It's alive!!!

Just a quick note - John and I both had doc appointments today. John's ear has healed. Again. And the baby is still alive! The doc was able to get a heartbeat with the little dopplar thingy. It was actually really loud! That's a huge relief. I joined an online pregnancy group as soon as I found out I was pregnant, and I'd say we've lost half our members. Some had miscarraiges, but for a lot of them, the baby just died, without them knowing. So it's nice to know I've made it through the first trimester without that happening.

I was joking with Mike last night that I should request an "unassisted home birth." They seem to be all the rage these days. No doc, no midwife. Nobody. Just the woman in her bathtub, while her husband holds her hand. Not for me, thanks! It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Well, the doc had forgotten our discussion last time about how I wanted to deliver at Mac, with an OB, just like last time, so he asked again what I wanted. I told him about how we were thinking of scaring him by requesting an unassisted home birth. He just chuckled and said if I were actually wanting it, he'd be fine with it!!! Ack!!! He's very, very different from my last doc, who lectured me every month about the "granola people" who use midwives instead of OBs, or give birth anywhere but a hospital. And don't get her started on the masochistic freaks who "insist" on breastfeeding!

And then there were all the horror stories. Babies born alive, but without brains. Babies strangled by their cords. Moms who bleed to death on the delivery table. Yeah, I looked forward to those visits soooooo much. Much nicer this time around.

It's out!

Ok - it didn't work. He's supposed to be holding up a sign that says "I'm going to be a big brother." But he wouldn't hold it up. Not that it's a surprise to anyone anyway! Mike has certainly made sure of that!

I finally told my editor that I'm pregnant, which is why I can finally bring it up here - I think there may still be a few people from Burlington who check here now and again.

She took it a lot better than I was expecting - she's stressed, but happy for us. She told me she wasn't going to tell anyone else, but, true to her reporter nature, within minutes of me stepping out of the office, she had told the other reporter, and the managing editor. LOL! Fine by me! I certainly wasn't looking forward to telling any other managers, so I'm glad she took care of it.

One of the ad reps said she knew, because I'm starting to show. And now, the morning sickness has set in (isn't it supposed to END about now?!) so I think I told at the right time! I think the morning sickness is just from being sick. There's a cold going around here, and it's one of those long drawn out kind of colds. It just won't completely die, and it's thrown everything out of whack. John got it too. It gave him an ear infection, or at least brought back the ear infection he had before. Yup, he's on his second round of antibiotics already! It's horrible. feel like such a terible mother, because I didn't take him to the doc right away. I thought it was just the cold, but he just wasn't coming right. But he wasn't screaming or anything, like the last time. Just kind of droopy, but still smiling and playing through the day. The doc said it was very red and enflamed.

Well, he's feeling better now! He's a big ball of energy! I had to go to the grocery store after work. I got a cart, and put him in, but he'd have none of that!! He was not only going to walk, he was going to help push the cart! He grabbed the basket underneath, and helped me push the cart through the entire store, waving and smiling to everyone we passed! It was pretty funny - until he became entranced by the candy corn. I had to pull him away several times; he had a tantrum. I had to leave without cheese. It was very sad. I hate tantrums, and he's really got the technique down pat. He lays right down on the grounds and kicks and screams! Yup, sweet, mild John, kicking and screaming on the grocery store floor, because mom won't let him run his fingers through the candy corn. It's quite a sight, but no-one stares or anything - it gets mostly sympathetic "been-there-done-that" kind of looks from passers-by. I guess I should start reading up on tantrums, now that he's getting to that age. I read once that I'm just supposed to walk away and ignore him. But if I had done that, he would have gone right back to the candy corn. Besides, he seems a little young for that.

Anyway, I had better get some dinner into the poor guy. Now that Mike's on extended shifts, John eats earlier than we do - he's usually asleep before Mike even gets home.

On the strike front - yes, there's STILL a strike front - the contract remains unsigned. The two local reps refuse to sign it. Mike has banked his full 200 hours already, but he can't pull anything out. Isn't that crazy? I wish they'd just get it over with and sign, so the healing process can begin! The guys are still so furious, and it doesn't help that they extended the scabs' contracts! They actually hired a bunch of them as legitimate techs. The scabs are in the union now. How sick is that?

John and other stuff

John out for lunch with Grandma and Grandpa W, when they visited on Friday. This reminds me freakishly of Mike - he built creamer towers for years after I met him. Thankfully, he's outgrown it. John, on the other hand, probably has a few creamer tower years left in him. (Apparently, he made it five high at its peak.)

