Two years in review - personal update

So much to write, so little time...

The snaars wife: I don't often write about her, but snaars fans should know that she is central and indispensable to the phenomenon.

Seriously, Michelle has borne the brunt of the family's troubles of the last two years or so. We are healing from the disaster that ensued after our move north, and Michelle has had to do the most. In an unfamiliar house, far from anyplace we had ever called home, we found she was pregnant with our third child. Rejected by the family she had so long wanted to be reunited with, we faced another move and the premature burden of being on our own before I had stable employment.

Regular visits with my parents kept us sane. We made the 2.5 hour trip at least once a month (usually twice) for a long time. My parents also loaned us a LOT of money. I think they felt partially responsible, because before the move their encouragement allayed any doubts we had felt.

Michelle had it worse than I did in a lot of ways, coming to grips with the reality of the dynamics of her family (past and present), and doing the bulk of the parenting work: getting the kids into school, enduring a third pregnancy and a difficult home labor and birth, then taking care of an infant on top of everything else - all in a place where we had very little money, or support from anyone.

During the first months in the apartment and throughout the pregnancy I suffered from panic attacks. I went to work every day knowing I wasn't making enough money. I came home wanting to do something else to make money and feeling helpless. Michelle and I both felt tired, but we couldn't sleep.

Despite all this, Michelle continued to volunteer many hours per week to the Childbirth and Postpartum Professionals Association, as their public relations coordinator and director of state representatives. I think she had clung to the position as something over which she could have some control during a time when everything else seemed out of control.

Meanwhile, because of our obligations as parents to our first two lovely daughters, we couldn't slow down or focus on our own needs as much as we should have done.

I have had five jobs in the past two years, with bouts of unemployment in-between. This last job has been going very well. I have had steady employment for five months now, and although our expenses still outweigh our income, the discrepancy is minimal; we've been making stead progress and I expect the trend to continue. Soon, we will be restoring our savings. I expect we'll be buying a house within six months or a year.

I have been working with some wonderful people. They have been impressed with me and my work. I did not get this job through the staffing agency, but through an aquaintance I made while working for the agency. Within a week of getting the job, I was offered another job at a different company. Not only was I able to negotiate better benefits from my employer because of it - I actually managed to go back to the company that had given me the second offer, and I set up a complementary schedule with them, so that I was able to work both jobs.

The second job has since evaporated, but it was good for the several months it lasted. I am on good terms with the owner of the business.

After working with my current employer for three months, they gave me a considerable raise. And today - just this morning - they brought me into a meeting to discuss sending me back to school to take accounting and/or IT courses. They advised me that the combination of accounting and IT has considerable earning potential. They are willing to reimburse me 100% for tuition and expenses.

The only requirement is that I make at least a B in whatever courses I want to take. (I didn't feel it necessary to bring to their attention that I aced almost all my courses at UL - I think they know I'm capable.)

Sometimes it's good to be the snaars!

Simcha turns six this week! She wants a Care Bear more than anything. (I'm just glad she's over the Bratz doll obsession of the last few months!)

I'll write more about the kids soon - I know that's what all the real snaars fans ache for - but for now, it's past my bedtime.

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I shall be off the grid for a few days (at least!) so don't worry if you don't see me posting or commenting on the other blogs I frequent. We are moving in to the new apartment and then I will be looking for a second job to tide us over indefinitely.

I remember when life was boring. (No we don't!) I can't stand all this drama, and I want to put it all behind me and just get on with life. (What, are you kidding? What is life without drama? We want life to be an adventure, don't we? Are you tellings us we wants the same old routine, day after day after day? We chose to have a family, we chose to go to college, we chose to move cross-country, all because we don't wants to be like everyone elsesses!)

Ummm ... okay ... who is that? (It's us, it's us! Gollum!)

Ah. I see. Well, I'm not Smeagol, you know, I'm Snaars. Smeagol has his own blog. (We knows, we knows. We were trying to help out and, you know, gollum, gollum, be encouraging. We had the day off and didn't know what else to do.)

Thanks. You know, what you said is true. I just have to roll with it and take the bad with the good.

Jeez, I' can be such a nerd sometimes.

recent goings-on

For those who are interested:

I regret not posting anything lately. I regret the very negative tone of the last post.

