A tiny ray of light...

This morning my son woke up happy. When I went in to get him he was chatting and smiling not screaming, sobbing and kicking as he has been every single morning for the last 3 months. We even got to start our day without a breakfast table meltdown.

Maybe I won't completely loose my mind afterall :)

I wish I knew just what to do...

My head is spinning these days. Nothing has turned out how we expected with this move, house, living arrangement. I guess I've never really been a 'roll with the punches' kinda gal. I like to have a plan and follow it so having everything turned on its head and trying to formulate a new plan is hard.

I want to move out of this house as soon as possible but we cannot afford to since DH is living in Toronto for work and paying rent there. SO, in a effort to contribute to our household income I was going to do some transcribing work for a friend, but it seems she doesn't have nearly as much work to give me as I thought. I had worked that income into our budget and now we come up so short it's almost laughable...almost.

So, I scoured the internet to see what's out there for jobs and daycare. I found some good leads for both but it seems that we wouldn't really come out much further ahead if I did return to work full-time. More than 3/4 of my income would go to daycare costs. I'm not complaining really, I want my children to get good care and be in a safe place while I am working but given their current ages it costs as much for their daycare as I would make in a month. Plus, I am essentially a single Mom since DH is only here a few days a month, so co-ordinating and executing the everyday routine would be taxing. Not to mention all the "what happens if"s I have to be at work late, get stuck in traffic, or whatever...

On the other hand I think that the high cost of daycare now is only short-term. In the not too distant future the children will be older and childcare costs go down. At the same time I will be moving up the pay scale so I will be making more. Overtime will the extra 2 or three years in the workforce help me out in terms of seniority, salary and moving up - I don't really know. So, what do I do?

Staying home for now seems to make the most sense financially but some days I seriously don't believe I am cut out to be a "single" SAHM. I did fine with it when DH was living with us but now that I am on 24/7/365 my sanity is precarious even on the best days and my patience seems to be running on empty all the time. I know that a major contributor to how I am feeling is lack of help and lack of sleep since my baby girl, who turns one next month, still isn't sleeping through the night and my sweet little boy has come into the terrible twos full force in the last couple of months. Maybe in a short time being always on won't be so hard if sleep improves and the battles of will diminish in frequency.

I just don't know what to do and DH is no help at all. He'll support whatever decision I make...that's it, no other input than that really...um, yeah, that doesn't really help me figure out what to do. UGH!

A strange dream indeed.

Early this morning I had a dream that I was on a dock with DH, DS, DD and some other people (can't say who). DS was at the other end of the dock acting like he would go in at any moment. Someone was talking to me but I was distracted since I wanted to see that DS was okay.

Suddenly, out of nowhere my mother appeared on the dock near me and dove into the crystal clear, calm water and disappeared beneath the ripples. She seemed to be swimming to where DS was sitting. After a few moments I realized she wasn't surfacing and I panicked. I could see DS was fine, still sitting on the dock looking into the water but my Mom was gone...I couldn't get anyone's attention at first then finally a man, I think DH, dove in and retrieved her limp body. She was dead. I fell apart - again.

I woke up shaken and so profoundly sad. What did this dream mean?

Every night before I close my eyes I wish and pray to see my Mom in a dream. It's only happened a couple of times and usually she is telling me something that I can't hear or understand. It's so strange - like she is always just out of reach.

This was a scary dream, one that has me so puzzled that I've been thinking about it all day. I guess I'll never know what it meant or why I had it.

I miss you Mom :(

Happy Birthday Mom

If my Mom were alive she would be celebrating her 57th Birthday today.

I find it hard to believe that it's been 17 years since we celebrated her special day together.

Miss you and love you lots and lots Mom. XOXOXO

A month later...

Things are much better between DH and me. But as for the rest of it...in a lot of ways things are much worse.

