Oh my goodness, the tax stuff this year has me wanting to pull my hair out.

First, we waited FOREVER from a W-2 from his college, it just came yesterday, so I was thrilled to be able to finally file… however, because one of our forms we did is one of the four forms the IRA is not accepting until at least the 11th I went ahead and filed, having the online Tax place hold it for e-file until the forms will be accepted.

So today… what do I get but another form!! This time a 1099-Misc from freelance writing that I was not expecting. I made $75 more than what I would not have to claim, so now I have to amend my taxes. Worse yet, because they do not deduct taxes, I will end up OWING! It looks to be around $200 from first glance. CRAP. We already owe the state $600 (plus whatever this little surprise will cost us) in taxes and my real estate taxes are $800 and due too. Since our federal return is going 100% to paying off his car, that leaves around $1600 we owe, and soon, that we don’t have the money to pay all at once!! Hopefully the economic relief (which I am SO against) will come and then we can put that towards the “economy”… a la taxes… woot!

This is just frustrating enough to be comical….especially since I have not done much freelancing, or so I thought!

I remember when tax time used to be FUN!!

Today was supposed be Austin & Christopher’s first day back to school after a LONG, LOOOOOOOOOOONG winter break, but the school had other plans and I guess we missed the start date and assumed it was today.

Nope, it’s tomorrow. I leaned this after Austin called me to ask if I wanted him to walk home or if I would pick him up from school. W.T.F??? Why would I be picking you up from school 15 minutes before classes start?? He then explains there is no school today, so I get dressed and drive to get him in my freezing ass van. The heat was on full blast the entire time, but of course never kicked on. Twenty-damn-degree weather is NOT the time to have no heat, and totally not a great way to start the day. Bobby also showed me the hideous clicking noise it makes instead of cooling. Lovely. A full year without heating, cooling, and four kids ages 12-newborn… how ever did I get so lucky?? Oprah needs to give me a new van, otherwise my only hope of having a vehicle that keeps the passengers happy, does not turn my driveway into an oil slick, and does not smell like death warmed over every time it is started is some rich long lost relative kicking it and leaving me their fortune. Otherwise I just don’t see us having the $37k I would need for a van anytime this decade. At least in a year when my POS-car is paid off I can justify a car payment.

I am exhausted. I got two hours of sleep total last night in 30 minute increments. The dogs are at my feet with horrible gas, and I am hungry and feeling quite nauseous. The worlds-crankiest-toddler has decided today would be a great day for fits and tantrums… because he did not want a clean diaper, did not want to eat, and lord forbid I watch the news this morning instead of Sesame Street or the Wiggles. This is of course after he dominated the television for an hour.

I just want to crawl back in bed and emerge to happy kids and a working vehicle.

I hate my van, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! I should have taken it back the moment we got it home and it started leaving oil spots on my driveway, or sold it when the dealership could not fix the leak the first, second, third, fourth, or even FIFTH time I had it in for a visit. The perpetual overheating smell it lovely, even when you drive it two blocks to the store. I have cussed at it all winter long when I go start it at 7:00 to find it still blowing cold air at 7:15 and get home from taking Austin to school at 7:35 JUST for it to start warming up. Today takes the cake though, I get two blocks away to a stop light and it sounds like I have a pain can full of marbles in the paint mixer coming from the dash of my car. It was the most hideous sound ever to where the baby was saying “too loud mommy, too loud!” and Bobby could hear it through the cell phone when I called to bitch. I wish it was paid off, I really do, because I want nothing more just to get rid of it and get something that is not falling apart at my fingertips!

Seriously people… it is Friday, you don’t have to act like fools because the weekend is here. How many jerks can I encounter in a 10 minute drive??

To the man in the Suburban: If you plan on disregarding the STOP sign and pulling out in front of me, can you at LEAST have the decency to go the speed limit?? Going 15 under is going to do nothing but piss off the drivers you illegally pulled in front of. I understand that reading a stop sign may be too difficult, but if the speed limit sign says 35, could you please at least match up the number on your odometer that looks the same? I get that you are driving a beater, and it may not go that fast, but WHY on earth were you heading to a road with a 50 MPH speed limit?? You can’t even make it up to 35! However after meeting asshole #2, I guess you are just a mini-hole.