John's doing great! He had a fun day with Mike's parents on Friday, and they're planning to take him again when they come back through.

I took him in for a follow-up at the Doc last week - the ear infection is completely gone. Doc, as usual, seemed a little offended that I took him to a clinic, but it was a deadline day - I couldn't get time off that day, and what good does an after-hours on-call doc do for an infection? All he would have told me to do is exactly what I did - take him to a clinic right away. I guess I should make a point of using the on-call service at some point. It probably costs them a lot to be a part of it, and they need billable things to justify it.

Other than that, life is chugging along. John is happy, as always. I wish I had more time to spend with him. We never do anything anymore. The mornings are spent in a rush to get out the door. At night, he just wants to go to bed as soon as possible. On weekends, I'm usually working. He's usually with me, but it's not the same. Mike never sees him. John is always asleep when Mike gets home during the week - overtime shifts have started, and won't be slowing down anytime soon. The new division he was just trained for has a backlog of 800 jobs, and he's not even put there every day. He's still putting people back in service, and servicing people who've been waiting for months for a tech, or who had a scab service them, who made their situation even worse.

Most of the scabs are gone. The first wave to be let go didn't go without a fight. There were reports of vans with loosened wheels - even loose wheels on the private vehicles of regular workers. That seems to have ended, now that they're gone. The last of the scabs will be leaving at the end of the month.

On the political front, Mike and I are being pushed out of our board positions. I don't know why I'm so bothered by it. I've wanted to resign for some time, but Mike has begged me to stay on until the term ends, so I don't cause any disruptions. The end would have been in January, so it's not like I was robbed of oh so much time by being turfed this early. We both had planned to leave in January, and reassess what contribution we wanted to make, whether to join the federal board where we live, go provincial, or take a hiatus from politics entirely. I want to leave entirely - this just isn't a good time to be involved in anything like that. I want to run as far away from federal as I can until the next leadership review/convention. Provincial? I don't know. I like John Tory, but I've had enough of politics for a while.

What's happening is, Mike and I used to belong to our local board. It was a small board, with nice people, and it was part of a larger association, filled with more nice people. It was PC back then. It was a small party, filled with nice people.

Then, two things happened. First, the merger with the Alliance, then, the riding redistribution, which knocked us into the neighbouring riding. We knew both boards, but we enjoyed the company of this one and we were asked to stay, so we did.

It wasn't completely the same, and over the years, the people have changed. It just isn't fun anymore. We have this one guy who's been trying to get Mike out since January. He had wanted to be CFO, and pulled out this obscure, never-followed rule about how an out-of-riding person can't hold executive office. The board chose to ignore the rule for the time being, and elected Mike anyway, which I can imagine really frosted this guy off. I was acclaimed - no-one else wanted to be secretary, from in or out of the riding.

Anyway, the issue kept getting put on the back burner, until just last week or so. This guy wants the riding to be able to take credit cards. He has been very frustrated that it hasn't moved as fast as he'd like - but it's a large financial committment, and he can't expect the board to just rush into it. There has to be meetings, with reports, and debates, and votes. It isn't Mike's fault, but he's been taking it out on Mike, because Mike has been verbal against the idea. He just thinks $40 a month is too much money, and from the way the campaign team was talking (this guy is campaign manager), they only wanted it for one fundraiser.

It finally came to a head, because we had a special executive meeting to approve a cheaper version of credit card abilities - only $5 a month, instead of $40 - we approved it, but after the meeting had officially closed, a discussion began, started by this guy, about how we needed an AGM right away, because he wanted a team in place for the next election, blah, blah, blah. Our out-of-riding status was of course brought up, yet again. So, the regional guy, who was there for some strange reason, decided to crack down on our residency, and now we're out. Well, we can still be board members, but we can't vote. What's the point in that? We can be observers? Ooooooo...thanks.

Anyway, I was kind of relieved to be out - I've wanted out for months. But I want the credit card system we approved to be stopped, because it's a three year term, and a major financial committment for the board to take on. I just don't think it's fair for such a major decision to be imposed by an out-going member, so I asked the decision to be deferred to the next regular board meeting, and from the look of things, that's going to happen. This guy has another way to process crdit cards anyway - there was never a rush for this system. He's just a really impatient, impulsive person.

