Finals Week

This is the week end when my friends say I drive them crazy. I am stressed, of course, trying to make sure I have completed all my final projects and get them turned in on time. I stay current with all my classes and weekly work, so I should not be stressed, but I am human.

My comp paper is coming into shape. I am at the editing phase and it is going fine. I still feel like I am missing something. It reads fine, and follows my thesis, but I just feel like I need something else added to it. I will get it done. I feel confident.

I am taking Sunday off, it is Easter and plan to head to my daughter's house to celebrate with them. Usually I would have them over for a big meal, but this year I have no place of my own and still do not feel comfortable having them over. I am excited to go to their new apartment. I have not been there before. They moved in December.

I hope we all stay in-touch with each other through the blog. It was interesting. It became a dumping zone for my feelings, so I think I will keep it up.

Denied

My unemployment was denied. I have been on unemployment for a year. After all the tiers have run, I had to re-open my claim. So I did, and they came back with a "no" because I have no reported income from 10-08 to 12-08, that is not true. So now I need to call them and see what's up.

The phone is continually busy, but I keep trying. I will get through, and get things straightened out.

I still may be denied, but I did work those two months and should have a report of income. Maybe I will get a few more weeks, anything will help. I am getting set up with temp agencies within the next few weeks. Since I have no unemployment, I can work temp jobs so money comes in.

So today I will write my abstract for my final paper. That should take me a few days to get right. Then I need to prepare a power point for my final project in math. Thank goodness we do not have to do a final exam. WooHoo. The project will still be difficult. Everything is due next week, so the time is right to find a temp job. Get finals done, relax just a bit and focus on getting work.

My friend says don't worry about paying rent that things will be fine. She says for me to just focus on school and finding a job. I can start paying rent when I have money coming in. I refuse to let her buy things for me. Oh my goodness, that would absolutely kill me to have to ask someone for money to buy toilet paper, toothpaste, or hairspray. I have a little savings stashed away, so I will use it. It upsets me for her to even offer to pay for something I need. I need nothing and will never ask for help. It is bad enough that I have moved into her house. It does not feel like home. It feels like limbo.

And yes, I know if the tables were turned, I would do the same. I would offer my home and she could stay with me as long as she needed to. So I try to remember that. I have always been the "go to person" and I have never had a "go to person" in my life. So this is very strange and very unforgiving.

Well on to my abstract.

Relax and Energize

It is time to now just relax and energize for the rest of the week. Last week end was moving, then cleaned all week long at old place and new place. Then spent Friday, all day, and part of Saturday to get ready for the annual slumber party at my friend's house [which just happens to be where I am living now; temporary].

She has this slumber party every year for the past five years. About 10 of us get together and just get away from life for a night of fun and games. The women are married, single, or divorced-some have kids, some do not. But it is a chance to just get away from home. I started coming when I still lived in Denver. I would fly in from Denver to Phoenix, and one year flew in from Tulsa to Phoenix, and I would stay the week end, but now that I live in Arizona, I would just stay the night.

So the party was last night, we had food, oh my gosh did we have food, a lot of wine and beer, huge fire in the pit out back. We played some silly games. We watched the movie Hangover and laughed out loud. Got to bed at around 2 AM, up at 8 AM for coffee and chocolate croissants. Now the party is over, everyone has gone home. We cleaned up again and now resting.

Usually, I would go home but I live here now, so I am hiding away in my room, blogging, and then will get on with my comp. paper and math project. You know even though I am living here, it still does not feel like home to me. It feels like I am just staying for the week end and will pack soon to go home. But not gonna happen. I need to stay here maybe 6 months. So I need to get on with acceptance of my living situation and make the best of it.

But the party was fun.

The move is nearly over

I moved in with a friend after getting back from Vegas last Friday. My daughter and her husband came from California to help me move my stuff to storage. My other daughter, who lives here in AZ, came with her husband to help too. Got everything moved, and also got the few things I was bringing with me to my friend's house brought here as well.

