My hospital stay part B -- my first visitor

*I had voted for the very first time Tuesday, and now am so happy that the person I voted for had won! Yay, no more Bush!!*

Because I was so dehydrated and was really wanting something to drink, they had given Chuck some ice chips and sponges that I could suck on for water. I was doing just fine with this special diet, I wasn't getting sick or anything. A couple of hours later a male nurse came up to me and asked how I was doing. I told him how thirsty I was and that my lips were extremely dry! He disappeared for a few minutes and came back and put something in my IV. He then told me that he wasn't supposed to give me anything but he had some more ice chips to give me. He gave me one spoonful of ice and I threw it up. He took the ice away and had a bunch of different other nurses come in to help me clean up.

I was also having trouble with my heart/pulse rate beating too fast during this time (which was causing a lot of confusion because my blood pressure was extremely low and all of the medicine they could find me to lower my heart rate would also lower my blood pressure). They had found some medicine to lower my heart rate wich also causes nausea, but the nurse didn't put two and two together and instead took away the ice chips saying that is what made me throw up. So here I am thirsty as h*ll and I couldn't have any water. The one thing I really didn't understand was that for the past several hours Chuck had been giving me ice and I hadn't gotten sick! A couple of hours later a female nurse came in and put some more medicine in my IV. A few minutes later I started having dry heaves, they finally looked into it and found out that it also causes nausea so they gave me some water and never gave me that medicine again.

While I was in the ER Chuck had called his family and mine to tell them what had happened and where I was. They then moved me to a room in the intensive care. The room was very familiar and I asked Chuck if this was the same room his mother was in after her suicide attempt. He had left to talk to the doctor and call his brother. The doctor didn't know for sure what was wrong they thought maybe I had had a stroke at first but I was moving around, so they just figure I had some sort of virus... I keep telling Chuck that I must have had West Nile! Chuck had come back and told me that his mom was on her way up. I was not really thrilled over this news, but hey what could I do? I do not know how she knew I was in the hospital, I think Ken had told his mawmaw (Sharon's mom) and she in turn called Sharon.

The visit went just fine. She had come with a friend of hers... I didn't know nor have I ever seen this woman before... but her friend spent most of the visit in her vehicle. She also thought the room was the same room that she was in. Chuck had told both of us that she was in the room next door, right across from the nurses station and my room was across from the door. Sharon left to go home after visiting for 30 minutes. I am so glad that she didn't say something stupid and start an argument.

The continuation...

*I'm sorry that it took so long for me to write the continuation of what happened with my mother-in-law. The Internet has been working fine for the past couple of weeks (my husband found out that it was his computer that was messing with the router which in turn was screwing up the modem so he spent a weekend working on it), but my friend and my brother had sent me some games on Facebook a while ago and I have become totally addicted to these games! So the fault lies on me this time.*

Then on Sunday I had gone to church and Kelly told me that all the letter was basically asking for was the boys' forgiveness. She could have a least talked to the boys in person instead of writing them letters. Chuck already forgave her a long time ago, he just hasn't had the opportunity to tell her yet. When Church got out and as we were piling into the van Carrie asked her dad when their mamaw would be coming over. He had told her about 12:30. When I got home Chuck had told me that his mom and Joanne had stopped in while I was at church. She didn't know that Bebe had died about a year ago and when Chuck had told her he said she looked as though she were about to cry. I found this weird because I know for a fact that I had sent an e-mail to Joanne and Bill a few days after it had happened. She was disappointed because I wasn't there (I just started going back to church about a year ago) and she did not like Gracie at all, but she did like all of the work that we have done to the inside of our house (she loved the carpet and our new accessible toilet with the bars that we bought). I saw the letter that she had wrote to Chuck lying on my desk and I was getting ready to open it, because I was dying to know what she had written. But Chuck had seen me and took the letter from my hands and threw it behind my monitor (where I can't reach). I told him I basically know what it is about but I want to read it anyway, and Chuck told me that his brother read his and he said that it was no big deal. That she was leaving again... but where? We do not know.

Then we sat down to watch a movie when there was a knock on the door. Chuck had opened the door and Sharon and Joanne had walked in. They had said that they had wanted to come back and at least say goodbye to me. She looks a lot different now, healthier, thinner and even tanner. She says that she works out every day by lifting weights and doing stretches... now why didn't she do this while she was married to the dad? She mainly stopped in earlier to see Bebe and was very disappointed to learn that she had died, as she was saying this Joanne just stood there like a bump on a log and acted surprised when Chuck and I had explained what all had happened to Bebe. She also told us that she had paid off that entire bill for the credit card machine and doesn't understand why we still receive phone calls from the debt collection agency, she figures that Carol must still be using the credit card that they were given and not paying them back. That does seem very possible, so I definitely believe her on this one because I can see Carol doing this.

She had stayed talking with us for quite some time it was nice to be able to see her and talk with her instead of hearing and relying only on what other people have said about her. She was saying that she wanted to see everyone one last time because she was getting ready to leave and will never see anyone again. It took quite a while and then we finally got it out of her where she was going. She is going to Bangladesh because her husband is losing his job and doesn't know what he will do (so she is going over there to make it harder on him because he will need to feed her also because she cannot possibly help out by working until she at least understands the language), also because Rassell's parents are pushing him to marry someone over there since he cannot be with Sharon. So Sharon wants to go over there so they stop trying to make him be with someone else. We all kept saying that she can't keep doing this to us, entering our lives again and then boom saying goodbye and leaving again. That is not fair to us because we are (Chuck and I) willing to accept Rassell into our lives, I kept telling her that she could at least come to visit both her and Rassell or else they could send us a letter or even e-mail us. After saying this she nodded her head and then left. So I do not know if she got what we were trying to say or if that was the last time that we would see her. Although, she did say to Chuck right before getting into her van "see you later". Leaves you wondering?!

