Part 4

Living in a motor home with two small children is quite an experience, but not as bad as you might think. Zachary was too big to nap by then and there was no way to keep him quiet enough in that small space for Katie to nap, so she simply had to stop napping before she was even two years old. We made it into a home as much as we could. We had a small patio and we put all of the toys on it and made a make-shift fence around it. We spread out a big rug on the patio and put a T.V. in the outside compartments so that we had an outdoor living room. It really wasn't so terrible, and Joe and I always seemed to do our best together when we were in the worst situations. The R.V. Park had a pool, so while Joe was at work during the day, the kids and I spent all day swimming. Both my kids learned how to swim in that pool. All of the snowbirds staying at the R.V. Park loved Zach and Katie and we would stop and chat with them while we rode bikes around the parking lot. The worst thing about living in the motor home was the heat. Hemet reaches 110 degrees during the summer and it was impossible to keep our home cool. When we weren't swimming, we would spend time at Chucke Cheeses just to be in an air conditioned building. We also spent a lot of time over at my grandparents which was only about 10 minutes away. I always considered that a blessing. One night, while the kids were sleeping, Joe and I were watching T.V. outside in the living room, when we saw a mouse pop it's head out around the T.V. I freaked out, but Joe wouldn't do anything about it, so we saw our little mouse often. After we made it through six months of camping, we decided to move back to Vegas where it was cheaper to live and stay with Joes mom, who I didn't know well, until we could figure everything out. We had packed everything up and were all set to go, but the motor home wouldn't start. When Joe opened the hood to see what the problem was, we found our little mouse friends home. There was a huge nest in there and a whole lot of work to do to get rid of it, replace chewed on wires, and get going. It took us another week to get out of there and a whole lot of money, but we were on the road, back to Vegas. Joe got a job quickly at a rock plant and we moved into Joes moms house, all 4 of us in one room. Living with Joes mom wasn't too bad. His older brother James and his younger brother Nick also lived there, and it was interesting to listen to Joes family tell stories and argue. It really gave me insight into why Joe was who he was. His whole family was a bunch of loony bins! But it was quite entertaining for a time. One thing I love about Las Vegas is the parks. They are amazing and the kids and I would spend a good portion of the day at the park. The other thing I love about Vegas is Canyon Ridge Christian Church. I had finally found a really great church home and they had a small group called married, but spiritually single, where I found a wonderful group of women who knew exactly what I was going through. Thank goodness for these supportive women whom I leaned on for the next 5 years.

