Time for a Change in My Life!

Look out Florida ! Tracey is moving in !

I've lived in Virginia Beach, VA, since 19.. .......Well, the date isn't really important is it? You know I have this problem with age, so all that matters is that, I have been here since the day I was born.

I was born to my Mother, "Dewey" after my father so graciously walked out on us, when my Mother was 5 months pregnant with me. He told my Mother to put my brothers, John, Rick & Ray in an Orphanage or he was leaving. She showed him the door ! I guess that is why I have a problem with Navy guys in this area, he was stationed at Little Creek, and was a Lt. Commander. I don't even know what that is, but I have a rule against dating military guys. They will break your heart every time.

I was born though, without his help, four months later at DePaul Hospital in Norfolk, VA on Mother's Day, Sunday, May 10th, 1964. Ok, I said it. Don't tell anyone. I never met him. He died at the age of 42 of Leukemia, when I was 6. I remember they took all of us kids in a room and told us, that this man, called "Dad" died. But it didn't phase me, because I didn't know what a "Dad" was, so I asked if I could go play. He left us each $1.00 in his Will. Boy, how I wish he was alive today. We all have a few things we'd like to say to him.

Anyway, I grew up fast, we all did. I graduated at 16, met my first husband-to-be at 17, moved out, got married at 19, had my first baby at 21, and 3 more following over 4 years, and was married for 17 years. We divorced in 1999, I met a great guy that was 9 years younger then I was, he was 23, I was 32. We lived together for 6 years with the children, had everything you could ever imagine, travelled all over, all while he was building a Medical Diagnostics Products company from ground up, which he just sold a couple years ago for around 84Million. Our relationship ended as he wanted children of his own, and I was done having babies. The factory was closed. Then I met my Soul Mate on Match.com, and we fell in love very quickly. We were engaged in 6 months, married in 11 months. I was madly in love with him. Unfortunately, he did not know how to communicate, he would shut down, and just listen. (I was his fourth wife) Red Flag? didn't seem like it at the time to me, I was in love!

The marriage ended, when I asked him for a divorce in October of 2006. After my car accident, and his poor business practices, causing us to be sued out of the house I bought, we lost our business, and he closed up inside. He wouldn't talk. He wouldn't go to counseling. I couldn't live like that. The divorce was final ironically June 27, 2008 which would have been our 5th Wedding Anniversary, after battling in court for a year and a half.

Now after dating websites, living here my entire life, my family being here, and everyone knowing everyone. Being a local, isn't fun anymore. It seems like everywhere I go, someone asks me, if I'm that girl that was on that dating site?

Or, hey "I saw you at some local beach club" Friday night ...... or at the beach last Sunday at the narrows..... you can't hide from anyone here, and I'm just ready for a Fresh Start in my life !!

FLORIDA IS MY CHOICE !! Actually, my oldest daughter picked it, now she is changing her mind, but I'm not. They don't need me anymore. They're never home anyway !

Give it a week, they'll be calling me, begging for a plane ticket, to move down there !!

Daddy isn't going to treat them like Mommy always has !!

This sucks! No car now! All I can say is "Karma"

Well, now that my 19 year old has her license back after 1 1/2 years of it being suspended by DMV I can see we are going to have issues in the house.  I have been using her car that she purchased last September, because I have been unable to make the payments on my car since January on my car.  I got very sick last September with severe abdominal pain, which took the doctors 4 months to diagnose. During that time, I was unable to function, eat, or do any type of work at home to supplement any income for us. Therefore, everything got behind. Then the holidays came, and it was time for our lease to end on our home we were renting. I had promised my youngest daughter, that she would not have to spend Christmas in that house again, as we had been tormented by a stalker the previous Christmas, New Years & 8 months following. So I backed out of our lease a month early with notice, during a time that I was very sick, in and out of the hospital, yet, the Property Manager, managed to sue me in court, and screw me over anyway.