She's back... again

I haven't been able to update my readers on what happened last Sunday. The snow and is all gone now and I have been spending a lot of my afternoons outside in the warmer weather. My friend sent me some information on different websites that offer free surveys the other day, so I have been spending a lot of my mornings looking at these sites. I was interested in filling out surveys to be paid, Chuck is not making as much now that he is working only 40 hours a week and we desperately need some extra income. But I was not willing to pay a fee just to join and become a member of a certain site. I found some websites that offered some good sounding, legit surveys, but since they are free websites they have no money to pay you and you have to register with their partners site in order to get paid. The problem with this is that you are required to enter all of your personal stuff like your full name, address, phone number, etc. on each site, and some sites will not let you request a payment until $100 or more is in your account. So if you want $100 you will need to register with about 100 partners sites and then once you get your $100 you will be required to register for 100 more. I do not think so! I have given up on this idea but I do not know what I will do for extra money.

Well anyways, on to last Sunday (actually it was April 7 ) with my mother-in-law...
After she left she had started telling the kids that she had moved to Tennessee. We had still been talking with her brother Bill at this time, so we knew this was false because she was still living with them! She even went as far to tell them that she had a house of her own with a pond out back and a couple of dogs. She had two vans and was working on trading them in and getting a pickup truck instead. Then she even gave them her "new address" so that they could come visit her. We tried pointing this out to Brenden because he had wanted to write her a letter on a couple of occasions. At first we would tell him no, but he would still insist on doing this. So we eventually told him that his mamaw was still living in Michigan with uncle Bill, he did not want to believe us at first kept calling us liars. He finally figured it out after a while that his mamaw was the one that was lying to them.

Last summer (probably around April or May) Chuck and I were in the kitchen and he said that his mom just drove by. My heart went to my throat and I thought I was going to puke. I was still... and even am still... upset with her. Mainly because of what she did to her very own children, disowning them. However I really did want her to stop and come in because she is Chuck's mom after all, but she didn't she just kept on going. I could tell that he was kind of hurt by this though and he started getting into a really bad mood as a result.

Then last Saturday (April 5) she drove by while Chuck was outside barbecuing and this time she waved. He came inside and told me that his mom just drove by and I was like "so?". Because she didn't stop and I didn't want Chuck to get to his hopes up and then be hurt and then be in a bad mood again. He did talk to his brother that night and Ken told him that she pulled up in the driveway at their house to talk with the kids since they were already playing outside. She also left a couple of letters, one for Chuck and the other for Ken. He had read his and said that it was fine, but he didn't say what was in it.

To Be Continued...

She is packed and gone!

*We have been experiencing some difficulty with our power (the electricity) and the Internet here this past week. So I have not been able to post as many blogs as I would have liked, so instead of being done with this story about my mother-in-law this week it will probably be done sometime next week.*

Wednesday morning came and I was getting very nervous. Getting so nervous that my stomach was starting to ache and my blood sugar was starting to drop. I am diabetic and have been since I was 17 years old, I do alright managing it because I am not that bad yet and I only need to take one shot in the morning. I even have to eat some type of candy everyday because sometimes it ends up going to low! Maggie (the dad's new wife -- but at this time the girlfriend) also has trouble with her sugar level so I called her to bring me over a candy bar because I could not find any. I admit I would have called her to come over even if my sugar was okay. I was just so nervous about having to see Sharon that I needed someone to be with me in case something happened. It was nearly 1 o'clock in the afternoon by the time they showed up. I heard them rummaging around downstairs before coming up (Sharon was storing some of her bigger items in our basement, so I do not think it was any big deal she was down there especially since the most expensive items that Chuck and I had down there was the washer and dryer). When she came up the first thing she said to me was, "It is a good thing that you have somebody here with you, now I can't bash your head against the wall." I didn't say anything to this, I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders then turned and walked/rolled away.

She then went to the front door and opened it to let a man in. I couldn't believe this, the man she had invited into my house was a known enemy of the family! This man's daughter was married to my brother-in-law and had been known to try to run Sharon off the road on a couple of occasions. Not only that but he had also beaten Ken black and blue because of an argument between Ken and Chandra. He almost caused Chuck to get in to an accident with his car on the road while I was with him, by speeding up to go around us and then slowing down to a crawl all of a sudden in front of us and the roads were icy. When Chuck got control of the car once again, the guy (Larry) flipped him the bird. So that is why I didn't want him to see not only where I lived, but especially the inside of my house. But anyways Sharon had invited him in to help her move some stuff. That makes me wonder two things; 1) why she is all of a sudden asking for his help and acting as if Larry and his wife are her best friends?, and 2) does this mean that he was also in my basement? What really makes me angry is that she had him go through our house in to the room that she was staying in and unhook her computer and carry it out. Once he did this he had left. If this was all he was needed for, Sharon could have asked me over the phone that previous Monday to get her computer ready for her and we would have done this without a problem!