10 Years Part 3

After 2 weeks at an RV resort and a million different ideas on what kind of business to open, Joe realized that we couldn't do anything without an address. Thank goodness! We paid 6 months rent up front in cash for a decent little house in Vegas. Unfortunately, when we left Hesperia, Joe hadn't wanted to move furniture so he sold it all and we had to buy all new stuff. Money was running out fast. Joe decided on a carpet cleaning business, but he never did anything to get it going. He was home all day everyday and we actually had a really great time together for the most part. Until the money ran out. We had only been in Vegas for about 4 months when I explained to Joe that we were almost out of cash. He was furious and found a way to blame me for ruining his life and his dream of opening a business. I left Joe once for a few days, and I think it may have been during this time. Everything always happened so fast with us, that it gets all mixed up in my brain. Somehow he convinced me to come back and that we would work it out. He would get a job even though it would make him miserable if that's what it would take. I went back to Vegas and shortly there after, Joe got a job in San Diego. We still had a couple more months of prepaid rent on our house in Vegas and Zach was in preschool, so Joe took the motor home to his new job and left us in Vegas. I think we really despised each other during this time. He would come home to visit every couple of weeks and we would hardly talk. And we visited him a few times in the motor home down by the beach. I stopped doing that however because it was too embarrassing to be parked next to the other campers who could hear him scream at me about how selfish I was. While Joe was living in the motor home, he started parking near the boarder and walking across to Mexico every night after work. He would call me and tell me stories about the fun he was having and even though he was spending a boat load of money, I didn't care because his spirits seemed to be lifted. Our 6 month sentence in Vegas was up, and the kids and I camped with Joe for a few weeks until we found a 3 bedroom apartment in Fallbrook to rent. I loved living in Fallbrook. We had great neighbors and I made some friends. Joe continued to spend time in Mexico and I even went with him once. It was a blast! Joe seemed to be settled into his job and going to the beach and the park with my kids and friends was so nice. I got involved in a church and everything was going O.K. except that we never had any money. Even though Joes jaunts to Mexico seemed to be the reason for our lack of funds, and our payment on the motor home, which was now just sitting uselessly, I was scared to tell Joe how tight money was. I started getting payday loans and had this crazy system of floating checks and getting us by paycheck to paycheck. But Joe and I were doing so well, I just couldn't tell him how bad it was and face his wrath, so I kept all of the weight on my own shoulders. One day Joe came home from Mexico and gave me a check that he said his friend down there had asked him to cash for him as a favor. Joe asked me to go to the bank and do it while he was at work. And so I took the kids to the bank and tried to cash the check. As it turned out, the check was stolen, and the bank kept it and told me that if I didn't have the kids, they would have had me arrested. I was so scared. I didn't know what Joe had gotten me into. I called Joe and he came home immediately. He swore up and down that he had no idea what was going on and he was just as scared as I was. Nothing ever came of it thank goodness, but it did give me the chance to use his guilt for almost getting me arrested to forbid him from ever going to Mexico again. I also had the chance to talk to him about our financial situation without him flying off the handle at me. Things settled down, but money was still tight. Our 6 month lease in Fallbrook was almost up and we decided together that Joe would try to get his union job back. He quit his job in San Diego and he went back to the same company he had been working for while we were in Hesperia. We decided that we would save money and live in the motor home for a while. Zach was 3 and Katie was almost 2. We put everything in storage and parked our motor home in Hemet, Ca where we would spend the next 6 months. And so, another year had passed and we were a family of 4 living in a 32 foot motor home.

10 Years Part 2

Living with my Mom and Dad was O.K. at first. Joe got a job with a small company in Irwindale running equipment, but they didn't offer health insurance and I found out I was pregnant with Katie. Once Joe got a job we started house shopping again and looked to the high desert once again. It took us a while to find what we were looking for, but we eventually did and we made a much better decision in price and had a really decent mortgage. We were at my parents for 6 months though and during this time, Joe decided that he didn't like my Dad. My parents were very gracious and generous to us, so I'll never quite figure out why he disliked my Dad so much, but he did. He would come home from work, not say a word to anyone, and go in our room with the door shut. It was the first of many times that he would embarrass me by his lack of common decency and it was the beginning of my apologies for his behavior. Nobody understood it, least of all me. One night Joe and I went out to dinner. I brought up his attitude and he explained that he didn't agree with my families political view and said that we were all a bunch of hypocrites and it was people like us that made him decide that he hated Christians and would never step foot in a church again. I had a good cry right there in the restaurant and told him that God and church and Christian relationships and my parents were all very important to me and to the way I wanted to raise our kids. He had know how I felt about this from the moment we met, and I couldn't understand how he could say such things, or really where he was coming from. The best explanation that he could give me was that he would just never fit in with those people. I could raise the kids to believe in God, he claimed to believe too, that he had Jesus in his heart, but I was not to ask or expect him to go to church anymore. The day we left my parents to move into our house, Joe left without a goodbye or a thanks to my parents. My Dad was deeply hurt, but what could I say as I didn't understand it myself. Joe got a job with the union and left his small company. Union pay was amazing and the benefits were outstanding. Our mortgage was affordable, overtime was plentiful and it was by fr our best year financially. Katie was born a few weeks after we had moved into our house and although I had made the adjustment to stay at home mom, 2 kids is twice as hard. Joe was working 12 hour days and hiss boss often asked him to go out after work. He was almost never home and I was left alone with my 19month old and infant. I got myself involved in a church and did my best to be happy. One night I had to run out to the store and I convinced Joe to let me go alone and leave the kids with him. When I got home Katie was in our room crying with the door shut. I asked Joe, "don't you hear Katie crying, why did you close her in there?" For the second time he reminded me, I don't do babies. She wouldn't shut up, so I stuck her in there. He was not asked to babysit again. Mean while, Joe had sold the sand rail for a speed boat that sat in the garage since we had two tiny kids, too little for use of a boat. We fought a lot that year although for the life of me I can't remember what we were fighting about. I can see clear as day Joe getting so angry that he threw an entire lasagna across the room at the wall, but I have no idea why. The only thing that we really had going for us at that time was our kids and Joes job. Joe decided to sell the boat and buy a motor home to stay in at the property where he worked so he wouldn't have to commute everyday. Unfortunately, the motor home required payments and I said no. The motor home showed up at the house anyway. We had this motor home for about a month when Joe quit his job. He told me that he hated his career and that we were going to sell the house, which had increased greatly in value in the one year that we owned it, take the motor home to Vegas and use the money to open a business. I sobbed and fought and sobbed some more. He told me that he was doing this weather I liked it or not and I could either come with him, or leave. I was so scared. I had a two year old and a 10 month old and I never wanted a life for them with divorced parents, so I went. We sold the house and made 30,000 dollars. We got in the motor home and drove to Vegas with no plan.

