A Christmas Ronicle

For you, dear friend who loves The Ronicles!

The thing about exes is that it’s easy to remember all the bad stuff. It’s harder to remember the good times. Especially with an ex that is as, shall we say, “special” as mine was.

But he wasn’t all bad. Especially at Christmas. That man loved him some Christmas as I recall, though I didn’t discover this until much later. (I'm still paying for some of them.) That first Christmas we almost didn’t even have a tree…or a dinner.

We married on Dec. 3, 1994. He had just taken a job in Louisville, Ga., and was driving an hour to work each way in a car I’m convinced was held together with leaking oil, spray paint and brake dust. No, really. The back seat had been removed, the door handle was a bungee cord and he drove with a blanket over his lap because there was no heater. *Sigh* I popped my first clutch in this car. Mashing it to change gears was completely optional.  Yep, this was the first car I ever had to push start. I think.

Ah, good times. We lived in a tiny two-bedroom house near Thermal Ceramics. It sunk in the middle. If you look at it from the street, it makes an interesting U shape from floor to ceiling. I want to say rent was about $325, but the landlord never collected a dime. Not because we didn’t try to pay him (to my knowledge), but we could never find the guy. At least that’s what I was told. I do know we did some work on the place. Ron repainted, rearranged the bathroom, replaced the water heater and tried to repair the heater. There were no appliances, and we couldn’t afford to buy any, but we did find a gas stove on the back porch. Ron cleaned it up and managed to get two burners working enough for me to cook on. I had to light them with a long lighter. The oven didn’t work at all, but we managed.

To me the house was beautiful. Well, maybe not beautiful, but it was mine. I had a family, like I wanted so badly to have, and as far as I was concerned this place was just a stepping stone to new and better things. We can’t all start out in grand homes, can we? (Don’t answer that.)

Anyway, so there we were, broke newlyweds and Christmas was coming. I believe we said we weren’t going to buy each other gifts. Decorations cost money we didn’t have. But on Christmas Eve, he went out and bought us a little 4-foot Christmas tree and a few decorations. I don’t believe I bought him anything. I honestly can’t remember. But the tree was my present, and I relished decorating it. On Christmas morning I opened an oversized Snoopy sweatshirt that I wore all winter. It had plenty of room for my growing belly. There were other small, dollar-store presents, but I don’t remember anymore what they were.

But the funniest thing that year – I don’t remember if this was Christmas Eve or Christmas Day — was the Christmas ham. His boss had given it to him as a bonus and we froze it. Novice housewife that I was, I didn’t think to put it into the fridge to thaw a few days before. I mean, why would I? We didn’t have an oven to cook it in. But Ron decided he wanted ham for dinner. It was Christmas, after all, and we could at least cook a couple of ham steaks in the frying pan. So he commenced to sawing on this frozen ham with a hacksaw. No, really. Not even a butcher knife. A blue hacksaw! I wish I could assure you this thing hadn’t been used before, that he at least went out and bought a new, clean one. I don’t remember, but I really don't think so! An whole hour later he managed to cut a lovely scratch into it. A deep one, sure, but a scratch nonetheless.

We ate Salisbury steaks for Christmas dinner…and I believe we threw the ham away.

The way o' things

Something happened last week that made me think, and I wanted to share it with you because it kind of made me feel like a statistic. I think it just speaks to the state of our economy right now.

I went to apply for a part-time seasonal job. I won't say where because, well...I just won't. It was recommended and it seemed like a great idea at the time. So I picked up the application and spoke to the manager. But before I could put pen to paper I realized I could lose my unemployment benefits by accepting the job, and the job couldn't pay what I need it to in order to pay my bills. Sad, right? I'm not supposed to turn down work, but what do you do in a case like that? So I thought I'd pick up more applications for part time jobs and I made a few inquiries, but there's no guarantee I'd get a first job, let alone a second one. And how would I pay the bills in the mean time? It felt like too much to lose, so I gave the application to my son. It seemed much more suited to a 16-year-old anyway.

But it made me think for a second. Here I am with a college degree, submitting applications for jobs that my son, who is too young to have any experience, is just as qualified for. Something is very wrong with this scenario. But there it is. I think that's just the state of things right now. I've already applied for a job as a cashier in a couple of different places. When I was 16 I was a cashier. If I had been hired this time, it would have been like the last 20 years and all those term papers had never happened. But I would have been so thankful to have a job.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still applying for jobs that require resumes. It's just that nobody is calling back. On any level.  And that, as everyone tells me, is just the way things are right now.

Before you feel too sorry for me, something did happen yesterday that gives me a little hope. God does work in mysterious ways. If it comes through, I will happily share it. But for now, say a little prayer that something will turn up for us, will you?

