Hmmm. I think I’m tired of being

pregnant. I’ve just entered my 3rd trimester. I’m big and heavy, and am

ready already. I also can’t get rid of this cold. I think we’re going

on 3 weeks now. Maybe the baby is stealing all my “get better” stuff.

As a result, I feel crummy all the time. PLEASE let this stupid cold go

away.

By the way, I can’t remember if I wrote it in here. But. I quit that

telemarketing job. After 2 days. I’d have to say that’s a record for

me. I hated it – and I was AWFUL at it. I thought that I had found a

new job, but I’m starting to think I was scammed. I didn’t pay any

money, I’m not that gullible anymore, but I’ve put a lot of work into

this with no return. So, I think I was scammed. Again. Why is it so

difficult for me to just get a job. We’re going on about 6 months or so

of looking for a job. More I think. This is awful. My parents want the

money we owe them. I want groceries. It’s a never ending cycle. A job

would solve these problems. Even part-time. No one is going to hire me

outside of the home right now. But I was thinking of going back to work

outside of the home, after the baby is born. The problem is – 2 kids

going into daycare. 2 daycare bills we cannot afford. Jay just simply

cannot take care of the kids during the day. When Joseph was sleeping

most of the day, it worked out well. Not anymore. I simply don’t know

what the answer is, and I’m getting desperate. I looked into things

like WIC and foodstamps. But we don’t qualify for one reason. Our car

is worth too much. Our salary, etc. all qualifies. There is NO way I’m

selling that car. We went through 2 cars that didn’t work, and all the

headaches that go with them before this car. We finally have one that

works – and with Jay working nights, and soon to be 2 babies, there’s

no way I’m getting rid of the one reliable thing we own. I can’t see

any way out of this nightmare. How? I’m trying hard not to go into a

full blown depression. Anyone have any ideas?

It’s been so long since I’ve written, I don’t know

what to say. I guess I’ll just update on all the major areas in my

life. Jay and I are doing well, as far as our marriage goes. Still

chugging away. Jay got transferred to a different store, which is

farther away, but so far he seems to like it. He had a lot of

personality differences with his former boss, so this could be a good

thing. He was transferred because the former person in his position got

fired, so they needed someone right away who knew what they were doing.

We’ve also sort of set up a schedule in our house for his sleeping, so

we seem to be seeing each other more which is certainly a good thing.

Joseph is doing well. I really hate to say this about my own son, but I

really don’t think he likes me. The child is downright violent with me.

I can’t seem to understand it, and no one else seems to be able to

either. The people who see him everyday (Jay, my mom, my dad) all see

this, and don’t understand the problem. I’m hoping that this is just a

phase that he’s going through. Terrible two’s?? My mother says that the

terrible two’s are a myth, but I’m not sure I agree with her. What

results from this is a daily clash of wills that just leaves me

exhausted at the end of the day. And wondering, how the hell am I going

to take care of another one??? Not that there’s anything I can do about

that at this point, but I still wonder. Other than with me, though,

he’s a charming, sweet, precocious young man. My favorite thing about

him is the fact that he loves to just walk up to his daddy (when he’s

sitting down) and give kisses on the top of his head. Jay’s head is

buzzed, and Joseph just loves to hug and kiss it. Absolutely adorable.

On the financial forefront – looks bleak. I finally found a job,

telemarketing. I absolutely hate it. Today was my first day. I truly

hope it gets better. My manager assures me it will, but I’m not so sure

this is for me. So, I’m going to continue to look for another job. We

also made a decision. That perhaps my problem is that I need to get

trained in another field to work from home. So I started going to

school for medical transcription. It’ll take about a year to complete.