I take that back. I don't regret the last post. I regret not posting anything positive since then.

Okay, this post is going to ramble a little bit because I don't have time enough to make it really nice and orderly. There's really no reason for anyone to read this unless they are particularly concerned about my life. I know there are a few friends - snaars fans, if you will - who wait with bated breath, yearning for more pearls of wisdom. They will be pleased to know that yours truly, and the entire snaars clan, are alive and well, and that I may actually deign to make a real entry (!) now and again.

Nothing much has changed. The in-laws have been much nicer lately. We are paranoid that the situation could turn right around again any day. We don't have much stability in that regard.

We have gone apartment-hunting this past week, and we turned in an application today. I don't have much hope that our application will be accepted because rents are so high here. It's bad when you are spending 55% of your take-home pay in rent.

I applied to Teach for America. They don't accept just anyone, so I am counting on getting in. (Insert pause for effect here.)

I'm pretty sure they will accept me, it's just that I'm also sure I'm the only applicant who is desperate for a job. Most people who do it, do it because it's a noble cause. Me, I agree that it's for a noble cause. It's a cause I agree with and I will be very glad to be doing it. But, I would feel a lot more noble if I were choosing from a wide array of options available to me.

Michelle has decided on a home birth for our third baby. We saw the midwife a little over a week ago and we are feeling very secure and happy about it. We are assured that if we still do not have a home when the baby comes, then we can use the midwife's. We also made an appointment with a doctor for a consultation. We are all really excited and pleased.

Simcha asks questions all the time about the baby. We splurged and ate lunch at a Chinese food restaurant today. We decided to use chopsticks, and it was the first time for Simcha and Havilah. Simcha held hers up and asked Michelle, "Does the baby does use sticks, Mommy?"

Michelle told her that no, the baby does not use chopsticks.

"Oh. Cause the baby could use little sticks," Simcha asserted.

But Simcha, how would the baby get the sticks?

Oh, right. Emphtically: "No, the baby doesn't use sticks!" Takes a bit to convince her sometimes.

Well, that's all for now.

we are officially going out of our minds

WARNING: THIS IS A RANT. I don't often do this. This is written in anger and should not be taken as the whole truth.

Over the past three-and-a-half months since we've moved here, we have been through hell.

If we are to believe everything that my in-laws (Mom, Dad, Sister, and Neice) have communicated to us, and to each other within our hearing, then we are terrible parents. Our children are loud, unruly, and disrespectful. They break things. We make poor decisions regarding discipline and our childrens' welfare.

We are stupid because we didn't know what we were getting into when we moved here. We don't understand how much groceries cost. We are beggars, freeloaders, and thieves. We couldn't survive in Louisiana so we wormed our way into the house. We are too lazy to go out and earn enough money to support ourselves. We are stupid, disrespectful, and arrogant because we don't share the opinions of everyone else in the house.

In the beginning, we relied heavily on the them for food. The last few weeks, we have been eating only our own groceries, with the exception of some fruit and juice. Plenty of groceries that we have bought, others in the house have shared. We have spent hundreds of dollars per month on groceries. Nevertheless, MIL insisted - in front of their guests - that they buy the groceries for everone. When Michelle gave examples of things we had bought, she was ignored.

Before we moved into the house, we made our situation clear. We had to move thirteen hundred miles, get good jobs, find a suitable place to live. We told them it might take us a long time to get settled. Michelle's business had just begun to take off in Louisiana. She would have to start all over again. I would have to get a job that paid better than what I had before, because I would have to pay for a mortgage and student loans, expenses that we did not have before. We told them we would need help, and that if they were not prepared, then we would wait until we could do it on our own. They told us they would gladly give us all the help we needed, for as long as was necessary.

Things were great for the first two weeks. We talked a lot. They drove around with us and helped us learn the lay of the land. They have helped us by sharing food. And, of course, by giving us a bedroom to sleep in, and access to bathroom and kitchen facilities, and paying the increased utilities. They have given us a lot. But they have also treated us like dirt.

They have refused to babysit, even if they weren't doing anything and it was only for an hour or two. They have refused to help us with directions or driving to places. They sit in the family room, which is the only room other than our bedroom that the children can play in, and they watch r-rated movies with the volume so loud, you can hear it throughout the entire house. Even worse, you can see the screen from the kitchen. So, we can't have the kids in the kitchen or family room a lot of the time.