So, I wiped out my savings to get into this new house by Christmas. Scraped everything I had, because I had no real proof of income, except money order receipts to show this owner as proof that I could pay the $1840 rent per month. My roommate was most likely coming with us again, and he pays $840.  But, slowly after 18 months of paying my car payments on time, I finally had to make a choice between the electric, and the gas bill cut-off notices.   It finally got to a point that the payments were a couple months behind, and one night my daughter heard a tow truck outside. We went into panic mode.  The car was equipped with a kill switch, so if you didn't pay your payment, they cut your car off.  I didn't want to loose my car, my life line, my sanity.  It happened to be parked on the street between two cars, and luckily he couldn't get it out.  He left, but I knew he would be back when some cars moved. One car in front happened to be my daughters jeep. So we blocked it in until morning. Then first thing in the morning, we all got up, and put the car in neutral, and pushed the car into the garage, with my daughters jeep.  We kept it hidden in their for about 2 1/2 months.  Until the payment got so far behind, and I had exhausted all of my options to borrow the money or be able to catch it up.

Everyone told me to just let it go back, that I had lost the battle.  The tow truck had been coming by every night for 2 1/2 months at 10 pm at 1 am, looking at the VIN number on my daughters black car, trying to see if that was the car they were looking for.  I just knew any day, they'd come knocking on my door with a warrant, forcing me to open the garage.   So, after I had finally come to wits end on just about everything in my life. I couldn't pay my $750 electric cut-off notice, and knew I wouldn't make the rent, I felt overwhelmed. I had my daughter help me push the car out to the driveway.  

The car has been sitting at the end of the driveway for about 5 weeks now, and not once has that tow truck come by looking for it. The car sits there haunting me. It makes me sad to look at it everyday. And I'm too scared to call, the place I bought it, because the owner, gave me in house financing, because my ex-husband and I had done his windows & siding prior to our divorce, and I feel like I've let him down.  I just keep praying for a miracle.  The payments were only $150 every 2 weeks. But they've added up now.

Now, both girls are leaving me home, and taking off last night, and tonight.  And my daughter with the jeep, is being a royal bitch about me wanting to use her jeep to get to my appointments.  It's like pulling teeth.  She throws a bitch fit.  I had a 10:30 appointment with my therapist, she had to be at school at 9:40, and her sister had to be at work at 11:00 am, but had to be at DMV yet again, to try and get the copy of her license paid for.  Yet she wanted to whine and complain, as to why we could not use Aprils car, or why my Mother could not pick me up from my therapist appointment.  Does she forget her ran them back and forth to work and school just a year ago 6-8 trips a day, like I was a freakin taxi service. I had no life, couldn't get any work done.  But she tells me that is what I'm supposed to do, I'm the Mom.

I text her later, and asked her to drive with me out to Cobb's Marina to finish this job for a friend who had been helping me out through the rough months, kind of like payment in advance for his boat work he knew he would need in May. On the way, she started in about running out all of her gas, that Dad had just put in her tank, yet she can run out to her 30 year old male friend's house, "Levi" everyday, about 15 miles away, but that's okay. But my friend helped pay our bills, for the past 3-4 months at $200 a month, when we had nothing coming in.  Had she had the nerve to say these hurtful things to me.  Now this is my usually caring and loving daughter. What's happening?  It hurts my heart and my gut.

I give with every ounce of my heart, yet I still feel empty....

Hi, my name is Tracey. I am the Mom of four gorgeous grown children, and two incredible grand-babies. At a point my children kept growing and I stopped getting older. I have a huge problem with that thing called "age." Age is nothing but a number. It's an unfair label to place on women who take care of themselves or have good genes in their background. I believe mine is the genes. My Mom, turns 80 this year, and looks like she is 60. This is my first attempt at blogging, and I decided to start blogging, because of my love for computers, the Internet, and searching for a needle in a haystack, so to speak, and the feeling of instant gratification, when I succeed. But along the way, I stumble across so many incredible websites, that I wanted to share them with my blog readers, while I also, share my life's journey of raising my children, going through divorce, being single and dating, living with two teenage girls, being a grandma at such a "young age", and living with chronic pain, filing for disability, feeling alone and trying to support a family on no income. Please read my blogs.

So my kids think I'm a Computer Hacker!!

