How My Life Is Going

WOW. A few of my friends told me they admired how brave it was for me to go to Oklahoma on my own. "Pshaw!" I thought. How hard could it be? Travelling 2,000 miles away from my family and husband - not to mention my seventeen year old rebellious daughter whom I love and adore - on my own with very limited funds, and only the promise of more to come...no job waiting for me, no house or apartment (I wanted to see what I was leasing!), and four kids in tow...one of them a very angry fifteen year old who tells me daily how much she hates me, her family, Oklahoma...and everyone in general. How bad could it be?

Well, the apartment we were going to move into (for $199 through a move-in special) was a dive! Kicked in doors in a very bad area of town...live there?! I was scared to even drive through! So we turned a two night hotel stay into a weeklong stay, and I explored OKC...finally settling in a little town that reminds me of the community in Shaftsbury, VT. Larger, yes...but low in crime, good schools, and seemingly quiet. Of course...with they house lease came a lot more bills...utility deposits...first and last month full rents (no move in specials!)...and my money dwindled rapidly. On top of all of this...the place was overrun with roaches!! I don't mean a roach here and there. I mean we bombed, the landlord bombed...we bombed again...the landlord paid for spraying....and then we bombed again...delaying our move out of the hotel by another three days. The first night in we killed over 100 roaches. They were in the bed with us at night! Coming from Vermont...I never had to deal with roaches!

The landlord promised to fix a few broken things, and that the roaches would leave in time. Two weeks later, I was still killing up to 50 a night. I roamed the house with a can of raid and a roll of TP to flush those roaches away with every night...and got very little sleep! Little by little I noticed their numbers decreasing. Last night I only killed five. The landlord has fixed most of the things he promised to fix; the doorbell, the bathroom fan, and the smoke detector still need to be repaired. I still can't use the kitchen (could you?!)...so we are eating out of the car. Hmmm...I wonder what the neighbors think when I am outside at 7am making peanut butter sandwhiches for the kid's lunches out of the back of the car? Iiiiinteresting.

My husband is NO HELP at all, as he laughs - yes LAUGHS - when I tell him of our moving adventures. This is not funny. He asks me what would I do if he was called to Costa Rica - is that where they have the giant hissing cockroaches? Well...that is true - it could be worse. But...this is bad enough. On top of all the roach problems...the teen drama is still occuring. They grow out of this right?! The roaches are dying...and the exterminators are coming to spray some different (and they say very stinky) chemical to help kill any of our brain cells which have survived the 7 giant size cans of Raid I have used so far - and the four large cans of Boric Acid I have sprinkled everywhere imaginable in the house. We used the kitchen for the first time a few nights ago to microwave some Ramen noodles...and I think we can start using it soon...things are getting better. Right? Somebody tell me "Right".