now presenting...

managing a divorce is a rather time consuming and office-supply-intensive affair.  it requires lots of file folders, highlighters, printer cartridges, cell phone minutes and brain power.  i'm starting to feel like i need to go beg my doctor for a prescription of adderall just to retain all of the information i need to argue against all of the bullshit that jack is trying to pull.

since november i've been tracking everything~ each $ spent, our catty email exchanges, each day that he doesn't bother to take our kids to school, etc, etc. and i feel like i now need file folders to organize my file folders and i'm sure i am now the proud owner of the most extensive collection of highlighters that one could ever hope for.  i've invented several new highlighting colors by layering 2, sometimes 3 colors over each other to carefully categorize the absurdity of what jack has been spending.

yes folks, it's getting ugly.  (not that it was all that pretty before)

things have been less than cordial up till now, but this week we're talking money and jack is convinced he is taking his to the grave.  jack is due to receive a rather large commission check on friday and i think it's only fair that he pay the bills before he spends it elsewhere... silly me.  apparently he has made big plans to purchase a new home and needs some serious cash for a down payment.  um. where to begin with that one.

ironically, he scheduled the closing on this new home for the day that the check hits his account.  i guess he was hoping that if all the money went out the same day it came in that maybe we could all pretend it was never really there?

coincidentally we are scheduled for our first mediation that morning as well.  i guess jack was planning to show up to discuss disbursement of his commission wearing his best p p p poker face.  what a fun performance it would have been watching me carefully review all of my highlighted files and calculations for who owes what to whom and when it should all get paid, knowing that he had already spent it.

i'm wondering if it would be overkill to pull up to mediation blasting Lady Gaga's Poker Face dressed in leotard and stilettos?  i think it would really add to the spectacle that this discussion has seemingly become.

my spoiled milk

loved this analogy that one of my friends shared with me after she attended divorce education classes...

'many couples think that they might be able to reconcile post divorce.  don't plan on it.  consider your relationship a carton of spoiled milk.  leaving it in the fridge and coming back later doesn't change the fact that it has soured nor will trying to remove the curdles.  in the end it's rotten and it will still taste and smell rancid no matter how hard you try to fix it.'

back again.

i've been traveling yet again.  this time i was gone for over a week.  a mixture of pure bliss and agony.  the crazy pace of my work schedule was welcome relief from the insanity of my real life but i carried a heavy weight deep in my tummy each day that i was gone from the kids.  jack was nice enough to pick and choose the days he felt like he wanted to be with the kids and our nanny picked up the slack.  bless her poor, burnt out soul.

8 days later i returned home to a frazzled nanny who had been dealing with sick kids (jack had meetings and couldn't care for them) the doctors appointment i set up from the road to treat the pink eye infection our youngest showed up at school with monday morning after spending the weekend with her doting father AND the aftermath of jack's decision to keep the kids home from school the next day when he called and demanded that she care for them~ completely oblivious to the fact that it was her birthday.  i apologized profusely and gave her a paid day off in hopes that she wouldn't just throw in the towel and quit on me.

i had lofty aspirations for how i would spend the next 4 days with my 3 darlings.  we gathered around the kitchen table and made lists of all the things we could do together.  reading picture books that had been gathering dust, playing wii, making forts with the couch cushions, and breaking out the paints they had gotten from Santa.  we all agreed on bacon and eggs for breakfast, pancakes for lunch and french toast and sausage for dinner.  we also vowed to spend the entire weekend in our pajamas.

it was heaven.  pure syrup~sticky heaven.

gee, thanks.

jack showed up to our son's basketball game tonight with a gap shopping bag and proudly handed it to me.

i opened it to discover 2 pairs of blue school uniform pants in my oldest boy's size.  jack smiled and expressed with deep concern that he had noticed that the knees were worn on our son's uniform pants last time they were together so he wanted to buy him a few new pairs.

wow.  i'm sure this makes up for the fact that he has yet to pay child support.

oh, my bad...

i guess this week was all about taking charge and working through a few lingering anger issues.

i decided to email my son's tutor (and cc jack) when i received this month's bill and noticed she hadn't been paid since november.  i mentioned that jack and i were in the process of a divorce and he had ceased paying all bills.  i apologized and asked her if we might modify the current tutoring schedule since i wasn't comfortable with her rendering services without payment any longer. etc. etc.  we exchanged a few emails and discussed a plan for paying when jack and i had worked through the finances, each time making sure we continued to cc jack.  of course he declined to join in on any of the communication.

first thing the next morning i had an email from my lawyer who had forwarded a complaint from jack's lawyer.  it read:

it has come to my attention that ms. jack has claimed she has no money to pay her son's tutor.  jack would like her to refrain from sharing information about his financial situation with others.

i laughed out loud.  yep~ i'm sure he doesn't.  perhaps he was a bit embarrassed?  mission accomplished.

 

miracle diet

i am wondering if my stomach will ever feel normal again.  it has had to endure a constant state of turmoil for several weeks now and i'm beginning to worry.  my stomach aches every time i think of leaving my kids, gets nauseous any time i look at food, and seems quite content to reside in a state of what can only be described as knotted so tight that i have trouble breathing... and let's not even mention the violent wrenching it experiences whenever i let my mind wander to what jack has been doing or may currently be doing as i write this.  to make matters worse every time i have to see the jackass my stomach jumps ship from it's normal position and makes itself right at home somewhere in my throat while my heart simultaneously beats in hard, piercing pains.

whatever chemical signals hunger to my brain has just stopped even trying to bother... it knows it's not getting through.  i've lost any color in my face, my eyes are red from lack of sleep, and yet the good news in all this is that i've managed to lose that 5 pounds that i've been nagging at since the birth of my last baby. well i've actually lost that 5 plus another 10 i didn't realize that i had to lose.  i don't know if innocent passerby think i'm hooked on meth or just extremely hungover.

one such passerby who clearly hadn't gotten the memo or else couldn't see the gigantic "going through a divorce" sign that seems to be stuck to my forehead complimented me by asking me what i had been doing to lose weight.  she casually laughed as she asked what diet i had been on- she'd love to try it.

i replied... "oh yeah it's a fail proof diet~ it's called 'discovering your husband has been sleeping with prostitutes for the past ten years diet'  it works like a charm.  the weight drops off in record time" a bit shocked she answered, "um, maybe not.  i don't think i want to give that one a try"  yeah i thought, well, neither did i.

a little devilish...

did some early spring cleaning in our garage today.

we HAD a rather large collection of furniture in there from our last move.  i would anticipate that jack might need the furnishings at some point for his new place.  i took the liberty of doing a bit of 'reorganizing'.  i smiled all day thinking of how i might respond when he opened the garage door the next time.

furniture? what furniture?  oh my, i thought you had come and picked it up.