10 Years Part 1

In the first year that I was married, so much happened so fast. After the wedding, I remember how Joe would tell me how unimportant my job was compared to his. I know that's not really a good way to start a story, but it's kind of important to know that right from the beginning he made me feel small. I found out I was pregnant in the first two months of our marriage and I think we both felt really happy and excited. Joe was still pretending at this time to be a Christian. We went to church and even to Bible study together. This too will be significant later on in the story. Joe quit his job while I was pregnant and we were without insurance for a short portion of my first pregnancy. Luckily, he got another job at a dump running heavy equipment shortly there after. We decided to buy a house and started looking. We could only afford a house in the high desert and it would be about a 45 minute commute both ways for Joe each day to work. I remember when we found the house that we both loved, but thinking it was a little more than we had originally talked about. We stood in the house, held hands and prayed. We asked God to give us discernment on the decision to buy. We both felt peace about it and decided to purchase. Joe and I didn't have any savings to furnish this house, but I did have a trust fund from my Grandfather, originally intended for my education, and we used that to buy new furniture. I didn't really like what we picked, but Joe convinced me, and after we had purchased everything we needed, Joe used the rest to buy a sand rail even though we couldn't afford tires or a trailer for it, and we had an infant on the way.
While I was pregnant, Joe told me that he didn't do babies. He was great with older kids, but he didn't do babies, and since we had decided that I would quit my "meaningless" job and be a stay at home mom, he really only needed to work, and I would deal with the baby. Zach was such a blessing! He was just the cutest little thing and pretty good for the most part. But I was a new mommy, all alone in a big house all day, and it was an adjustment for me. It was hard. I was tired. I needed a little help sometimes. I remember one night when Joe got home from work, I was so tired and I asked Joe to feed the baby so I could do the dishes and go to bed. I started to cry purely out of exhaustion. Joe continued up the stairs and when he got to the top, he started yelling at me to stop crying. He had warned me that he didn't do babies, and he worked and it was my job to feed the baby. I sat at the bottom of the stairs, holding Zach and crying. I didn't ask him to do anything for a long time after that. I just sucked it up and kept going. Mean while, the sand rail sat tin the garage, never used, not even once. Joe and I visited a few churches in Lancaster, but Joe didn't feel comfortable with any of them, so we stopped going to Church.
Not everything was bad all the time that year. We had some laughs. We took Zach on walks together in the stroller. Joe bought me my china for my birthday and he let me have my family for Thanksgiving. Zachary was such a joy to me, we had our house. It would all get better right?
Joe quit his job at the dump less than a year into it. We couldn't afford our mortgage anymore. We moved Joes brother James in to help us out, but it only created more to fight about and almost exactly one year from the day we purchased our house, we put it up for sale. We had to move in with my Mom and Dad till we could figure something else out.