All day today it has felt like I’ve been juggling balls and every now and then another one was added just to keep me on my toes. Donny was off so I let him sleep in while I fed the cats, let the chickens out of the coop, rolled the trash cans out and made sure Jackson made it to school an hour early to start finals.
Donny ran Hannah to work at noon while I got ready so we could go run errands. I had to go to Sally’s, then the Asian Market to pick up some sauces for dinner, then to Aldi to shop for the rest of the items we needed for Christmas dinner.
When I got home I needed to bake the cheese Krispie crackers I had made the dough for last night and that took a whole lot longer than expected. I still needed to color my hair, so I left the last tray in and let Donny get it out while I started on my roots.
Since I still needed to prep dinner, (the Asian chicken wasn’t going to happen tonight) I changed gears and chopped up leftover chicken, made some quesadillas and threw together a Caesar salad. Donny went to pick up Hannah while I quickly blow dried my hair. I made Hannah’s coffee, sweet tea and cleaned the extremely messy kitchen. In between that I also got the food outside for the skunks, raccoons and possum. I am just now sitting down.
As parents we learn to multi task and go with the flow when plans change. I was chatting with a life long friend today about this very subject. We know 2 woman, who are married, but chose not to have children, which is completely fine. However, both of these woman do not handle change well. They are both very rigid with their schedules. If you ask them, spur of the moment, to do something they just can’t. One of them cannot even have an impromptu call. She has to schedule them. She is semi retired, yet if I call her, she won’t answer but will text me back with a time she will call me back.
So even though today made me a bit harried and a little overwhelmed, I’m very glad that I AM able to roll with the punches and not take things so seriously.
And because there is no photo evidence of my day here is exactly where I am right now getting ready to watch the Survivor finale.
This morning while I was waiting for the coffee to brew I was playing around on Google Earth. I decided to look up our house that we sold in Baton Rouge. I shouldn’t have. We worked so hard on that house after it flooded. We had the yard looking so good. I worked my butt off on it putting in new beds and getting the grass up and going again. To see it not being taken care of breaks my heart. Here is what I saw.
I loved this house so much. I can’t see the inside, but I hope that it’s more taken care of than the outside. I pulled up our photos from right before we moved and it made me even sadder.
I really miss Baton Rouge.
On a happier note. Look what Donny and I saw on the trail this morning.
The morning of July 22nd I went outside, like I always do, to make sure the cats had food and water. I saw a cat laying on its back in our yard. When I got closer I saw that the cat wasn’t alive and then right there and then I knew that it was Bailey. I started sobbing and ran in and got Donny. I asked him, “is it Baliley?” and he told me, “I’m afraid so”.
She didn’t have any marks on her that we saw. She looked like she was just sleeping on her back, something that she never does, but Tommy our other tabby does quite often. Donny had to get ready to leave for work so he put her in a trash bag and placed her in our garbage can so he could bury her when he got home. I couldn’t stand the thought of my precious baby girl in the trash can, so I got the pick ax and shovel out of the shed went to the tree line where she loved to hang out and started rage/grief digging. I wrapped her in a blanket and covered her up with dirt.
Bailey was not your typical cat. I was her person. She would meow at me when it was time to go to bed, follow me into the bathroom while i washed my face and then would run into our bedroom, jump on the bed and wait for me. She was not a gentle cuddler. She would throw her body right up against mine and lay her head on my pillow. Most days I woke up with her wrapped around my head. She loved to watch TV with me and had to be right up where I was. I swear she was the most human like cat I have ever seen.
The first time I saw her was at the Harley dealership where Donny worked. I was in the car and the band that had been playing at bike night was packing up. I saw a little cat meowing at them to get there attention. I told Donny that we needed to get her, but he said that she must live around there. About a week later our friend Tara who works with Donny got in touch with me to see if we would take this cat she found living in the bushes at work. Tara does animal rescue on the side and told me she would get her spade and all of her shots if we would take her. Donny finally agreed and on August 19th 2019 Bailey became a member of our household.
I will forever miss her superman arms when she wanted to be held and carried around and just how much confidence and spunk was wrapped up in such a small body. I don’t know if I will ever have another cat such as her.
My sister is 14 years older than I am. I have no other siblings, it’s just the two of us. When I was 3 years old she started dating this guy that was quite a bit older than she was. She was a senior in high school at the time. I’m not exactly sure how my parents felt about it because I was too young to be included in these conversations, but I know that they probably weren’t too happy. The only things I remember about him was that he drove a big car and, in my 3 year old mind, he wasn’t bad looking. His name was Fred.