Well, this guy has the gaul to start e-mailing me! He waffled on about how this had nothing to do with us personally, how it had nothing to do with him at all - it was strictly a party constitution issue, and he hopes we stay involved. HOGWASH!!! He's been gunning for this for months, and everyone knows it. How is it that it happened just days after he insisted that HQ crack down on it? Coincidence? I don't think so.

If he'd just be honest, and admit that he wanted us out, and created a fuss so we would be thrown out, then I'd be fine. But no, he keeps insisting that I don't know what I'm talking about and that he had nothing to do with it. And then he starts telling Mike something entirely different!!! Apparently, this has been planned for months - that there were meetings with select board members to discuss it, and right before the board meeting, he had a "pre-meeting" with who, I don't know. I'm assuming the candidate and possibly even the regional rep, where it was decided that if we voted against the credit cards, he'd raise a fuss, and if we voted for it, they'd keep quiet, until Mike set it up at the bank, and THEN he'd kick up a fuss. However, he felt it was unfair to ignore the rules, just because we were going along with something he wanted, so he brought it up right away anyway. Wow - so principled. Who knows if that's true - he was still mad at us even after we voted yes, because we voted yes to a system he didn't want, and it was too late to use for a particular fundraiser he had planned.

I just wish he'd admit to me - not just Mike - that this was his plan all along, and it had everything to do with him, and not just a coincidence that HQ cracked down at the exact moment that he wanted it to.

AAARGH!!!!!!

In the grand scheme of things, it's so small. He's a horrible, vile troll of a man, who I've never liked or trusted, so I shouldn't be so offended he did this; this is what he does.

I shouldn't care. It isn't my business anymore - they've found someone willing to take Mike's job, and he seems OK, and someone will take my job, Mike will concentrate on Hamilton Centre until the AGM, and life will go on. I was going to retire in January anyway. It's just the way it happened, and all the lies and passing of blame that really has me furious. Argg!

Taking a stroll on the soccer pitch! was assigned to weekend photos last weekend - I usually bring John, because he likes to see all the neat new things. He happily sat and watched a good 20 minutes of soccer. After a while, he got kind of ansy, though. so I let him down from the stroller and he walked away! 

John at the antique tractor show last weekend. They had an antique sawmill set up, which Joh thought was pretty cool - couldn't take his eyes off it.


Hoo boy! Where to start - it's been a while.

Well, let's start where we left off. Car is still acting up - that "misfire" the transmission guy has been getting steadily worse. We're really hoping it's something simple, like spark plugs, or those little wires that always seem to burn out that attach to the spark plugs. We'll get it looked at soon.

We made it to Vicki's wedding! It was a day later than planned, but we did make it, and it was great! It was a beautiful day, and John had lots of fun! At that point, he wasn't walking by himself, but he walked holding someone's hand the whole time. He loved the park - he picked petals off the flowers and wandered around the fountain. He had a blast at the reception too - well, until the bee that is. He was soooo excited. The music was pounding, people were dancing, and now and then, someone would come along and sweep him off his feet to spin around the dance floor with all the big people. After a while, he slipped into overstimulation mode. His eyes and mouth were permenantly open as wide as possible. We've never seen him that happy and excited.

Then, the fun came to a crashing end - he stepped on a bee. He screamed and screamed, and Mike's first reaction was to get him to a hospital ASAP, because his dad is allergic to bee stings. We probably would have gone, if we hadn't realized that we'd actually need money to go, and well, had none.

It worked out OK, though. After a few minutes of sitting on the kitchen counter, surrounded by a sea of concerned faces, he stopped crying. Hs foot swelled a little but he was walking on it 15 minutes later, as though nothing had happened. It still managed to take the wind out of his sails, though. After that, he just wanted to cuddle up. We felt so bad for him, because he was having such a good time, but it made bedtime a lot easier!

He was a relatively good traveller. A few episodes of screaming, but all in all, a pleasant trip, and it was good to see some family again.

We got back on Monday night, and it was right back to normal life the next day. None of us had recovered, including John. He crashed when we got home, and slept in the next day. I had to wake him up, which I hate to do. He was groggy for days. I think all that excitement was a little harder on him than we thought, because now he's sick.

