I finished our taxes today.

As I was answering TurboTax’s questions on our state return, it asked if I received money from the Turkish Ottoman Empire Settlement.

Huh?

My history isn’t that great, but why would this question have anything to do with California?  There were some other strange questions, but this one confused me the most.

Maybe someone out there can explain it to me.  I’m too sick of taxes right now to bother trying to research it. 

On the way home from her preschool egg hunt my daughter asked if I remembered the man who ’took our things’. 

"Do you mean the man who stole the diaper bag?"  I asked.

"Yes."

"Yes, I remember him."

Silence.  More silence.

"Did you want to talk about that honey?" I asked.

"Mama. . . I think he’s going to take my eggs."

Man.  I couldn’t decide if I was more protective and sympathetic for my child, or angry as all hell at that jerk for making her worry.  That happened a month ago, and she didn’t seem upset at the time.  My poor sweetie! 

After a deep breath, I reminded her that Daddy didn’t let the man take our things.  He got them back for us, remember?  Plus he called the police.  None of us will let anyone take your eggs.

She smiled and seemed to relax.

After a moment she asked, "Did the police put the bad man in a cage?"

I thought of a lot of answers for that one, but settled on, "I don’t know.  They might have.  Maybe he had a time out and promised not to do it again.  But Mama and Daddy will still make sure he never takes your eggs, okay?"

"Okay!" 

I never wanted to lie to my kids.  I’m pretty sure the police never caught him, but I don’t REALLY know.  Who would have thought that reassurance and honesty would be such a fine line to walk.

So what would you tell your child?

I don't mean to have every blog entry now turn into a whine fest, but I'm still so shocked that this happened, I have to share/vent.

We live about a block from an elementary school.  They've torn apart the playground over the past several (or more) months and just in the last few weeks they put up new jungle gyms.  I've taken the girls there in the evenings to play a lot lately.

On Sunday, our family was there, I was up on the jungle gym, helping the baby to crawl in the tunnel as my older daughter played on the slide and showed of for Daddy.  As we did this, a scumbag grabbed our diaper bag from a nearby bench and took off. 

My husband, much to my alarm, was after him almost before my brain registered what had happened.  I collected my children, gathered our other few belongings, and headed off in the direction they ran.  I wanted to call the police, but my phone was in the bag.

I got around the school building into the open, but I didn't see them anywhere.  I wasn''t sure what the best plan was, I decided to go to the car and wait for my husband (couldn't get in and drive around to look for him because my keys were - you guessed it - in the bag.) 

Several minutes later I see my husband walking down the street toward us, no bag, but he was holding some things in his hands.  He reported, that he came very near to catching the guy, but in the end he tripped (and got pretty torn up in the process).  However, because he was so hot on the guy's tail, the scumbag never got a real good hold on the bag, and he ended up spilling out a lot of stuff as he ran.  He didn't have time to fix it with super husband on his heals.

My hero got my keys, wallet, a baby bottle, can of formula, and diaper pouch back.  The keys and wallet would have been the most harmful things in the bag to lose, so I was thrilled that he was able to rescue them.  We went home and called the cops.

Robert decided to walk the route of the chase again, and see if anything else fell out that he missed.  He met up with the police and gave his report as another man approached them saying he'd called for the police too, and could he talk with them?  Turns out he'd seen a suspicious man earlier in the day, and then found the same guy behind his house going through a bag that he hadn't had earlier.  When he confronted him, the man took off, leaving the bag behind.  So we even got the bag back.  As far as we can tell, the only thing missing is the phone.

Verision assures us that no one will be able to activate the phone because it has been reported as stolen.  So it was all for nothing for the jerk anyway.

Now my only obstacles are getting used to using an old phone again (we aren't going to pay for a new one) and getting over my fear of going to that playground so that my kids still get to play outdoors (we don't have a yard).  And, my poor, brave husband will need some time to heal.  I think we'll be okay, but we are only going to the playground if the baby is freshly feed and changed.  I won't sit on a bench to guard our bag, so when we go, we'll go empty handed, except for keys and my old phone - both safely in my pocket.

 

I though I should update on the US Bank fiasco.  A few days ago I got another letter from the bank.  The DID find an error this time and "apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused".

Well, I appreciate that much, but I'm not a completely forgiving person it turns out.  I'm still closing my accounts now, but I'm not sending my irate letters to the Attorney General, Better Business Bureau, local newspaper, and US Bank headquarters.  Oh - and for anyone who has a bank that won't help them solve a complaint, I did some research, and you can also write to the Federal Reserve and they may step in too.  That was my next plan of action.

Anyway, now I'm only sending one to US Bank headquarters (after the accounts are closed) to let them know exactly why I left.  Maybe they'll rethink their customer service methods, maybe they won't, but I'll feel better that I did what I could to make the banking world a better place.