Rainy days and Mondays, and all that jazz

I ain't complainin' but I'm tired so I'm just sayin' what I think. -- Martina McBride

I try stay positive in my blog posts. Personally, I don't want to read someone else's drivel and I want this to be something y'all enjoy reading. But realistically, I am an unemployed single mother..and it's almost Christmas. Some days it's hard to keep my chin up. Today is one of those days.

It's raining. That doesn't help. I slept late. That doesn't help, either. It felt great, but I woke up wishing I had somewhere to be. More precisely, I woke up wishing I had a job to go to. It's 3 p.m. and I just got out of the shower. (I do want it to be known this is the exception rather than the rule.)

I dunno. I used to think that I wanted to marry rich so I could stay home all day and write my little stories and maybe become a best selling author. I didn't marry, I sure ain't rich, and excepting this blog and a few freelance stories, I haven't written much of anything. But my needs are met. I have enough to pay the bills. I don't have to ask for help very much. We have plenty to eat and share. I really don't have anything to complain about. I am blessed. I know I am. But I still can't shake this funk. It's more than money. Maybe I'm just bored.

I miss feeling important. I miss feeling some sense of accomplishment. I miss my friends and coworkers. I miss that sense of fraternity you have in a group of people who spend 3/4 of their lives together. And here I used to think the work I did did not matter. Perhaps it mattered to me more than I thought.

Okay. Pity party over. I have to go accomplish some laundry. If we run out of clean unmentionables, the work I don't do will very much matter!

Christmas memories

I'm beginning to dream in tinsel.

Thanksgiving is Thursday, and the day after starts my favorite four weeks of the entire year. No, not the shopping season. I hate shopping. But I love Christmas!

I'll wait until the turkey is digested, but I'm already starting to mentally reconfigure my living room to find the best place to put my Christmas tree. I adore decorating for Christmas. I make a big deal of it, too. I turn some Christmas music on, light an apple cinnamon scented candle and threaten death and dismemberment if anyone dares touch the TV remote. By the time I'm finished, I will be so glad to be done and that evening after I've sent the kids to bed, I'll turn off all the lights in the house except the Christmas tree. I'll probably fix a cup of decaf or hot tea, and I'll sit in the dark and stare at that tree and think of how blessed I am. And I'll probably remember Christmases past.

It's on my mind now anyway. WBBQ is already playing nonstop Christmas music, ads are everywhere and it's almost Thanksgiving. Plus, Catie left my photo albums out and I smiled when I saw the Christmas ones.

I thought I'd share a few. Now I want to raid my mom's photo albums, too!

This one sums up all the Christmases of my youth. Or all Christmases until 2001, when my Nanny died. This picture would have been taken midmorning-Christmas, maybe 2000. I'm thinking this may have been our last Christmas at Nanny's. That's me under all that hair, smiling down at Christopher's little overalled self. Maybe he was dancing? Joey's on my right, and my cousin Amy is beside him. Uncle Lester is on my left. But look at all the presents! This was Christmas at Nanny's and it was my favorite part of the holiday. Me and Rhonda, my parents, my aunts and uncle and my cousins would all converge on Nanny's house about 10 a.m. Christmas morning, after we all had a chance to do our own Santa Clause Christmas thing. Dinner would be kept warm in the kitchen and spread out on the dining room table, and we'd spend about two hours around the tree opening presents.

Uncle Roy was meticulous about being Santa, and he took his job very seriously. Each person got only one present at a time, and you didn't get another one until everyone else had a chance to open one. Not only that, but each present had to be opened and appropriately oohed and ahhhed over before the next present could be opened. He was also careful about not making the kids wait too long between presents, so they didn't get bored.

That's Uncle Roy in the Santa hat.

And that's Nanny holding Catie.

Here's a couple from the next year at our house. I'm adding them here because they are cute!

Christopher

Catie and Grandma Pat

Catie. Is she bobbing for presents?? Rhonda's keeping her from diving off.

Apps and apples...and chips

I got a new phone Friday. I had to. My old one died.

Okay, it didn't really die. It just...well, it would have died. Once I threw it up against the wall. After it locked up on me. Again.

I was eligible for an upgrade, so I thought, heck yeah! A cooler phone for FREE! Now I can get rid of that stinking touch screen keyboard.
I love most things about my new phone. I found the COOLEST App! It's cool to me anyway, because I'm a nerd like that. It's called Out of Milk (go look it up. I'll wait.) It lets me keep a grocery list ON MY PHONE. No, really! No more running to the notepad on the fridge dripping from the shower in the mornings because I don't want to forget again that I'm almost out of dryer sheets. It also lets me keep a pantry list so that I won't one day find myself staring at five shelves full of McCormick spices and wondering if I still have...or ever bought...coriander. I will know with a quick check of my phone.

