bad luck or timing

Well I'd like to have a pity party, if you please. Rampant whining ahead! Update with pictures at the bottom.

-------------------------------------------------------

Since being homeless -which technically we are currently- I've not had the ambition to do things I normal would. I also am WAY more stressed than normal over things that shouldn't be THAT stressful. This has led to many things happening that normally wouldn't.

First there is the child support papers that I didn't fill out back this spring. I've filled out I don't know how many of these stinking papers. I fill them out with what seems to be the EXACT same info every time and mail them off. Nothing happens. Well earlier this year we got two of them, like one in May and one in Aug. I didn't fill out either of them. I was going to but never got around to it and figured what the hell it won't hurt anything.

Unfortunately I was WAY wrong. Apparently had I filled out these normal papers then things would of stayed the same (side note - it would of showed little to no income). Since I didn't they used Darkside's last income x3 to equal out a year's income BECAUSE he voluntarily quit his job. So now the child support is cut down from $270 to $95.

We can contest it ourselves in 24 months - which by that time the King of Kaos will be past the age of 18

-or-

ask for them to contest it in less than 24 months if there is a change of that income of more than 50% and not voluntarily like before

Also, Darkside was sent some papers to include himself in a lawsuit against Casey's for lack of payment for work that was done that the company made them do off the clock. I've done these for him before for other companies, nothing ever happens. So I figured I'd fill the out eventually but nothing would happen.

Never did get around to filling those papers out. The deadline was Aug. 3, 2009.

My sister-in-law also work at Casey's and received the same paperwork. She filled hers out. She figured it was like wishing on stars too especially since she had worked there only for a couple months during the time period they was suing for.

Guess what she texted me on Friday? Yep. She got a check in the mail for $78 and the letter included said there would be more payments coming. That's nice. GREAT.

Here we are needing to collect up as much money as possible and always needing more than what we got and what do I do? LOSE MONEY! The child support loss will be $3849 if we can't get it re-adjusted. And from my rough figures for the loss from the lawsuit is $806 so far. We could of really used that right now!

The lawsuit money really hurts because we've been trying to get up enough money to get moved before the holidays which for us started with the month of October. Plus let's face it we all know that the fact we EVER got any money in child support is AMAZING on it's own. Let alone the amount we've got over the last 4 years and all the back support from the same 4 years that's still coming!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

We finally caved and Darkside accepted a job at the local plastics factory. He's on his second week now and just got switched to an easier job - forklift operator. It's a physically easier job just about all around. Now he don't have to spend 12 hours standing, bending, and lifting anymore - with a forklift job you pretty much sit. Plus they only run 8 hour forklift shifts, those hours will be so much easier on us.

This is the week we are supposed to find out if we are to be accepted or not into the housing. We also have had a rental house being held for us since Nov. 1st. Either way we just can't come up with the money to move in yet.

Harvested the broccoli finally. Learned that I waited too long HAHA! We had BIG bunches from nearly every plant.

As I was cutting it up so I could freeze it I learned that we had broccoli worms - O YEA! That was educational let me tell ya! Got that all taken care of by soaking the broccoli, no biggie really. Blanched it all and got it into bags and the freezer. Got 4 half full gallon ziplocs out of it so far, which has more than paid for the seed =)

Also we continue to harvest carrots. Here's our biggest so far - also in the picture with the broccoli. Everyone really likes them too =)






We just keep getting these weird ones that grew funny. The are quite comical at times!! Here's two of the most recent ones.

Well should probably save the rest of my energy, got to go to the laundry mat later today to dry clothes *BLAH!* But it rained all day yesterday and plans to rain for the next four days. No way to dry clothes in this weather except in the dryer. fun, fun

later...

carrots

These are carrots that I had pulled up tonight to use for preparing egg rolls (supper tomorrow night). Our carrots!! Isn't that cool?! To give a size comparison/idea this bowl is a salad bowl - it's large enough to hold 1 whole head of lettuce (ripped) and various other salad type things. (This is such a cute salad bowl, btw!)

See the little deformed one on top? No clue what happened to that!

We planted 2 different types of carrots, a short type and a "regular" type. Also we used a mix of bagged soil that was lighter and airy so the carrots would do a little better. We still have MANY more out there to pull up!

later...

update

Well it's been awhile but I've been here =)

Everything is done in the garden except leeks, broccoli, peas, oregano, thyme, parsley, and sage. Although I bought and timed our fall garden for a perfect last minute harvest - it didn't happen. Seed germination took longer than I expected - which makes sense, germination depends on warm temps. And we are having unusually cool weather this year here.

And that brings me to my next problem - I don't think my broccoli is going to make it because it's in an area of the garden that floods when there is excessive rain, which we have been getting. BLAH! Last night I spent about $7 drying clothes at the laundry mat because we've not been able to hang them out. =(

We also discovered that out of 3 dozen jars of salsa we canned a couple months ago we only have about 9 jars that are any good. I'm not sure what happened to the other ones but they are fermented and had to be tossed. And we have implemented a daily "ration" of pickles and jelly LOL! We have TOO many and this I think is the only way we will be able to get through all of them in the next couple years. Yes -- YEARS!!

Also we had planned to be moved into our new place by now - not happening. We went and talked to the guy who owns the place where we used to live in Roodhouse about 2 months ago. He was very happy to let us move back in, even resume payments pretty much where we left off. Except he thought that the place was empty because he was renting it and the lady stopped paying - he figured she moved out. She hadn't. Why he has all of the sudden stopped checking on this piece of real estate is beyond my comprehension. So he tells us to do whatever we need to get her out. Key word -- US.