This feels great to put behind me at last.

Just before Christmas I tried to withdraw $200 from the US Bank ATM in a grocery store.  We  have a special savings account set up just for Christmas money.  The ATM malfunctioned, and the little window that opens to let the cash out only opened about a third of the way, so I couldn't take the money.  A bank teller came over to help me, and she instructed me to press the "Cancel" button.  The machine shut down with my card still inside.

The bank workers kindly took the machine apart to get my card back for me.  How about the money?  Nope.  They gave me a phone number to call to start an 'investigation', and after 10 days, if they found in my favor they'd give me my money back.

I didn't accept that, and told them I wasn't leaving with just a phone number.  They stood their ground that they couldn't do anything else, but at last they at least called the number for me to start my claim and to report that the witnessed to machine malfunction, and came to my aid.

 

Well, today (WAY over 10 business days later I may add) I got a letter telling me that the investigation found that there was no error.  So I'm out the $200.  I can in no way, shape, or form afford to just let that much money go, so I was on the phone with the bank as soon as I got inside from the mailbox.

The phone operator was no help at all.  At last, I got a manager on the phone.  She wasn't much better, but at least pretended to "look into it".  At least I got put on hold a lot.  I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was in fact doing something.

Here's the wonderful solution I was offered:  We can open another claim.

Oh thank goodness!  The first one helped me so much!

"What can I do," I asked, "to make sure this claim is handled differently than the first one?  Who do I tell my side of the story to?  Will they speak with the clerks who helped me?  Will they look at the little video camera in the ATM to see that I didn't get the money?  How can I help the investigation?"

I get to do nothing, but sit here and wait for them to tell me again that they are just going to go ahead and steal my money.  I have no power, and no recourse according to them.

I've already opened a new account at a local credit union and will officially close my US Bank accounts as soon as this new 'investigation' (it's a laughable use of the term) is finished.  I plan to contact the better business bureau and the Attorney generals office.  If anyone has any other ideas, I'm open to them.

It's just extra maddening because my husband and I have been franticly working to pay off our debt.  We're finding extra work wherever we can, and we're selling stuff.  Now it feels like all that effort isn't going to help us - it's only going to replace the money our own bank took. 

Sorry - I don't like to rant in public, but I'm spitting mad.  I can't bring myself to punch something, so I'm doing what I do - I'm writing. (And crying just a little).

I have so many things I want to accomplish, I hardly know where to begin.  Do you want to hear about it all?

I'll give you the short version with just the highlights.  Most of these have sub-goals attached so I have a plan of action.  I don't do well when I 'wing it'.

Weight Loss. Well, general fitness is more of the goal, but the weight is a problem.  The main thing I want here is to get back into a regular exercise routine - something I haven't had since my baby was born, and I'm really feeling it.

Improve my writing.  I'll leave it at that for now.  This one has a ton of sub-goals that just matter to me.

Get organized.  Too much of my life is wasted looking for stuff I need.  I thought this would be the hardest one, but it's already well underway and going better than expected.  Yippie.  Now I need to keep it going.

Expand Karabu's Creations.  I want to try to new projects I didn't get time to work on when the shop was busy over the holidays.

Rebuild the RMH Networks site.  He really set this up bare-boned with the template.  I have so many ideas for it.  There's a lot to learn, but it's interesting.

Kid time!  Anna and I have the habit of finding neat projects to do together online or at the library, but never get them done because they need set up that we don't have time for.  I want to plan ahead better, so on the day's we're together I have at least one cool activity for us ready to go.

Get out of debt.  Another one that's going better than expected.  We're doing the "Total Money Makeover".  Writing the budget was hard, but it's very exciting how fast it's already working.  Again, we just need to keep it up.  Working together is what's making all the difference here. 

See - that's the short version.  Aren't you glad I didn't make you read all the gory details?  I was (and am) a little afraid that I'm trying to make too many changes at once, but it's working so far, and I hate to argue with success.  Life had become a bit of a spiral of chaos for me.  Stress from bills, from dirt and clutter everywhere, not feeling like I had time to write or play with my kids with everything else that I was trying to carry.  No time to exercise, and no energy to try.  I'm an emotional eater, so I felt out of control of my eating too.  I felt pretty darn worthless.

I feel like I've taken my life and given it a good shake.  Shown it who's in charge here.  I'm a little tempted at this point to delete this post.  It's a little more than I meant to spill about myself, but I'm going to leave it.  Feels like the brave thing to do.

I just have to plug this thing for a moment. . .

I wish we'd discovered it years ago.  We have two cats with litter box issues.  Bob - who has a broken spine, so he can't really help his problem, but it still causes messes for us to deal with, and Sheeba - who has some misfiring brain wires or something.  She doesn't act like any other cat I've met, and she likes to pee all over the house.