She and Joanne finished packing up her things and Joanne put them in the vehicle while Sharon said her goodbyes (mainly to Bebe) and they left. She had lived with us from January until May of 2006 and told us every month... sometimes even twice a month... that she will be leaving by the next month, and she never did! I am glad we gave her that little push out the door or else she would more than likely be here even now.

She is gone... well sort of

So she left. On the day I happened to have Candy and her kid over. After she had disowned Chuck, he had left and she told Candy that after she leaves that I will lie about her and call her a b**ch and Candy should not believe anything I say! Then turned to me and said since she is still working at the motel in Clare and will be staying with her friend (a fellow worker that she works with), and will work out a time next week to come get her stuff. Then she walked out the door and I thought to myself, "Good riddance!"


I still had Sharon on my Yahoo messenger friends list, so I knew whenever she was on or not. I tried to message her a couple of times, but she wouldn't respond so I figured she must have me on ignore. She left on a Wednesday afternoon and that following Monday late morning I received a phone call from the motel in Clare looking for Sharon. She had been on the computer that morning, but I did not know for sure where she was logging in to from. For all I knew she could have taken the day off and was using a library computer. I told them that she did not live here anymore and I had no way to get in touch with her (I nor Chuck knew her cell number). Then five minutes later she had called me and told me she was in the break room at her work, I said "Well if that were true then why did the front desk just call me five minutes ago asking for you?" She told me that the front desk must not have seen her come in. "Then they could have seen that you punched in on your timecard." I didn't say this but I thought it and now I think I should have said it. Anyways she had told me on the phone that her and JoAnne would be here Wednesday morning to get the rest of Sharon's stuff. Then she had hung up before I had a chance to ask her how she kept logging on to Yahoo even when she was supposed to be working. But Joanne called me later that afternoon and I got a chance to ask JoAnne. She told me that Sharon would sometimes login while she was at work on the work computer. I felt something fishy going on at this point... I mean, here is a woman who is so against any type of a lie and I actually caught her in a big, boldface lie because you cannot possibly login on a work computer and the work not know you are there... unless you have a Harry Potter invisibility cloak.

Back to my mother-in-law...

I haven't written about my mother-in-law in a while and I figure it's about time I did so. Okay on to where I left off... the eBay try.

Sharon was doing odd "habits" that were just driving me nuts! Like watching a movie with me or my husband and getting up right in the middle and leaving for her bedroom to talk on the computer, burning stuff in my brand-new microwave that I still haven't been able to get clean, or giving the dogs "people" food (all of our leftovers in the refrigerator) making our dogs so fat that they had rolls! She and I got into a couple of altercations during this time. She was always talking negative about my husband, his dad, his brother and his family (the extended family), as I said before I do not like to keep things from my husband that will affect him in some way or another. So I would tell my husband what ever she had said about him. This would cause her to get very angry with me and she would start yelling at me. We did this a few times and the last time she actually called me a lying b***h and slammed the door on her way out (she would leave several times and stay gone for the weekend but this time she left and was gone for a couple of weeks). The worst habit was whenever my sister-in-law would come over, she would disappear into her bedroom for the whole time she was there. Chuck would literally drag his mother out of her room and tell her to quit being rude and to at least say hi. She would say hi to Ken but totally ignore Kelly and go back in to her room. Can we say rude?!

And she gave up

She eventually gave up on the eBay venture and told me I could just keep the all of the money whenever I sold an item. She also told me that I could have everything that was left over to sell for myself. I liked this idea, I figured she owed me something for all of the work I had done for her. She did ask me to write an affidavit about her relationship with Rassell and e-mail it to her lawyer. I did this mainly to stay on her good side even though my husband told me not to.

I really had no idea what to say because I had never met him. I did, however, IM with him a lot on Yahoo messenger and would ask him a bunch of questions of why he wanted to come over here and why he married someone so much older then him. So I wrote this affidavit behind my husband back. I feel she owes me for that too!

EBay and her do not mix

OK, onto where I left off about my mother-in-law... that dreadful phone call asking if she could move in. I did not want her to move in, I figured that the past 8 years was long enough. I knew that once she moved in, I could not get away because I was no longer in school nor could I drive. But on January 1, 2006 she moved in. She put me through a lot during this time that she lived with us, but since it was a couple of years ago I do not want to bore you with the details. Although I will say that she sold the new house... well actually she did not sell it, instead she gave it back to the original owner... and then she got herself a part-time job as a housekeeper at a motel up here, so she could have the income to put in the income box on the Visa form to get Rassell over here. She then asked me to sell all of the items (mostly bridesmaid dresses) on eBay that were left over from a big sale we had scheduled.


They (Sharon and Joanne her sister-in-law) had rented a hotel conference room at to have the sale in. Joanne wasn't going to be there so Sharon had asked me to go to help her with the money and things. She didn't do much for the decorating of the room, all she did was match up the dresses by their colors and throws them on a table... so all the blue dresses were all scattered in one pile and all of the red dresses were in another pile but thankfully all of the wedding dresses were hung up. When the doors had opened we were busy with a lot of onlookers and some buyers but not a lot of buyers.


Joanne showed up later in the afternoon, I should have gone home then but for some reason I didn't. After she showed up we didn't get any more shoppers... not even browsers! At the end of the day we were packing up the dresses that were left for me to put on eBay. Joanne knew that I was going to put the items on eBay, so she folded up the dresses and put them in boxes that was labeled blue dresses, red dresses, green dresses, etc. and she wrote down the size of each dress like kept the list for herself.