He for some reason is not wanting to do anything to get this woman out -- this is so unlike him! I think age has taken it's toll on him because he has also sold a house in that same town for less than a third of what he bought it for. And he also recently changed his store hours to only being 5 days a week. He's been open for 6 days a week for more than 40 years!

Because of city codes in the town this property is in, we are not able to transfer the property into our control so that we can kick the lady that is in there out. Well we can BUT (there's always one!) we would need about $5000 - $6000 -- oh yea, got that in my other pants LOL! And although the man who currently owns it is more than happy to sign anything or call anyone, he isn't willing to actually go somewhere (like 2 counties away) to go to court.

So after a roller coaster of emotions over the last 2 months we have decided to hold off on trying to move into this place till we either have ALOT more money or he is successful in evicting this person. In light of this decision we are planning on another addition to the addition and we have also applied for an apartment that is based on our income. Then at least we won't have to worry as much about job losses and how it effects our place to live.

We also in the past 2 weeks have been dealing with child support - UGH! They are doing a review and are wanting to reduce our current amount down by a third. It is very aggravating because they are using the income that we had while Darkside was working that GREAT job -- that job only lasted for 4 months and it was 9 months ago!! They are attempting to say they can use it because he voluntarily quit - WHAT?!?! Did they not notice that after he quit that job we moved a state away? Oh that's right their computers don't compute in things such as that. There is supposed to be a person behind each one of those computers doing this paper work.

And I'll post tomorrow with all our halloween costume ideas =)

later...

new stuff

Well this last week hasn't been the best for me. I had a "re-lapse" of sorts, sorry for my lack of better wording! It's my mental problems -- I go a little overboard sometimes with the paranoia sometimes. But this morning I got up and decided - TO HELL WITH IT! I am making myself snap out of it.

So on to some news =)

We have been processing things like crazy. Got pumpkin all done -- Darkside was sad about that (did I already post this??). Still have about 1 batch of apples to do, have put that off forever.

Started getting the following from the fall garden: baby carrots, zucchini, green beans, and raspberries. We have about 5 tomatoes on 1 new plant (green) and the peas are flowering. The broccoli looks promising. The other new tomatoes, tomatillos, and corn don't look so good.

In the summer garden things that are left seem to got their second wind. The tomatoes have even greened back up and have new flowers! The peppers are all putting out like crazy. The eggplants really need to be ripped out -- they never did anything. And the cabbage seems like it's stunted? They all only have softball size heads. Oh well maybe next year.

Also we haven't had any luck with the 2 dozen eggs we've tried to incubate in the past 2 months. I think we need to wait till spring to give it another shot. Plus the bater needs a good cleaning and tuning, in my opinion. Now whether SR agrees or not that another story!

We're still debating on whether or not we should get some does or not and start up selling baby rabbits. Our 2 bucks are HUGE and mean as hell. Well probably not that bad, but not exactly tame to handle and that's how I wanted them.

We are also excited to say that next week we may be in our new place. **cross your fingers!** I really hope that things go smoothly. We are making a big circle - cause we're going back to the place in Roodhouse. But things did seem to go ok there before. We at least had room and freedom there. Hopefully it's in the same or better condition than when we left there.

So now we're scrambling to store up some firewood for this year and might as well work on next year, right? So we're busy cutting and stacking wood.




Yep coming around full circle pretty much. But that's ok - we got a little smarter on the curves! =)

later...

How Does Your Garden Grow

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Stupid Anne! STUPID %#*%%#@!! &*#@&*!

Sorry had to do it! We now have powdery mildew. And it's probably my fault.

I bought some marked down herbs about a week ago from Walmart. I thought that the rosemary looked funny but I just figured it was because it was being killed. LOL! Nope it has powdery mildew.

Which in and of itself ain't too bad. My herbs are about 75 feet away from the rest of the garden.

That. ain't. far. enough. at all!

Now the jack o' lanterns have it. Also, the spaghetti squash and zucchini.

So first we hacked some of the badly affected leaves off the pumpkins.


Next we are going to try a milk spray. I sure hope it works.




Some better news. The reason I'm posting this Friday instead of Thursday is I spent yesterday dealing with powdery mildew and I canned 5 quarts of cucumber dill relish! That used up 8 pounds of cucumbers. I have another 11 pounds ready for sweet relish too, gotta get more jars. I've also been dehydrating zucchini like crazy.

Here's a crazy looking cuke that I used for relish yesterday. It's like this because it grew around a fence panel =) Taken with my phone - not a great pic, but I was very busy! Oh and don't be alarmed with my orangish cuke LOL! I've found that alot of them are like this when they don't get picked like they are supposed to --hidden-- =)


I also finally got the rest of my box done. Right side we did last week, left side just last night.



Here's the planting order from r-l, radishes (2 kinds), carrots (2 kinds) ----that's the right half ---- onions (2 kinds) ---- 1 pot is huckleberries & 1 pot is bunching onions. I'm messing with this because the ground here has never been worked and it is VERY compacted. So I'm hoping that by doing a raised bed that I will be able to get some good root crops =) Here's my radishes already!



so it's a growin' ! =)

later...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Signs of mildew (wineanorak.com)
• Zucchini Pesto (rawlivingfoods.typepad.com)
• At last! Alert the media! The bounty has begin! (crazyauntpurl.com)