FRIDAY!!!!

Two more days until it's back to school. Thank god! My kids have been driving me nuts all week lol. They were fighting and whining and into EVERYTHING! I'll be glad when Monday comes and I get a few hours of peace and quiet.

Just a quick thought. On another blogging type site that I'm part of yesterday someone made a judgmental comment to one of my friends about something major that she's going through. In her defense one of my other friends posted a blog about how you should really think before you say or do something to somebody else. It REALLY had me thinking, all day and most of the night really, about why people feel the need to judge others before they know crap about them or they're entire situation. I've had it happen to me over a year ago and I'm still trying to put my life back together from the damage this person caused.

When Tom deployed, I didn't handle it very well at all. It wasn't just that they deployed him on our anniversary, or the day before Lana's birthday, it was that he wasnt HERE. It was a major shock to me. He had been gone before so I thought I'd be used to it. I was no where near prepared for what it was really like to have the man I married, the man I pledged my life too, not sharing a bed with me for a whole year. I literally shut down. I didn't clean, barley did anything with my kids. I just went through the motions to make sure they're most basic needs were met. I had trouble sleeping at night, so I didn't do much of that, which means when I did sleep I overslept so Lana missed a ton of school. I found out much later that this was caused by a form of depression that causes me to shut down and give up when I get overwhelmed, but I didn't know that at the time.

One of my neighbors (I'll never really know who), took it upon themselves to report me to DSS (Social Services) for neglecting my children. The following year was absolute hell for my family and myself. I came very close to losing my children. I had to have a psych evaluation (which is how we found out about the depression), Lana even had to have one! We found out she has Generalized Anxiety Disorder with features of depression, at 6! The therapist said it was partly caused by my not being able to support her and be there for her the way I should've been. They ended up sending Tom home from Iraq 2 months early. Of course he was furious with me for screwing up so badly and I don't blame him. It came very close to ending my marriage. We ended up in court where I had to admit everything publically and it's now on public record until Connor is 18. I still have DSS checking up on me once a month. Which is alot of the reason I'm so crazy about my housework.

Tom was told by his command, that because of this, we had to move a family member in to help out. So we moved his father in, I wasn't thrilled about this decision but I knew it was neccessary to fix what I had broken. Apparently there was some request form we were supposed to fill out with the military to approve this "guest" that we didn't know about so we didn't do it. Well again, one of my neighbors (probably the same one...who knows) reported us to the housing department for having an "unauthorized guest". So now we have them on our back trying to evict us.

If this person whoever turned me in, had just come and checked on me, offered to help rather than taking it upon themselves to judge me....NONE of this would've happened. We wouldn't have eviction swinging over our heads, I wouldn't have DSS knocking on my door once a month, and my marriage wouldn't have been in shambles, leaving me unsure as to whether or not it could be saved. And most importantly I wouldn't be constantly paranoid and afraid that someone was going to walk in here and take my children from me every second of every day. All of this because ONE person decided to judge me before they really knew me or my situation. So please, please, PLEASE be careful when you judge another person, there could be ALOT more going on than you really know. I try really hard not to judge other people before I know them, but even I admit I'm guilty of it from time to time. Fact of life I guess......

There's SO much more I could write on that topic and what's happened to me. But remembering what I went through is making me tear up now. To think that people out there are so cruel and heartless that they feel the need to try to ruin someone else's life just because they don't like them for whatever reason........Anyway, I'm changing the subject.

Last night, Tom had Staff Duty. Basically all he does is goes and sits at a desk and waits for the phone to ring all night. Anyway he comes home last night for dinner break and hands me a paper from the housing people that own our house thingy....for once it was good news! The contract that the place we live at now with the military ends in September and all these houses are going to turn into private rentals. We were waiting to see what the new rent was goin to be before we decided if we were going to move or not ( before all this housing crap started). Well, we got that letter yesterday. The rent is not going to change and the new landlord will continue to pay all utilities. This means that if we stay here, absolutly nothing will change. So Tom and I spent his hour dinner break talking about our options. And I think we've decided that we're going to TRY to hold the military housing off until the contract ends in September and we can sign the new lease October 1st. If we can do that, we'll put his dad on the lease and we'll be covered. And free of all this beaurocratic military bullshit we're going through now. Please guys, please pray that for once, this works out the way we want it to. I don't know how many more blows I can take. These brick walls are really starting to hurt.

That's all for today, enjoy your weekend!
Louise