I’ve taken 4 exams so far, and have gotten all A’s so that’s a good

thing. I’d be much better at that than telemarketing. But so far, it’s

a job. Working from home wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going

to be. I had no problem being disciplined or anything. I had to take a

break, since Joseph had a meltdown (didn’t want to take his nap, and

showing just how much he needed it), but other than that it went

smoothly. Now if I could just be as disciplined in my housekeeping

chores. But alas, that seems to be my true downfall. My pregnancy so

far seems to be going well. I’m 27 weeks along. And (drumroll

please…) we’re having another little boy. Everything looked good on

the ultrasound. It turns out I’m extremely high risk for pre-term

labor, through no fault of my own. The midwife said that there’s

nothing I can do to prevent it, although keeping hydrated seems to

help. You see I have Uterine Didelphys, which gives me a hgh chance

already. Plus, Joseph was born at 36 weeks, which heightens my chances

with a second child as well. So, we just have to keep our fingers

crossed. I’m so far from being ready, it’s not even funny. The only

reason I’m partly ready is because we kept everything from Joseph. I

just haven’t had the energy to take inventory and go through storage,

and wash everything yet. Or maybe I’m just in denial. But I wasn’t

ready when Joseph was born either (sort of anyway – he came early and

so I was caught off guard) but even knowing that hasn’t helped me get

off my butt and get ready. I think we’ve come up with a name, but we’re

still trying it out. This is also the 4th name that we’ve said that

about, so who knows. I don’t think we will until the baby is actully

here. The other area in my life that I’m having a problem with is my

spiritual one. We haven’t been going to church. Really it’s only been

sheer laziness on my part. Jay usually works on Saturday nights, so

he’s too wiped out to go on Sunday morning. I can go by myself (with

Jay’s complete encouragement), but then I have to get Joseph ready and

there and to the nursery, and in and out of the carseat, and it just

seems like such hard work, when Sunday morning rolls around. All of

that sounds terrible I know. I do. And I feel so far apart from God

right now because of it. I’m trying to make a concerted effort to

step-up my prayer life which seems to be helping. Well, there it is –

the grand update.

http://michelewilcox.com/62/

Okay, so I started my new job. Let me tell you about

that before I tell you about the hell that has been our life for the

last month or so. The job is very cool. There’s also some downtime,

which is nice, since that means that I can update my journal, and I can

get mundane things like filling done on the less hectic days. For

example, I don’t have much going on and my boss is going to Japan next

week. So all next week, I’m just going through the current files to

learn what’s in them. Plus, I may reorganize his office. I have my own

office, with real walls and everything, with a beautiful desk, and no

cubicles. Lovely. The building itself is absolutely beautiful in rich

wood and rose marble. It’s immaculate – the maintenance and security

staff seem to be amazing so far. And the security guys actually LOOK

like security guys. Not skinny men who couldn’t get into the police

academy but still want to wear a gun… Big guys who have to go

sideways through doors, and look as if this is their “day” job. Their

nightjob is as a bouncer in a biker bar. 🙂 There’s a nice little, if

pricey, deli. There’s a gym, and it only costs $50 per year. Only open

to tennants of the building – with full showers etc. I like the job, I

like the people, I like my boss. I think I’ll do just fine here.

Okay, so the rest of the month hasn’t been so good.

My computer got a virus. From a fellow journaler no less. I know her

emails, which is why I opened the darned thing. Turns out it’s a worm

that sends itself out to people in your address book without your

knowledge. Anyway, so it actually couldn’t be fixed. Or it could, but

not without edits to certain regedit files that you just don’t touch if

you don’t know what you’re doing. But this file actually actacks random

executables. So, it got to my windows.exe. Uh oh. And it wouldn’t open

in safe mode. So I had a computer that I couldn’t safely fix. It had

gotten to the fixes. I had to wipe out the whole thing and start all

over. Which means I lost all our financial data. And the backup disk I

had for quicken had an error on it, and therefore won’t load. I had to

re-do the data entry for the entire 4 years I’ve been married. As I did

it over the course of a few days, I got pretty good at the data entry.

So now that’s fixed. Thank goodness.