Having so much help, got it done in one day. I was only expecting to get the storage stuff done. So big bonus to get both moves completed.

Now I need to go over to my house and clean it. I still have cleaning stuff and some clothes to move over here, but actually school interfered with it. Funny, school interfered with my move. Gosh, with being away for 4 days, getting back, and staying up until all hours of the night, I was able to meet my deadlines. I was so worried that time would get away from me.

Week eight in school will be a busy one, but at least I won't have anything else getting in the way so I can concentrate of my studies. I push myself really hard in school and giving up 5 of my 7 days for the past unit was really hard on me. I felt scattered and hurried. Since I do not work, I usually give at least 5 hours every day to school. Not only for my comp. class but for my math class as well.

In math we were doing empirical and theoretical probabilities and reading the text just wasn't working for me. I missed the seminar, but since math has 3 different times I can go, I was able to catch a seminar Sunday evening. It was still a difficult unit, but its done now and I did well on the exam. This week we move on to statistics. Should be another difficult week in math, but at least I will be able to devote more time and not trying to cram a whole week into a couple days.

As far as my never ending saga about my son and his "made for TV movie" life, he is still in Texas. He is still sober. He was able to get the car, so he can now find some part-time work. The girlfriend, well who knows at this point what will happen with her. But my son is staying by her side, and says he is all she has and he will be there for her when she gets well and can come back. He loves her, and knows she will get better and all will be good again.

Getting back on track

As many who have read my blog know there was supposed to be a wedding on St Patrick's Day, my son was going to get married. Many things went wrong during the past few weeks and there was no wedding. However, my hotel was already booked and paid for, so I went anyway. A good friend of mine and I went to Vegas on a shoestring budget and stayed at the Luxor for 4 days and 3 nights.

While Vegas is a fun place to be, when you are like me and cannot afford to gamble, it was a horrible time. I was worried about my son, my upcoming move, my classes I was missing, and how do I make it from here. I put on a happy face and really tried to be fun and this is awesome, but inside I was miserable.

My son compounded that misery, when he phoned me Thursday morning needing money wired to him right away. It seems the calmness that he portrayed the few days prior came to a halt, when his girlfriend went after him with a butcher knife on Wednesday and stabbed him in the arm. He is ok, but now she is in jail. They filed charges against her assault with a deadly weapon. My son did not press charges, but the state did. He loves her even though she has a mental illness. He says she is still in there and needs helps to get back to reality.

So now he is broke, no car, Texas motel, and a girlfriend in jail. They managed to pay rent on the motel until the end of the month. Sold the car they had and bought a cheaper one, and got cash back to pay the motel and should have got food; but she went manic and took off in the car and spent all the left over cash on a ring. So on her return to the motel all hell broke loose, and ultimately ended with her stabbing my son. Off to jail she goes with the car keys around her neck. Since he is not on the title, they will not release the keys to him and she won't release them because she thinks he is going to drive off and leave her in Texas.

I had a terrible hang-over from overindulging on St Patrick's day at the Casino. I am a light weight when it comes to drinking, so it didn't take much for me to have a horrible hangover. He calls me and I need to find an ATM and a Western Union in Vegas at 8 in the morning. My friend is telling my no don't do it, you are just enabling him. He has to learn a lesson, what will happen if you don't send him money, and on and on and on.

Sure I would love to say no. And probably should say no, but he is my son and he is in a strange city with a crazy girlfriend, who tried to kill him. And he was sober. I just went and sent the money. I listened to her lecture me, and sent the money. I listened to her try and control my thoughts about my children and dismissed them. Needless to say, the rest of our visit to Vegas was not so pleasant.

I had Internet at the hotel and attempted to do my class work and tried to go to seminar, but the connection was so bad and kept dropping me that it made it impossible to attend. Vegas is no place to try and go to school. So I opted to do the option 2, and just try and have some fun. This was Wednesday, of course, before the horrors of Thursday hit home, hard.

