Intro into my time in Florida

I was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, but recently moved to Deltona, Florida. I like it, but there are too many bugs and too much humidity. My daughter, husband, and myself moved on christmas - it was bad.

I lost my job and wasn't able to get one in time to pay rent. Fort almost a month we knew we had to flee to Florida to live w/ Gracie's grandparents, it was so hard to keep my mouth shut about it. If I said anything, my family would talk me out of going. I'm very close to everyone and I know they could break me down.

We packed the night before, late, so no one would pop over and see our van full of our stuff. We packed so fast that I left behind so many meaningful things like x-mas presents and memorabilia. Some I didn't realize I left behind until much later.

Everyone was so mad at me, we up and left 6 am x-mas eve and didn't tell anyone. It was the hardest thing I've ever done! I was tired of living under my parent's wing. Not that they were forcing me, but I kept falling and looking to them to pick me up when I really need to do it myself. I'm 22 now, I shouldn't need to depend on my parents help me live, I need to be able to do it on my own. That is one of the many important lessons I've learned from my dad. It tore me up knowing I'd break his heart when I left, I took his first boy and his only granddaughter away from him w/o letting him say goodbye.

"Do what you've always done, get what you've always gotten," the words of my smart-cookie stepmother are so true. When you run from your problems, you're not fixing them, they'll always be there to haunt you. "For every action, there is a positive or negative reaction." The positive was forcing myself to do it myself, the negative was leaving everything and everyone I knew, my life, my world, for "better things" and guess what.....my life has been a living hell living w/ Ralph and Betty.

It's not Ralph, it's Betty!!! But that will be another blog. I write everything in my diary so there will be many blogs to come!

We are just now, 6 months later, moving out into our own apartment! I"m so excited!!! It's not that I don't appreciate what R&B have done for us, Betty just made it really hard!

To be continued...

Monday, June 05, 2006

Gross!

Friday, May 5th

Alan works at Soft Tails, not Cat Tails.

Betty's doing atkins, for about 2 weeks or so. She's really pissed because she's not losing weight, but when she's home, I see her eat nothing but carbs. Donna made a shit-load of potato salad, she ate a cereal bowl-sized portion every day until it was gone.

Donna, Ralph's sister, has been here for a week - she's really weird! She left her husband of 30 yrs because he beat her and came here to hide. She's "in love" w/ two internet guys, one in LA and the other just outside of Denver. The Colorado guy claims he has 3'000 acres near DIA, money, survants, and asked Donna to marry him and untie her tubes - and she wants to. She's over 45 yrs old, overweight, really saggy boobs, never wears underwear or a bra, and she has ratty wavy salt and pepper hair down to her ass.

I guess the guy in LA is in trouble, he had to kill someone or go hide, so she set him up at her friends house in another state. She gave out Betty's phone number and address, I hope she doesn't cause Preston and me any problems! The CO guy called from a weird number: 447-966-589133. 447 isn't an area code or country code, we couldn't find it in the phone book. Then she got on the internet on Betty's cell phone and racked up charges. Betty asked Preston, in front of Donna, how much it was and Donna said, "I don't care how much it is, as long as you let me use it." She's too demanding!

She's so weird

Fun In Florida

Sunday, April 23rd

That night the guys ditched Tara, Preston told me Alan was dancin', lickin', kissin', and rubbin' up on a couple of different girls, he was all over them! Well I guess one of Tara's exes, Derek (who has a girlfriend) was there and saw Alan. Nothing was said until Friday, the girlfriend called Tara and told her everything. She came in the door on Friday, crying. She told me what happened (I just kept my mouth shut), but said she wasn't going to tell me who told her. For once, she didn't blabb all over. (Saturday she told me who) He told her every time he sees Alan there, that he's mackin' on another girl. She asked Preston and Andrew, they said they didn't see anything, that they weren't next to him at the time. Five minutes later Preston confessed to her and begged her not to tell Alan her told her.

When she confronted Alan, he got pissed and very defensive. He tried really hard to convince her nothing happened. He didn't say a word to Preston on Saturday. They were fighting in the shower so loud, Preston and I could hear, "That faggot-ass Preston, I know he told you." Tara said, "You idiot, I told you who told me. It was Derek."

We talked later that morning. She said Betty said he didn't do it to intentionally hurt her, that's just the way he is when he parties and that she should stay w/ him. I told her it's a perfect reason to leave him. I said, "I've always felt; if a guy lays a hand on me or cheats on me - he's gone, period. I don't care why he did it, he has a chance to stop it before it happens. And if he was too fucked up, then he should've been more responsible than that. Either way, he's gone!"

