The Truth

Ok.

So I haven't been competely honest with you. I haven't exactly been lying- I've just been withholding information - information that will much better explain my absence from blogger than my stock answer of : "I'm sooo busy".

I'm sorry, but after you finish this post- I think you will understand.

So deep breath here goes:

I am so miserably unhappy right now that I would feel like a hipocrite writing joyful Wedding Wednesday posts about the, "Happiest Day of My Life" or bubbly perky posts about how great married life is. Looking at our beautiful wedding pictures- I just feel sad. I feel sorry for Ben and myself as we smile and look lovingly at one another posed in sunset pictures- because the two of us think that we are embarking on the happiest time in our lives and instead this has been the worst two months of my life.

All of this sounds terrible doesn't it? Well guess what - too bad - real life isn't all about perfect pictures, of perfect bloggers, doing perfect things - real life includes heartache and turmoil and disappointment- all of which the newly minted Smith family has been experiencing.


I of course can not give you nitty gritty details about our issues without over-sharing personal details but I can give it to you in a nutshell- and please note that this post is not intended to evoke a pity party from my followers-but this is my blog and I feel that what I am going through needs to be documented. So, in a nutshell;

Lies. Lies on top of lies on top of lies all to do with our finances that I trustingly thought were under control. Come to find out that my husband has been so far behind on our household bills that we were hundreds of dollars behind on all of them - but he never told me - all of a sudden a big chunk of our already budgeted money would be gone to these bills that I never even knew existed. I also found out that our savings for our first home was completely blown through and that Ben's parents expect us to pay them more than $1,000 a month in order to repay them the $5,000 they contributed to help finish paying for our wedding. Money that they offered to help us with and never discussed repayment terms with us about until they were demanding the first payment- from the gift money we received from our wishing well.

Not that dragging out all the dirty laundry wasn't hard enough - but even after I sat down and wrote Ben a heartfelt letter about my feelings and wrote out a budget from now until February- catching us up completely and getting Ben's parents paid- Ben has gone behind my back several times - broken the budget and written checks to his parents that were not agreed on or budgeted for - leaving us with unpaid bills, or no groceries or gas money for upwards of a week ... we may not have electricity after next week and I may default on my student loan - but damnit his parents are paid.

I have no idea what to do. I no longer trust this man that I've known since I was 11 years old. I put my faith in him and he continually crushes me. Even after we've discussed it (continually) he continues to put his parents before me and completely omits me from the equation. I don't know what to do. I have cried more times in the past two months than I have in probably the past two years of my life and there seems to be absolutely no way out.

It is going to be hard enough to catch up on all the bills that Ben has gotten us behind on + keeping current on the bills that we are not behind on - but also owing his parents and them not working with us or understanding (because Ben refuses to tell them how behind he has gotten on everything else) makes us essentially destitute - but on paper we are not because we make too much money to qualify for any type of econimic hardship deferments as they don't take into consideration the money you may owe people like your parents.

So there you have it. Can you imagine how awful I feel everytime anyone asks me how married life is (and its frequently)? I want to tell them its awful and sometimes I wish we had never even had a wedding- that would have taken care of the money we owe Ben's parents - and truthfully if I had known how much Ben was going to hurt me and lie to me and put others before me- there may not have even been a marriage.

And to add insult - my work life is in shambles due to MORE structural changes, our townhouse is falling apart (sewer backed up into basement, airconditioner leaking, tile floor coming up in kitchen) and I pretty much feel like I'm on the losing end of every battle that I've been faced with.

Pity party for me huh?

So I'm sorry if my blogging is essentially non existant - but posts like this are pretty much all I have to offer right now.

Amber Lane

Murphy's Law

Have we ever discussed Murphy's Law together?

If not I'm surprised - especially seeing how as I am the definition.

I won't get into the background but in my world- if it can go wrong it will.

Case in point - this weekend.

I've been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. My friend Jessica who is going into her third year of grad school in Arizona has been planning to visit for the entire summer. I spent the week cleaning and making plans for us for the weekend - I have been so excited to see her because I haven't seen her since June of 2008.

Just before she arrived yesterday I split my big toe nail while vacuuming and that sucked, I cried. Ben had to bandage up my toe just minutes before Jessica breezed through the front door.

The first few hours were great. Jess and I exchanged presents we made plans to go out to dinner and off we were to Red Robin (yummm!).

Dinner was good but Jess who was a little sniffly upon arrival began to get snifflier and snifflier and mentioned that maybe we shouldn't go out that night because she wasn't feeling so hot. I told her that was fine and after finishing with dinner we hopped in my car to zoom home.

Or so I thought.

I started the car, flipped into reverse, reversed and then my steering wheel locked up and I couldn't steer! So I reversed into another parking spot and called Ben. After having me try several more times he told me he would be on his way up. 20 minutes later he showed up, popped my hood and found that one of my belts had snapped. All we could do that night was drive home and he and his dad would come back and repalce the belt today.

I agreed (what else could I do) and Jess and I hopped into Ben's car and headed back for home.

By the time we got back to our house, Jess felt so bad she just wanted to go to bed so she went to bed and I watched an episode of Roseanne then I went to bed too.

This morning Jess and I went to Urgent Care because she could barely swallow only to find out she has strep throat. So we picked up her prescription came back here and started watching The Secret Lives of Bees before Ben called and I had to drive (in Jess' car) up to my car to give him my spare keys (which of course he forgot).

Ben and his dad looked at my car for awhile before determining that in order to fix it they are going to have to take my engine out and they wouldnt have any trouble doing that except that Ben's mom's car is already up on the blocks at their house having her brakes fixed and they don't want to bite off more than they can chew.