To the MAIN asshole in the green SUV: Your kids go to the same school as mine, which means I see you 2x a day. WHY do you have to act like the world’s biggest (or maybe I should say littlest?) prick? Let me educate you on something… the little yellow lane in the middle of the road is called a turn lane, to allow you to turn onto residential streets. It was NEVER intended to be a passing lane. If a truck stalls and takes up the right lane, and also takes up the middle lane, it is STILL first come first serve on who gets to go first. Since I was there first, that would be ME, not you. You do NOT have the right to zip around me just because the stick up your ass is pinching you and causing you physical pain. A nice head on collision might be a nice refresher on how to drive, but no one deserves to be injured at the hands of your road rage. The 30 seconds you saved by speeding past me is NOT WORTH THE LIVES OF YOU CHILDREN!! And VERY not worth the lives of my own children. Had I been an inpatient prick like you, you would have slammed into the back of my car and I would have sued you for everything you own, including the shirt on your back. Take a pill and calm the fuck down buddy, we ALL have to share the road.

To the police department: Sorry you are so understaffed, overworked, and underpaid, we could have really used the revenue from these assholes to balance the city budget.

While in the grocery store on Saturday, we ran into Austin’s little friend in 5th grade, whom I did not particularly care for (he was in trouble a lot at school). The mom asked what school Austin was going to and I replied [Name Withheld] Charter School, and she said “Oh, my son goes to [Name Withheld] Middle School. I figure, sure it has a lot of fights and drug problems, but what school doesn’t?”

My jaw dropped. As a parent, is that really the selling point you want to describe your 6th graders education?? I cannot begin to say enough about Austin’s school, how wonderful the teachers, administrators and support staff are.

Here is the rating that Great Schools gave the Middle School her son was in. This is the default school in the district for my neighborhood.

This is the school Austin goes to, the ONLY thing we did different is to enroll him at the end of 5th grade for the 6th grade year.

Here are the standardized test scores for the Middle School.

Here are the test scores for Austin’s Charter School. They are a new school, so they only recently have started standardized testing.

Obviously there is more of a problem than just the occasional fight the mom mentioned. I don’t understand defending a school with such a poor rating, low test scores, and obviously a hostile environment. The Charter School does not have the bullying problem other schools have because the children are ALWAYS supervised. The curriculum is more strict, and children spend less time in the halls getting from class to class than they do at the Middle School.

Which one would you chose? The middle school with drug, violence and education problems? Or the charter school with strict rules, higher standards and excellent test scores? Both are free. Can you believe these schools are only 0.3 miles apart?

Yesterday I started spotting light pink, so I called my OBs office and they got me right in. They did an exam and said everything was ok, but to head to the ER is it gets worse (since I had no cramping). Well around 10pm I was getting ready for bed and the blood was a lot heavier and bright red. I argued with myself if it was worth going, but decided 4 hours in the ER was worth the peace of mind…. ha!

I get there at 11:30 and the ER is PACKED. I should have just come home and gone to bed and called my OB in the morning, but by this time I am starting to cramp. SIX hours later they finally call me back (after telling me I was the next one going back and calling 5 people after me). They do a ton of blood work, an ultrasound that they will not let me see, a pelvic that hurt like hell and 6 hours later send me home. So I was there for 11 hours, crazy huh? No one offered anything to eat, drink, and I could not sleep because they needed the lights all on.

When they did the ultrasound I could see part of the side of the screen, and when the measured the fetal heart tones I freaked out because I could only see flat lines. I was so worried my baby’s heart was not beating yet. After what seemed like a lifetime I was able to see the radiologist’s report and it said I was measuring 6w6d (I was barley 7w0d so that was perfect) they saw a fetal pole and a heart rate of 124 BPM. They also saw “minimal subchorionic low echogenic material seen that may identify minimal blood”.

The OB’s office called back this morning and said I have an infection that may be causing all these problems combined with implantation bleeding from the placenta. I am on bed rest until the bleeding stops and I have a follow-up appointment on Monday. Between the ER copay, 11 hours of my time, and the medication NOT being covered (one application was $92!!) this has turned into an expensive LONG day. For the most part I am pretty bored, up in bed with my laptop. DH is being pretty good, other than the fact that he is STARVING me up here. LOL

PS. Husband brought me clam chowder soup & crackers and Matthew to cuddle with so he’s back to the status of best hubby ever.