Here is a picture of my sister and me. I was the mascot for her high school drill team.
My sister broke up with Fred. From what I have gathered is was an ugly breakup. She left for Kilgore College when I was 4. We were living in Corpus so it was, at that time, about an 8 to 9 hour drive. He followed her up to college and my parents had to get the college security involved. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it was about to get worse for us in Corpus Christi.
We started receiving obscene phone calls at all hours of the night. We didn’t know who or why they were calling, but my parents finally found out that someone had written our phone number on just about every sleazy bar bathroom wall there was. My parents fully believed that it was Fred who had done it since we had had so many problems from him.
Then one day my mom got a phone call from a women she didn’t know. She told my mother that she had gone to San Antonio with Fred and while they were there he had told the woman that he blamed my mother for him and my sister breaking up. He told her the only way he knew to ruin her life was to kidnap her youngest daughter, which was me. The woman was freaked out about it because, as she told my mother, he was serious and she thought he was crazy. My mother got in touch with the police, but because she didn’t have this woman’s phone number, this was way before caller ID, they couldn’t do anything. They did come out and show her how to shoot a gun and told her that if he was climbing into our window to shoot him and drag the body inside.
By this time I was 5 years old. Everything was going smoothly. We would still get phone calls, but we had someone go into every bar restroom in Corpus and if they saw anything about us they made sure it was taken care of.
Fast forward several years. It was a Sunday morning and my parents and I were getting ready for church. The phone rings and I answered it. There is a man on the other end and he asks, “Stacy, how old are you now?”. I asked, “What?’ and he repeated what he had asked me. I told him “I’m 11.” and he hung up. I went into my parents bedroom because for some reason the call really made me anxious. My dad just looked at my mom and said something like, never tell anyone how old you are on the phone. Now mind you, I had absolutely NO idea that he had threatened to kidnap me. I still ran around outside with my friends and came in when the street light came on or my Aunt Norma rang the big bell. It was life as usual.
A couple of years go by. We live out in the country. My dad was Principal of the school that we lived right next door to. Our house was kind of tucked away behind the school. My grandfather, on my mother’s side, lived with us 6 months out of the year and with my aunt in Mandeville, LA the other 6 months. That arrangement had been going on for years. One day our phone rings and the man on the other end of the line asks me, “Stacy, where is your grandfather?”. We had recently taken him back to Louisiana for his 6 months with my aunt. Luckily my dad was standing right there when the phone rang and he took the receiver from me and told Fred not to call us ever again. I still didn’t know the extent of the situation.
Now we have moved into the city of Corpus. I was getting ready to graduate high school. My cousins, who lived in this tiny town in Texas near San Antonio, came down to go to the graduation. We were all sitting around the kitchen table talking when my cousin told my mother that they had the weirdest thing happen to them recently. This guy walks up to their home, they lived on a dairy farm far from anything and down a dirt road, because he had car trouble and asked to use their phone. I need to mention that they are the ONLY people in Texas that have our last name that we are related to. It is also a very unusual last name. He asked what their names were. When they told him, he asked if they had relatives in Corpus. They told him that they did and confirmed that it was our family. The very next question out of his mouth was, what is Stacy doing now. They didn’t know not to tell him, so they told him I was graduating from high school and told him where I was going to college. My mother’s face turned white and she asked my cousin, “What was his name?’. My cousin couldn’t remember so she called out to her husband in the next room and he said, “Oh, it was Fred, Fred Lerma”. My parents told them what had been happening for years and they felt so bad for telling him anything about me. They said he just seemed so nice and what a coincidence it was that he happened to have “car trouble” right by their house. They told my parents that all he really wanted to talk about was my family and mainly me.
This is when my parents had to tell me what was going on because now that he knew where I was going to be going to school and the fact that it was several hours away meant I had to be very aware of my surroundings. It really did freak me out now that I had all of the pieces to the puzzle. My parents had told me when I was younger that if I ever saw Fred near our home or anywhere that I should immediately tell them and not to speak to him but to just get away from where he was. I did think that was a little weird at the time. One day I was playing outside and a car that looked just like his pulled around to our house. I jumped up and ran inside to tell my mother but it turned out to just be a friend of my sister’s coming to visit. Even though I was very young I still remember the fear when I saw that car.
