Friday five (or there abouts)

1. Getting ready to take the kids on vacation in a few days and guess what?  Everyone is SICK!  lol  At least hopefully we're getting it all out of our systems now & that means we'll be healthy & have a great time later in the week.
2. Courtney & I finally had an actual conversation.  I miss her.  Still feel betrayed, but am more hurt than angry.  Still, how can I so easily forgive other people that I love & not my own child?  Of course I forgive her.  It still is what it is.  I feel like I'm being robbed of all the things that were supposed to be my reward as the parent that actually stuck around and did the work.  I raised her.  I struggled to make sure she went to school & stayed in school.  I disciplined her, went to conferences & taught her her ABC's.  Now?  She moves into her dad's house a month or two before graduation in a huff & now I have to pick between going to her graduation and going to her graduation party because they're a week apart & I can't stay that long.  Daddy gets all the glory for his baby graduating when you know what he did to help raise her?  S.H.I.T.  I received papers from the child support agency the other day letting me know her support was terminated because she was now 18.  He only owes me $31,000 and some change in back support.  *sigh*  I know he would say, "but I have both the kids now."  Yeah, they're there NOW.  It's not like you raised anyone.  Getting one of them at 15 and the other after she was 18 is not RAISING children.  you're maintaining one of them and not doing crap with the other.  Whatever.  I fully own that I'm a little bitter right now.
3. Which brings me to my starting therapy tomorrow.  I've always had trouble with this before for a couple of reasons.  First of all, unless I'm really into something, I don't stick with it.  I start out all gung-ho, but it doesn't take long before I'm totally over it.  I have activity A.D.D. that way.  Second of all, there is absolutely nothing that anyone can say to me about my issues or crimes that I don't already intellectually know.  It's getting it to sink down into the inner man that's the problem, and how is someone else going to help that happen?  I don't know, but I guess we'll find out.  I had originally decided that because I know that I won't stick with any sort of weekly (for years on end?) arrangements, I thought it would be better to find some sort of a rehab facility for in-depth counseling.  Not with the real crazies (no offense) & not with the druggies, just with people dealing with their shit who don't have time to spread it out over years, but like to get in and get out.  Well, I got an education because I learned that unless it's for substance abuse or sometimes an eating disorder, insurance does not cover any inpatient treatment. Because of this, it would be $60,000 up front.  WTF???  Yep.  So.... I get to start f***ing weekly f***ing sessions.  F***.
4. Have A LOT of travel going on this summer.  Have no idea how I'm going to afford all of it.  Doesn't look like any easy going, kid-free summer for me.  I'm probably going to have to pick up extra shifts to pay for all of the airfare.  At least it's for good reasons.  All celebrations!  That will be a nice change.
5. Gearing up for another HOT summer.  It went from cold to HOT.  It's like we had the furnace on one day and the a.c. the next.  It's tending to be in the mid 90's during the day lately.  It's nice in the evenings though.  As soon as the sun starts to go down, so does the temperature and that's nice because during the summer we don't get that luxury.  I remember last summer being shocked that in the middle of the night it was still 100 degrees and too hot to sit outside.  Not looking forward to that, but at least it's a dry heat (inside joke). ;)

xoxo
veronica