Spend Now, Save Later

I was on holiday last week in sunny Florida.

It was lovely.

And relaxing.

And soaked in Bud Light Lime, rum, chocolate and hummus.

The drive to Florida was a long one so we decided to break up the trip by spending the night in downtown Atlanta, proving once and for all that sometimes, the neurons are not firing correctly.

I picked the Marriott Residence Inn because we could get a one bedroom suite at a reasonable price and I had a bunch of Marriott Reward cards that needed to be used. The biggest challenge for Dallas and I in our travels with my children is the whole hotel room situation.

My husband has a beautiful rear end. Magnificent, actually. But no matter how much I enjoy admiring his nether region while he wanders around in his boxers, there are two other pairs of eyes to think about. For step-dads, the rules are different and shared hotel rooms pose some unique challenges. Hence, the decision to stay at a Residence property, which tantalized with offers of two room privacy for the price of one.

Whatever. It sucked.

Parking at hotel: $21.00
Hotel room: $150.00
Dinner at cool downtown tappas restaurant: $150.00 (Gulp)
Bottle of chlorinated tap water: $4.50
Shitty, uncomfortable queen size bed: $100 future chiropractor visit
Shitty, uncomfortable pull-out couch which children shared: Whine, fight, whine, cry, whine, fight, threats of bodily harm from parental unit, angry, fight whispers and then blessed sleep. Not worth it. I promise.
Forgetting Wii Fit in hotel room (because we were afraid to leave it in the car because we were in downtown Atlanta, don't you know) where it promptly grew legs and vanished when housekeeping was called from the road several hours later: $100.00
Starbucks one block from hotel and open at 5:00am: Umm...priceless. It was the one good thing in a sea of bad.

Easy come, easy go, right?

On the way home, we elected to get two hotel rooms with an adjoining door. The kids' room had two double beds so when Olivia began kicking like a bull steer, Dylan slumbering in his own bed, was blissfully unaware. Dallas and I luxuriated in a king size bed so when he turned over to sprawl in the middle of the night, he didn't body slam me like a punk in a mosh pit. We spent about $200 total and they even threw in free, potable, surprisingly good coffee in the morning.

I consider our accommodations on the way home to be the bargain of the century.

Enough Already

Jesus.

Watching the news these days is like being treated to a bloody train wreck. I can barely stand it. Doom and gloom: Wall Street melt downs, scary unemployment figures and sour earnings reports.

Enough.

And then, in a league of its own, is the insurance giant, AIG. I cannot seem to get my head around how screwed up the whole situation is. How in the world can the captains of that ship discuss bonuses with a straight face? Fail miserably and get paid to do so? It's mind boggling. I heard the most recent defense which claimed that these monies had to be retained to keep the "talent".

Really.

I'd say, roll the dice baby. Where is the "talent" going to go? They are part of the problem and the unspoken threat is that they might leave the company if they didn't receive bonuses? What does one say to that?

Umm...thank you? I'd be helping them to pack up their offices.

Obviously, some of those employees knew that they'd just won the lottery because over 52 of them collected nearly $34 million and promptly left the company.

And then there is Bernie Madoff and his extended family. After financially ruining the lives of so many people and confessing to those sins in a packed courtroom, this guy has the unmitigated gall to ask that he be granted permission to live in his luxury penthouse until the day of his sentencing. Is it just me or is that unbelievably inappropriate?

His wife, sitting on sixty million worth of assets, continues to proclaim that the family was ignorant to the scheme.

Oh please.

She was the freaking bookkeeper for 50 years. Regardless of when she knew, every luxury that she enjoys today came at the expense of thousands of ordinary people. If she were a principled, decent human being, she'd be doing her part to return as much money as possible to those that have been fleeced.