I have no answers to why he did this. My sister doesn’t like talking about it and my parents are both deceased. I never heard anything about him after my graduation, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t still keeping tabs on me. I couldn’t figure out why there was a big gap from when it first started until the phone calls started, but when I googled him I found out that he had enlisted in the army.
Here is his death information and the picture of him that I found on his social media.
Today is the first day that I’ve actually felt like myself. This last week I’ve felt awful. My hand is still hurting and I still have numb ultra sensitive fingers on that hand, but I felt pretty good today. Hannah had a class that she had to go to from 9:30-3:30 so that gave me a chance to go in and clean her room. Really deep clean it. She gets overwhelmed when it gets bad and I honestly don’t mind doing it.
Since I haven’t really been able to use my arm until today, I had this mountain of laundry to tackle. I’m almost finished with it, thank goodness.
Yep, I just piled it all up in the living room so that way I’d HAVE to do it.
What made this day surreal is it was day of the funeral for my ex husband. A lot of people don’t know this, but I was married twice before I met Donny. This was only a 6 year marriage, we had no kids together and I haven’t seen or spoken to him in 20 years, but I still feel very bad for his family. He passed away in a motorcycle accident. A lot of people might find this strange, but I am good friends with ex wife #2 and #4. (I was #3) They are such wonderful women and I’m so thankful I have them in my life.
While I was waiting for Hannah to get out of class I was to scrolling on Facebook and just happened to see a post that shook me. A woman I worked with in Baton Rouge, that was a one of the best people I have ever met, was killed in a motorcycle crash on Memorial Day weekend. She and her husband were so in love, she had such wonderful kids, her son was engaged, everyone loved her and she is now gone. It’s so hard for me to wrap my head around. I can’t even imagine the pain her husband is going through. I will miss her and have such fond memories of the time i lived in Baton Rouge. She was one of the very, very good ones.
For some reason today I was just feeling annoyed. It was raining AGAIN and I needed to get all of the laundry done. When I was putting my clothes away I just decided that there were just too many. I had already gone through my closet when I swapped winter for summer, but there were just so many things I either wasn’t comfortable in or I just didn’t really like anymore. It’s not finished yet because I now want to go through all of my things and do a big purge, but it’s a start.
I miss having my own closet or even sharing a bigger closet, but it is what it is and we try to make it work. This is what is left, which still seems like too much to me. I find myself wearing the same few things so when the weather starts getting cooler I’m sure I’ll get rid of more. Shoes and purses are next.
Donny is off tomorrow and it’s suppose to rain. My poor hens think that this tree blocks the rain. Even when we trim it all down then still flock under it.
I did make a pretty good dinner tonight though.
Ribs, brussel sprouts and mashed potatoes.
Now I need to go clean up my mess in the kitchen.
I need sunshine badly right now! This rainy weather is getting ridiculous.
The day started off not too bad. Donny was off and got some errands run while I was still waking up. Later in the afternoon I had checked my weather app and noticed that it was getting ready to rain. I was out of my cayenne supplement and we needed to run to the grocery to pick up some stuff for dinner so I put on my trusty Sloggers and off we went.
I’m sure I looked pretty weird in shorts and rain boots, but as soon as we got into Drug Emporium the sky opened up. It was raining so hard you couldn’t even see the cars in the parking lot. We decided to just walk around and wait out the storm. Donny found the deal of the day and would have bought a lot more if I hadn’t stopped him at 6.
They were only 49 cents, but storage is an issue here.
I also picked up my Zum soap. It’s cheaper than ordering it off their website, plus shipping is really high.
I absolutely love this soap. The scent just puts me in a good mood.
The rain had let up as we finished our shopping, but on the way home it started storming again. And it kept storming. We had a small pond in our yard.
I am really hoping the rain holds off tomorrow because I was wanting to go walk around downtown Gladewater. So far, this has been a very wet month.
This morning we woke up to severe weather warnings. It had already it Dallas and there were 625,000 people without power. Donny had to go to work and I had to take down anything hanging outside. The sky started getting really dark.
I kept watching the news to see when it was supposed to hit here.
When the tornado sirens started going off I made sure the kids were up and dressed, just in case. Luckily the worse part went south of us. Our house didn’t lose power, but homes and businesses on the loop and east of us did lose power for a few hours.