We've arranged our lives around the problems of these cats.  Litter boxes everywhere that are cleaned out all the time.  We don't have a sofa or soft chairs anyplace because Bob would ruin them.  All bedroom doors stay shut at all times to prevent furry intruders doing their thing on our beds. 

We've seen cat behaviorists, we keep the laboratories in business with how often we send in urine samples, an acupuncturist (for Bob) etc.  But I don't believe an elimination issue should equal a death sentence, and so we have lived with it (and cleaned up after it) - for years.

Our other problem was that we don't live in a safe area for the cats to go outside.  We live in a townhouse with a parking lot out front, and another one behind it.  These cats have been indoor cats their whole lives, I don't think they'd stand a chance out there.  I know the neighborhood cats pretty well (better than I know our neighbors, my husband would say) and few of them stay around for long.  It just isn't a cat-friendly environment.

After we lost Magic, we also kinda lost the heart to keep dealing with these other two troublemakers.  I'm sad to admit it, but we loved Magic, and tolerated the others.  Well, I love Bob too - and my husband tolerates him for my sake.

So we made the decision to start letting them outside, and I was torn up about it.  I couldn't emotionally handle them anymore either, but was frightened for them.  So I began to research if there were any safe ways to teach older cats some street smarts, with the goal of making a safer transition to being outdoor cats.

I found the Cat Fence-In System.

I've worked with animals for about 13 years now, longer if you count my earlier SPCA volunteer time, and I'd never heard of such a thing.  It's great!!  It's a netting system that goes around the top of your fence, and keeps the cats from being able to climb out.  They stay safely in the yard.  They still have the elements to deal with (but for now we're only putting them out on nice days) but no cars, no dogs, no cat-hating people who mean them harm.  They get to sleep in the grass, chase bugs, and lay in the sun without dying.

It also keeps other cats out of the yard too - for anyone who has a problem with that.  We've had our system up for about a month now, and it really works. 

I have my house back.

Bob loves playing outside during the day.  Sheeba doesn't love it, but, like I said before, I'm sure she has mental problems.  No matter what she thinks, it's better than being locked in the bathroom the rest of her life, and that's her other option at this point.

I just had to share, because I would have loved to have known about this earlier.

 

Eh. So I'm a NaNoWriMo loser. I thought I'd be sad, but I'm not really.
I won't bore you with the details of the kind of month I had, but the fact that I made it this far is something I'm proud of. Except for maybe two days, I wrote something every day. An average of 814 words a day it seems. When I tried to write every day before I think I hit someplace around 200-300 a day. Maybe I'm not where I want to be, but I'm moving in the right direction.

I'm tired, but I'll probably snuggle in bed with my notebook anyway. May as well at least hit 25,000 before I turn in - even if that's a little after midnight. What does it matter at this point?

Good evening everyone - from a happy NaNo loser.

I'm far behind on my NaNo novel.

I've been behind almost the whole time, but now I'm far enough behind that I know I won't make 50,000.  I don't need encouragement - I'm not stopping, but I'm doing as much as I can, and it isn't enough.

After a short period of feeling like total crap about it, I'm okay with it now.  I've written over 21,000 words so far.  Maybe nothing exciting for the other novelists out there, or other NaNo-ers, but for me it's easily over 3 times as many words as I've ever written about anything.  Even more exciting is that I know I've got a lot more in me.  Probably 50,000 words worth - it just won't get there by the 30th.  That's fine.

I've been very sick this week.  I've been fighting a cold for over two weeks now.  Despite that, I was sleeping about 4 hours a night.  There are people who do this all the time, but I don't know how.  My body couldn't take it and stopped on me. 

I listened to the wake-up call, and I've backed off.

A funny thing - I was going to write that I'd lost my voice on Thanksgiving.  I still can't make much more than a whisper, and that's painful.  But partly due to Nano, I can't say that.  Because of writing, I may not be able to speak, but I haven't lost my voice.

I was going to set my new goal at 30,000 for November, but I think that's too easy.  So I'll push to 35,000.  That feels just slightly out of reach, so I think it's a good spot to aim for from this point on.  In the shower tonight I wrote about three great scenes in my head.  Now I'm off to put them onto paper.  I've read that the shower is a common place for writing inspiration.  What is it about the shower?  Maybe it's being alone without interruption for a small slice in a day.  That can be a rare treat.

Parents Magazine (yes THE Parents magazine) did a little blurb on Etsy, and included my Soft Fabric Animal book.
Excuse me for a moment while I do a happy dance.

*dances*

Yep - I'm kinda excited.
The other items are cool too. I actually just bought some toys from Stumppondtoy http://stumppondtoy.etsy.com for my kids.  His shop has been on my favorite list for awhile now.