September 2010

Working from home again today. My job rocks in that I can work from home if needed. Cole is the last one to be taken down from the 'illness' sweeping through our house. Jake was down the early part of last week and Andi only got a mild version. Ara and I are still recovering. He got hit on Weds and me on Fri. I started in early with the allergy meds so I didn't get all drippy and congested--just the achy part. All of us are supposed to be taking allergy meds and are terrible about it so at first I thought fall allergy season hit hard and fast...but it is one of those nasty back-to-school germs flying about.

Since my last blog:

1. Cole and his friends got kicked out of New Town for a year. issued No Trespass Notifications

2. Cole's $987.00 bike got stolen from New Town three days later

3. He reported it stolen. We spent three weeks working with the police and following up on leads and actually found the bike in an apartment complex as a group of thugs were taking the bike apart. Cole and his friend got the bike back, but the thugs hid the rims as the boys were walking up and said they didn't have them. Ara and I got involved...I did all the talking (as mama bears tend to do). I was shaking like a leaf talking to these big thugs in wife beaters and doo rags. I told them the bike was reported stolen and that the value of it made it a felony--that they had received stolen goods...I had receipts with me...they still wouldn't budge. I called the police. We got the rims back. Turns out the girl that stole the bike sold it for $5 and when they went to her house she had three more stolen bikes on her porch. So we basically handed the county 4 felonies to pursue.

4. The next day following this I come home to a summons taped to the front door. Cole is being charged with criminal trespass. So instead of following up on the stolen bike report and following all the leads as to where the bike was that Cole was getting texts messages about everyday from different people who would see his bike being ridden around town, the police were pursuing an assumed trespass.

5. Hired an attorney. He's been waiting to defend one of these Trespass Notification violations that is apparently unconstitutional because of the legal jargon on the paperwork. Cole's was never signed by any of the parties involved and powers of attorney would be needed from every property owner and business owner in New Town giving permission to issue the Trespass Notifications. So we get to go to that trial in Dec.

6. Andi turned 15. We celebrated, in this years tradition, with dinner and ice cream at Friendly's We started that in May with Ara's b-day. She got an I-pod touch and I am so jealous.

7. Andi quit flags...and I am so so sad about it. After many arguments about sticking to our commitments and being dependable and blah blah blah...I finally caved in. She was miserable.

8. Jake has budgeting issues! and I finally sat down with him and we went over all his pay stubs and figured out an average monthly income and divided his cell phone bill by the week. Dining out was eating all income and he would have $27 dollars left. Which wasn't enough to cover his phone bill. Every month he was late and no money left to save for a car. I think it was an eyeopener. Now he pulls cash from the atm for the week and took his debit card out of his wallet. Still haven't convinced him that balancing his checkbook is a good idea.

9. Cole is back in wrestling and started conditioning yesterday. I think that was the straw that broke the camels back with him fighting off getting sick. He was beat after practice. And is now in bed with a fever. He's grown 3 1/2 inches since last year and that means I have to buy new wrestling shoes and running shoes. The boy has 6 pairs of everyday shoes but he can't run or wrestle in them. And those are the ones in his closet...out of circulation sitting in the garage are three more pairs of shoes. The cool thing is that one of the wrestling coaches is on the police force and hopefully will write a positive statement about Cole's character.