I had never sold anything... heck I never even bought anything before... On eBay before so I did not know what I was doing. I was going to sell the simple items like the flowers and the gloves first. I kept getting e-mails from people asking me for pictures or a more thorough description especially when I was trying to sell the dresses. Since neither of them knew the specific sizes or description of each dress, I had my friend Candy come over on a weekend that Sharon would be gone. We opened the boxes and took pictures, when we opened the boxes all of the dresses were really wrinkled and some were not in a proper labeled box. There were black dresses in the box labeled purple dresses and none of the dresses looked the same... so it is a good thing we opened the box or else I would have sold a box of the purple dresses and that person wouldn't have gotten what they pay for and I may have gotten in trouble or even sued by the person! When Sharon returned all she could do was blame Candy for not folding things when she put the dresses back in to their boxes. That made me very angry because I know for a fact that Candy folded the dresses carefully and took some good shots! She wouldn't believe that Joanne (her precious sister-in-law) was partly to blame.

I then sold a couple of the dresses on eBay, the pictures and a better description helped out a lot (plus too I was selling the dresses individually instead of in bulk... selling about 10 mismatched dresses in a box... like I was told by Joanne to do. So Sharon decided to take all the wedding dresses down to Joanne and model the dresses and take pictures for me. They also wrote down a description of each dress. The pictures turned out really good but the descriptions were bad so I ended up rewriting them, the only thing I had trouble with was the sizes. I could say if the dress was a size 10 or a 12 but I could not give the answers to the bust size or anything like that.


Since I was working with Sharon on this eBay venture, I was really starting to see that she had absolutely no concept of money. She did not understand that you have to pay some seller fees regardless if you sold the items or not and that's why he she was not making the same amount that we had put down for she knew nothing about eBay either. I was starting to get a big headache every time I tried to explain this to her so after a while I just gave up and started paying the seller fees out of my share, so I wouldn't make any money but I was doing all of the work!

The continuation...

I finally got Gracie potty trained! Well actually, I shouldn't take all the credit because I know God helped me with it. She still has accidents every now and then but nothing major and nothing on the carpet. But what can you expect? She is only four months old and it is getting really cold outside! It would make me so mad whenever Chuck would tell me that I could not do it, whenever she would pee on the carpet or somewhere in the house he would pitch a fit and say we are always going to live like this! But now I love to tease him and say "and you told me I couldn't do it!"

Speaking of getting colder, I have been waking up to snow on the
ground for a couple days now. It doesn't stick or anything... usually it has been gone by the afternoon, but I still do not like the snow it makes it harder for me to get outside and get around. I did order Gracie a hoodie to help me get her to go outside during the day. It is purple -- well actually violate -- in color with pink rolls on the bottom and the arms and the hood is purple and white striped. She loves it! It looks so adorable on her, I took some pictures but I need Chuck to put the memory card in my computer and then I will post them.

I forgot to tell you all about what was going on with my brother-in-law during this time. He started dating someone at this time, I hadn't met her yet but the kids seemed to like her. I learned the weird story about what was going on from Chuck, Ken's ex-wife was dating a guy whom was divorced also (I think they started seeing each other before he was divorced, but I am not sure). Those two met while dropping off both of their kids (she also has 2). Then that Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks after Sharon's suicidal attempt, my father-in-law and his girlfriend were having Thanksgiving dinner at their house so we all went over there. Ken and his girlfriend were going to be there and she had an engagement ring on that was given to her by Ken a few days earlier. They were getting married in about a week. I really liked her, she seemed really nice but was way too quiet! During the next week before they got married they went over and met Sharon at the house. After their meeting Sharon came over to talk to me. Boy, Sharon did not have one good thing to say about Kelly! I think it was due to her not having been the one to pick out Ken's new girlfriend because she was always trying to set Ken up soon after his divorce. What she kept pointing out was that Kelly would not shut up, she kept talking and asking personal questions and wondering about the cost of things. Things that were really none of her business. I asked "Are we talking about the same Kelly?"

What really surprised me was the fact that Kelly is such a divine Christian woman and has set and lives by high morals. Well so is Sharon... well so everybody thought. Sharon, herself, was always reading the Bible and listening to Christian music and watching the Christian channel on TV. She also set pretty high morals, but I do not think she lived by them. For instance she had taught both boys not to have sex before marriage but I do know that she was pregnant when she was only 16 and lost it a couple of months later and married the guy several years later!

Then in December they got married and moved in to Ken's house, so it became the six of them instead of the three. Chuck refers to them as the Brady Bunch! I enjoy having her around, she is much more accepting of me in my situation than any of the other females in this family (Ken's ex-wife and my mother-in-law). Ken seems happier and the kids seem to really love having her there also. Sometime earlier this year she and Ken started bringing me to church with them since my husband will not go. I am so grateful for that, since I am in a wheelchair and do not drive I do not get out of the house much so I do not know anybody in this town... except for those I have been introduced to by my husband or my mother-in-law/father-in-law. I love being able to get out of the house to be with other Christian's every week.