Now, I've had organizers and stuff before. Like on the computer. I'm pretty sure I had a notepad on my last phone that would have been great for making grocery lists. But it only works if you use it, and until now I've never seen any that were terribly user-friendly. This thing has a voice command. It's quite friendly, indeed. I can be flying down I-20, blaring Def Leppard and suddenly remember that the next time I go to the store, I need to make sure I pick up more coffee filters. I can add it to my list right then. Or better yet, when I'm in the check out line at Kroger with a slap-full buggy during the 6 p.m. rush hour and remember that I need barbecue sauce for the pork roast I'm about to purchase--but I don't feel like leaving the line to go get it--I can add it right there to my grocery list for the next shopping trip. True story. (Okay honestly...I typed it into my list. Speaking it would have made me look kinda stupid.)

The voice thingy isn't always very good at listening, though. Before I went Krogering, I spoke my list into my phone and then asked the kids what kind of snacks they wanted me to get. "That big bag of (single serving) chips you got last time worked out really well. Get those," Christopher said.

So I spoke "chips" into my handy dandy digital shopping list.
"Cats" it wrote.
Um....no.
"Chips" I said again.
"No matches found" it said.
Really? It's friggin' potato chips! Look again!
"Chips" I said.
"S***" it wrote.
You're kidding me.
That would be the exact lettering, too, by the way.

Catie took the phone from my hand. You know, before I could throw it.
"Chips" she said.
"Chips-potato
Chips-tortilla
Chips-chocolate" it asked.

What the heck??

Dear Tag Cloud, I love you!

I don't know if you noticed, but I found some new playtoys on Blogger.

I wanted to show them to you, in case you didn't notice. If you like my blog (and you know you do), there is a now link for you to share it on Facebook and Twitter. Please feel free to do this often!

You were already able to follow me on Blogger, but now you can follow me by email, too. Just type your email addy into the box on the right there.

I also added a tag cloud. It's still kind of a work in progress, but now you can browse my blog by subject. I've been wanting one of these things for months and just now figured out where to find it. Tech savvy, yes I am!

If there's something else you'd like to see or something that would make this blog more useful to you, please tell me. I'm always open to suggestion.

Oh, and look for polls and feedback opportunities in the near future, because those just looked like fun. Later, when I have more time, I'm gonna see what other kinds of goodies I can find!

Single parent life support

I was talking to a friend yesterday about what it's like being a single parent.

It's a hard thing to describe. Like I told her, I've been doing this for five years now. It's all I know anymore. She understood.

I remember when she became a single mother herself three or four years ago. She told me once back then, "I don't know how you do it." I thought, "Do what?? Nothing I do is done well." It's the plate spinning analogy I made a while back. I must have looked like I had it all together, but I remember feeling like I was dropping a lot of plates. Still do from time to time.

She and I talked about support systems. It's so important to have a community of single parents who can relate to you. It's not the same as being with a group of young marrieds, or never-marrieds. People who have never had kids have no idea what it's like to live by a schedule that is dictated by mealtimes and bedtimes. I can't imagine eating whatever I can find whenever I get hungry. At 6 p.m. it's dinnertime, whether I'm hungry or not. The kids have to eat. And everything I do costs three times as much as it would if it were just me, so something as small as going out to dinner isn't necessarily a simple thing.

People who have spouses have someone there who can run to the store for a gallon of milk at 9 p.m. while they're getting the kids off to bed. (Okay...true. I have teenagers. In my house it's more like, "I'm going to the store. Be ready for bed when I get back or else!") There's also someone there to let them know if they're being unreasonable with the kids, or how best to handle a bad report card, or to help figure out what to do if the car makes a funny noise....and how to pay for it. I have that, too, because God gave me a wonderful family. But I have to go outside of my own four walls to get it -- something I didn't have to do when I was married.

After a while you learn to accept that there's only so much you can do by yourself. You learn to focus on what's important and let the rest go. (Which is why the dust bunnies frolic happily under my couch!)

I was telling my friend about my Sunday School class. They are the reason I love Warren so much. It's a small group, but they are wonderful people. Once a month or so we get together to socialize. Maybe we take kids, or maybe everyone chips in for a babysitter and we go out "adults only." One weekend we might get together and go clean a member's yard. Or we might go clean someone's house.

We did that a few weeks ago for our leader. He's a single father of four and he runs his own business. But he's so busy trying to help others that he doesn't have time to take care of some things at home. I remember him saying once that he felt guilty for taking an afternoon off to veg in front of the TV. The whole class jumped in to tell him that it's not only okay to rest, it's necessary. He takes care of what's important, and that is what matters.

Therein lies the real value of a single-parent network. This is what we really do for each other. As single parents, we (at least I know I) tend to focus on the things we can't do, the things we don't have, the things we do but don't do as well as we'd like. Our single-parent support group is there to point out all of the things we are doing, what we do have and what we do well. They remind us that we're not doing as bad of a job as we think we are.