He has his first ear infection. We noticed he just wasn't right a couple of days ago. Acting a little off. That night, he woke up screaming his head off. I brought him to bed with us, and he kind of settled down, but tossed and turned all night. The next day he was kind of off and groggy. And sure enough, again that night, he woke up screaming his head off. It was much, much worse, though. usually, it just takes a cuddle, maybe a few minutes of nursing, and he drifts back off. But that night he was completely inconsolable. Wouldn't let us touch him. Didn't want a toy. Didn't want a drink of water. Pushed everything away and screamed even louder with everything we offered. Eventually, we pulled out the Tylenol, out of desaration. 20 minutes later, he finally settled down and let me rock him back to sleep. Mike, who was clearly much more awake than me through the ordeal, thought it was an ear infection, because he was rubbing one of his ears. I figured it was just from being tired. But sure enough, the next morning he walked around holding that ear, so it was pretty obvious that's what was wrong. We kept him doped up on Tylenol until we could get him into the doctor. Had to wait FOUR HOURS at the after hours clinic, because I couldn't get into our family doctor on such short notice. But, sure enough, he has an ear infection. He's been on antibiotics since Wednesday night, with instructions to take him to emergency if he gets worse, and th family doc if he's not significantly better after two days. It's ard to tell if he's getting better. His babysitter thinks he's still crabby. She says he gets frustrated really easily, and is having trouble settling down for his nap. He even cries when I leave him there, which he's never done. I feel terrible. It's hard to tell if he's getting better. He's kind of out of it, but my editor said that's how babies react to antibiotics in the beginning. It's powerful stuff to them, because they've never had it before. We have a tentative appointment set for tomorrow, in case he's still in distress. he was smiling and playing peek-a-boo tonight, so I'm hoping the dose he had at bedtime will do some good overnight, so I can cancel it.

Other than that, things are great - he's walking!!! Like, actually walking. It's like he just woke upon Saturday and said "I'm going to start walking today." It's lots of fun. For the first couple of days, he spent a lot of time going from Mike, to me, back to Mike, then back to me, and so on, and so on, back and forth. He'd have his arms stretched out, and he'd give us a big bear hug every time he reached one of us. That was less than a week ago, and now he's a pro. He wanders around freely, even without anything nearby to catch him. He can turn corners. It's like he's been walking for months. A mom at the clinic asked how old he was when he started to walk. Her jaw dropped when I told her he'd just started that week. He had lots of lead-up, though, so that's not really fair. He's been cruising since he was 8 months old, and he's been taking a step or two at a time for a while now. It still seems very sudden, though. He still crawls a lot - he's still just a part-time walker, but every day, he walks more and more. I guess I had better get him to start wearing shoes again!

Disaster update...

Things are starting to look up!!!

I just got back from the transmision place. The car is already fixed - it was just a sensor. An "output speed sensor," he called it. Just a half hour wait, and $100, and it's as good as new! Phew! It was fixed by the owner himself. He said we got off really lucky this time - Dynasty's are notorious for transmission issues. I said we know.

He told us to take it in for a tune-up sometime- we've got some sort of a little misfire in the front end, but otherwise he said it's a smooth-running car. Probably just a spark plug or something. Not surprised. We haven't had to change one the whole time we've owned the car, so they're probably due to start going. I guess we'll take care of that once things settle down.

Rotto Rooter guy will be here within an hour to fix the sewer. Another one of those maintenance things that need to be done every year, but was put off until it was too late.

So things are starting to look up! I'm getting nervous - it could be the calm before the real storm.

In case anyone's wondering, yes, I am off work today. Our babysitter took holidays today and tomorrow. We were just going to take Friday off, but once things started to melt down, and someone needed to be available to ferry cars and hire plumbers, and get it all done before we leave for the wedding, we decided I'd take an extra day and save the trouble of finding a babysitter on top of everything else.

Our sewer backed up. When is this going to end!!!

On a positive note, it probably drowned some of the fleas down there.

just a quick note...

It was bound to happen. Our reliable car is no longer.

Our transmission is shot. Yup. Transmission - you know, that really expensive thing.

We're taking it to a specialist's shop tomorrow. We can get three gears, but can't go faster than 50 for now- sure it will get worse with time if not addresed. Hopefully we won't need an all-new one! We're kind of hoping it's one of those "oh, you just needed your system flushed. There's no charge" kind of things.

Our favourites of the 14 cats we babysat. They're gone now, but we rmember them every day, as we pick fleas from our ankles.

It's a shame, really, about the fleas. Mike had actually taken over laundry duty until then. Now, he won't go to the basement for any reason, because he always comes back with about 10 fleas. I might have one or two. I guess he tastes better.

