Ugghhh

Back to work tomorrow. It was nice having a couple of days off from school. I still did my other job, but only working one is better than two.

Easter dinner was a success. The crown roast was delicious and moist. The roasted vegetables were my favorite...and I even tricked Afro into trying them. The banana cream pie was just so-so. I'll have to look for another recipe.

I've made my decision

I'm going with the crown roast. I found a recipe in a Martha Stewart magazine. With it, I'm going to serve roasted root vegetables (fingerling potatoes, parsnips and turnips). I'm not sure what vegetable yet...something green.
Banana cream pie and strawberry shortcake for dessert.
If anyone doesn't like it, they can go hungry.

Suggestions, please?

Life around here has returned to semi-normal....not that normal is so great.

I'm trying to decide what to make for Easter dinner. We always do a ham, but we just had ham and since I'm not really in the mood to do Easter at all, I thought if I mixed it up a bit, I'd get into it a little more. I have to cook for 12, so it has to be something not too expensive. At first I thought a beef tenderloin...but that would cost me a third of my weekly grocery budget! Now I'm thinking maybe a pork crown roast. Any thoughts or suggestions?

My dad

To get ready for my dad's services, we all went through our old pictures. Here are some of my favorites. The first one is he and I this past Christmas. The middle one is him with Afro about three years ago. The last one is him in his 30's on a fishing trip. It's funny, looking back now, I see how he aged. But, if you would have asked me two weeks ago, I would have said he only aged in the last six months.

My father passed away this morning.
He was having difficulty breathing...but nothing terrible bad.
He told my mom, "I don't think I can do this much longer" and died within a half an hour.
I'll always miss him, but glad his revolving hospital door experience is over for him.

sleep. hospital. weather. real estate. I've got it all!

What a week!
I'm so tired. It seems I can never get enough sleep. I even fell asleep during 30Rock last night.

My dad is in the hospital...again. He's been in at least six times since Thanksgiving. This time he has an infection in his lungs. Last time it was in his arm, where they have the port for dialysis. Apparently it moved to his lungs. They expect him to be okay, but he has to stay in there on IV antibiotics until it's completely gone. I feel so badly for him...he hates all this attention. He hates that we take time out of our schedules to go visit him. But, on the good side, he loves the food at this particular hospital. Brags about it all the time.

Let's see, do I have anything else to report? Not really. It's starting to warm up a bit here. It's in the 60's today. It was two weekends ago too...but then dropped back down to the 30's. I'm anxious to get the yard cleaned up and looking nice.

I'm also trying to talk Keith into putting the house up for sale. He wants to "hold on for one more year". I'm sick of holding on. I want to live again. Although, I don't want to do all the painting/fixing up we'd have to do to have our house on the market. I've watched too many episodes of Designed to Sell to not do some things. Things that are perfectly fine for us to live with, but not for perspective buyers.

Isn't it ironic?

Sometimes the way businesses run just amaze me.
As I said, I sent out a bunch of letters regarding our mortgage. One of senators had me fill out a form saying they could contact Chase (the devil) on our behalf. We did that. They called the devil and sent them a letter, enclosing a copy of the letter I wrote.
I got a phone call yesterday from our contact at Chase. He said that they still couldn't do a loan modification for us, but they could do something. They said that if we pay only $x for the next three months ($400 short), at the end of the three month period they would reconsider and possibly we would qualify for the modification. I replied:
What about the balance for each of those months? (he said it would go into a suspended account)
Will Chase report the short payments to the credit bureau? (he said they're obligated to by law)
Will it negatively affect my credit rating? (he said of course)
Even though I'm paying the amount you're telling me to pay? (yes)
Can you assure me we'll get the modification? (no)
To sum it up, I said, you're giving me permission to short pay my mortgage, but you'll report the short payments, negatively affect our credit rating, and then MAYBE we'll get a lowered mortgage payment so we don't lose our house and ruin our credit? (yes)
I said, your bank has received over $25million in bail out money, yet you won't work with me unless I ruin my credit rating first? Even though the only thing I did wrong was get my mortgage through a crook who has been found guilty and is sitting in jail? He said, we have to make sure you're serious about this, not just looking for a lower payment.
I told him no thanks.

"Give me three steps..."

Last night, I got a phone call from my brother. He and his wife, my sister and a couple of her friends were at the legion. Come join them for a beer.
So, I ran up there and my cousin Kirk was there. He's my cousin third removed, or something like that. More like an uncle....a lot older than I am. Growing up, he and his wife lived right next door to my family.
Anyway....he was two sheets to the wind and telling stories about when we were younger. He was thrilled to see Afro, Susan and Me in the same place. So, he proceeds to tell this story of how he came home from work one day with a huge bag of peanuts and threw them all over the yard so us three would keep his very young son busy outside. "Ha ha," we laughed, now having kids of our own and knowing the feeling. He goes on to say that he was so horny, he wanted to "give it to" his wife. They couldn't even make it up the stairs, he said, he, and I quote, "nailed her on the third step."
How is that for a nice family visual.

"I am barely breathing...."

I'm still alive, but very, very busy. I haven't had time to post.
However, at the risk of completely jinxing it, I may have Saturday and Sunday completely to myself. Stay tuned for the update.

Once bitten, twice shy baby

My book group picked "Twilight" for this month's selection. I was a bit disappointed. I didn't want to read the teen vampire book.
I borrowed a copy and started it yesterday. I finished it yesterday. It was addicting. I want to meet an Edward. He's smart, funny, handsome and he can't have sex!

Today is my anniversary

Big fuckin whoop!