We had a home inspection done shortly after my last post. The results of which were heartbreaking, shocking and terrifying. This house is not safe for us to live in. We knew that it needed some work but we never imagined that everything that could be wrong with it is wrong or unsafe. So that made it pretty simple for us to decide that we cannot buy it.We don't have to money to do the necessary repairs, nor do we feel a construction zone for the next few years is a good place for small children.

If you're wondering what could be that bad here's a list of the major deficiencies of this old house:

1. the electrical system needs to be completely replaced.
2. much of the plumbing needs to be replaced.
3. it needs a new roof.
4. beams in the attic are cracked and need replacing.
5. all outdoor structures such as decks and porches needs to be completely replaced.
6. the entire lot needs to be regraded to address moisture problems in the basement.
7. insulation in the attic is vermiculite, which may contain asbestos...it needs to be tested and dealt with if it is.
8.the entire house needs to be reinsulated.
9. need new windows.
10. floors need to be leveled in the whole house and harwoord floors need to be replaced.

And there's way more but these are things that need to be done pretty much right away.

My brother, a certified electrician, came by to have a look. The look on his face said it all. He said some of the stuff FIL did is the worst and most dangerous wiring he's ever seen. He told me that he thinks I should NOT live here with my kids at all.

Ack! We did JUST move here all the way from NS it's not like I can pack up and live somewhere else so he suggested buying smoke detectors for every bedroom and lots for the rest of the house to be sure. So, I'm not sleeping so well these days.

DH talked to his parents and explained that we have to get out ASAP because we don't feel safe and they need to get to work on fixing this place up to sell it. They are pissed at us for having the inspection done. I think they feel we just totally screwed up all their plans for the future -in terms of finances, vacations, how much they would get from the sale of this house (from us or another buyer). They are acting all huffy and deny that there is really that much that needs to be done. Well, that's fine if that's what they want to believe but we believe the inspector's report to be more accurate and we can't buy this house. It totally fucks up our plans too but they don't seem to realize or care about that. It's not a good situation.

We sold our house in Nova Scotia for way less than we could afford to because we thought we could live here at DH's parent's house without having to buy it right away and pay off our debt for the next 3 years while DH lived in Toronto and pays rent, a car lease and gas back and forth from TO to Ottawa. This is the offer his parents made to US! We never asked for this. We had a plan too and I think we are way worse off than them. I just can't believe that don't see how bad this situation is for us too. At least they have somewhere safe to live.

DH and I are kicking ourselves so hard right now. We should have known better than to believe that his parents would could come through for us. We had no idea that they were so freakin cheap that FIL does everything himself to save $$ - and he has no clue what he's doing so he's made the house a veritable death trap - argh!

Moving is so expensive and exhausting. We can't afford to pay for another out of city move out of pocket right now. I don't even know if we could qualify for a mortgage given our current debt load. We're fucked and they don't give a shit about our situation. In fact, MIL keeps commenting on how lucky I am that I will get to live in a new house soon and that I will be so much happier there. I think she believes that this was my secret plan all along - like what I really wanted was to just get here, say the house sucked and get to move again. The last thing I want to do is move again but we can't stay here for 3 years knowing the house could burn down, pipes could burst or structures could fall off the face of the house at any time and God knows what else.

DH's current accommodations, which are fabulous and inexpensive, are not going to be available to him for the whole 3 years. In fact, we think that his landlord is planning to sell his house in the spring. So, DH will be paying even more rent for a less comfy and convenient place.

So, after crunching some numbers it looks like we'll have to stay through to the new year, which is way longer than I want to but I don't think we can do it any sooner. MIL is being weird and sometimes nasty towards me now and I really don't how I am going to tolerate having her stay here with us 3 days a week for the next 6 months or more. I just want to get out of here...at the same time I am pretty sad that we will not be able to settle into the Ottawa region like we had planned - I will be moving with the kids to Toronto to be with DH. We just cannot afford a mortgage, rent and the cost of weekly travel back and forth. I spent the weekend at DH's place with the kids and liked the area and know that while it wasn't what we wanted, we will be fine in Toronto. I just wish we didn't have to go through all this crap between now and then :(