, adopting, a new dog, and my mother-in-law

Wow, I haven't written on the troubles that I had with my mother in law and a couple of weeks. As you know, my husband and I have started the adoption process and we are required to attend a training seminar next month. There are two of them that we need to go to, one is on the 15th and the other is on the 20th. We are both really excited about being parents, but the longer this drags on the more worried we get that we will be turned down. We are not rich and I have a lot of physical ailments that may give them a reason to turn us down.
This coming Friday, the 10th, we will be getting a new puppy. I know I told everybody that we were going to wait a while before getting another dog, but these two months without a dog have seemed so lonely and long! So my brother-in-law's neighbors have some newborn puppies that they are giving away. I met the dog that we are getting Sunday. She is so cute and tiny! She is a mixture breed a Chihuahua/Miniature Pincher/Jack Russell, I will have to post a picture when I am able to. She will be six weeks old on Friday and I chose the name Gracie.

Several weeks had passed and Sharon was losing interest in the shop. She had decided to sell everything and close up shop. We had a big sale (which played a big part in my re building the relationship between Candy and I) at the shop and another one in the Days Inn conference room. The rest of the stuff that was left I said I would sell on eBay for her.
Then on December 31, 2006 is when something that I had dreaded happened. I received a phone call from her asking me if she could move in. My husband said yes, being his mother I understood why. Her reason for wanting to move in was because she was lonely....

The week after

Once she got to the hospital, they pumped her stomach and kept her in ICU for a few days. Sharon was found to have overdosed on her antidepressants and aspirin so they had to keep a close eye on her. When Chuck went to her house to gather some clothes for his mom while she was gone he noticed all of her drawers were like almost empty! She had no clothes but the ones on her back and a little bit in the hamper. Nor did she have any books or a TV, it's no wonder she tried suicide she probably drove herself crazy by only being able to keep herself occupied by thinking and reflecting on the past.
I went to visit her, and the very first thing she asked about was how Bebe was doing I told her fine (she was too, was keeping my big dog company). Joanne was there too and Bill and Chuck (and Ken was even there) were busy talking to the doctor. Sharon was telling JoAnne and I how upset she was at Chuck because he never showed any signs that he cared for her before, so why did he choose to show up then? He should have just left her alone! I told her that it wasn't just Chuck that cared what happened to her, I was the one that asked Chuck to go check up on her because I was worried too. Plus too, I told her, even Ken is worried for her because he came here and is outside the room.
When Sharon was able to go home, we were all worried about her and her safety. So Bill took time off so he could stay with her and she told me to keep an eye on Bebe for her. That was a long week for Bill and for everybody else. Chuck bought food and supplies with Bill and Chuck's manaw would call every other day to ask our opinion about how she was doing. They also transferred some money to us so Chuck could go and buy her a cash register or something she really needed. Chuck and Bill used the money to get Sharon some different items, they looked into a register but they cost way more than what they had. The leftover money Chucks mammaw told Chuck to go ahead and keep it. But of course, Sharon would remind Chuck just how greedy and uncaring he was.
Bill had left after a week to go home (he was starting to get really stressed out from watching Sharon go through her temper tantrums and suicidal actions) and Sharon was going to a counseling session with the hospital at the time and she reassured everyone that she would be fine, so she stayed behind. But I found out that while she was in the hospital she had sold her business to Bill and JoAnne for $1, I was a little upset over this... she kept telling me that she was leaving the business to me! But Sharon still had the run of the business and she still needed my help with counting money for change and such.

The suicide attempt

So, after Carol left I was in charge of a lot more. Sharon is unable to count out the money, actually now that I think about it the only thing she was really good at was the decorating (after being told what to decorate and how to decorate it) and some of the organization. She had started talking to her brother again and they decided to get involved with the business. So they would show up every now and then... well it was mainly her sister in law, her brother was working... and I would feel I was in the way, so I would go home. Her sister in law, JoAnn, is one of those goody-goody types, she likes to take charge and allows you to feel like such an idiot when you do not do it her way.
I had been making plans with Sharon to come in on a Saturday to help with the shop because JoAnn had to work and wouldn't be there. She even kept asking me the day before if I was still going to be there and I hadn't changed my mind, and I would reassure her that I would be there at 10 o'clock in the morning. Then at nine that morning she had called to ask me if I is still wanted to come in since the shop was so cold, I told her I would be fine as long as I had my electric heater and I would see her later. She sounded really tired and drained on the phone and I was thinking she had just woken up so that is probably why. Then at 945 she had called back and told me not to come in. She still sounded really tired and I asked her if she was okay she said she was good, and I asked her why she did not want me to come in and she told me she just didn't feel like opening. I had a really bad feeling in my stomach that something was wrong, so I kept calling her back to see if she was sure she didn't want to open but no one answered the phone. I even called her cell phone and still no answer. The feeling in my stomach was getting worse, so I had Chuck go check on the mother. He called me on his cell phone and told me the doors were locked and he couldn't get in, he wondered if I was talking to her because she wasn't coming to the door. I told him no and she wasn't answering her phone. He then called his aunt and uncle to see if they were talking to her. They weren't, but JoAnn had talked to Sharon earlier and had noticed also that she sounded really depressed and tired. Then Chuck called his mamaw and she wasn't talking to Sharon either. So Chuck ended up having to call the police station. After a couple hours Chuck called me and told me that the ambulance had found his mother on the floor of the bathroom and Bebe was pitching a fit. Chuck found a "suicidal note" that said tell Rassel it wasn't his fault and a bag full of pills that she must have taken.
I got online and told Rassel what was happening, because I believe that once you are married you are not supposed to keep secrets from one another. Then Chuck showed up at the door with Bebe in his arms. He set Bebe down and told me he had to run to the hospital to be with his mom. Then Bill and JoAnn are coming up and staying the night with us. I was almost proud of myself for knowing that something was wrong and trusting my woman's intuition and because of that she was still alive.