So to make an even longer story short I now have to have my car towed and fixed at a shop that won't even open until Monday- who knows when I'll get it back. So Ben's with my car waiting the 2 hours to have it towed, Jessica is in the guest room sleeping, and I'm sitting on the couch typing, finishing the Secret Life of Bees, and throwing myself a pity party.

The only thing that could make this weekend even better is if I manage to contract strep throat too and it lasts through next week when I'm taking a 6 day weekend to do wedding things and celebrate my birthday.

YeeHaw.

Well, I guess you can say I should just be glad to see my friend...and I am glad to see her but if I had that kind of optomism I just wouldn't be me.

Hope everyone else has a better weekend than I'm having.

Love,

Miss Amber Lane

Ugh!

I just posted a warm and fuzzy blog about all the wonderful things I've learned from blogger and how much I love it- then stupid blogger went and deleted the whole post.

I don't have the time or desire to repost right now so I'll have to catch you up later.

SO FRUSTRATING!

Oh Poop!

Today has started off badly. It's not even 9am yet and I'm ready to go home and go back to bed.

In fast forward:

Couldn't sleep last night- I just laid in bed for an hour and a half before trying my magic trick that has always worked when needed to fall asleep: I grabbed my pillows and put them at the foot at the bed and slept with my feet where my head normally goes. I was out in a matter of moments. I don't know why that has always worked for me but it does.

Woke up a little grumpier and groggier than normal. Turned on the traffic only to hear that its still messy today and to watch out for black ice. I asked Ben if he thought I would be ok to drive myself in today- he said yes and hopped into his dad' car to be driven to work and left me to my own devices.

I only had a few minor problems with the road conditions. The main road that leads to the high way was a mess. Snow and slush covered with patches of ice. When I made it to the high way much smoother sailing- once you get past the on ramps anyway. The only issue that I continued to have was front windshield visibility..apparantly I was out of washer fluid and any attempt to wash simply smeared.

I get most of the way to work and my car starts making a loud dinging noise- I glance at my control panel and see that it is overheating- fantastic. So I pull over on the side of the high way with my hazards on and sit there to allow the engine to cool before finishing the one mile to my work exit and pulling intot he gas stationg by work to purchase coolant- my coolant tank has a leak in it- I know that I need to get it repaired but adding coolant to it seems to fix the problem for several months- the only drawback is that I get absolutely no warning- no light, no chime, no nothing until its too late.

Well I make it to work, fill my coolant and go to clock in, at the time clock a sign has been posted that reads (in a nutshell): Fed Ed didn't deliver yesterday therefore we don't have paychecks.
Fan-fucking-tastic.

I only have $200 worth of bills being DIRECTLY removed from my account tomorrow early. I mean on top of everything else that I have to pay. So if those checks don't come in... I'll have some pretty hefty overdraft charges. Lovely. They are saying that we will have them sometime today just don't when- so I'm trying not to panic about that.

My assistant has also let me know that she is going to be late today because she was having trouble getting her car out. Ok, whatever. I understood yesterday and the day before when it was still precipitating and such but this girl texted me last night to tell me that her roads were being cleared and that she would be in today. So tell me why she didn't plan ahead and think, "Hmmm I bet I'm going to have a hell of a time cleaning my car off today- I should probably get started early".

But no. Intead of getting the work that I really need to catch up on started I'm having to do everything that she normally does which is the icing on the cake kind of stuff instead of reconciling expenses and things of that nature.

If she is not here by 10:15 I will also have the lovely pleasure of driving a resident to her doctor's appointment instead of doing the things I need to do as well.

In short, I'm in a shitty pants mood and until Alisha gets here and my check is deposited into my account. I will remain that way.

I sure hope things get better.

Miss Amber Lane

Today I'm Feeling: Pissy, Grumpy, Worried

Crisis Averted

Welp after resubmitting my efile again last night with (what I believe to be) the same AGI as before: my return was accepted!

Yay.

Maybe I was just having a bottle blonde moment. They're worse than regular blonde moments as the dye may have inadvertantly seeped into the brain.

Anyway, I'm at work so I should probably do some!

Loooooove!

Miss Amber Lane

Today I'm Feeling: Happy, Relieved, Ready to be off manana!

It Never Works Out That Easy

At least not for me....

So a mere 3 hours after completing my e-file I get an email from the IRS letting me know that my return has been rejected because the "signature" (read: my previous year's AGI that I was asked to enter for verification) didn't match what they have on record. So I pull out my last year's tax return and enter it again- it takes me 25 minutes to figure out how to resubmit it while I'm also on hold with Turbo Tax for 30 minutes to ask what the problem is (cause I coulda sworn I entered that number to start with) only to be told that I have to call the IRS to verify the number or I could just try to resubmit again and that its actually the IRS accepting or denying and I need to ask them- but I also got the lovely reassurance that EVERYONE is having this problem since this is the first year that they have made it mandatory to e sign as opposed to printing a signature page.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Can't I just get my money and call it a day?

So I did resubmit with the number on my form from last year- hopefully I just entered it incorrectly. If that doesn't work guess who will be spending her off day Monday on hold with the IRS.... yep. And if that doesn't work - first of all the IRS must be on crack because if they won't accept their own figures and that means there has got to be some shit going on.- and second that means I will be forced to file by mail (and wait 1.5-2 months to receive my refund) yet still be charged for efiling per Stephanie at Turbo Tax.

Boo!

Anyway- another weekend day of work ahead tomorrow so I'm going to bed. I'll probably know by the time I wake up in the morning if I've been denied again.

Shrug. I'll figure it out- I always do.

Goodnight.