"So take a letter Maria, address it to my wife"

Ala Emma, I wrote a letter about our predicament and sent it to all our local government officials, the President, The CEO and all board members of JPMorgan Chase. I'll see where that goes.
If I get no response, I'm going to do a press release, like Bert suggested. Not only did he suggest it, he wrote one up for me. I have to change a couple of details, but I like it.
Hopefully this will get us somewhere!

There was a farmer had a dog....

To copy from Emma, I had a GNO last night....sorta.
I went with my sister to the local legion for bar bingo. Yes, that's right. I played B I N G O with my sister, her roommate and about ten other crazies. There's the old woman that plays with her false teeth and holds her ears if anyone yells, there's the funny guy that yells, "That's bullshit" if anyone but him yells, BINGO!, and there was the bingo caller who looks like a member of the Grateful Dead. A dead member.
It was a lot of fun though. I won three separate games...including the coverall. I paid for my games, bought the bar a round (I've always wanted to do that) and still came home with an extra $25.00.
I had a blast. Oh, and I was home by 10:15 to read and watch HGTV.

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin

I have Brighton this weekend. He's still as spoiled, and adorable, as the last time I had him. I haven't showered or made a bed since he got here!
Not that I'm complaining...there's plenty of time for all that other stuff...
He'll be a year old next month. Where did the time go?

"This is how we do it baby"

Back to the never ending saga of our mortgage situation.
Chase has offered loan modifications to customers who are having difficutly paying their mortgages. Not just the ones involved in the Wesley Snyder debacle, but those in trouble because of the economy/ARM's, etc. We filled out oodles of paperwork. Sent it in. About eight weeks later, they requested more paperwork, we sent that in. We waited.
And we waited.
Then, we waited some more.
Last week, "our guy" from Chase called. Unfortunately they wouldn't be able to offer us any type of loan modification. Keith took the call, and of course didn't ask any questions. I called the guy back and here's what he told me. We don't qualify for the loan modification because....get this....we DON'T make enough money. Huh? He said that they don't think we can make the payment even if they lower the amount. I told him that we've been making the higher payment for the last six months and he said, "but you won't be able to keep doing it." "So," I asked, "Instead of giving us the opportunity to make a lower payment, and keep our house, you're just going to write us off?" There was nothing he could do, he said. I said, how did we qualify for this loan in the first place, and he replied that Chase didn't approve the loan, it was originally with Suntrust. I asked him if when Chase aquired the loan from then, didn't they have to meet any type of criteria, and he said yes. So, apparently at one time, you thought we could make the payments and now you don't? Our income hasn't gone down, it's gone up. I work two jobs now. He said he apologized, but they couldn't do anything.
Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? I'm flabbergasted. I keep waiting for Howie Mandell to pop out and say, "That's howie do it!"

fractions

The other day, I was having a discussion with a girl in my class. She's a senior with far too many absences. I had to tell her that she couldn't have one more illegal absence or they would not let her graduate. She didn't think she'd missed that many days. So I laid it out for her. We've been in school for 93 days so far this year and she's missed 33. I told her "That's a third of the time. You've missed one third of the school days of this year." She replied, "But I've been here the other third."

"You light up my life...."

Something happened to my computer, and I had to do a system restore. Why did I keep ignoring the Norton suggestions to back up my files? I've lost nearly every picture of the baby, and a ton of other stuff. Oh well, at least it didn't cost me anything.
Everyone's still getting on my nerves...it's a good thing I don't pack heat.
I'm reading a great book right now...."The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb. It's great...it got me hooked the second I picked it up. I'm glad it's long, because I'd be disappointed if it was over already.
A couple of weeks ago, I bought one of those book light things at Dollar Tree. I got it home and it wouldn't work. It was only a dollar, what did I expect. I just never got around to throwing it out. Last night, after dinner, we were sitting in the kitchen and Braden was playing with it....he dropped it on the floor and I yelled at him..."Leave it alone, it's not yours. Why do you feel free to touch things that aren't yours....etc, etc" (remember, I'm miserable right now). He felt pretty bad, yet continued to play with it. He switched it on, and IT WORKED! He looked at me and said, "You're welcome!"

Blah

I'm feeling very blah. I hate everything/everyone.
I need something to excite me. Get my blood flowing.
I plan on cleaning out closets today. That oughta do it. ~~0~~0~~

The best week ever...

That's what Braden has to say about this upcoming week.
Monday there's no school and 24 is on.
Tuesday is Barrack's inauguration.
Wednesday he gets his braces off and Lost starts back up again.
What else could you ask for in life?

"Sitting on the sofa with a sister or two"

My furniture came and I love it. It completely changed the look of the living room, and it's so comfortable. It's amazing how much more enjoyable sitting is without springs poking you in the butt.

I don't really have much to report here...which is probably a good thing.
I have book group on Friday night. We read "Loving Frank"...it's fiction but based on the relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright and the wife of one of his clients. It was pretty good. I really didn't know much about him, and I got curious while I was reading. I started looking online at some of his designs and reading a bit about him. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who might read the book, but something devastating happens, and I saw it on one of the websites....and it compeltely ruined the end of the book for me. I was so mad at myself.

I had Brighton for the whole weekend. I'm exhausted. Now I remember why people don't have kids at 45. Well, a few weirdos do, but I don't think I'd survive it now. It was enjoyable though. He's at such a cute age...nearly 10 months. Toddling around, making funny faces, playing peek-a-boo. It was a nice weekend.

Now I'm going to go sit on my nice, comfy couch.