Jacquelyn's Space

I cannot believe it is 2015! Where does the time go? My husband and I went out on New Year’s Eve for once. We went and done to St. Clair Shores to a bar called the Blue Goose Inn to see guitarist Jim McCarty and The Detroit Blues Band. We had a good time though it was crowded and we were too tired to be super celebratory. We didn’t feel like dancing and service was so slow I couldn’t get a good buzz, haha; I really wanted to get a good buzz going on New Year’s Eve. Oh well– I guess it is better to stay home and drink anyway. After the bar was done we went back to our hotel room (had to get a room close by because I wanted to get a buzz but it all came to naught) and had pink champagne. Our room had a giant king-size bed and I loved it. That is my New Year’s resolution– to get a king size bed, HA! Needless to say we didn’t get to bed until after 4 in the morning.

We got up late this morning. I could not or did not want to get moving. We went and had a late breakfast at Cracker Barrel (where we waited nearly an hour for a table and again service was slow). All in all I’d have to say it is better to stay home on New Year’s Eve and Day. Plus I think we are getting old. Oh no!

So, for real, my New Year’s Resolutions:

Work-out

Eat healthier

Lose weight

Be kinder, more forgiving (but yet not take any shit–don’t want to be stupid)

Write everyday

–Pretty much the same resolutions as always. I got to break out of this resolution rut…get these accomplished so I can move on.

State website causing some problems for private agencies and foster parents (link)

Ridiculous! The state needs to get its stuff together–no wonder why they don’t have enough good foster parents. Then you got some foster kids out there at the mercy of strangers who aren’t getting any money for their care. Does that sound like a good situation?

State website causing some problems for private agencies and fos – ABC 12 – WJRT – Flint, MI.

Glad the news touched on this problem but this story (& the whole foster care system) needs more investigation & coverage. I was a foster parent for 3 boys–all with mild Aspergers & 2 have ADD– I have been waiting for months for my payments. I call, I complain–nobody could tell me anything other than the new system was screwing everything up…Finally I got some money at the end of November. This is after about 2 months without payment & actually about 5 months of partial and full payments being owed (for all 3 kids!). The state still owes me money & my foster children aren’t in foster care anymore (they have gone ‘home’ but I still care for them). It is ridiculous and ultimately it is the kids that suffer. Money that is supposed to be for their care isn’t made available in a timely manner; it isn’t right for foster parents to be constantly behind financially.

I was thinking…I had time to think over Thanksgiving week-end, ha. My husband and I went up to my mom’s house in Onekama, MI and spent a few days. I do love her new house and I have always enjoyed the beach town of Onekama. It is right on the scenic drive, M22, on Portage Lake (which is off Lake Michigan) and not too far from Sleeping Bear (my mom is on a hill that overlooks the town and she has a view of Portage Lake from her house). We didn’t do much this trip– just hung out with my mom and her boyfriend Larry and relaxed, too sleepy from the turkey I guess. There was already quite a bit of snow in northern Michigan–being so near the big Lake Onekama gets lots of lake effect snow. I love it…it is so beautiful up there and I don’t want to leave. Then my dad and his girlfriend Patty is only 14 miles farther inland at my parents’ former cottage in Kaleva; I have always loved it there. We visited with my dad and his girlfriend Patty for a few hours before we went back home. Daddy had his fireplace going, nice and cozy. I didn’t want to leave…

So I was thinking. I really want to live up there. It is either up near my parents, where they are kind of situated between the major cities up there (Cadillac, Manistee, and Traverse City), or up near the Straits of Mackinac. I really should move closer to my parents since they are getting on in years so that area will probably win out. Hell, I can still have a retreat farther north if I have the money and desire.

Yes, that is my new goal. I don’t have a fixed end date in which to meet my goal by, only that is a goal stuck in my brain. It won’t happen quick but it is something I feel I need to accomplish within the next 4-8 years. I figure I’ll scope out the community colleges up there to see what the job prospects the area has (for teaching composition), my husband can scope out some job prospects. We’ll get a plan together. Of course I have to finish my Master’s– I only have two classes that I need before I finish though I do have other goals for my education. I don’t know how I can make it all that work. I just know that I want to live up north– I feel more at peace there, more creative, I can write…

A new goal to add to my others. It has a little more meat to it than my overall goal of having a place up north. I can see me living and working somewhere near where my parents live. Oh, and my new house has to have a fireplace.

Old goals. Finish school, determine what my next educational goals are (I really want an advanced degree in counseling). But my top priority in the near future: I need to lose weight. My blood pressure is up. I have never had trouble with my blood pressure but now I need to take medication. I am not thrilled about that. I must lose weight and get myself in shape. I cannot have the kind of life I want being obese. I love to hike. I want to learn to ski. It is hard to do these things when I am fat and huffing and puffing everywhere. Plus my energy is low and it might get better if I drop some pounds.