It was early September, about two years ago. School had just started back up again from summer break. My oldest daughter had just just got her license to drive. My two teenage daughters had been hanging out together most of the summer. The oldest wasn’t really taking her with her by choice, mainly when she needed gas money. But this night she needed to take her, because they were using one of her friends as the scape goat. Obviously, they went to a party that night, in a hotel, at the beach, that some guy had rented. This is where it really gets good.

The younger sister, was just getting in the rebel mode, where she really like posting bulletins on MySpace, for everyone to read. Well, me being recently separated from my husband, and had been going out also, testing the waters as a single woman, thought that I could trust my girls on the weekends. I thought they could do no wrong. Little did I know that they were testing me. My younger daughter was posting bulletins each night with less then tasteful words about her mood. Which I had replied a few times to these posts and told her that I did not appreciate her choice of words in these bulletins. But that did not stop her.

It had been a few days since I had logged onto my own MySpace account, and noticed that my youngest daughter this one morning had posted yet another bulletin, with the title being “OMG! I’m so Hungover” !
Well, I immediately opened this bulletin to read the contents, and read the full story, of both girls, and another friend of theirs going to a hotel at the oceanfront the night before. She bragged, that they got so drunk that they didn’t even know where they were, and that one of the girls was crying, and throwing up, and that my oldest daughter, didn’t drink much, but was able to drive home, and that in the morning, they didn’t even remember where in our apartment complex she had parked her Mercedes.

Prior to this when both girls had gotten up for school, which was always a chore, I remember asking them “So, what did you two do last night, and why were you late? past curfew?”
The oldest daughter spoke up and said, “We were at Erin’s house watching movies and lost track of time.”
Because I do remember hearing them come in, but I was already home and in bed, and had been out late myself drinking. So, my normal routine, in the morning was to get coffee, and to log onto the internet, and
check my email and MySpace.

This is where the trouble began. When I read her bulletin that morning, my blood started to boil. I read some names in the bulletin of people who rented this hotel, that I have never even heard of. I immediately thought to myself, “I want to kill them,” then I tried to calm myself down and think rational. I thought, Erin’s Mom, would never let her go to a party of the sort. So, I found her Mom’s number, in my daughter’s room, and decided to call, after twenty minutes of deliberation with myself. So, I called, and said, “Hi, this is Angel’s Mom, this might sound strange, but were my girls, with Erin last night?” She said, “No, Erin is out of town, at her Aunt’s house.” I said, “Oh really!” And I proceeded to explain to her what was going on. She just wished me luck.

At that point, I decided to take drastic measures, and hack into both of the girls computers, so that when they got home, their privileges to get online and have any connection with the outside world would be gone.
But first, I called the cell phone company and temporarily suspended their cell phones.

Then I had to come up with a way to punish them, that would hit them where it counts. I was going through a separation from my husband, and we were living in an apartment for the first time ever in our lives. And discipline was not one of my strong points at that time. The gears began turning as I decided that I couldn't possibly hide their computers from them. Our apartment was too small, and they would just find them, if I was ever to leave the house. I went into the youngest daughter’s room who had posted the bulletin on MySpace bragging about this great party they went too and how hungover she was. I decided to try some passwords I knew she had in the past, to no avail. This was going to take some drastic measures, so I went back out to the living room to the family computer, and started doing some fast research. I needed to have all of this done in a few hours, before school let out. I searched “forgot log on password” and immediately found many entries on password recovery. I was able to get past the log in screen to access their MySpace, but then I had to log into their MySpace. All along knowing that both girls knew how to log on at school past the firewall set up by the school system, and could be online at anytime, or log in while I am in the process of changing their passords to lock them out. So magically I just clicked, “forgot password” and luckily on my youngest daughters computer, she had left her Microsoft Outlook up, and they sent me an email with her password in it. I quickly logged on her MySpace account, changed her password, and changed her email address to my email address, and logged off her MySpace and logged off her computer, then hit, shut down.

