My Husband Sucks At Bowling

With October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, much of my time has been taken up by nonprofit events and speaking engagements, so I apologize for not having a "real" post ready this week. But what I can do, is catch you up the articles that I have written elsewhere, and also fill you in a bit on what else has been keeping us busy!

Marriage Is Great, And We Are Already In Counseling

Do you guys remember the post "My Christmas Tree Might Actually Fall Over," in which I threw out the big tree that I had once shared with my ex, and in an attempt to embrace our new life as a family of three, bought the only tree that my measly budget could afford?

This year, The Guy and I decided to keep that tree, and use it as our one and only. No expensive, six foot tall tree could replace three and a half feet of cheap plastic, that has always had pride and strength hanging from its branches.

So this year, I got to watch my husband put up the tree that symbolized my new life as a family of three, which has now grown to a family of four, and through it all, I watched my past continue to intertwine itself with my future.

It felt amazing.

Now that the dust has settled a bit on my surprise marriage, everyone keeps asking me the universal standard "First Year of Marriage Question," which if you were unaware, is "Sooooooo, how is married life?"

And it's funny, because it almost makes me wonder if there are people who really answer "it sucks. Honestly, I wish I had never done it. I'm like a week in and I already have one foot out the door and another stepping into the grave."

Because there would be nothing awkward about that... 

But since I'm always never awkward, I end up giving nifty little answers such as "it's great, except that I keep forgetting he lives with me now. Like he is there. All. The. Time."

Eight Months Later...

So... I just realized that it's been like EIGHT MONTHS since I did one of those "and this is what we've been up to" posts. 

What the hell Eden, pull it together! 

With that being said, I just went back through my photo files from the last few months and I'm here to update all of you in a fashion that can only be described as "overwhelming."

For that, I apologize.

I know that a lot of you were relying on me to describe the free or low cost activities that we attend so that you could look for similar things in your area, and I completely dropped the ball! For that I really am sorry. Life just kind of got away from me and I'm going to back up that explanation by taking you all the way back to December and showing you how we have spent our weekends.

We started out the holidays by attending a free local Winter Wonderland thing with my kids, The Guy, and My Platonic Hubby and her family...

Can I just take a moment to brag about how The Girl Child has not gotten THREE years out of this dress? I'm impressed.

Sorry I'm Late

Sorry, I've been lazy, so here's a post that has been building up in my file folder for two months now and I just haven't gotten around to publishing it. I have however, gotten enough emails from readers asking "why haven't you posted any of the free weekend activities that you guys do?" to let me know that I'm slacking.

I also didn't realize that so many of you were using my free weekend activities to spark ideas for your own family, so I apologize for being so delayed. If there is any advice that I can give you, it's to go to your local library, recreation center, and park district office and get the informational booklets that nearly every town publishes on a quarterly basis. The booklet should detail all the events and festivals that will be going on in your area, and most should have the costs listed with the event time information.

Because I have absolutely no money for entertainment and yet I don't want my kids to miss out on their entire childhood, I go through the book and put all the free activities right into my calender so that I can plan ahead for the ones we want to attend.

ANYWAY, I figured this extended holiday weekend would be the perfect time to drop this post's enormity on you because some of you might have a little extra time to get through it all! So jumping back to the end of September and moving forward, here is what has been keeping us busy, free and otherwise.

And This Is What Has Kept Us Busy

So, do you want to know what has been keeping me (and Mr. Attorney Man) busy?

Fighting with my state.

The child support office has STILL been withholding my child support payments, since last August! AN ENTIRE YEAR!!!!!

I don't want to delve into the entire story again, so if you are new to this blog I would suggest clicking here and after you read that one, click here before going on. That should catch you up.

But anyway, yes, so the child support office has continued to withhold my money, which makes absolutely no sense because what they do is based off a court order; a court order that they themselves have entered into the system wrong, but my case worker sucks, and has refused to look at the court order.

I'm not even kidding.

I've called her, Mr. Attorney Man has called her, and all she does is insult us. She told me that "as a little white girl" I should just get a better job and that Mr. Attorney Man shouldn't even have a law license. She then informed us that "you are free to haul my ass into court and I'll tell that judge how to do his job," because she knows that she has governmental immunity.

Legally she is protected and we can't take her to court.

Eventually I went to my state representative, state senator, and house republic leader. I provided them with copies of the court orders and a timeline of what had been going on, and they were FLOORED. They couldn't believe what was going on and made it their personal mission to help me.

Unfortunately they didn't get very far.

How ridiculous.

Because the child support office is protected by government laws, they weren't able to do anything either. We even re-wrote the court order with the child support states attorney and that didn't help.

Finally I went to the newspaper.

When some higher-ups found out about it, things started moving along. 

A conference call took place between Mr. Attorney Man, a big wig at the child support office in my state capital, a political leader, and myself. 

At first the child support big wig was less than pleased to be on the phone with us. In fact his conversation started with "I hear that you have been upset with the way your caseworker is handling the case, but we are well within our rights to be withholding Ms. Strong's money." But as the conversation went on and he realized that he was operating off an invalid court order, and that my caseworker had refused to enter my new order (and all of my issues were based upon the fact that they were erroneously working off of an invalid order), his tune changed quickly.

Everything was handed over to the state's legal department and a week later I received word that the new order was in the system, no more money would be withheld, I would be receiving a check for everything that was wrongly withheld from me, and that my caseworker had been placed on probation.

YAY!!!!

I got a refund check (which I turned around and handed right over to Mr. Attorney Man, boo hiss), but then a week later the stupid child support office defaulted the order in their system back to the wrong one, and they started withholding my money again.

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

Three weeks later and I still haven't been able to get anyone to fix it.

I am SO ready to move on from this, not only because it's financially killing me and incredibly stressful, but because I have other things that I would rather be doing!!

In fact, here are a few of the other things that have been keeping me busy:

A few friends and I, including The Platonic Hubby, went to our town's free (I love free!) Patriotic Festival.

SO. FREAKING. BUSY!

It's funny how everyone waits for summer to get here so that they can kick back and relax, but then the minute it gets here we all take off running and throw relaxation to the side!

Here's just a snapshot of what the Strong family has been up to:

As I said before, someone graduated 1st grade.

Girl Child and her Teacher
Funny story, Mr. Attorney Man texted me as I was walking to the school to pick her up, and I replied back telling him not to text me again until I gave him the all clear. I wanted to take a video and incoming texts stop the recording!

Which of course meant we had to celebrate that they let us stay until the end of the year.

What better way to kick off summer than with a silly string fight?