My parents have been out of town which means they haven’t been watching

Joseph, Brandy our babysitter has, while I’m at work. Fine. Except that

we had a fire in the Glendale mountains a few days ago. Brandy called

me, and she was actually quite calm. Apparently, the fire had peaked

over her ridge, and they were talking evacutation, oh and what would I

like her to do with my kids. You see, Jay wasn’t answering the phone at

home. Ugghhhh. So we had to work that out. Then that night, we saw the

flames peaking over the mountains by us. That was a little scary too.

Joseph loved it though. “Fireworks??” Although it comes out more like

“Firewoks”.

So. The car. First, Jay runs out of gas. Okay. I get dad to babysit,

and get some gas in can, and go to get Jay. On the freeway, I can’t get

to Jay since a tow-truck is in my way. Hmmm. I get off the freeway

(since I have to double back anyway), and I call him from a payphone on

his cel phone. He tells me it’s this free service run by the city,

basically to get him off the road, so that he doesn’t cause an accident

or backup. Fine. Where is he? Jay tells me, and I head off. Apprently

though, the little bit of gas the tow put in our car didn’t work. We

try the 3 gallons I brought. No dice. By now the tow truck has already

left. The car tries to turn over but won’t. There’s black smoke coming

from the tailpipe – never a good sign in my estimation, and first it

smells like rotten eggs, and then it smells like black licorice. Go

figure. So, we call AAA. Tow truck comes out (after calling me back

saying they were next to my car and where am I? – Ummm. Standing next

to the car). Of course, when the tow guy comes, the car starts up fine,

Jay does a test circuit around the block, no problem, no service

rendered, and we head off. I’m following Jay, to make sure he makes it

okay. He doesn’t. I think he’s blinking to go into the left lane, I go

first to make it easy for him, but he pulls off to the right shoulder

and I fly right on by him. That’s how we find out one of our back

lights are out. So, I walk nearly a quarter mile back towards him,

since I have the AAA card, and he has the cel phone. I get the phone,

and walk all the way back to the truck, do the get off get on get off

get on thing with the freeway to get back to Jay. By the time I get

there ANOTHER one of those free service mini tows is there, this time

with a cop. Yay. Luckilly the cop just wanted to make sure we were

okay, and the mini-tow guy called the regular tow truck for us, since

it would be dispatched quicker that way. Tow truck comes, it’s the same

guy. He was really nice, and towed us for free all the way to the

house, even though it was over the 7 mile maximum on our AAA coverage.

Next day, it starts up okay, so Jay heads to Jiffy Lube. It needed it’s

3000 mile check anyway, and we could get our fuel filter changed there,

which is what my dad thought it was. Car dies a block away from Jiffy

Lube. Since it’s straight up hill, Jay has to get it towed, nobody can

push a car straight up. They do the fluids and checks, and change the

filter, etc. No dice, still doesn’t work, and they sheared off the top

to the dip stick, so that the stick is rolling around in the oil pan

thing-y. Great. We still have to pay $85. Yipee. No manager around

either of course. So Jay wrote in what happened. Another tow, this time

to my dad’s automotive place. Once there, while the tow guy was

dismantling the towing mechanism, he put it through our quarter panel.

About $1500 worth of damage which they are supposed to pay for. I’ll

believe it when I see it. So, it turns out to have been the fuel pump.

It’s fixed and happy, and we have the car. Only now, even though the

fuel pump is supposed to be covered by our service contract, they don’t

have our service contract listed. Of course we paid $2000 for it. We’ll

see how that goes. Luckilly, the garage let us have the car even thoguh

the work isn’t paid for, because my dad gives them so much business.

And they know we’re not lying about the fight with the service contract

since they were the ones to let us know there was a problem with it in

the first place.

So. This hasn’t been the greatest month in the world, along with the

memories of 9/11 coming up during the anniversary. A lot has happened

for us in that year. We created a whole human being, and I got a job,

and Jay started school.

It’s gotta – just gotta – get better.

http://michelewilcox.com/845/