I told her I knew Alan kissed other dirls the night he did it, that Preston told me. She looked at me all hurt and surprized. I told her, "It's a double edged sword; either I be a friend and tell you and risk pissing Alan off and he telling Betty and 'starting shit' and sticking my nose into other people's business, or I don't tell you and risk pissing you off." She just looked at me, then kind of changed the subject by saying, "Well, I'd have nowhere to go. My mom is helping a friend who's husband beat her, so she's staying in my room and there's no place for me to sleep." She's using that as another reason not to leave Alan.

I told Preston, "I just don't understand these people who are so stressed and unhappy in their relationships, but they try so hard to fix the endless problems. I know relationships aren't 100% perfect, but so many people 'believe' they're 'meant to be' and stick w/ it no matter what, but it's just a viscous circle of honesty and dissrespect. Why can't they move on from the relationship and learn from it?!"

Later

To Colorado

My dad and step-mom's house in Colorado... and our temperary home :)

View from the house (Twin Peaks, prettier in the winter)

Bosco the German Short-haired Pointer

Dukati the African Basenji (Duka)

Larry the Great Dane mix, we think (he looks little in the pic... he's the biggest of the three dogs)

Gracie (the cat)

Kitty (the cat)

We'll be here until the baby is born on or around February 17th, 2008 :)

Oh, I have so much on my mind. I just moved out of the craziest house. I write everything in my diary so I can post it here and express myself. Living w/ Ralph and Betty, I felt like my opinion didn't matter, that I didn't have a voice... I felt like I was nothing for almost 6 months. My family, but mostly myself, were in constant compitision w/ my temperary housemates. I had to be so unbearably careful of what I said to a certain housemate - that person would switch everything around to make me sound like such an unbearable BITCH. I felt like, no, I literally couldn't say anything from my point of view, someone would relay it to a housemate in a way that made it sound like I was trying to start shit. I was constantly criticized for the way I did certain things when I had limited opportunity - i.e : they felt I was feeding my daughter junkfood 24/7...but I didn't buy the groceries, I didn't have a choice but to feed her the food that was in the house... HELLO!

I don't have my diary w/ me at the moment (I"ve had to come to the library to use the internet). The tech is installing internet on September 18th by noon EST. Oh, believe me, I will be writing many many blogs!

Until then.....

Tara's PREGNANT???

Monday, April 10th, 2006

Tara went to the doctor (Wednesday the 5th or Thursday the 6th) to have her first sonogram. I guess they saw something, but didn't hear a heartbeat. Alan couldn't stop smiling when they got home. She went to the emergency room Friday night (14 hours) and had a D-N-C. She was telling her friend this morning that she really wants to get pregnant again and it really sux she's suposed to wait 3 months to do any sexual activity. She says she has to hurry because when you're older, you can have complications. She's only 20 yrs old for god sakes, you don't have complications (the one's she's talking about) until you're at least 35-40 yrs old. She said she really wants a baby w/ Alan, she's such a dumbass!!! She doesn't know Alan's already started trying to piss her off so she'd break up w/ her. (She complains about always being w/ jerks, but maybe they were all just trying to make her hate them too!) He would be the worst father, at least now in his life. But I guess it wouldn't matter, Betty would take care of the baby 24-7 and not make either one of them do anything anyways. So maybe she should.

Alan hasn't been that much of a dick to me lately, maybe because the baby is no more and he knows he can break up w/ her. He's workin' at a strip club now, w/ Andrew, at Cat Tails. Tara got pissed and threatened to leave him if he didn't quit (he's still working there today, 10/4/06), but she just talks out of her ass.

Betty bought Gracie Easter stuff and more bubbles. Last night she asked if Gracie played w/ them, but we totally forgot, we went to Flea World (like the Mile Hight flea market) all day. Because she brought it up, Grace wanted to play w/ 'em. It was after 10 pm, her bed time Betty required us to set, we were letting her finish watching a show, then go to bed... so I said no, but she could play w/ them tomorrow. Next thing I knew, Grace wasn't in the living room and Betty was doing laundry in the garage. After Betty went back in her room to get more clothes, I went in the kitchen to get a drink. Grace was standing at the door to the garage. When she saw me, she stuck out both of her arms and said softly, "No, no mommy!" I looked in the garage and saw the open bottle of bubbles. She was letting her play even after I told both of them no.

If it was turned around and Betty told me no, and I did it anyway, she'd explode... the shit would hit the fan!!! Preston wasn't on my side. He told me it was rediculous how "far" I've taken the "everyone's against me" thing. I think Betty did it just because it was me that said no, she wouldn've if Preston said it.

I'm so pissed, I can't write... I'm shaking.