I guess the thing that has me shaking my head is the overwhelming sense of entitlement that we are witnessing from the likes of General Motors, AIG, the Madoff clan and others who now find themselves in dire straits. Maybe to them, a million here, a billion there is merely chump change but they've forgotten who has funded them. It is regular taxpayers, struggling to make their mortgage payments, juggling credit card bills with newly higher interest rates, taking on a second job or looking for a new one after being laid off, clipping grocery coupons, skipping the family holiday or laying awake at night wondering when it will all get better who have given up a portion of their revenue to underwrite the mistakes and excesses of others.

We haven't forgotten, though. These are very hard lessons that several generations of people have been forced to learn. We are not likely to forget anytime soon.

A Chapter Ends For Now

This weekend was awful.

I know that sounds strange, particularly after I rhapsodized like a fool last Friday. Dallas and I had a watershed moment Saturday afternoon and then everything went downhill from there.

Before we were married, we discussed the fact that we were up to our eyeballs in dependants and that there were bound to be conflicts every now and then. Parenting one's own children can sometimes suck. Being a step-parent takes stress to the next level. We knew this and made the conscious decision that the relationship between husband and wife would supersede all others. As a unified front, we would face our children and gracefully usher them into adulthood.

We were ridiculously naive.

Last Saturday, Dallas began the task of cleaning teenage daughter's room and completing the rest of the few chores that we ask her to do twice a month. I had done them the previous two weekends in an effort to avoid an argument but found myself bubbling over with resentment and anger. We really do not ask much of our children and to be repeatedly disobeyed chapped my ass. Last weekend sensing that I was at the breaking point, Dallas went upstairs figuring that as long as the chores got done, it wouldn't matter who did them. In theory, that probably should have been correct but when I saw him making his way downstairs with an overflowing basket of her clothing that he intended to launder, I came unglued.

Why were the rules of the house bent for one person? Why was it okay for a single child to be so disrespectful to the process while the others were held accountable? Why in the world were we tiptoeing around the bad choices that were being made?

Emotional blackmail.

And that is the truth.

It's not like it's the first time that a father has been manipulated by his daughter. That's more common than male pattern baldness. What made our situation so challenging and tricky was that his ex encourages conflict, the reasons of which are many and varied and way too complicated to detail in this post. The end result is that my husband has, FOR YEARS, been trying to apologize for imaginary crimes and mend fences that were never broken with a daughter whose perceptions have been filtered through the distorted lens of an unbalanced mother. When displeased, teenage daughter has found that withholding communication and affection is an effective punishment for her father. Witnessing the pain that this causes my husband is nearly unbearable.

Teenage daughter is not a bad girl, though. She's not one of those wild kids that you watch walk out the front door and wonder if she'll come home sober and in one piece. She doesn't drink or do drugs and she seems oblivious to peer pressure. She is mild to the point of mousy.

So why the complaint?

I know, I know. This type of child can make you crazy because you spend an inordinate amount of time questioning your sanity. You ask yourself whether or not it really matters that she refuses to do her chores, or study, or stop texting during school hours. Is the world going to come to an end if she continues to take food into her bedroom, or repeatedly burn her brand new dresser with her flat iron? Is it that big a deal that she forgets to communicate her plans, or observe her curfew or sit for her learner's permit? And of course, the answer is no.

But when you take all of the events together, sprinkle in some attitude and add three other children who try pretty hard to follow the rules, you realize that being given the bird on a daily basis by one has the potential to bring the whole program down.

Saturday night, Dallas and I were out for dinner, subdued and still nursing the emotional wounds from the afternoon. As we discussed our situation, we concluded that we were finished with the ongoing battle. Teenage daughter was going to have to live by the rules of the house or we would be forced to take more drastic measures.

Dallas reached out to her and was met with a repugnant lack of respect that took my breath away. It was one of those exchanges that has you shaking your head and saying, "If I ever spoke to either of my parents that way.......". And it was the proverbial straw for Dallas.

Sunday morning, we packed her belongings, put them out on the drive and changed the locks on the doors. Teenage daughter now lives with her mother.