File this under advice I could have used a long time ago, hahaha.

An article I came across today:

Dealing with a High Conflict Ex-Wife In 5 Easy Steps: A Guide for Stepmoms

http://alicemarlowe.hubpages.com/hub/Dealing-with-a-High-Conflict-Ex-Wife-In-5-Easy-Steps-A-Guide-for-Stepmoms

***

So much truth…I didn’t have it quite as bad as the author of the article but it was bad enough. And yes I made mistakes, I engaged, I fell into some of the ex’s traps. Ugh. For the most part I had the best motives–my heart was pure: I wanted what was best for my significant other and his son…I wanted them to have time together (without interference from the ex) and a good relationship. I can only guess what the ex’s motives were for being such a cunt. Yes, I said it– she was a (is?) cunt when it came to dealing with her ex-husband (and me).

Much of what the author advocates for dealing with the big, bad ex-wife will work but it is still hard to accept and ultimately it is disatisfying (for the child, for the dad, even for the stepmom). You keep hoping the ex will be reasonable. Why wouldn’t she be? Why can’t she be? Why do so many people excuse this type of behavior in ex-wives (bio-moms)?

It would be so much better for all involved if ex-wives–bio-moms–could put their jealousies and insecurities to rest for the good of their children. Be the mother they claim to be.

How did I get here? I was building a happy life but I took a wrong turn somewhere….

I hate to write it, I hate to think it but I think I took the wrong turn the minute I stopped being true to myself and tried to be the unselfish hero. It is a role I am not cut out for, at least not at this point in my life.

It is super hard taking care of kids that aren’t your own. Beyond hard…I don’t know how foster parents do this over and over again and for strangers no less; I have my nephews so I kind of knew what I was in for. And then there is the stepmom thing too…

Everything is complicated and hard to explain. Nothing is easy. And I can’t really talk to anybody about it. I can only attempt to write it here.

And then there is heartbreak…

I asked my nephews to clean their room; my oldest throws a fit, of course. I can’t deal with it so I don’t–do it or it is naughty chair. I’m not asking for much, certainly not asking for the room to be perfect– just picked up. It should not be too difficult.

Oldest is complaining and carrying on. Then I hear him talking about his mom–how she hates him and was abusive towards him. He was telling the other boys that his mom hates them too…that she doesn’t care about them, doesn’t love them. I had to put a stop to it– don’t want the other boys feeling worse than they already do. Their mom has not visited them for well over a year now; she hasn’t even made an attempt.

I yell out, “Hey, that’s not right, that’s not true.” Even though I truly don’t think their mom cares all that much for them. Not truly, not the way a mother should. My poor nephew thinks I think he is talking about me. I went into their room. I told him I know he isn’t talking about me and ask why is saying what he is saying. He just repeated what he said, “Our mom hates us. She doesn’t care about us and she was mean.” My other nephew chimed in, “Yeah, she hasn’t tried to visit us for a long time.” I had to tell him that she doesn’t hate them…that she loves them but she has problems. That had to cover it because to explain the complicated mess to them…well there really isn’t any way I could. I don’t think their mom HATES them but I do believe there is a lack of caring on her part. But she does have problems– this I always knew. She has always been troubled. And now she is Flint somewhere partying, living the lifestyle she always wanted– drinking and drugging, hanging out with men and probably trash. She is also trying to make money the old-fashioned way–as an escort, a prostitute more or less.

But I had to just shut my nephew down so he wouldn’t damage the other boys. The youngest refused to believe his mom hates him, he remembered a time when his mom was tickling him. My oldest nephew just talked about how his mom hit and kicked him so I pointed out to him that was part of the problems, her problems. Then I gave him a hug and told him I was sorry that he felt his mom hated him but I didn’t think it was true, that she just had problems and that is the way it is sometimes. That is just the way it is. That is all I could really say…

I feel so horrible that my nephews have to go through this. I feel bad that I can’t love them ‘enough’. In part because I am not their mother but in part, because I am just not equipped. I am not a touchy-feely kind of person; I am hard, too damn hard. There are conditions on my love, well most of it anway. Conditions that are rarely met and then I am unhappy.

Personally, I feel horrible because I hate being put in this position. I hate having to defend a person (a shitty person, a shitty mother) that I wouldn’t really give a rat’s ass for. I have done this before with my stepson–had to defend his mother to him, somewhat or at least try to figure out her behavior to keep the kid relatively happy and mentally healthy — I didn’t want to have to do it again. It is a losing battle…always. If a kid has a bad mother or a mother with problems then the kid will suffer no matter what anybody else tries to do to make up for it. That is the cold hard truth.