When Michelle announced that she was pregnant, she was told that it was their worst nightmare. Admittedly, I was a bit scared myself (just read my previous entry about it). But I got over that quickly, and now I'm thrilled, but they won't talk about it. They get uncomfortable when Michelle mentions the pregnancy and they change the subject.

Before we moved in, we tried to learn all the "ground rules" of the house. We were always told not to worry about it, that it wasn't necessary to talk about it. Then, whenever we tried to do anything, we were told were doing it wrong. We're not allowed to use the kitchen garbage disposer. We're not allowed to run the dishwasher. We are not allowed to do any cleaning, except in our room.

Michelle was told to fill the laundry machine full, to conserve water. Then, she was told that she overfills it. The closet door has to be closed just right. I've watched them - none of them takes care to shut it the way we were told to shut it. Every single thing in the house, there's a certain way to do it, and the wrong way to do it (which is whatever way we happen to do it.)

We begged and pleaded for a laundry and bathroom schedule, but we are the only ones who keep it. When we break the schedule, which we have to do sometimes because other people use our time slot, people get furious and we never hear the end of it.

Michelle has been accused of stealing little things - things we brought with us into the house! Like a hair clip, and a pair of scissors.

We have been lied to. When Michelle and I had a conversation with Michelle's other sister, who does not live in the house, we were promised - emphatically, and several times - that nothing we said would be repeated to other family members. We vented some of our frustrations, hoping for some advice or support. Instead, she told them everything we said, and since then she will not speak to us! She did send an angry e-mail to Michelle. Michelle sent a carefully-worded but firm response. Now, that sister's family won't have anything to do with us. As far as I can tell, they're lunatics.

Everything that has gone wrong in the house has been blamed on us. We have broken the television, two towel racks, a curtain rod, a toilet paper holder, the automatic garage door opener, the toaster, the drawer in the side of the kitchen table, and various toys that did not belong to us. There are probably other things we've been blamed for that we haven't heard about.

Whenever someone gets sick, it's our fault for spreading germs around. We are told that we must use paper towels when using the bathroom. Meanwhile, they're still getting sick. At least twice, it has been SIL who has gotten sick first. Anyway, germs make people sick, so even if we do get sick first, why are we blamed? It's tantamount to telling us we lack good hygeine!

When we first moved in, MIL apologized for the smell in our room. The previous owners kept animals in here. Somehow, since we moved in, the smell has become our fault. I'm sure they will blame us for the smell forever now.

People have entered our room and taken things when we weren't there, and several times we have come home after staying with other relatives and found the door to our room locked. They are the kind of doors that use no keys, but can be opened with a small screwdriver. The screwdriver was not in its proper place in the bathroom medicine cabinet.

When we first moved in, we were told not to use too much toilet paper. If we had to wipe more than once, we should flush in-between wipings. The toilets get clogged easily.

The upstairs toilet got clogged this past week. SIL flipped out. I came out into the hall to see what was going on. FIL explained that he didn't know who it was (meaning he didn't know which member of my family was responsible) but someone either used too much tp or put something in the toilet that didn't belong there.

Apparently, they cannot use a plunger because the bottom of the toilet is an odd shape. They think they cannot use a chemical drain opener because they have a septic system.

SIL had put some chemical from a jug into the toilet. At first I thought it was a drain clog remover. She was furious. She complained that with the fumes, she was taking her life into her hands using this stuff. Later on I looked at the bottle, and it was a once-a-month treatment to prevent buildup in the pipes. Those kinds of treatments don't remove clogs once they have occured!

I could be wrong, but I'm almost positive I've seen drain openers that are formulated specifically for septic systems, but of course I can't tell them that because I'm a moron and they won't listen to a word Michelle or I say to them. Whether or not such a product exists, I don't understand why a toilet clog has to be such a huge issue. Toilets get clogged, it's just a sad fact of life.

Every time some little thing happens, they act like it's the end of the world. I have never heard so much complaining about a toilet in my life.

FIL got some kind of routing tool, and scraping sounds reverberated through the house for hours. Now there are scratch marks all over the bottom of the toilet.

But that's just the beginning. A couple of days later, the toilet in the downstairs half-bath got clogged.