She's found the same thing in her church, and she seems very happy now. I'm reminded that I really shouldn't wait so long to talk to her again. :)

Some things matter, most things don't

Christopher, Daddy and I went to Granny's yesterday to pick up a new-to-me couch. I really only expected to get the couch, but I ended up with two good coats, a lamp for my nightstand, a jewelry armoir -- I've always wanted one -- and a few other things.

My cousin Leslie and I walked through the house, opening drawers and closets and looking through her things for anything we might want or need. A lot of things were already gone, but there was still a houseful. Granny had lots of stuff.

Everytime I find myself party to this...for lack of a better term....disassembling of a life, it strikes me again how little all this stuff means. I think about people who sacrifice relationships because they're so busy working -- to make money to buy things -- but they can't take even the smallest token with them when they go.

I'll be honest. I don't know anybody like this. I don't know why it hits me the way it does. Maybe I put too much emphasis on things myself. I do struggle with it sometimes. I want stuff. I want my own house. I want to buy new furniture for it. I want to walk onto a car lot and buy a brand new car. I want a condo at the beach...and in the mountains. I want an RV -- one of those big, bus sized ones that's decked out like a mini-apartment. I want things big and small. And I could do it, if I worked hard enough. Of course I could. I could work harder than I do (okay...when I have a job. I'll admit I don't work very hard right now!) But I value my relationships. I like being home by 6 p.m. so I can cook dinner for my kids. I like having time to meet a friend for lunch, or just hanging out at my sister's or my mom's for no reason other than to just be there. I like having time to go to dinner or a movie with my boyfriend. I can't imagine being so involved with work that I would want to give that up...for things. Because in my mind, that would have to be the trade-off.

Besides, one day people will be digging through my stuff like this. It won't be great stuff, but hopefully they will find stuff they can use.

I got a little deep on y'all there, didn't I? Guess I'm feeling a little pensive this morning. Y'all have a great day! :)

What's scarier than a bowl of leftover Halloween candy?

We are three days past Halloween. Luckily, there are no jack o'lanterns filled with candy to haunt me this year, and the little bowl full of candy I did have sitting out is long gone.

No...the only creepy traces of this year's black-and-orange holiday are on my daughter's eyes.

I'm mean. That's what she tells me, anyway. She's 13, but I don't let her wear eye makeup yet. She already looks 18. (Okay...maybe only 16.) If I start letting her wear makeup she'll look 30 and frankly, that scares the bejeebus out of me.

If memory serves (and it probably doesn't), I wasn't allowed to wear eye makeup until I was 16. I remember being her age and trying to learn the fine art of makeup. I gave Dee Snyder a run for his money.

(Remember him, from Twisted Sister? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRwrg0db_zY&ob=av2e  Yeah, the blonde guy.)

Okay, now picture him without the eye makeup, and with pink lipstick instead of red, smeared on with the same intensity. Now picture him with short, dark brown hair, a tan, big pink owl-shaped earrings and trying his level best to blend into the wallpaper. Yep, that was me in 7th grade.

I was happy to try to wear whatever makeup I could in the hopes it would make me cool enough to hang out with the other kids. (It didn't. They just laughed.)

Not my child. For starters, she doesn't understand the concept of blending into the wallpaper. The other girls are trying to be cool enough to hang out with her, from the looks of things. Regardless, I have told her she can wear blush and lipstick. She'd rather not. She wants the eye makeup.

Which brings us to Halloween night. She said she wanted to dress up. She had her "costume" all picked out. A bright red T-shirt with a vampire face that said "Bite me", a pair of jeans, and  boots. And of course, makeup.

She went for my favorite waterproof eyeliner and smeared it on. Yep, she looked like Ozzy Osbourne!! I told her if she ever did get to wear eye makeup, it better never look like that!

It's not like she wants to trick or treat. She just wants to be able to wear eye makeup, and this is the only day of the year I will let her. She walked around with her little cousins, and was happy to feel all grown up for an evening.

Then came time to take it off. I was out of eye makeup remover, so I took her into the kitchen with a cotton ball and a bar of Dove, and I proceeded to scrub that hot mess off her pretty little face. I did the best I could without scrubbing her eyeball, and told her she would have to do the rest. She claims she tried.

But as I said, here we are three days later and she still looks made up. Not Ozzy made-up, thankfully, but it's still there. I'm thinking she's sneaking back into my bathroom in the mornings and ever-so-lightly touching it up. After all, "It's waterproof, Mom!"

Right.

Guess what Mema brought us today? Yep! Some Clinique eye makeup remover. Goodbye, Ozzy!

Heh heh heh heh (You couldn't hear me, but I totally sounded like the Wicked Witch of the South just then!)