John did the funniest thing this morning! We shared a plate of scrambled eggs for breakfast, and when I brought them out, he started huffing and puffing. I couldn't figure out what he was doing, until I went to give him some, and blew on them to cool them down. He was blowing on his eggs, because he'd seen me do it so many times! Isn't that cute?

The long lost birthday photos!

His only happy moment of the day - playing with his new barn from G&G W. It's still a favourite - at first he liked to send things down the silo. Now, he's obsessed with the buttons. Each one makes a different sound. His favourite is the workbench, which makes a hammer sound - some days he'll dance to the beat it makes.

I found them in my e-mail, of all places. I sent them to Mike from work,who sent them to my e-mail for safe keeping. Who could've guessed that one? The rest are down below - I posted lots. I know you've probably all been waiting for new pictures. Today's you're lucky day! Note the complete lack of any smile. Not a fun hour for the birthday boy. I guess we'll have to keep it a little lower key next year.

feeling a little---overwhelmed 

What is it? 

What will happen if I eat it? 

What the heck? 

Why are they doing this to me? 

Really...why? 

yumm... 

notice the relative lack of cherries on top - he ate those 

yummm

There you have it - and I found some others along with these, so I'll post them up over the next couple of days.

Thank you for everyone's help with our little financial crisis! It makes a huge difference. My parents and Mike's grandma have helped with the bills, ans Mike's parents will be covering our hotel in Ohio, so we have fewer things to worry about. Here it is on Saturday, and all the utilities are still running. Not a single creditor has phoned - normally it's one after another on Saturday mornings. It's nice. No-one has been completely paid, but the extra cash allowed us a little more room to negotiate, so most were willing to work out payment plans that worked for both of us. It's amazing how far behind you can get with a strike. It was four months of paying nothing but groceries and the mortgage. Nothing else could get paid. Well, once a month the student loans had to get paid, which is why the mortgage bounced a few times. But really, food and shelter, and everything else was forced to wait. We always intended to pay them, obviously, but when they all swooped in for the kill at the same time, it got very overwhelming! So thanks again to everyone!

John is doing well. He's teething badly, but is still in good spirits most of the time. He's having a lot of trouble sleeping at night - the pain always seems to affect him much more at night. His babysitter says every now an then, he clutches his mouth and screams, but for the most part is still a happy guy in the day. I think it's two coming at once - the eye teeth on top. His top gums on both sides look really swollen.

Daycare is still going well. He's only had one day where he didn't want to go. Liz reached out for him, and normally he reaches back and they go off to play, but on Thursday, he clutched to me. It worked out OK - I just stayed for a few minutes to get him settled in. When I left, he was smiling and playing. Liz thinks he's great, and is happy to have him - she says all the time how well he fits with the group she's already got. He likes all of the activities, and joins right in. He loves circle time! She said he climbs onto her lap and claps along to the songs they sing. Sometimes he sings at home - I think he's probably singing the songs he's learned. He's always been a bit fan of music! He really likes her daughter - her name's Megan too - I think she's 11. John aparently latches on to her all the time. Likes her to carry him around, and she's happy to oblige. She changes his diaper and feeds him - they're good pals. The 5-year-old boy really likes him too. Every morning when I get there, he yells "John's here! John's here!" and runs around the room. So it's going really well - much better than I expected. I guess it's just a matter of finding a good match.

He's been doing a few new things. He points now! I don't know if someone taught him to do it, or if it's one of those things that just appears when it's ready to appear, but he points at EVERYTHING!! When I carry him, 90 per cent of te time his finger is straight out in front of us. It's fun - sometimes he points to specific things, like a tree. So we go to the tree and talk about the tree, while he pokes the tree. There are some things we can't do that for - like ceiling fans. He just keeps pointing, and looking at me as though I should fly up there to give him a better look.

He's getting really chatty now, and it's getting easier to figure out what he wants, with all his new signals and pointing, even though words haven't come yet. "Da" is very obviously Dad, not just a random noise anymore. As part of our bedtime routine, John has a bath, followed by a little playtime with dad, so near the end of his bath some days, John says "da" over and over again. And when we're in our bedroom, if he's going to Mike's side of the bed, he'll say "da" on his way there. He still only uses "mama" as a distress call, but I guess that's ok. At least he knows who I am.

Work is going ok. We'll finally be back to full staff again on Monday at the paper - everyone's been taking holiday time. Mike's happy to be back and is looking forward to overtime shifts being added in the next few days. The pay is slow in coming. It turned out that his first pay was even lower than we expected - it was only 2 days anri.p. d the signing bonus, so it was very small. But the light is still on at the end of the tunnel, so things should be back to normal by the end of summer. He has a licence now, too, which is a huge weight off our minds.

