Frustrated

Feel free to skip this one.  I'm just feeling frustrated this morning and need to vent.  Things really are going fine overall.  It's just the other stuff, you know?

I've been sick all week.  It's such a bummer.  I've been a good girl.  I've been taking my vitamin C and trying to get enough sleep, but so far it's not working.  Hyrum, Benji, and Michael have also been sick, but Hyrum and Benji seem to be getting better.  I've gone from a runny nose to a stuffy nose.  I'm feeling wiped out all the time, and now my throat is joining in the fun.  Whee!  I hate it.  I really thought it would only last a couple of days.  Since I've started taking that Loratadine every day I haven't gotten sick nearly so often.  I guess I've been spoiled! ;)

The other thing that irks me is Joe and BreAnna.  Since they moved out of Mom's house in like July or August they've been living in kind of a crummy apartment with crummy neighbors.  Well, near the end of October they finally found a better place to live, but they couldn't move in until like now.  They didn't want to pay an extra month of rent at their old place along with a month of rent at the new place, so they asked it they could please stay at our house.  They promised to take good care of it, and Joe agreed to install the molding in the doorways where the laminate meets the carpet and the tile.  When we went to the house this weekend, though, we found a few things we didn't like.  Same with anybody living in your house.  They had rearranged this and that.  Nothing too serious.  But then Jeremy also found that his 2 dollar bills were missing.  We scratched our heads and locked our bedroom the best we could when we left.  There's a real lock on that door, but we don't have a way to unlock it from the outside.  So all we could do was use the slider with a chain kind of lock that we use just to keep the little ones out when we're not in there.  And Jeremy put duct tape over it with a note to stay out.  We figured it was just Joe and BreAnna, so that ought to do it, right?  Well, then yesterday Jeremy took Hyrum down to Thatcher for a meeting about a hike that the youth are doing over New Year's.  It sounds really neat - kind of like trek except in the snow or something like that.  Anyway, Joe was texting Jeremy along the way and Hyrum was texting him back for Jeremy.  Joe said it turned out they'd have to wait another month to move into the new place, and he asked if they could stay at our house for that time.  He offered to pay us rent.  Well, immediately, we had some problems with that idea.  Here are a few:

1. A month is longer than we've lived there. Ugh.
2. Joe didn't do that simple task we asked of him.
3. They couldn't pay us the rent that the house is worth.
4. That's a month of somebody living in our house without us there.
5. BreAnna's family is lame, and they often send all her siblings to live with her for a while.  I didn't want that to happen in our house while we weren't there.  These are kids who BreAnna has pretty much raised while being a child herself, children who really have had no boundaries and in whom the adults in the family have pretty much showed no interest other than shuffling them around and ignoring them.  They live with their grandma while she can stand them, but she doesn't really take care of them, while their mother is gallivanting across the countryside or wherever with her latest boyfriend.  What makes it worse, one of those children is only 1 year old.  (I think she's actually a the daughter of BreAnna's cousin.)  And BreAnna's teenage sister was left in charge of her when she should have been going to school.  They worked it out so that Jeremy's mom is taking care of her now.  She figures that Joe and BreAnna will want to adopt her someday but that they're too young right now.  She likes having the little one around, and I'm glad for her, but it kind of enables the irresponsibility of the adults in that family.  Argh!  It's just all not right.  Talk about lack of natural affection.  Or is it entitlement?  Or what?  I don't know.  It's just not right.

So anyway, Jeremy figured he'd go to the meeting with Hyrum and then go talk things over with Joe and BreAnna afterwards.  Well, when he got to the house, he found that BreAnna's little brother was there too.  Apparently, 2 months ago he'd been expelled from school in Globe, so his grandma called all around to find somebody to take him in, and the lot fell to Joe and BreAnna.  And he hasn't been to school since.  This is a problem!  This kid is a jerk!  He hasn't been raised properly at all, so you can't really blame him for being a punk, but man!  I don't want him living in my house, especially when I'm not there!  And it bugs me to no end that they didn't tell us he would be living there too.  We would have said no!  And not only is he living there, but he went back in our bedroom and started eating our kids' Halloween candy.  (They got a lot, and we didn't want them getting sick, so Jeremy put it all in his closet to save.)  We assume the money was taken by said little brother too.  Not really an alternative there.

So anyway, Jeremy told them they are to be out by Friday.  They're going to go live in Aaron and Kenzie's basement.  I feel bad about that, but this is unacceptable, and at least this way they will have some supervision.  I feel betrayed.  And I feel like they're going to think we're the bad guys.  I feel like BreAnna already thought we didn't like her, and now...?  But also I feel like the situation really stinks and I'm upset that Joe is in the middle of it.  He can't escape his in-laws, and he's trying so hard to keep things together when he's just not old enough to handle it.  He works for a construction company that doesn't pay him what they said they would (which really wasn't much to begin with), and he's going to school at EAC.  And he's a newlywed who is barely 18 with a wife who is barely 17, and he has a new baby.  He doesn't need the in-law crap to go with it.  (Pardon the swear word.  I'm mad.)  I guess the sad truth is, though, that in the end this was his choice.  He made some bad choices and these are his consequences.  I just hope he can pull through it.  Ugh.  That's all I can say.

Also, I have baby projects that I need to get started, but between feeling like ick and having a dumb Wal-Mart that doesn't even have the notions or yarn colors I need isn't helping.  At least I have patterns, right?  I guess I'll look for notions and yarn when I go down to the doctor tomorrow.  I still have a project for Joe and BreAnna's baby that's not quite done, but I don't want to knit my germs into it, and if I try to read instead I get 3 kiddos climbing on me.  And I can't beat the other kiddos away from my computer.  Time for some computerless time again.  I'm trying to get the kiddos ready to go to public school, but I'm not sure how I'm doing, especially when all I can seem to do is fall asleep.  Ha ha!  I guess I'm feeling stagnant.  I feel like there's so much to do, but that I just can't seem to get it done.  Yeah, time to put my munchkins to work.  Surely, they can vacuum behind the fridge, right?  Of, course, right!

Well, it's all temporary.  Sickness doesn't last.  I vented and now I can move on.  Time to read my scriptures or something. :) Also, Conference is awesome!  I listened to Elder Nelson's talk about women again the other day, and it's wonderful! :)