And while I feel that we have failed her in some respects, I also know that we, as parents, have a limit. Looking into the mirror and seeing an enabler staring back at you is a sick realization.

There's a reason that it's called "tough" love.

Friday, At Last.

It's Friday.

It's Friday and the weekend that my children are with their father.

It's Friday, the weekend my children are with their father AND it's warm enough to ride.

I am positively giddy.

Every time that I look out my office window, I get a little shiver of joy.


The past couple of weeks have been hugely busy. At work, deals have finally come together which is great, except the details are time consuming and never ending. I'm grateful, though. It's been a long sixteen months putting together one of my projects and I plan to celebrate like a pirate.

This week also found my husband in the office of his division VP who told him that he has been identified as rising talent and would he consider moving to fast track his career? Neither one of us saw that one coming. More on that later.

For the past twenty some odd days, I have been spending every spare minute trying to find a place for us to holiday. The last two years, we have been fortunate enough to use timeshare points through my sista cousin and her husband. This year, in the middle of an economic downturn, everything was booked solid. Weird. So, Ash and I started to panic a bit. Finding a place became paramount.

We looked at the Gulf Shores because the beaches are fantastic, the prices reasonable and the drive wouldn't be too taxing. The only problem was the weather. Iffy, at best. The last thing in the world that I wanted to experience on spring break was goosebumps. So, we scrapped the Gulf Shores and turned our attentions to the central Florida Gulf Coast instead.

I'm sure that with a little planning, this would have been a good option but at the last minute, most everything was booked and those properties that weren't had issues. Like price. One agent told me she had a great deal on a three bedroom, two bath place. It was just shy of $3000, plus cleaning fee, plus booking fee, plus extra to heat the pool and jacuzzi, plus security, PLUS tax. When it was all said and done, we were knocking on $5000. Eight people in a shoebox-sized condo looked less like a holiday and a whole lot like work. So we declined.

This past Tuesday, I was becoming seriously worried. My Aunt Bev sent over a website but I didn't hold out much hope because I'd been to just about every URL that had beach in the title with no luck whatsoever.

And then it appeared.

A large, four bedroom villa near the beach.

Two master bedrooms, huge heated pool, great location and every amenity one could imagine. It was available. And inexpensive. I called the UK to get it booked. Did I mention how reasonable the prices were? Dallas asked if there was some catch.

"Are you sure the prices are in US dollars and not British pounds?" he asked. I understood his trepidation. Too good to be true syndrome.

But it wasn't and two weeks from today, we'll be heading down to Florida with my sista cousin and her family.

It's Friday, and the weekend that my children are with their father and it's warm enough to ride, and my deal came together and we got our vacation booked. Life is good.

If I close my eyes, I can already smell the salt in the air.

The Tooth Fairy Cometh

Olivia arrived home from school yesterday with a huge smile on her face. It didn't immediately hit me until she took her index finger and pointed at her mouth.

Apparently, one of her front teeth had finally given up the battle with her thumb and fallen out. We'd been on a tooth watch since last spring when both front teeth were noticeably loose and Liv spent hours wiggling them back and forth with her tongue. After cutting a swath of her hair and making an eyebrow disappear six weeks before the wedding, I had warned Olivia to leave her mouth alone until the wedding photos had been snapped. It was bad enough that we live in what some might consider "redneck country" without my daughter doing the Deliverance remix for the wedding. See below.



I can hear the banjos. Seriously.

The tooth fairy came last night and Liv was very pleased this morning. It's comforting to know that my daughter still thinks a single dollar bill has value. I realize that those days are numbered so I basked in the sweetness of it all and shot warning looks at my son who was just bursting at the seams to educate her on the realities of life.

While Dallas and I were finishing up in the bathroom, we heard a knock on our door. Olivia had more news to share. She'd extracted her other tooth.
"That means another dollar, right?"
Hmm...I'm not sure whether to be disturbed or proud of her entrepreneurial spirit.

Strangely, I much prefer this look over last night's. And her new lisp is absolutely adorable.