Saturday, April 12, 2008

We've got the girls!!!

Yesterday my DD spent about 4 hours in mediation with her soon to be ex, mainly squabbling over their 3 girls. She gets custody of them and he gets weekend visitation.
The one thing she had to give up was her desire to home-school them. She has to put them in either public or private school and pay for the latter if that is what she chooses.
She got the car, a '95 Ford Taurus station wagon, and has to pay any debts she has incurred since he left last fall, he got stuck with the debts from the marriage, probably over 10 times what she has to pay. Also he isn't allowed to use my younger niece for child care anymore and the girls cannot go over their without either their mother or father with them. You can rest assured that under no circumstances will my daughter take them into a home where they were mistreated.
She'll be getting a nice amount for child support which will enable her to buy the girls new clothes if she wishes instead of always hitting the thrift store. We just spent about $30 on new socks for each of them, bought in multi-packs, and new panties for the 4 yr. old as she's our "chunky monkey" and needed a girls size instead of toddler size like she's been stuffed into. I tried a skort on her at a Goodwill Thrift Store on Thursday so we could find out what size we need to start buying her. It was a 6X and fit her to a T! The 6 yr. old is a "skinny Minnie" and a 5 slim fits her best. She's going to be like I was at that age, thin, unless she starts gaining at pueberty like her mom did. Two yr. old seems pretty average for her age so far. LOL
We'll be looking into schools and try to find a 3 bedroom house somewhere fairly close to whatever school we choose, if possible. We may have to make do with 2 bedrooms, as we do now, depending on how expensive things get.
With her child support our total income will be going up just over 50% though that will, of course, depend on whether or not it shows up on time! If he goes into the military again it will come automatically which will be much better than us having to worry about his paying her on the first of each month, unless of course the state requires it be taken out of his paycheck.
Hopefully we can now relax to some extent. It will be nice not to have to worry about what stunt her ex is going to pull next.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Finished a book

Just finished reading "The Return of the Prodigal" by Kasey Michaels, a Beckets of Romney Marsh novel according to the front cover. I believe I've accidentally skipped one or two of the series so I want to see if I can get them. If I've already read them I'll just return them to the library early. To my way of thinking, this is one of the best regency romance series that I've ever read. You don't have to read them in order but it sure helps so you can keep the characters in them straight as each person in the Becket family marries it adds at least one new character. In this one two new characters were added instead of the one.
I've got my two youngest grand daughters with me, the 2 yr. old is asleep in her stroller, she just now started snoring! LOL Got that from her dad and mom, and me too, she came by it honestly. The 4 yr. old had been playing with a couple of Barbie dolls but got bored so now she's just half sitting, half laying in her chair because she's bored. I've only got a few more minutes on the computer so we'll be going in search of her mother when I'm through here.