Jasmine is having a rough time of it finding herself. she is in California but out of her element. she wants to go to Montana but when she is there, she is unhappy and self medicates with way too much alcohol, so we are working with her for a good old fashion intervention. we acquired her a good little truck that needed some repairs, we made those repairs, but now she is overwhelmed with the idea of a car note for 3 years and 13% interest. she needs to get a better job and she is reluctant to change. ;-) she has to go down to marine corps legal tomorrow and file for divorce, Christopher comes back to the states the end of this month. she has custody of her pit bull dog and so that makes finding roommates and a house in southern California difficult. She is making $8.50 / hour and 40 hours a week as a cashier at the USMC Pendleton PX. (shaking my head)
Krystal is completely bugging about Jason coming home next month. she has plane tickets to fly to Seattle to help another wife in Jason's unit get the new born baby home to san clemente on the 3rd of august. she will be leaving minime with the grandma's in taxes for 2 weeks while she runs down the west coast visiting her 'other' sister in portland, and getting home to deal with her primary sister in California. she wants a week honeymoon with Jason before I drive the grandbaby out to see everyone. she has really been good about mother henning the wives in Jason's platoon... Sienna and Julie and Naomi and Desiree as well as Sammy from a different unit. so add in jasmine and she has her tribe established. :-) she is making $11.50 / hr as a security guard at the local college.
Naomi is wanting me to come up, we had planned for her to come down in our household, but that didnt materialize so I am following through with natural consequences and Naomi doesnt get a visit. it is not naomi's fault and naomi is the one that will suffer, but they said in march that they wanted her to come down and then they didnt bring her down so that is the deal. I can not drop everything for everyone else all the time. sometimes I have to put others first. this summer it is krys and jordan, erik and magnus. she will be back in high school for year 12 this fall, she goes until she is 21.
Erik is busting out all the stops on his scouting requirements. we are in a 4 day outdoor program with the nature center this week learning about trees and forest plants, wildlife and birds, water ecology & recycling. last month we had an intensive 4 days at scout camp and covered engineering, readyman (first aid), scientist, naturalist, and sportsman (football) as well as BB's and Archery. this was in addition to his completing swim team (in the pool 6 days a week) and running a triathlon (swim:100M, Bike:5K, Run:1K), he completed another one this month which makes his 5th Triathlon in 13 months. He went with me to Kansas along with Jordan, Magnus and Jasmine on a 7 day camping trip in May, that rocked the house. He went with me, Jordan, Magnus, and Krys to the Children's Museum and learned about science, banking and civics, math, motion, water, and energy last Sunday. Currently he is working on figuring out SimCity with a lot more challenges of industry, retail, budgets, and residential. I dread sending him back to school, they do not reason well with him, whereas I can give him a consequence and redirect him before he has a thermal nuclear meltdown, they do not seem either aware of the situation until it is too late or do not know what to do once it has escalated. he will be in the 4th grade this fall.
Magnus is such a complicated child. he is very gloomy but affectionate. It takes him 45 minutes to transition from my lap to a group setting of strangers. he is getting better at church, but overall he is just so socially phobic, I wonder what in the world happened that I would have this particular child. His dad is anti-social and his aunt on his dad's side is clinically socially phobic, but this just blows me away and is a challenge to even identify with. It will be a huge challenge tomorrow since I have to work in the morning and can not sit and nurture him while he get's comfortable. I really do not want to send either boy to school this fall, it is SUCH A Drain dealing with Magnus's social phobias. He gets physically ill by 10:30 am and had a migraine every day at school. he has quit cub scouts, has taken 4 sets of swimming lessons and can at least get around safely. Still gets nervous in the pool and nearly throws up in anything over 6 feet of water. He will be 3rd grade and will be in Chess club in the fall. oh. so the truck, we take it in for a brake job and a transmission rebuilt. the bill is $3200.00 and I take the boys to the grocery store after wards. they head down the toy isle, hoping to score a $5 bokagon. I said we came for milk and only milk. that I just paid this and showed them the receipt for the truck. and Magnus immediately says "toys are a want, milk is a need" and immediately headed for the dairy case, Erik came along, but not nearly as industriously. granted, Magnus LIVES off of diary. he is a little baby cow when it comes to milk 3 times a day, yogurt once or twice a day, and cheese once or twice a day. his priorities are: Dairy, cold pizza, bananas, Ninetendo DS, Razor scooter, and sleep.
Jordan is growing into an AMAZING little boy. his language skills are very much improved. I am trying to get his mom to do better on the baby talk, it is not that she uses baby talk, it is that she insists on using nicknames that are so stupid. jaja for jasmine, mimi for grandma, ama for grandma, it is like, enough already. ;) he has a blast hanging out with his uncles and thinks that the world rises and sets on them. Erik tends to be too rough and Magnus jealous and so is antisocial with him. he is very rough with Magnus, constantly making Magnus cry when he body slams him. it is a mess. I am nudging his mom to take him to home depot and Lowe's for the craft stuff on Saturdays, we had fun at Micheal's last weekend doing that as well. he needs lots of activities to keep him busy and engaged. he did a really really nice painting on Saturday. black and blue and white fishes.
As for me, myself and I, well my tummy and my body are going completely insane. last night i tried a new vegetable as part of the nutritional study that Erik is enrolled in at Baylor University. we had baby cucumbers with yogurt. BAD CHOICE. I nearly had my whole hand down the back of my throat trying to get all the foamies out of my tummy before I lost my mind. It took almost 2 hours of vomiting to clean out my pouch. but that is not the worst of it. I have gained 20 lbs in less than a year, part of it is from stress eating, part of it is from carb eating and part of it is from dehydration. Some of the choices that were not abundantly obvious was getting a slushy from sonic, who would have thought something that is primarily based on ICE WATER would have 650 calories. CRAP. so I am back to Coffee and protein in the mornings (today it was cheese sticks) and occasionally lunch, but not as often and healthy, and then for dinner, whatever is put on the table, but generally that is carb-based. last night was rice and Sunday was pizza, Thursday will be spaghetti. I am too lazy to fix something else. although the last two days I have been nibbling on a t-bone steak, so it is getting better. I am eating my weight in mints to keep my stomach calm and it is working. Erik has been experimenting with frozen fruit smoothies and yesterday he added some sugar to one and sent my blood sugar through the roof, that was not pleasant. the hypoglycemia is much worse and I am sure that it is all the carb's fault. I am not a hungry all day and then I am STARVING at night, it is as if the last 3 years never occurred. I have learned but I have retained very letting common sense. notice even in this list, I am dead last. a priority scheme that is no healthy but predominate in being a SUPER MOM.
I have secured Jasmine a truck, I plan to drive it out to California next month, taking one grand baby and one son, should be interesting. the other grandmother is not comfortable with me traveling alone that far, but my daughter who knows me laughed because traveling with kids is like breathing for me and she knows it. I feel guilty that I am not taking Erik, but he 'said' he didn't want to go, and I know that he will change his mind when I am in the driveway. such a mess. I am on facebook a lot now, not as interested in my photography as I should be to make any money. I did spend a week de-cluttering my storage in my office. I have yet to tackle the garage that is a SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARD, but it is all the recycling fault. heehee. sounds convincing but i am lying. giggle. I do have boxes of clear glass and boxes of #3-7 plastics, but the bulk of it is props for my business. I can't have a garage sale, I need the stuff too much. ;-)
Sverre.. sverre is complicated. he at HP in the cubicals, but at least he has a job with money coming in. I really need krys at work with me since it is a complicated (male nude) session tomorrow. she has to take the boys to the park, and sverre sit at home with me. augh.
