only required information?  Silly me.  Or because I thought just submitting the information would be enough…not that I would have to call, for hours, to speak with a human and ask them to review it.  Silly me.  I thought “Submit” meant Submit, not “Whether you fill out this information online or not, we won’t review it until you ask us nicely to do so.”  Silly me.

All the bills that have already become due this month are late, except our car insurance.  In all honesty, if I can’t find a job THIS WEEK, or get both food stamps and unemployment reinstated, I may have to cancel the insurance and just pray nothing happens.  My kids have to eat, you know?  It’s illegal in Florida to drive without insurance.  But it’s also illegal to starve your kids or hook on the street corner and those are my alternatives.  We are completely out of money, we have no credit cards, and our completely minimized expenses are greater than our income.

And it’s not like I haven’t been trying to find a job.  I’ve probably made over 100 contacts.  Several, through friends seemed promising.  But the ONLY response I received that wasn’t a craigslist scam was from a small cafe about ten miles away, for a part time waitressing job.  My interview is on Tuesday.  If I don’t get it, I’m so screwed.

I scrapped my van for $200 and did someone’s homework for $60 to pay the power bill.  I’m trying to sell my iPad to pay the mortgage.  I wish my mom and our friend who are on our cell phone plan would throw some in on the bill, because I only have half of that, and since I’m canceling the house phone this month, we kind of need our cell phones or I’ll have no chance in hell of finding a job-they will have no way to reach me.  I can cut the internet until school starts again in the fall.  We shut off the central a/c unit and are just running a window unit in the living room to try to reduce the bill.  The kids have been sleeping in the there because their rooms are like ovens. The pool is green because we can’t afford the chemicals, and our poor kids are stuck in this Florida hotbox all summer-we can’t afford to take them anywhere to do anything, and they can’t even use the pool in their own backyard.  I had to borrow money to get the MMR shot I needed to enroll at USF.

We are middle America and we are on the brink of losing everything.  I know everyone is having to tighten their belts a bit, but this is ridiculous.  I can’t be so close to homelessness, can I?  But yes, I can.  The mortgage is in my mom’s name…I can’t let it damage her credit, and she retired last year-she can’t afford the mortgage.  But I’m already late.  Might we have to leave to rent it out…opening a whole new slew of potential problems?  I hate this house.  But it’s our home and I know we will never find another house with enough room for $600/month.  Even if we could, how do we know the renters won’t find themselves in our same shoes two months in and we wind up homeless, and STILL with an unpaid mortgage?  So where will we wind up?  And we certainly can’t afford a deposit or we could just stay here.  This is how families get trapped at weekly hotels, never able to save enough to get back in a home because they can’t save the deposits while keeping the family under a roof somewhere now.

I’ve scrapped a van..I’m selling my iPad..I think I may have to sell the pickup truck from my Daddy which completely breaks my heart..even more than the fact that I may have to sell my car that I LOVE and try to find something reliable enough to get me to classes in St Pete in the fall, (90 minutes away, twice a week. And back.), that is cheaper..the only good jewelry I have means so much to me that I can’t hold back the tears any more at the thought of having to sell them.  My wedding rings, and things from people I’ve lost…my mother-in-law’s necklace that my father and sister in law gifted me for my birthday…the ring that my brother wore…my Dad’s wedding band…my Grammy’s gold chain and ring.

I’ve had some lovely people offer to help.  And I know it is prideful to not accept the help that is offered.  But I don’t want to be perceived as a mooch.  I WANT to pay my own way.  I want a job, a fair wage, a chance to prove that I have so much to offer.  I don’t want to need any help.  I hate being on unemployment and food stamps, but until someone gives me a shot to prove I can be an asset to their business, I can’t survive without them.  I can’t feed my children without them.  Every day I don’t have them or a job makes that more and more apparent.  I’m in a panic, all the time.  And I feel like I can’t take it any more.