And I am ill-equipped to even begin to make up for shitty mothering. I try and try, I stretch and stretch til I feel like I am breaking. How much more can I give?

A long time ago I watched a program on PBS or National Geographic about DNA testing to find a person’s ethnic make-up and ancestors; to see how various peoples migrated around the world. It was really interesting and I always thought I’d like to have some genetic testing done to see where my people came from. I kind of knew…my mom and my grandma always talked about family, our ancestors; they were also big on family reunions. I knew my dad’s family, on one side are Polish/Russian (or German?East German aka Prussian– found that out from a reunion and some research a cousin had done) and French on the other side; I know this mostly because of their names: Kress and Shay, shortened from Krzewinski and Czajkowski (my paternal grandfather’s families) and Charboneau (my paternal grandma’s family). My mom has always said her family is English, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, German, and maybe Spanish or Italian…also, maybe French and Irish. Basically, I am a medley…but still I wanted to do the genetic testing just to see if there were some surprises.

Then I saw that ancestry.com was offering  DNA testing. I thought, “Cool! I want to do that some day.” I couldn’t resist ordering a kit this past June…

I ordered my kit, got it quickly. It was easy– it is a saliva test. You have to fill a vial and send it back to the lab, then register your test online. Results would be ready online in 6 weeks. I did all that and decided I should start a family tree so when my DNA test was registered I could find some cousins on ancestry.com.

In July I started with a 2 week free trial on ancestry and began working on my tree. I got a good start just from memory of all that I had heard from my family already. I actually quite proud at how much I could remember. Before I knew it I had 700 people on my tree. Some families are easier to trace than others because some are more researched than others. I knew a cousin had already done extensive research on my mother’s paternal line. What surprised me was how easy it was to trace my dad’s maternal line. My grandma Marjorie was a Charboneau. At one time her family lived in Detroit and I had heard tell of a farm in Monroe County, Michigan. A couple of years ago, my friend Melissa and I did some cursory research into the Charboneau family and found out that the family was among the first settlers in Monroe County. I was excited to find out more, and excited that it seemed fairly easy to trace my Grandma’s line. Lots of research had already been done, and there were lots of records. Her maternal line, my great-grandma Charlotte had been a Knaggs…there is a whole book written on that family. It is online for free! What a valuable resource. I traced/researched farther and found out the Knaggs family was actually Dutch and English– surprise, surprise! I thought my grandma’s family were French but here is a whole other branch I knew little about. I traced the Knaggs family back to their arrival in the Americas– they came through New York and Pennsylvania, settled in Ohio for a while but then moved into Michigan. The later Knaggs did marry into many of the French families. I picked one French line to trace– I wanted to see when they all arrived in America.

Little did I know that my French ancestors have been in the Americas since the beginning. My first clue came through that very first French line I traced through my Knaggs family line (a Morin family daughter married Alexis Knaggs, my fourth great grandfather). They came to the Detroit area from Canada. I traced back further. All this in one night because I was so intrigued…I traced back to the first settlers in Canada– Quebec. To my tenth great grandma, Helen Desportes. She was apparently the first white baby born in Canada! I was blown away. Lots of research has been done on her and her family. There is a whole book written about her and her family. It is called Helene’s World.

http://smile.amazon.com/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8nes-World-H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne-Desportes-Seventeenth-Century/dp/0615738591/ref=smi_www_rcolv2_go_smi?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

So I ordered the book but I have not read it cover to cover yet. I am hooked on ancestry.com and researching my French, or French-Canadian ancestors. Lots more of my discoveries to write about but I’ll stop here and just share my DNA results.

Results

DNA results from ancestry.com came quickly– I think it actually took less than a month. More surprises. Lots of what I expected: I am 42% Eastern European (those are my German/Polish/Prussian ancestors on both sides of my family); I am only 6% Western European; my next biggest ethnic group is Irish–28%– I wasn’t expecting so much Irish but that includes the Scottish and Welsh ethnic groups; I only tested 1% Great Britain or English (surprise); Scandinavian 12% (surprise), Iberian Peninsula 6% (so perhaps I do have Spanish ancestors), Italy/Greece 3%, Finland/North Russia <1% (so much for being Russian), and…AND <% Native American. What? That was the biggest surprise for me because nobody in either of my families had ever talked about Native American ancestors. At less than 1% it had to be fairly far back. I didn’t know but it was (is) very interesting. And I got a few pages of tree hints, and lots of pages of cousins– 119 at first but I am up 132 pages now. Yikes.