I did explain, but I sincerely doubt he heard me, that if he used any of this money for booze, I would no longer speak with him. Just consider me dead to him. I was done. Yes, I have been done before and he always sucks me in. But I simply do not have the cash to send him to bail him out of problems. He gets SSI, and the one hundred bucks I sent him will tide him over until his SSI check comes. And he did get a change of address in time. But I am cash poor these days and am having to move out of my home and move in with a friend because I can't make it any any longer.

So the reality is this, son is sober living in Texas, his girlfriend in jail with assault charges, and me trying to finish school so I can get a job and get on with my life. But one great thing, my daughter and family are here from California to help me transition over to my friend's house and get my stuff into storage.

This is my story, why I missed unit 7 seminar.

Found Again

I don't know how much of this roller coaster ride I can take. My son is found; when he was discharged from St Anthony's Hospital in Denver, they sent him to Arapaho House in Lakewood, which is a detox center. He was there for 48 hours. Since he had no phone and could not remember my phone number, he did not call. They let him out yesterday morning. He called his ex-wife, it was the only number he could remember. She picked him up and he got hold of me through facebook. He knew I would be on-line and I saw him message. I called and explained what I had been through, worried, scared, panicked; Told him the Maureen was looking for him but I didn't know where she was, but knew the general area she was in on Friday evening. Then a couple hours later, Maureen called me. She got scared of the dark and was cold and of course in a manic state, that she said she called 911 and had them get her. Said she was in the hospital getting calm and they gave her bus fare to get her car and now she gave me her location. I reached my son and told him where she was. So as of about 3 PM yesterday, they are together. I know they are alive, together, and hopefully he can convince her that she is safe and they can go back to Fairplay. But he is sober, completely 100% sober and that is good. The best news of all is he is sober and will not slip again, at least not for 4 or 5 months. I think the wedding is off, but who really knows. My friend and I are still leaving tomorrow for Vegas, we have already paid for the room. She really wants to go because this is the last mini vacation she can take until her busy season is over. It is important to her and she has been planning and prepping for this trip. So we are going. I thought I would not be able to attend my classes, but I think since there isn't a wedding, and will have Internet access in the room, I will still attend. Its only an hour, and is important to me. Only a wedding was going to keep me from seminar. I am not so worried now so I can focus on packing for my next week end move, and get my studies done. Wow, what a week. I live a solitary life, but life still keeps happening to those I love all around me. Now, I can just breath........

Gone Again

While I go through the motions of writing my paper, doing my math exam, I feel like nothing is getting in because my thoughts go to my son. He is lost, not just mentally, but truly lost. The last communication I had with him was Wednesday morning, it was a text message. It is now Saturday and I don't know where he is. The last I knew, he left to pick up his girl friend from the hospital in Denver on Thursday. Now she has his phone, all of his belongings, his cash, and no one knows where he is. They were on their was back to Fairplay, which is in the mountains, stopped in Idaho Springs at a motel. I don't know why, its a couple hour drive. I heard from his girlfriend that the police took him away and he was in the hospital. I called St Anthony's hospital and they had a patient in the ER by his name and he was released. They will not give my any information. I called the girlfriend, she is in a continual manic state. She makes little sense, from what I can piece together, she wants to leave the country because we a doomed to destruction and she wants out, he didn't want to go, and started yelling. So another person in the motel called the police. She said they took him to the hospital because she said he was not violent just drunk. She would not tell me where is was said someone was after her, and its all in her imagination. Said she packed her car with everything they own and is leaving the country. Then she called crying saying she couldn't save him and is going to get him. But she doesn't know where he is. She kept calling me last night until 11, still trying to find him and doesn't know where he is, she is lost in Denver in a manic state. Since 11 last night the phone is off and I cannot find her or him. I don't know if she found him. I don't know if she got picked up for being in such an emotional mental state. I am scared, worried, and in panic mode. No news is not good news. Not with him, no news is always bad. Her family is in Florida, she said she is heading to Florida then moving to the Bahamas. Crazy talk. But where is my son.