Rainy Monday

Today is a sick, soggy day. I feel just fine, but I am about to do some old fashioned witch doctorin' on my Kamrin. She has some sort of yuck going on, with a rattly, chesty cough, headache, fever of 101.7, and sleepy.

Whiny, too.

But, hey, aren't we all? When I'm sick, the world has to know every nuance of my aches, every update on my gastric maladies, and every bitch on my mind. When Mama's sick, EVERYONE knows about it.

I've been running ragged this past week. I'm so darn tired of drivin' around, even though I have a sweet, new ride. I did treat myself on Saturday, while I was up in Columbia for a MADD meeting. Columbia has the closest Hobby Lobby, which carries my favorite brand of yarn... it's called, "I Love This Yarn." And I certainly do.

I loaded my cart with yarns, but in this sweet little dishcloth, I used "I Love This Cotton" in Too Pink Print. It is variegated, but just look at the stripes that occurred! Bless their little hearts, those yarn makin' fools, for making miracles like this happen!

I got the pattern from http://bronsfiberstuff.typepad.com/photos/seed_stitch_crochet_dishc/100_1186.html

Well, it is time to wash up and start drivin' around again. Picking up kids, going to the doctor, getting stuff for dinner. Tonight's selection is to doctor up Miss Kamrin. Homemade vegetable soup. Got this from cooks.com:

1 lg. can V-8 juice
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can carrots
1 can green beans
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 beef bouillon cubes
2 c. water
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. chili powder
4 stalks celery, chopped

Add above ingredients in large pan. Bring to boil, reduce heat. Simmer 1 hour or until celery is tender.

I think I'm gonna omit the peppers and onions and substitute other veggies and onion powder, cause I'm picky like that. I'm the Queen, I'm allowed.

I'm going MADD, I tell ya!

Hoooo, lawdy, it's been a long time since I've blogged.

Lots of stuff has happened, y'all. I have started a new MADD chapter here in Charleston, and I'm still in the process of getting it off the ground. I've been on the news a couple times, too. I'm famous, but not for witnessing tornadoes in the trailer park. I want EVERYONE to know what I'm up to (as far as that goes, not for the common whoredom) and I wanna beg for minions... er... volunteers. I am damn near perfect, but I can't do all this myself. Shoot.

Now that I think about it, I betcha if the cops and Waffle House cooperated, we'd round up almost all of the potential drunk drivers every night at about two thirty a.m.

Next week, I have a meet'n with the MADD lady from the state office. She is really cool, for a Yankee, but I ain't gonna fault her for that. She didn't choose to be born way up there.

There will be a couple of other volunteers there, hopefully, that I will be able to meet. It is exciting to see my goes come to fruition, and WOW, what a way to honor my babygirl! I really think that the good Lord has put me on the path I need to be on. He's given me the gift of gab, that's for sure, and that comes in very handy nowadays. I just wish I hadn't lost it for the past nine years...

Holy crap, NINE years. Bless my poor soul, can you even believe it's been that long??? Happy anniversary, thanks for the memories...

Reclaiming myself

Having a hacker for an ex-husband had kinda ruined my appetite for blogging, so I've been MIA for a while.
In TN, a divorce can become final in three months.
Well, ten months later, I'm still not all the way divorced. Ugh. I hate the waiting, but I have to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It just better not be a train.


We have court on Monday. Everyone thinks I will be able to move back home to SC then, but after all of the blows I've received in the past few years, I have learned not to get my hopes up.

I bet I can be a damn good country song writer. Lost my husband, my dog, my sanity... Watch out, Taylor Swift!

I'm scared to wonder what life has in store for me at this point, but I have to know that it will be better. Some fine man is gonna love him some me and whisk me away and make me remember how lovable I am. He will be beside me, not in front or behind. He will love to be with me and not run away from me.

For now, I am packing *just in case* the judge feels sorry enough for me to let me leave. I'm so darn sick of packing and moving and unpacking, but I know I will not have to do this nearly as much as before.



Well, I'm off to do something a little more productive. Like bed. Or eating chocolate.


Oh, and by the way...

Bye Bye Love

I never thought this would happen, not in a million years. I never thought this would happen because I chose to pretend that my marriage was better than it was.

Everyone I knew, my whole family, saw how bad Nick was as a husband. He didn't like my family, he didn't treat me as an equal. He never confided in me and often stayed away in order to avoid me.
How's THAT for rejection?

So, on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008, my bubble was burst. In hindsight, it wasn't really a big surprise. I saw my world crumbling around me, but tried so hard to remain hopeful that something would suddenly change.