Housework sucks so bad right now, because guess what? Dishes stink, laundry stinks, garbage stinks, vacuuming makes me cough and coughing makes me want to puke and my energy level is consistently somewhere in the negative levels.

However I thank my lucky stars for this pregnancy daily, don’t get me wrong…. but why does something so wonderful like a baby come with all these lovely side effects?? One would think morning sickness and fatigue are “natural birth control” for future children, except for the lovely mom-nesia in which you forget ALL the bad the moment you hold the baby and think to yourself “I could totally do this again, I LOVE being pregnant” WTH!?! Talk about mixed messages body!!

I wonder if I can talk Bobby into hiring a housekeeper for me a few times a week? LOL Hell, it’s half tempting to beg my friend to come clean my house for $10 an hour one day a week while I take a nap.

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Now playing: Norah Jones - Lonestar
via FoxyTunes

I have always had a sick fascination with the show “Cops”, it just intrigues me how people can be so dumb. Tonight a woman (drunk) calls the police on her drunk belligerent husband. She is complaining he threw armor-all in her face and gave her a black eye. The police enter the house and the man goes on and on about him being the one paying the rent not them, so he can do as he damn well pleases. He gets into the officers face and they tell him to sit; he gets in their face even more and they help him take a seat.

So they finally arrest him for being and asshole as they say, and place him in the car for obstruction of justice and resisting arrest. He starts banging his head against the window and freaking out as the police tell the woman they are taking him to jail. She says she does not want him to go to jail and to let him out, and they tell her she can go bond him out if she wants. She then starts screaming at them that she does not have the money to get him out.

At this point I am thinking…. if you did not want him arrested… Why did you call the police???

If he hit you… why don’t you want him arrested??

And if you act like a drunk asshole in front of a video camera… WHY do you sign a release to allow them to show your dumb ass on television??

**

They also had the parents who call 911 because their one week old baby is spitting up. Wow. I was 18 when I had my son and knew that babies spit up. These were no 20 year old kids, they looked to be in their 30’s. I guess stupid comes in all ages.

I am so angry about all these commercials I have seen for tonight’s episode of Supernanny. I boycotted the show after an episode where the mom was berated for co-sleeping with her children and her babies were forced into their own rooms while mom cried, the babies cried, and the father was distraught to see his family in tears. The mom finally snuck the babies back into her bed while the nanny fumed and belittled the mother on camera, and the parents and children got a good night’s sleep.

Well, tonight they are taking on the issue of extended breast-feeding. So, you must be thinking this “child” must be 6 or 7, right? Noooo, this baby is only 14 months old, and the nanny wished to rip this precious little one off her mama and “give her a bottle” as the announcer says. What kind of idiotic advice is that??? Anyone who is familiar with the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) or the WHO (Wold Health Organization) knows that the bottle should not be used after 1 year of age, and breastfeeding should continue as long as mutually desirable, but beyond 12 months. In fact, I will go farther and suggest nursing to age 2 or 3 and letting the child decide when s/he wishes to stop.

Matthew is 2 now, and he still asks for “boo” between 3 times a day, to as little as every other day. If anyone told me to wean him (like my old doctor, with an emphasis on OLD) I would educate them, laugh in their face, ignore them, or in the case of my old doctor, fire them. This whole thing has really left a bad taste in my mouth and has reaffirmed my decision to quit watching this show for it’s poor advice towards mothers of babies and toddlers. I thought she had great suggestions for older children, but her backwards views and anti-Attachment Parenting styles for younger children have done nothing but infuriate me and make me doubt any other advice she gives.

So mamas, hold you babies close, and keep the love flowing, your little ones will continue to benefit from your milk, comfort, and love.

Lately I have been addicted to these daytime drama shows; Divorce Court, Jude Joe Brown, The People’s Court… I love them all!  Now I am not bad enough to where I have to watch them, but if they are on… I am hooked.  I cannot believe how ignorant some people can be… it reminds me of the women I saw on Cops last week… One woman said “She took my $10!  I tried to buy crack from her and she took my money and did not give me my drugs”.  The second woman said “I did not take her money, I don’t sell drugs.. I am a prostitute!” OH MY GOODNESS!  What kind of defense is that??  Is one evil lesser than the other?