My poor 3 legged 12 year old cat is so afraid of storms. The night we had to spend the night on our roof during the flood, he fell off the roof and had to be rescued. Ever since then he needs to be held during a storm.
He is the sweetest kindest cat.
Speaking of sweet cats, Milo is getting more and more comfortable in the house. He’s still like a dog, scratching to come in and out though. Last night he got on the bed where Bailey was. She is not a friendly cat at all, but they seemed to do okay. Progress.
See why we need that little quilt on our bed?
With the day starting off so dark and scary, it sure did turn into a beautiful one.
And my daughter, who lives in Dallas, just texted me that they got their power back on. I pray everyone that still doesn’t have their electricity gets it back on soon.
It’s funny how you never realize when something is the last time you’ll be doing it. Your children asking for a bedtime story, the Halloween where they aren’t trick or treating anymore, that Christmas when they don’t believe in Santa anymore, it slips by so fast that you don’t even notice. Today was the last day I would be taking and picking up Hannah from her high school. I felt it and it was a bittersweet emotion.
If you know our story at all, 9th grade, for her, was awful, terrible and a no good year. There were times during that year that we didn’t know if she was going to make it. She missed 40+ days of school. She had massive panic attacks that sunk her into a deep depression. There was a lot. It’s her story to tell, but we were lost, afraid and prayed a lot. There was also a lot of therapy and medication, which she no longer needs to take. Today was special. It is the beginning of a new chapter and the closing of another.
I’d like to say thank you to Pine Tree I.S.D. Thank you for failing my child. Thank you for not stepping up when I was begging you for help. Thank you for teachers that accused my daughter of lying about having a fake phone and making her feel already worse about herself than she already did. Thank you for letting the kids say mean, cruel things to her and make fun of her. Because of this, no matter how pretty she looks, the cruel things said to her will always be louder, in her mind, than the compliments she now receives. And I’m thanking you because if it wasn’t for your failings we would never have found her safe haven.
East Texas Charter School, you will never know how grateful we have been these last few years for you accepting Hannah into the fold. Thank you for being the nurturing place where she has come into herself. Because of the teachers who actually care about their students she has far surpassed what we had envisioned for her. She now WANTS to go to college where before she couldn’t even think of going to school the next day. You have given her confidence which to us is priceless. ETCS, you will always hold such a special place in our hearts.
And any parent reading this who has a child going through a situation like we went through, don’t give up. Keep fighting for your child. We went to the Texas Teacher’s Association and had lawyers looking into our case. Be a thorn in the schools side, if you want them to stay in that school. If you don’t, check out charter schools. They are small and the teachers are actually able to teach the kids in a much better setting.
Another last today was the call I got because Hannah got dress coded. That will be the last time that I have to run clothes up to her. I told her principal that an award needs to be handed out to her for being dress coded the most times while at ETCS. That one, I don’t think I’ll miss. Let the new chapter begin. We’re ready for it.
Lately I have become disenchanted with my kitchen. I don’t know if it’s the fact that it’s small or that we only have an eat in kitchen. Maybe it’s the lack of storage. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but when I get like this I look back on when we didn’t even have a working kitchen.
When most of Baton Rouge flooded in August of 2016, we lost about 95% of our belongings. We took in 4 ft of water, so basically our whole house had to be gutted. Did you know that refrigerators float and then fall?
I can’t even begin to describe the smell. We called it the flood stink.
We wanted to get back into our house as soon as possible, so we moved in before everything was finished. The kids were on the driveway washing all of the kitchen things that could be saved.
My neighbor, Cindy and her husband moved back in about the same time we did and there was one other family that did also. At night it was like a scene from The Walking Dead because no one was there and it was extremely quiet.
Our kitchen, even when we moved in, wasn’t fully functional. This is how I washed dishes. I would heat the water up in a pan on the electric skillet.
We had a little coffee bar.
I cooked everything in the electric skillet.
I told myself I would never forget how hard that time was, but time fades those memories. I told myself that I would always be grateful for what we have, but here I am feeling unmotivated and disheartened. That’s why I keep these pictures so I can look back and remember. And although it was a difficult time it really made me realize that stuff is just stuff. It’s motivated me to want to go through my kitchen and purge everything we aren’t using. Hopefully I can get started on that in a few days. I just need to lighten the load.
And I will always be so grateful for the Cajun Navy who rescued us off our roof after a sleepless night.
And also for my neighbor Cindy who could always make me laugh no matter what.
The Funky Frugalista 