The second disownment

I almost forgot to mention that when Sharon was buying the house and even the rental home, she also put the houses in Chuck's name too. He had a job and income so he gave her permission to buy the properties but she would be responsible for the costs and any damages. She also let me know that she left both properties to both boys in her will (I found it great that she was thinking of Chuck and Ken and not just Rassel).

Whenever I would go visit her, I would actually get excited about the houses one day belonging to us. Then a few weeks later Chuck got into a big fight... a yelling match if you will. Sharon was already living in the brown house and they got into a disagreement about the way Sharon was acting in regards to Rassel. She always talked about him like he was the best man to ever walk on this earth. He was not used to having his mother talk about a guy like she did Rassel. After all, this was her third marriage. Not only that, but she was married to Chuck's dad for 30 some years and she wasn't one to refer to a guy in such a way that Chuck nor Ken could recall. She couldn't expect them to graciously accept this new guy, it would take while.

But Chuck did call Rassel a bad name, which he shouldn't have done since Rassel wasn't there to defend himself. That just made Sharon even angrier with Chuck, so she told him to leave and since I was with him that included me too. As he was helping me into the car, she came out and told Chuck to leave and never come back because he was not her son any more... at least she told him to his face this time.

I was angry with Chuck for saying what he did, so I would not talk to him until he at least apologized. He thought about it and he apologized the next day. She accepted his apology and she claimed him as a son again, but still didn't fully trust him again.

An edit

Here is an edit for a bad business venture

The opening for The Jeweled Peacock was in November not January! Sorry about that, don't know were my mind was when I wrote that!

A bad business venture

So Sharon and Carol were setting up shop. And I was filling out her paperwork for the Visa. I would go visit her at the shop for a few hours once a week, and when I would go the inside decorating got uglier and uglier! It looked like a bunch of old people (a Ma and Pa store) started a secondhand dress shop. Nothing that attracted a young bride to buy from. They did a good job on the display window and the front of the shop looked good, but once you entered it took a downward spiral. At first they had it open as they were trying to move-in and organize their merchandise, nothing was out to sell but people could walk in at any time... they said this was so people would know that their shop was there. I kept trying to convince them to get a sign, it didn't necessarily have to be an expensive one just one to let people know going down the road that the shop is there. I do not know how many times my husband and I drove down the road and overlooked the house because for one, there was no sign and number two, the house is set so far back on the road that no one realizes it's there at first.

The shop was pretty small to begin with and in the main room where the cash register was supposed to be was a big long table with red crepe paper (reminded Chuck of the tables selling prom tickets/raffle tickets that you see), and across the way was a little round table with a matching wire chair with out the bottom and a wing chair that was found on the sides of the road and the arms were totally ripped up (like they were mauled by a cat) so they put on an ugly piece of fabric over the chair to hide the arms. They had some other stuff, like a sewing table (only without the sewing machine), and an armoire (full of cake top and other bridal accessories). The room was so small that with all the junk in there, no one could hardly move! One of the neatest decorations they had was a picture of a Peacock with shiny gems throughout the tail, it was made by Carol and since the store was named The Jeweled Peacock it fits.

I was asked to make some flyers for the shop so they could announce the grand opening. I was actually glad to be participating and not have Sharon be downing me by saying I was too lazy to help like she did my husband. They had their grand opening, but it wasn't so grand. No one came, but in a way I do not blame them. The basement (the shop) was not heated and it was in the middle of January and there was snow on the ground. A few days later, a pretentious bride bought a wedding dress from them. I wasn't there, so I can only go on what I was told, but I guess the dress was a halter top one and she had to try the dress on in the back room... the furnace room... in the cold. Sharon told me her arms were all full of goose bumps and were turning a light purple. I kept trying to explain that they need to invest in some sort of heater right away. But according to Sharon they did not have enough money right now, I told her well your ex-husband (the dad) has an old gas heater sitting in the garage which he is not using right now and I am sure he'd be more than willing to work out some sort of payment plan so you could have heat. She would just shake her head and claim he would be so mean and tell her no.

After they got their checks for the shop, Sharon would notice little odds and ends appearing around the shop. Carol would walk around with the checkbook on her just to make it look like she actually had money. Sharon did not know it she could trust her after she had put herself as president and Sharon as a manager without consulting Sharon about it. We found this out as I was filling out the last of the Visa papers and the I had to put a job description and such. So Sharon had asked me to keep an eye on the bank account (I basically turned into a bookkeeper for the business) and tell her how the money was doing. I said okay because I had already submitted the Visa papers.

I do not know the full reason why, but Carol got upset one morning and threw the checkbook at Sharon's feet and said she was done and stormed out. Sharon did not know the first thing about running a business and she was terrible with money, so was under a lot of stress and would cry whenever she talked to her mother (which was every day, several times) I was asked by her mother to help her out in the shop and I said okay (like I knew the first thing about running a business!).

My first job?