We've been keeping to ourselves a lot the last few weeks, so the first inkling we had of anything wrong was raised voices from downstairs. I hear MIL say, among other things: "The last time this happened was when (some friend's kids) were over, and at least then they admitted it!"

Although she did not intend it to be so, MIL's comment was very ironic. You see, although they will blame us for everything and get angry with us, they will not actually talk to us about anything.

No one seems to remember that the same day the downstairs toilet got clogged, NIL was babysitting a neighbor's kid and he was the last one to use the bathroom. They just assume that whatever goes wrong, we did it. We can't defend ourselves because they don't give us the opportunity. I think it's ridiculous that we should even feel that we have to defend ourselves in the first place. So anyway, now the downstairs toilet has scratches in it, too.

I can't begin to tell you all the background on this family. That is, I could write some but it wouldn't be fair to tell family secrets on a public blog, even if I don't use their names. Someone, someday, might learn who we are. Besides, I've given the web address to family and friends before, even if there are very few who have ever visited or commented. They could still be reading.

Let me just say that if there is anything good about these people (and I know it's there somewhere), I just can't see it right now.

Settled. Not!

Quite unsettled, actually. It's been the awfulest move ever. I would like to tell you a cheery tale of sunshine and roses, but I have committed myself to remaining true to you, my faithful readers. I know that Snaars fans are happy, well-adjusted folk, who would never want to read about such unpleasant things as tearful goodbyes, a brake pedal held up by a bungee cord, interminable car rides, belongings that smell of gasoline, unemployment, officious bank tellers, and mounting bills.

So I'll skip all that and tell you how we're doing now.

I and Michelle and our two darlings live in a room in the home of Michelle's parents. Most of our things are in storage.

I was hoping to have a job about two weeks after moving in. We passed the two-week mark Friday night and I have no job, despite having disseminated dozens of resumees. ('Disseminated' here means I gave the resumes out to prospective employers.) Our money is quickly running out and I wonder how I am going to pay bills at the end of the month. *

I did have a job interview with a temporary agency. They specialize in finance and accounting. I have very little experience in that area but I passed some testing with flying colors. I was told that there is a place for me within their organization, but it might be two to three weeks.

Our families have been utterly fantastic. My parents flew down and helped us pack the truck and drive up north. And they paid for everything.

Michelle's family has made us feel perfectly at home. Their house is quite large enough for everyone (there are eight of us altogether). I just don't like being dependant.

My spirits are high. I breathe easier here. I had forgotten what it felt like to be able to breathe through my nose all night long. In Louisiana my allergies caused me to be stuffed up all the time. I still have allergies here, but it just makes my eyes water a bit.

We're planning to visit my parents sometime this week, and I hope to make it to New York City this weekend to visit Da- er, Arglor and Mayfly.

I haven't been happier in years. Look to my photoblog soon for some pics I took at a park today.

* P.S. Bonus points to anyone who can figure out what book series I recently began reading.

Countdown

Well friends (if anyone's still reading),

I wish I had found more time to write lately. There's been no shortage of things to write about; i just haven't had the time.

I'm packing up the computer and I don't know when I'll be able to resume blogging. There's just so much to do.

What we've done, basically, is tear down our lives in order to build new ones in Delaware - or wherever we end up ... could be Maryland or Pennsylvania.

I'm currently unemployed. They had a great going-away party for me at work. That was touching. I'll have no shortage of good references, anyway.

My parents are arriving at the Lafayette airport around 4 this afternoon. Tomorrow we pick up the moving truck and load it. Wednesday morning we start driving. We will arrive Friday afternoon at the home of my in-laws, which will be our home until we can make better arrangements.

It's all about family and the ones we love. Life is good. Fresh starts are good. We'll miss the ones we leave behind.

Wish us luck, friends. We'll "see" you after we get settled.

It's decided ...

We will move north to Delaware. Lots to consider. Long-distance move. No money. No job when I get there. Still not sure what I'm qualified to do, outside of purchasing, which I don't like. Maybe I could get a master's degree in counseling and do that. What will I do to support the family in the meantime?

Have to contact the rest of the family, let them know, and see if I can get some advice.

Looks like we'll live with the in-laws for a while. What should we do with all our stuff? Bring it or sell it? My mind's still reeling.