Last but not least, the oldest daughter, had once had her computer password stolen by her nephew and brother, one time when they thought they were being cute, changing things one her computer before her very eyes, and she couldn't do anything about it. So, I remember quickly jumping online and changing her email address to my email. For some reason, we were never able to change it back. Her account, was easy to do a password retrieval. I had never betrayed her trust before, and never logged on either of my girls computers before. But, this was necessary, one they both needed to be punished, where it hurt the most. Cell phones and computers. Their life lines to the outside world. And, two, I needed to see some of her recent emails and find out who these boys were that rented this hotel room, and who these other girls were that were at this under age hotel party. Because I was not only scared for my own daughters safety and bad judgement, but for other girls that were in that room, drunk and unaware of where they were. So, I had her password sent to my email, and changed her MySpace password, after reading all I needed to see.

When 2:15 rolled around, both girls came storming in the front door, hollering, “why are our cell phones cut off?” I immediately said, “Do either of you have anything else you’d like to tell me about what happened this weekend, before I tell you about your restrictions?” They both kept walking into their rooms, and the oldest daughter screamed, “what’s wrong with my computer, why can’t I log in?” The other daughter proclaimed “what’s wrong with my computer, did you mess with them?” I said, “you are both grounded from your cell phones, your computers, and MySpace, until further notice, oh and you are not to leave this house until I say so! The oldest one said, “we’ll just get on MySpace at school!” I said, “Good Luck!” She said, “What are you gonna do, change our passwords?”……I walked down the hallway, mumbling and said, “already did!”
She screamed, “You’re a computer hacker too, and slammed her bedroom door!”

Mother's Day ~ My 45th Birthday Too ~ My heart hurt

I was born on Mother's Day 1964 to my Mom, after she had 5 boys. My Dad had walked out on us, when she was 5 months pregnant, so my Mother has always called me her gift. Mother's Day only falls on the 10th about every 7 years or so. And I have had pretty crappy birthdays my entire life. They have always been shafted, because of the holiday. At a certain point in my life, they just started combining my birthday with my Brother's wives and my Mom's, Mother's day picnic that was normally planned for that Sunday. And my name would be put on the same cake. Mother's Day would roll around, and there would be a big cake that would say "Happy Mother's, Debbie, Debbie, Mom & Happy Birthday Tracey." Gee, Thanks.  Then, I had to cancel my 13th Birthday, because I got the chicken pox's right after school, and I had a big slumber party planned.  Then, on my 16th birthday, My Sweet 16 Birthday Party, was cancelled, because my nephew decided to make his entrance into the world. We spent the entire afternoon and evening at Va. Beach General Hospital waiting for my sister-in-law to give birth. And now Shawn and I share this lovely birthday together every year. And we joke about it all the time.

But this year, my kids and I had been through alot, with the divorce, my stalker issues, the boys and their marriage struggles, and the girls. We have had our ups and downs, but I have helped everyone out so much. My door has been a revolving door for my son when he needed a place to stay, when no one else would help him. I feed them all when I can. None of them ever invite me out to eat or to their houses for dinner. I let the girls boyfriends stay here, eat here, and never ask for a cent. I even go without, so that everyone else can be happy. I have helped their friends get cell phones and gotten screwed on the contract, I have had added electric bills, that have caused cut-off notices month after month for us on our current home. I have lost my car due to lack of income, yet allowed jobless boyfriends to sleep at my home for months on end, while I've sat up for hours upon hours with no sleep, with my painful disabilities. While I watch them all walk out the door to go out to eat, and not offer to bring me anything.

And this birthday, I asked a week in advance about having a party at my son's house on Friday, May 9th with a funny theme. It was going to be "My Trailer Park Trash, Redneck Birthday Party." I asked the girls if they wanted to get with me and get a list of my friends to email? Neither of them seemed interested.  I slowly started telling some of my adult friends.  It didn't get rave reviews, so I decided to change it to a "Hang 10/Beach Party."   By tuesday, I took April to work, and asked her one more time before she got out of the car.  I said, "so are you going to plan this party, or am I supposed to plan my own birthday party?"  She said, "well, its not like I know any of your friends or anything Mom."  I said, "that's all I needed to know April, the party is cancelled !"  "I tried to get with you Sunday, and you didn't want anything to do with it, forget it.  Your sister and I gave you two parties last weekend for your birthday!!, Just forget it !!"

And I left crying.  