I made a slide show with music of Sharon's new house and e-mailed it to Rassel for her. He loved it and so did Sharon. I took the pictures of the dresses they had taken and even some pictures I had taken and put them in a slide show set to music. They both loved it and decided to play it for people in the shop that needed a broader view of the dress. Sharon then offered me a job of making slideshows of peoples weddings for the person, they would offer this option on the flyers and in this shop while people were trying on dresses. I thought this would be fun and I was so excited and couldn't wait to get started.

I was still not talking to candy at this time, and I found out that Sharon had asked if she would be willing to take pictures at the wedding and give the pictures to me. Once I found this out, I was no longer as excited as I was before. When Candy was hired to be my attendant, she basically used that excuse for free room and board. I used to watch Boston Public every Monday night at nine o'clock, I needed to take a shower so I had asked her to help me take one before my show started and she kept dragging her feet as nine o'clock approached. Finally she got me in there, but when I was finished and she came in to help me back to my wheelchair the phone started to ring. She quickly threw me on the shower chair... I was barely sitting on it and grabbed the bar, but since I was still damp I started slipping... to answer the phone. It was just my brother in law calling candy (his girlfriend) to chat. She decided she'd rather talk to Ken for the next 15 minutes then help me! I started screaming for her to help me as I was slipping, she finally came but I was mad and I kept telling her that she could at least told Ken to call her back in five minutes he would have called you back. She went and grabbed me really hard under the arms, banging my two front teeth on the bar as she sat me back on the chair. I was very angry and hurt at this time so I told her that now I have missed the beginning of my show thanks to you, it was only Ken and he could have called you back in five minutes! She got angry with me and started yelling at me that I was so selfish that I only care about what happened to me and I said if you want to see selfish take a look in the mirror sometime, and then she left me on the chair in the shower and walked out the door slamming it shut. Her four-year-old son heard the commotion and he opened the door and started yelling that I was so selfish. I studied child development so I pretty much knew that little children imitated the actions of their elders, but she could have at least told him no. I was on the shower chair for about 20 minutes and I thought it over and came to the conclusion that I would have to apologize or else I would be in the shower forever. I then apologized to her (even though I didn't mean it) and she got me out of the bathroom. After that ordeal I started looking in to a replacement. I found one and I asked her to leave.

Because of this Chuck had to take a dishonorable discharge so he could come home early. So no one found it necessary to talk with her anymore. I still liked her and thought of her quite often, but I was needing a little break from her. Everyone agreed with me, that's why it took me by surprise that Sharon (who told me I was in the right so she wouldn't talk to her either) was still talking with her.

Her move

While Sharon was getting ready to move into the house, she was just finishing up the work on the rental. As she was doing the repair work, she got another dog. This time it was a one year old, long hair, Shitzu named Dutchess. She also started speaking to Ken again, she would let him remove some of the trees in the trailer yard that were dead already. Ken and Chuck also helped their mother put up new drywall inside of the trailer. Whenever the boys went over there, I would go too. As they were working outside I would stay in and talk to Sharon and Carol. Ken would even go over and offer to help his mom without us being there. At one point, he was over there and offered to help his mom take out some old carpet to the dump. It was already rolled up and leaning against the enclosed porch wall and it had been there for several weeks. But his mom told Ken not to worry about it because she already had help with that. He then offered to help his mom to patch some holes in the wall, but his mom said no she already had help with that. He even offered to help her paint, but she already had help with that. After a while Ken gave up and went home... which I don't blame him, I would have given up too.

When Sharon was moving in to her new house, Chuck and Ken and I went over to the house and looked at what we could do to help her out. It was so neat inside, but was huge for just one person and her dog! The house was three stories, what was to be the shop was on the first level, the kitchen and living room and main bathroom and two bedrooms were on the second story, three bedrooms and a half bath were on the third story. Lucky for me I was in my manual so Chuck was able to pull me up the steps. We had an old door that was left in our basement when we moved in, so we gave that door to his mom so she could block off the upstairs so she wouldn't have to heat it.

I had only seen her dog, Dutchess, once when she was working on the trailer and it was playing around with Bebe. Before she was able to move in, she had decided to give her away because she didn't seem to like the house when Sharon, the pastor and Carol moved Sharon in.

A new house and a shop

A few months later, Carol convinced Sharon to open up a bridal shop with her. Sharon did not know the first thing about running a business but Carol had experience with one, so they decided to go in together and start a business. They would go to different bridal shops that were going out of business and get a good deal on dresses and their accessories. They would also shop at thrift stores, such as goodwill. Sharon was the one buying everything for the shop, it all was coming out of the money she had after her divorce settlement.

then put the pictures on my computer and make a slide show on CD, sometimes I would even set the pictures to music. They look some beautiful pictures, there was one of a girl in a white dress on the grass with the dress spread out all around her and was in a heart shape. Although they could have used some better lookShe would borrow my camera to take pictures of the group of people that were wearing her dresses. Carol was selling different floral arrangements that she had made out of silk flowers, that they would also take pictures of. Although they could have used some better looking models, the woman were just too old to be wearing a white dress... they were either extremely overweight or were covered in wrinkles or sags. Looking over the pictures just about made me want to turn away from the screen, I could just about imagine someone else's reaction when they tried to view it before buying a dress.

