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.