Nyquil is in da hay-ouse

Oh wow, this Nyquil is some serious good shit. No kidding. I feeling nothing. Not even my fingers touching the keyboard. Hope I don't write anything I wanna take back or something. Not sure I could find backspace if I tried.

I gave Ab one Nyquil around 6 this evening. That poor child was knocked on her skinny little rear! She stayed home from school today, barking like a harp seal, nose producing the most fluoroescent green snot I've ever seen and just in general looking pale and sick. She wanted to go, bless her heart, she tried. I asked her before she ever even got out of bed if she wanted to stay home and she said she'd try to go. I told her if she went and started feeling bad all she had to do was call. She got dressed and came up front to have me pull up her hair and I just couldn't stand the thought of sending her off to that germ-infested school where something quite possibly worse than she already has could take over. So I said, "Baby girl...do you wanna--?" and she nodded her head and said, "Yes. I'll go put my pajamas back on." Sam was more than a little peeved that she was staying home and he was not. Poor guy. He's been sick, too, but hasn't ever acted sick. He's been coughing up a storm, but it never once broke his stride or slowed him down. This evening he was snuggling me on the couch and I kissed his forehead. It was hot. I took his temp: It was 101. Geez, the kids was bouncing off the walls, you'd have never known he had one. Ab has run one all day, but nothing higher than 99.2, hardly enough to count, yet she looks like she's been run over. By 7:30 Ab was falling asleep virtually standing up. I gave her some hot chocolate to soothe her throat a little and sent her on to bed. She has a dr appointment at 9:30 in the morning and I'm just bettin' we end up with antibiotics over this one. Sinus infection, if I were a betting woman. The jury's out as to whether Sam goes to school tomorrow. Depends on the fever. No matter how he feels, if he's running a fever he doesn't go. And he's not going to be happy either, because tomorrow is the Senior/Faculty basketball game and that means no afternoon classes. Btw, Courtney, I did not see your name on the roster...

After all that jubilation this morning after the budget actually being in the black, I had a mean ol' hateful woman from Discover make me cry. Yeah. She was awful. Simply awful. If there is a contest for Collection Person Of The Month Who Reduced The Most Grown Women To Tears, she'll likely win. 'Cuz I'm sure I'm not the only one she talked hateful to today. Once you get started you kind of get on a roll, ya know. The really nice person called first, asking me to make a payment. Understandable, I did owe them one. When I told her what I could pay she said, "That's not good enough." I said, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but it's the best I can do." Her reply basically was that it didn't even cover the finance charges. Okay, I fully understand that, but lady, I ain't got it. So I said, "Ma'am, I am doing the best I can right now. I am more concerned at this time with feeding my children and keeping the electricity on. I'm sorry if you can't understand why I can only pay you $35 this month." She then offered to see if I qualified for a hardship payment plan. Great, sign me up, I've been enduring lots of financial hardship lately. But I think how they work things at Discover Card is that they test you to see if you can hold up under the verbal attacks of "The Supervisor" to see if you can be considered a true hardship case. I didn't hold up well once she started threatening to sue me for fraud. WTF? She said that by putting my phone bill and cable bill on my credit card and then not making a payment constituted as fraud and therefore, I was guilty as charged. I explained that it was never my intention to fraud anyone, I was just doing the best I could. (See a pattern here with my pleading? Guess my best isn't good enough for them, eh.) So after about 5 times of her raising her voice at me, telling me I LIED to the kind and benevolent folks at Discover Card, that I was going to get sued I HAD HAD IT. I told her that I was offering to make a payment, plain and simple. No, it wasn't near what she wanted me to offer, but then you get into that whole blood from a turnip analogy and I didn't think she'd appreciate it right then. I also told her I didn't appreciate her copping an attitude with me, that I was trying to be courteous and respectful and I only wanted that in return, and she then told me that WASN'T copping an ATTITUDE with me and how DARE I insinuate she WAS. Again, she threw out the whole suing and the frauding and I said, "You know what, do what you have to do." She said, "Have a nice day!" and hung up. I was literally shaking so hard and my heart was beatin so fast that I thought I was going to pass out. I was ANGRY. I realize she is doing her job, but belittling someone and essentially scaring them and threatening them isn't a job I'd want to have. I couldn't sleep at night, knowing that I had bullied someone into making a payment they simply didn't have. I guess this is why I'm a stay at home mom. I don't have the balls to confront people and bully them. I'm quite happy being ball-less, if that's the kind of person I have to be if I have 'em.

So I called my daddy, bawling my head off, asking him if they really could sue me and if they were going to send Guido to my house to teach me a lesson or something. He rationally explained to me that, okay I've made some mistakes. He told me that I'm fixing it and I'm doing the best I can (Dad thinks my best is good enough!) and that's what matters. He said to send them that $35 and to not worry about any further bullying. I can always be the first to hang up next time. He told me that if they gripe about the payment next time to say "Either you take my $35 payment and get a little at time. Or you can just talk to my bankruptcy lawyer. I bet you don't get as much then." Heehee...Dad has such a way with words. He also gave me a free listing in a farm magazine in the want-ads that he wasn't going to use, so we can list the truck. Man, thanks Dad. It has a huge circulation. He also brought over his step-son in law who has a friend who might be interested in the boat. They took pictures and were sending them to him tonight. I sat down awhile ago and made up flyers to hang up on bulletin boards all over town advertising the truck for sale.

I'm tired of being reactive - I want to be proactive from now on. That's a pretty big step for me, considering how nonconfrontational I am, but I'm trying. Doing my best, eh. Recurring theme tonight it seems. So now the ball is rolling. Our plan to be debt free is in motion and if things go the way I have them written out on paper we will be completely debt free within 9 months. No kidding.

The Lord has just blessed my socks off today. Even if the mean Discover Card lady made me cry. Tomorrow, if the MasterCard people call, I'm not going to cry. I'll stand my ground. Yeah. I just hope they don't call before the Nyquil wears off. I'm slurring my words right now and sound a wee bit drunk, I'm afraid. They might not take too kindly to a $35 payment if I sound like I just went on a beer run.

Man, Nyquil is good.