I had just gotten out of the shower and heard the doorbell. I threw on Nick's robe and ran to answer the door. When I opened the door, there was a strange man who served me with divorce papers.

Divorce papers.

It hasn't even been a year since Kasey was taken from us. How could Nick even think about doing that? What made him decide to kill our marriage? Why NOW?

I am still waiting for my disability to be approved. I have zero income, zero savings. Nick has not allowed me to be on his bank account for years. As of this minute, he won't even give me gas money.

He says evil, cruel, mean things to me. Garrett and Kamrin see how Nick treats me and I think that knowing that they could learn from Nick breaks my heart. I don't want them to think that it is okay to treat ANYONE that way.

I'm devastated, sad, and broken. I've gone through too much too soon. Garrett and Kamrin both have had really bad times this past year and this is the last thing they need. Nick refuses marital counseling, and he doesn't even want to discuss anything emotional. He won't even try to keep Garrett's parents together. In my opinion, the fact that he refuses to even try shows me how selfish he is.

I think right now that his heart is cold and black. He treated me badly before Kasey passed away, but in the past two months, since he moved Garrett and I up here to TN, he's become a monster.

It is not fair. Many people make poor choices in their lives and have to live with the results. I have made great decisions in my life. I am a good person and do my best to treat others the way I want them to treat me. None of the problems I am having now have anything to do with the path I have chosen in life.

I did not choose to get MS.

I did not choose to lose my beautiful, sweet, crazy baby girl.

I did not choose to have my son see his broken sister lay dead across his lap.

I did not mistreat my husband, I tried my best to make him happy. I never even dreamed of cheating on him. I truly loved him and have never wanted to look at another man since I met him. I gave up my job, my home, and everything I'd ever known just to be with him.

Nick told me he doesn't love me. He said I disgust him. He said he can't stand the sound of my voice. He has repeatedly told me to leave.

All he wanted to do was move us up here so that he could divorce me and get custody of Garrett.
He denies this, says that he never intended for this to happen. How can I believe him, though? Nothing that he says anymore is believable and he's hurt me so deeply that I just can't forgive him.

Now he has to live with the choices he has made.

He chose to crush my heart, a heart that is already broken from losing our sweet Kasey.

He chose to deny marriage counseling.

He chose to break up Garrett and Kamrin's stable home.

Someday I will look back on our marriage and wonder why I ever stayed with him for so long. I might even wonder why I married him at all.

I will never stop loving him, but now it is time for me to love myself enough to let go and do what I need to do to survive. I have lived through much worse than this, and I will come out of this stronger and wiser. I will make sure that Garrett and Kamrin know that they are loved, safe, and stable.

My family is my strength now and I am forever grateful. I'm so devastated and weak, but my family and friends are rallying around me and will help me get back on my feet emotionally.

Someday someone will appreciate what a great person I am and will love me unconditionally. Until then, Kelly has to stay strong and take care of herself and let others help.

I love my friends and family and there are no words to express how grateful I am to know they are in my corner.

I think I have run out of things to say right now, but I have so much more to add later.

Not the greatest day ever...

I had gone to a counselor twice, but was not happy w/the service. I just felt like I got way better therapy from talking to you girls and my irl friends and blogging.

I'm still all kinds of screwed up, despite appearances. So, I made an appt. with a psychologist instead of a counselor.


I went today and all he did was go over my meds and I got my test results from a previous round of testing I had at the same office several months ago.
THEN at the end of the session, the dr. asked me, "So, do you plan on getting therapy or counseling?"
I looked at him and told him, "Uh, that is kinda why I am here.....?"

He told me that he only went over meds. That visit, which was horribly not necessary, cost $195 because my insurance refused to pay for that for some reason.



The test results from that testing I mentioned.... Suggested I possibly had a lesion in my frontal lobe which is interfering with my ability to remember shit or something. The MS... it eated mah brain.
The test was performed before the accident, but I just hadn't gotten around to getting the results until now. Oh, and my IQ is 124. That's good, it means I'm not a total


And one final note... Nick just left and he will be gone for about two weeks or more, we aren't sure of when he'll be able to come home again. I am not happy, but I go through him leaving like twice a month, so I'm used to it. It just sucks.

One step forward, three steps back.

First, the lighter stuff...


The more I get accomplished, the worse things look around here.

I've been decluttering, but I don't really think you can tell it. People don't normally look inside closets. At least, they better not.


