Next Stop Future
All Posts,  Miscellaneous,  Quit Smoking,  Relationships

Changes

There has been a few changes in my life since I last wrote and one of them is where I live. I was renting a one bedroom flat and my two adult children were renting a two bedroom unit but we have all been wanting to live somewhere nicer.

The cost of rent is outrageous so none of us could afford much by ourselves but, together, we could afford a nice house so that’s what we have done. we pooled our financial resources and rented a nice big house together.

The past couple of weeks have been spent packing and moving and the next few weeks, maybe months, will be spent unpacking and sorting stuff out.

Almost as soon as the ink was dry on the new rental agreement my life shifted gear.

I’ve felt as if the past couple of years have been a time of grace and rest for me. It’s as if God knew I needed time to heal from all that has happened to me so he brought me to a place of peace and tranquility.

During the past couple of years there have been no attacks on me, no threatening events, no potential problems and so on. Work has been a source of support not worry, my relationships have been calm, I have recovered from depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress and all has been reasonably smooth sailing.

As soon as I signed the new rental agreement conditions at work went haywire.

I got an email asking for my opinion on the companies policy of not giving references to try and reduce staff turnover. I had no idea that was their policy and I am most unimpressed to discover it is.

Soon after finding that out I learned several staff members, including my team leader, have quit because they were asked to accept a reduction in their hours.

It seems the new government does not think our work is as important or worthy of funding as the previous government did so costs have to be cut.

The rumour is the CEO’s salary is not, however, one of the costs they are going to cut. They say she just got a 40 thousand dollar a year pay rise. Needless to say there are a lot of very unhappy people at work right now.

So things took a turn for the worse at work but that is not the only thing that has gone wrong.

Before we made the move I put my car in to have some major work done. New brakes, new radiator, service and tune etc. It all cost me over 1,700.00 dollars but, when I got it back, it felt like a different car. I thought I could finally relax about car repair expenses for a while at least but that has not turned out to be the case unfortunately.

The new house has a very steep driveway and my car isn’t handling it very well at all. I have hit a side wall and scraped the undercarriage a couple of times already and we have only been here a couple of weeks. Now the clutch is playing up badly and the car is running rough again. It really needs more work done on it again less than a month after paying out all that cash and I don’t have the money to do it. Sigh.

The kids and I have already locked horns a couple of times too. It was bound to happen I suppose but, so far, it has not been anything major. Just boundary issues.

I bought my two seater recliner couch so I would have somewhere comfortable to sit not so the kids could watch my TV in comfort and I could sit in less comfort on their basic couch! I kick them off if they sit in my seat because I don’t want to suck it up and end up resenting them but it does annoy them. I figure the sooner they learn not to pinch my chair the sooner I will not have to annoy them by kicking them off it hehehe.

There has also been dramas with the internet. I transferred my internet account to the new place and my kids didn’t. When they had trouble getting onto the internet with my computer they simply disconnected it and hooked theirs up.

I didn’t go to all the trouble of transferring the account and chasing up repairs and problems with it so THEY could play THEIR online games instead of me being able to play mine!

As it turns out, my ethernet cable is faulty so I have to buy a new one of those. Just one more minor drama that I wasn’t having to deal with when I was in my little one bedroom place alone.

Then there’s my email issue that could turn out to be a problem with family.

I had to go into debt to pay for the move so I arranged a loan with my bank. I gave them my wordsbykim email address and that was when I discovered the email account is not working properly. I can send emails but I am not receiving them any more.

My brother hosts my website and he recently upgraded the email thingy from the looks of things. I presume the upgrade is what has caused the problem.

I emailed him and tried to talk to him about it via Skype but there has been no reply to my email and my Skype message failed to go through to him even though he was online at the time. I spoke to his partner via Skype and she sidestepped the issue instead of offering to let him know I’m having problems which is what she usually does.

I figure he either doesn’t know how to fix the problem, is flat out and doesn’t have time right now, or he is mad at me and has decided to ignore me. He may even have me on ignore in Skype.

If he is mad at me I know why. He asked me not to repay the money I owe his partner and use it to buy his daughter a birthday present instead.

He is fiercely protective and proactive about his little girl. He bends over backwards to ensure she has the best possible life in every way. Not sending her a birthday card after he has pretty much asked me to would be something that might have really upset him. I knew that was a risk when I made the decision not to send the card.

I bought it and I was going to send it with some money inside but then I realised it would not be fair to all my other nieces and nephews. I am a lousy aunt. I don’t remember birthdays or send presents even when I do remember.

I decided if I am going to be a lousy aunt I should at least be a fair one. My sister has three kids who have never received cards or presents from me. If I do things differently with my brothers kids I run the risk of her getting mad at me!

I stayed with my brother and his partner when my other brother got married and his stepdaughter had her 18th birthday party while we were there. I didn’t get her anything so getting the other child something would stink of favouritism!

I’m not prepared to play favourites so I will just have to wear my brother’s anger, if that is what has happened, and stop using my wordsbykim email address.

I just hope he will remember the 30 plus years of birthday cards, including 18th and 21st ones, he failed to send to my two kids.

The possibility that he is mad at me makes me nervous about what will happen to this site. He might just let it die which would make writing updates for this blog fairly pointless. I considered walking away from the site but I guess I may as well wait and see.

It’s about all I can do with all of the things that have happened really. Wait and see what happens at work. Wait and see how the car goes and try to save up some money to get the work done. Wait and see how living with my kids again turns out. Wait and see if my brother stays silent and so on.

If the worst comes to worst I can get another job. I saw one the other day that would pay almost 30 thousand a year more than I am getting now. My qualifications are tailor made for the position but it is only a seven month contract so I’ll wait for something more long term I think.

If the worst comes to worst I can get more credit to fix my car but I will wait and see if it holds up long enough to pay cash.

If the worst comes to worst and I can’t stand living with my kids we can move back into separate housing in a years time when the lease is up.

If the worst comes to worst and this site is about to be taken off me it doesn’t matter. It was always something I did because I was sure God wanted me to do it. If things go sour with my brother and the site comes to an end I will just assume God has done whatever he wanted to do with it and it is time to move on.

There is something incredibly freeing about having lived through a nightmare. You come out the other side knowing nothing is forever and you are stronger than you think.

The good news is I have quit smoking in the house which has already cut my cigarette consumption by over 10 per day and I am sure my consumption will decrease even more as time goes by. The shine is fast wearing off standing outside in the cold to smoke I can tell you. As I get used to going for an hour or so without a smoke I expect to increase the time between smokes more and more to avoid freezing to death.

I am currently munching away on sugarless gum to try and delay the next trip into the cold outdoors! I hate the cold and I am fast coming to the conclusion a nicotine hit is not worth the discomfort hehehe.

3 Comments

  • tony

    Hi Kim, Your right in one aspect I did change the server and it stuffed your emails system up. The account your logging into isn’t receiving the email. But they aren’t being deleted they are in another folder.

    I am not angry and I did respond to your email thinking I had fixed the problem and then went onto other stuff. I forgot about the bday so am not holding grudges or anything like that. Sorry I really thought the email thing was sorted. I didn’t ignore you on skype I didnt get any messages from you.

  • Kim

    Hi Tony, thanks for letting me know what happened. I know you are busy which is why I didn’t want to hassle you about it. I guess, when you have a guilty conscience, you expect the worst hehehe. Hope you can sort the problem out soon 🙂

  • tony

    I have it sorted I just need to show you another way into the email account to get your pre existing emails. Can you skype me or Narelle and I will let you know how to do that.

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