What else? We're looking forward to Vicki's wedding next weekend! It'll be a fun trip. It'll be nice to see everyone and spend some time with John. It feels like I never see hime now, and when we are home, I have so many chores to do, I never get to spend much time with him. This working mom thing kind of stinks. I don't think this is what the women's movement had in mind - we have to work AND do all the household stuff, while strangers raise our kids. It's kind of a bum deal.

Anyway, I had better get John some lunch!

This is John out with me at the Westfield Ice cream festival - it was my weekend to take pictures, so he tagged along with me. It's one of those living museum places. He had fun! He saw a horse for the first time, and kept waving to it - or maybe he was waving to the driver, who tipped his hat to John every time he passed.

John's nearing the end of his first week in daycare. I feel kind of obsolete - he LOVES it! I mean he REALLY LOVES it! Liz is awesome. We took him to meet her the day before he started, so they'd have a chance to get to know each other. It took a little while for him to let her touch him - he peeked at her for a while, playing peek-a-boo by poking around my back, with big, big belly laughs each time. But eventually - after half an hour, he went to her and let her carry him.

Now, the second he sees her, he grins from ear to ear. He's so happy - he giggles at her when I go pick him up, and he smiles and lunges for her in the morning. It's great - one less thing to worry about in life. He still crawls to me when I walk in at the end of the day, so I'm sure I'm still #1, but it's nice to know he's with someone he really likes. He loves the other kids, too. She says he watches them all day, and tries to do what they do. Today, he decided he was going to use the chalk board, so they gave him a piece of chalk and he drew! I wish I could have seen that. She gives us a little write-up every day, stating what he ate, when he slept, and what he did. We really appreciate that - it's nice to feel like a part of what's going on.

Beyond that, everything else is pretty cruddy. I just cleared my first business publication. What a nightmare. I was supposed to get the pages to work on over the weekend - I didn't. I can do it without, it just takes a lot longer. But I had to make do, because it was a short week, and the paper was short-staffed, so I had no choice but to do it over the weekend. I spend my whole long weekend working, and still wasn't able to get it all done - it was a last minute scramble to get it out, with my editor glaring at me, and everyone in Burlington passing the blame for why the dummies weren't to me in time. It was very frustrating.

Money is, in a word, disasterous. Whatever could be going wrong, is going terribly, terribly wrong. I think it's on everyone's file that Mike is back, and they all want to be the first paid, so they're playing hardball. But they just don't understand that it's going to take a while. What reserves we had are exhausted. My pay is spoken for - mortgage and daycare, and that's it. The rest needs to come from Mike, but his first pay isn't even a full pay, for starters. We were counting on a full pay, in addition to the signing bonus, which he's now told may or may not be on the first cheque. We were also planning to gut his vacation and banked overtime hours, but he can't. Turns out, the union still hasn't signed the contract, and weren't scheduled to until the day after the cut-off to request vacation and overtime. Convenient.

As well, this partial pay is his only pay before the wedding, so it has to stretch like you wouldn't believe. We not only have all the wedding and travel expenses, we have the gas company, who's sent a letter stating the gas will be shut of on Tuesday, unless they're paid in full - he won't even be paid by then. The electricity won't be far behind - they've been sending threatening letters for months. The water, I believe, is already a lien on the house. The credit card companies,who've been pretty patient, have all threatened to take our cards away - not that they're any use to us now anyway. One just called, threatening that they'll lock my debit card, unless we send them some money. Our water heater rental company has just sent us to collections. One credit card is being revoked on Tuesday - again, before he's even paid. Don't these people listen? Our mortgage company keeps stealing money right out of our account - luckily, there's never a bean in there, so it keeps getting bounced back to us - minus a few service charges.

Peachy. How long until we can look back and laugh at this one?

Sorry for ranting - it's just so frustrating. These people phone, and we're so close to getting out of the hole. They just need to hang in there with us for a few more weeks and it'll get sorted out, but they don't care - they won't listen. They won't accept arrangements, nothing - we have to pay in full (before we're even paid) or else. Even if they were willing to wait until he got paid, there's not anywhere near enough in Mike's pay to cover it all. Not even close. It's just so horrible.

Oh well, at least John is happy!

Gotta go and finish making dinner...