As this was going on, Sharon was in the process of looking for a business to buy or rent for their shop, and they were also looking in to different lawyers to set up a legal small business. After a couple weeks they legalized their shop and chose the name Precious Peacock. She also was able to locate a place they could use as a shop, it was a three story home downtown with five bedrooms and two baths, the downstairs was once used as a jewelry store so Sharon and Carol thought it would be perfect. Sharon bought this house even though the house was on a lean with most of the money that she had set a side from her divorce settlement. I went to take a tour of the house after she had bought it, it was absolutely gorgeous! The backyard was awesome and big with a big old fire pit that was surrounded by a boardwalk and benches, with a wooden jungle gym a few yards away. There was even a small wooden gazebo between the fire pit and the jungle gym. The downstairs shop was kind of small, but whatever floats their boat, besides it was their decision not mine.

Before buying this house, Chuck did try to convince his mom not to to buy it. He told her it was just to big for one person, she should have kept that trailer for herself because it was a perfect size for just her. But his mom would not hear of it, kept reassuring him that all would be great and work out just fine.

The first step, rental houses

By this time, Sharon and her new roommate, Carol, were looking into different houses to buy for rental properties. So she would come over to borrow my digital camera and I would then transfer the pictures from the memory card to the computer. After doing that I would e-mail the copies to Rassel. Yes, I knew both of his e-mail addresses and his yahoo ID, she had given me his yahoo ID a week after she returned from Bangladesh and he gave me both of his e-mail addresses. I loved being able to talk to him on Yahoo, after awhile I could see why Sharon fell for him like she did. He did not speak very good English but he could type it somewhat, reading some of his typings took a lot of patience and understanding but once you knew what he was talking about he seemed like a pretty decent... and innocent... guy.

After her trip to Bangladesh, Sharon asked me to look for a lawyer on the Internet that specializes in visas. Wanting to stay on her good side and not getting her mad at me... because I have witnessed how she acts when she is angry at someone, look how she disowned her kids... I found one for her. When the lawyer had directed her to an Internet site to fill out the paperwork for a Visa, I offered to help her fill it out. I did not think that meant for me to end up filling out most of it, I thought she would fill out more than the little bit of personal/financial information that she did.

There was a little place to put it in her income, and she wasn't make any money. They needed this information because you need to be able to prove you can support your spouse when they come over, so said the lawyer. So that is why her and Carol were looking in to rental properties, she wanted the rent money to count towards income. They eventually got a nice trailer... she bought it upfront because she had the money from her divorce settlement... that they fixed up. The guy who used to own the trailer was in an accident and was in a wheelchair and and made the trailer pretty accessible. I think that the guy was sent to a home, so his trailer was put on the market after being adopted by the bank after the guy had failed to make his mortgage payments.

She put up flyers for a renter all over town and got information from a lawyer on what kind of information to include on a lease contract. She finally found a renter with good credit and they started the lease the next month. They had lots of children and the wife started a day care in the home.

Her trip to Bangladesh

As soon as she returned from Bangladesh, Sharon told me how happy she was that her and Rassel were now married. They had gotten married on the first of August... Like the day after the she got there... At the court house. She told me all about how her mother-in-law and all of the people in the village threw her and Rassel a reception after their wedding. How she was basically treated like royalty while over there and how wonderful the people were... I kept thinking that she was probably treated so well because she was a foreigner but their attitudes would change if she lived there. Chuck told me that if she ended up living there, she would most likely end up being beheaded like all those reporters on the news. She didn't seem to pay any attention to how dangerous things are over there, she was too struck by a puppy love.

Rassel was an absolute dream, said Sharon. He treated her like an angel and paid attention to her the whole time she was there. She wanted to stay there longer but had to return because she had gotten so sick. During her stay, the mother-in-law ended up taking her to the emergency room and the doctor had told her she needed to start getting protein in her body. All they eat over there was rice and being American she needed meat. Not only that but her asthma started acting up again she was unable to get a refill for it, but Rassel's brother had the same breathing troubles as Sharon so she was able to borrow his breathing apparatus.

It did make me mad when she kept talking about the village and the people living there. Sharon would say that they were a close knit family oriented group of people. How the grand mother was in the same house as her son and grandchildren and next door to her nieces and nephews. She really wishes that were like that in the US, but instead we are too busy for one another and would rather put the older people in a nursing home. However, I kept thinking well I doubt that anyone would have disowned their own children, besides if it was so good are over there why did you come back?

Sharon would complain that she now had no way to see the kids. I mentioned this to their dad we made a deal so that whenever kids came over and she was around, I would call her and tell her to come over. She may have disrespected my brother in law and my husband, but she was still their mother and the kids grandmother. So I didn't think it was right for me to stand in the way and I kind of wanted to stay on her good side. So I went ahead and tried to help her by filling out some forms over the Internet to get Rassel a visa so he could come over here. It was not a simple task either, it literally took me months to complete.

At one point when the kids were over and so was she, Sharon wanted the kids to promise her that they would not get married until they were 30. She started telling them that before 30 everyone is just too young and immature to get married, they all end in a divorce anyway. Carrie said that her dad had married her mom before there were 30. Sharon told Carrie that her dad was way too young and look how his marriage ended. She would not let this subject go until the kids had promised her. I was starting to get very upset by this time and I came close to telling her off. I just started shaking my head and then I told her well your son and I got married when we were in our early 20s and we are still married eight years later! So don't be making the kids promise you some thing if it can be prevented by good role models. After saying this, she did not say anymore on this subject.