I've been making it a point to systematically declutter this house. I cleared out under the main bathroom's sink, the linen closet, the playroom (which needs to have shelves hung so I can finish), and next will be Garrett's room. Ugh, just the thought of that makes me tired.

The sucksuck part of all of this is that despite the clutter cleanup, I still have to keep up with the everyday stuff. It is daunting, y'all. It really is. I'm much too lazy for this crap.


And now, the not-so-light stuff...

My mom, the lovely person that she is, decided to piss me off the other day.


She got Garrett all excited about going to see a movie with her, Joshua, and I.
We were supposed to go on Saturday, but something happened and Mom had to reschedule for Sunday afternoon.

Garrett was a little let down, but he instead began looking forward to going Sunday.

Well, I talked to mom at one p.m. on Sunday afternoon, when she got home from church. I told her the movie started at 4:20 pm and she was still gung-ho about it. We agreed that she would be here by 3:45pm and would ride w/us to the theater.


The whole time we waited, Garrett would ask what time it was and how much longer we had to wait. I'm tellin' y'all, he asked EVERY. FIVE. MINUTES.

Give a mama a break, son.


Ok, so 3:45 rolls around and the phone rings. I answered it before I looked at the caller ID and it was Mom. I asked where she was, and she nonchalantly replied that she was at home.

WHAT?!?!

I asked her why she was still home, and I could tell she was eating. She said, "Well, I had to feed my family."
I mentioned the fact that she had told Garrett and I that we were going out to the movies and asked her why she would do that to him.
"I don't have any money, " she replied.

I told her that I was going to pay for it.

She said she just wasn't going.

I was simmering by then and told her to tell Garrett that she had decided not to go and handed the phone to him.
OK, Garrett is six years old and just got stood up by his grandmother. Do you THINK he'd be polite and respectful? He had every right NOT to be, but he still had the innocent 'ma-ma, why aren't you coming' tone to his voice.
Mom then started accusing him of "Being Ugly." That's southern slang for mouthing off for those who don't know. She also asked him why don't we just come over there instead.
He said, "Ma-ma, I'm not being ugly. I don't want to come to your house, we are supposed to go to the movies."
Mom replied that he sounded like he was being ugly.
By then, I'm boiling.


I took the phone out of his hand and said that he wasn't "Being Ugly" and that I would take him to the movies myself, thankyouverymuch. I then hung up.

Fast forward to today.
Mom calls and starts chatting away like nothing ever happened. I stopped the bullshit by telling her, "Mom, I have to tell you, I'm still upset about yesterday."

She said, "I know."

"First, you flake out on us without warning and then you accuse him of talking smack to you?"


She insisted that he WAS using an inappropriate tone of voice to her and I cut her off. I said, "You STOOD HIM UP, and you expect him to be polite and kiss your ass?"

That's when she said she wasn't going to talk about that anymore and we hung up on each other.

Ok, if I didn't already have bad memories of Mom breaking promises to me when I was growing up, I wouldn't be so angry. Mom is a good person, but she does have her faults. She made LOTS of promises that she didn't keep and didn't seem to care about who she let down. You don't make promises to a child and not try your hardest to keep them.
Why didn't she just TELL US when she got home from church that she was too tired to go out again? Why did she let us wait, get his hopes up, and then act like it wasn't a big deal?

It was a very big deal to Garrett. He was excited about it and Mom got mad because he was unhappy about being stood up.

From now on, I'm going to do my best to make sure she doesn't invite him to anything or promise him anything. She has a history of not coming through and I don't want him to think that he can't count on her.


I don't know what I'm asking for. I just really want her to see that she hurt his feelings by flaking out on him. It isn't OK for her to do that to him. What do you think?

Have I Been Demoted?

I was once a mother of two.

Then, I was demoted.

I don't quite fit in where I used to. I have lots of sage advice for the mom who is having a second child, but I hold back because that would mean I'd have to bring up Kasey. When I bring her up, I instantly receive pity.

Sometimes, I *do* want pity. I need the hug. Other times, though, I want to feel normal again. I want to pretend that nothing happened so I can escape reality.

It is much harder to relate to people now. People don't know what to say, or are too afraid to say the wrong thing.


I want her back. I want my son to have a sister to fight with and tattletale on. I want my husband to be happy again. I want to be happy again.



Every now and then, please treat me like I was before the demotion. The demolition. The demon.

Every once in a while, call to check on me. Tell me a joke, because I need the smile. Tell me how you feel about what happened. Talk to me without worrying how I'll react. If what you say isn't welcome, don't worry. I'm unafraid to tell you to stop talking. I'm just afraid you won't talk.