She and her sister are so wrapped up in boys, that they don't even stop to think about their Mom, and all that I do for them and for their friends.  April spends so much money "buying her boyfriends love and attention, that she couldn't even be bothered to spend a cent on her own mother. That hurt.  She had just spent $175 on a guitar, that he didn't even want.  And had been taking him out to dinner, buying him clothes.  But I asked for one simple thing, a $49 open heart necklace from Kay Jewelers.  That would mean alot to me.  It didn't even register the day we were talking about it.

Her boyfriend broke up with her on Wednesday after he picked her up from work. Wow. That was a shocker.

By Friday, she and her sister, decided they wanted to plan a birthday party for me again, with 5 minutes notice at their brothers house.  Of course, none of my friends could make it, and I didn't have a date.  And I was running around trying to help them, it was total chaos. I was making "Orange Crush" mixed drinks for the first hour at Daniels house, didn't have a minute to breathe, and everyone cleared out fast, by 10:30, and came back to my house.  All the young ones. Boring.  I was miserable.

Saturday, was promising. I had a date for the day. It was with a guy I met Tuesday night after dropping April off at work, when I stopped in the Texas Roadhouse for a drink. His name was Rodney. He had asked me to go to a party at the marina in Hampton at 6 pm, so I invited him over here to my Brother & Sister-in-law's 30th Anniversary Party at 2 pm.  Well, he showed up for the party late, but he made it. We ate, had a drink, and talked a little. It was fun. I introduced him to alot of people. Then it was time to go inside to watch a video montage of the past 30 years. He excused himself to the restroom. We all packed into the game room. We waited for him. And waited, looked around, and waited. I told her to go ahead. I decided to call him. Then I got a text message.  It said, "I'm sorry, I left, I can't do this, it reminds me of my wife & daughter too much"  I thought to myself, oh my god, can my life get any worse?  I text him back and said, "You could have at least said that to my face, how disrespectful, rude & hurtful"  "You embarrassed me in front of my whole family, they are all asking where's my friend?"  He said, "I didn't mean for it to go this far"  I said, "to go this far?????"  I said, "You have been heavily flirting with me on Facebook & by text, so yes you did!"  I said, "You are just a coward, don't ever speak to me again, thanks for ruining my birthday"

So, I went and fixed an Orange Crush, went and cried on Chrissy's shoulder for a little while, and then went out front and watched my kids all playing Corn Hole for a little bit.  Daniel walked me to my car, and said he was going to come over on my birthday and cook dinner for me, Alfredo & Chicken.  I finally went home and went to bed about 9:15.

Sunday morning ~ Mother's Day ~ My Birthday

I got up, got on the computer, heard my girls making plans to go to the beach, like they did yesterday.  Then they slowly tried forcing me into going with them.  I didn't want to go.

Great, force me into doing something I don't want to do on Mother's day.

What happened to breakfast in bed?  Then they asked me if I wanted to go to the Classic Diner for breakfast, because I eat free on my Birthday.  So I said,  "sure why not."

So we got dressed, I met them there. They surprised me with flowers, the same bouquet, Ashley gave me on Friday night, and after we ate, April, pulled a carrot cake out from under the table, and put a candle on it, and started singing, and the entire diner sang "Happy Birthday" to me.  I know I turned red.  It was so funny.

We went back home, and they guilted me into going to the beach to lay out, boring. But I did it.

We went and we were bored. Parking was expensive. April and Kirsten left us as soon as we got there. Autumn was miserable. Then we went to the Monster Truck Races, and my friend Todd, got us all in for free. Then we stood around, bored. Finally I made the decision to go home. Daniel came over to cook, and everyone was too tired to go to the store, so he cook burgers on the grill, and he went home.  He had a hangover. Boring,  Birthday, boring Mother's Day. I even called my son, Jason and Ashley's cell phones, to invite them over, and they wouldn't answer their phones as usual.  So, no phone call from my son on Mother's Day, that hurt.  No cards, No nothing.  Ashley's birthday is Monday, the 11th, we've celebrated the past 2 years together.  I have a great gift for her that I made. I text her a told her. She said, "you didn't have to do that."

What have I done??