Auburn police 💙

So. Safeway gives discounted gas if you buy $100 worth of groceries, you get $0.10 off your gas. Unfortunately this only works if you remember when you bought the groceries and the points and discount expire at the end of the following month. Well I had saved up through mostly prescription medications, a full dollar off of gas, and given that today is New Year's Eve I knew that my points and my discount will expire tonight. I also know that I was waiting for my tabs in the mail, so I didn't really want to drive but I knew I had to because hey, a dollar off gas is quite a bit! So... in the lottery of police officers, I hit the jackpot. Not only was he cute, but he came up to remind me that my tabs were expired, and when I reached for my wallet to give him my license and insurance information... My wallet was not there. My wallet was actually at home on my dresser, which did not help me in this situation. My brain went immediately to I can't afford this ticket, he's going to take me to jail, who's going to tow my car away, all of the major stressors and I started to cry. Now, being part of the self harm Club, I don't cry. But I was so sure that just to save a couple of dollars on gas was going to cost me thousands of dollars that I was bawling and blubbering to this poor police officer who immediately started laughing. Not in a bad way, in a very friendly a, I've already run your record and your fine kind of way. He told me to go get the gas and go home and then we both realized that I couldn't pay for the gas without my wallet so he told me to just go home. Auburn police sometimes get a bad rap because we have a lot of homeless, and drugs but this officer is beginning my new year and an awesome new way. He also told me to tell my boyfriend that I couldn't even get a traffic ticket from a traffic cop with my smile.💙

The more things change...

2 years ago, Brandy was over here visiting and instead of staying home with his daughter Mike went to the bar. He decided at that time but he was going to take custody of his then 14 year old daughter. Mike didn't raise this girl she was bounced from foster home to foster home but in a drunk moment of well... Drunkenness he decided he was going to keep her. He was texting her and texting I and letting us know that she wasn't going home. He would take her back to Yakima to get her clothes and say goodbye to her friends and that was the end of the conversation. When she decided that wasn't kosher on her end, and decided she didn't want to live over here, Mike got angry. He got so angry that I knew he was going to come home and bad things were going to happen. The normal holes in the walls taking of the door yelling, screaming, I can handle that... But this girl is only 13 and she doesn't know her father. She doesn't understand that he is generally a good guy until he gets too much rum in him, and then it's better to just capitulate and deal with the blowbacks the next day. No, this girl is a fighter. She stood up for herself. And as proud of her as I was, I knew I had to get her out of the house. So we went up to my mom's house . I knew Mike would come looking he's not stupid. I also knew that my dad had a gun and that the police were not about to release a 13 year old in to Mike custody. Hopefully if it came to that he would be arrested and spend the night in the drunk tank teaching him a lesson. It almost came to that. We went up to my mom's house and I turned on the TV and got some blankets and pillows for Brandy and made her a nice bed on the couch. I waited until about 2:30 when Mike showed up. He had been texting from the bar and then texting when he got home, accusing me of kidnapping his daughter. I told him we would be back in the morning, just get some sleep. Instead, he showed up. He was banging on the doors and banging on the windows and I told him that if he really wanted me to I would call the police. I didn't want it to come to that because I wasn't 100% sure they would let Brandy stay with me; I'm not technically family. I also didn't really want my family involved in this any more than they absolutely had to be. Mike went back to his truck call me continue to text Brandy to get her to come outside. At some point she shut off her phone. I remember thinking this is the life that this girl grew up with when she was with her parents and being thankful that the Foster system existed. We stayed there for a few more hours and when the sun came up, so did Grandma. I explained that we had come up during the night to get warm and watch TV. Grandma offered us breakfast but we knew that we had to go home. It was about 7 I went out and warmed up my car, and we took off. I told her that I was sorry that this happened on her vacation, and that she was welcome to come anytime and I would do my best that this never happen again. When we got home, I told her to stay in the car so that I could assess the damage first. I wanted to make sure there was nothing broken she would step on or Worse see her father in a position no child should ever see their parent. When I got into the apartment, not only were there no holes in the walls but he had patch the hole in the bedroom. He had put together the tree and vacuum the floor, cleaned off the couch futon, the entire apartment looks like he had spent the night cleaning!  When I walked up the stairs, I could hear Christmas music playing on his karaoke machine, and he was in the kitchen cleaning. This was such a bizarre and sourial seen to see I wasn't quite sure what to think. I motioned to Brandy that she could come up and she brought her backpack and came up the stairs. she was just as surprised as I was! Mike came out of the kitchen, came over and gave us both a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and asked if we liked his Christmas surprise. We both said yes, and he asked if we had been out Christmas shopping because he put the tree up. He had absolutely no memory of the night before.

Identity theft, bah humbug

So I woke up this morning and I had two emails from Apple iTunes Store. I immediately mark them as spam, because I don't have an Apple iTunes account. Then I got a phone call from my bank saying that my Apple iTunes account had overdrafted my bank account by almost $500. I hit that spam folder like it was made of chocolate! Turns out, somebody head borrowed my identification and opened an account in the iTunes Store. They had been running up a tab and since most iTunes purchases are just $1 I hadn't noticed anything on my bank account. They drained my Christmas savings of $1,700 yes, and then started a line of credit. Which they did not pay. This is what triggered the Apple Store to email me. When I called the 1-800 number on the email I was redirected to a fraud department, so they were way ahead of me. We three way called in my bank who let me know that this has been going on since the beginning of November. Again $1 increments I don't even pay attention to. Not that I have a lot of money mind you, but I do a lot of transactions and $1 could just be the gas station could just be Safeway, could just be a test to see if the bank account was real. ITunes can't tell me who opened the account but it has been closed and they're refunding all of the money and all of the bank charges that had accrued. My bank is changing my bank account number sending me new checks and a new debit card all free of charge. I seriously love Alaska USA. This is the second time that this is happened to me, identity theft anyway, and they have been right behind me supporting me the whole way. Props to the Apple guy for not giving me grief, and not trying to sell me anything. It's two days before Christmas and I probably would have reach through the phone and made him a woman.

My Life. (FML)

1) Complain that gas/electric bill/food prices are too high. 

2) Spend all day scrapping for $21 dollars. --Dont give any to gf that helped you find, scrape and package metal.

3) Complain about not having Christmas money 

4) Complain that you cant pay child support 

5) Complain that you cant pay rent 

6) GO TO BAR???

It MUST get better, right?? 

Parents are teachers

Look at your children. What are you teaching them? What have your actions taught them today? Do they think that violence, lying, and physical or mental abuse will get them what they need in life? Have you told them that opening a book is more important than putting on the latest color of makeup?  Have you taught them to be victims  or have you taught them to be Fighters ? Are you proud of your children? Are these children that you're going to stand up in front of a minister and giveaway to their future spouse and say I am proud of the way you turned out? If you cannot answer yes to every single question, you need to rethink your parenting.

Happy birthday

If you've never gone to Panda Express I sincerely think you should go. I stumbled across Panda Express a few years ago and while drive-thru Chinese food does sound a bit fishy, they really are good. I introduced them to Mike and now that's his go-to restaurant. And go to we did! We went and he treated me to an early birthday dinner and I just wanted to put it out there because lately he's been nothing but a negative in my life. So today was a positive. Now off to take a nap!