Beautiful Dunedin

One of the biggest selling points for us in purchasing our home was the breath taken views that we can see from every bedroom and the lounge. I find this picture is far to small and does little justice to its real beauty. We can see from Mt Cargill to the ocean.

When i woke Wednesday morning, I open the curtains to find clouds rolling beside the Mornington hills which would have been over town and the harbor. Here are some of the awesome pictures i captured. Unfortunately these pictures only show a small amount of beauty that the eye sees, so it was much more spectacular than what you can see in this blog.



Our dream is to one day build a mega deck spanning the length of our house. When that is done, we can then enjoy our views while sitting outside in the nice Dunedin sun sipping away on our mormon cocktails. I don't think there is such a thing as mormon cocktails, but it sounds cool and sophisticated.

I have big dreams for our house. Another reason to why be bought this house was that we saw potential to renovate and make it more our own home. I so wish that i had all the money i need right now to do all we want to our house, But that wont happen for a while yet. I can't wait.

Birthday Blitz

New Born
To
2 Years

Happy Birthday

Seen as it is Jahshias birthday today, i thought it rather appropriate to dedicate this post entirely to Jahshidom.

This little mischief burst into the world at 10 minutes to 2, early Saturday morning, 19th August 2006. She was by far my easiest labour, seen as i refused to believe i was actually in labour till around 11pm - only a few short hours before she arrived. I only arrived at the hospital around 12.30am. She came racing into this world only 12 minutes after the midwife gave the "all clear" to start pushing. She must have thought she was running late and had to hurry seen as she has been my only mischief to have gone past my due date.

Facts about our Jahshie

* Full name - Jahshia Alice Bunge-Krueger
* Name came from a combination of Jacob and Alicia, middle name Great Great Grandmothers name.
* First rolled over on Christmas day2006
* First walked - Just after her first birthday. One weekend she just got up and walked.
* First word - Well she doesn't speak much and im guessing she will just one day decide she will talk. But she understands so much about what we say and the world around her. But the words you hear her utter most frequently -"my baba"
* Her favourite toys are her babies.
* I always thought that she would be into cars and trucks because that is what Devin is into, so it is what we had around the house. But at 14 months old, she found a fluffy scarf of mine and set out draping it about her neck and strutting around the house like a she was the prettiest thing on earth (shh i think she was)
* She loves her food. She will eat almost anything you put in front of her.
* She loves her cuddles.
* She was a mummies girl but is fast becoming a little daddies girl
* She loves shoes, dresses and Skirts. She once though a hissy fit in the store because she wanted the pretty flower sandals and she wanted to wear them right now.
* She will go through her draws when she is meant to be going to sleep and play dress up with all her cloths.
* She cries if you put a hat over her "pretty pretties" which are her pig tails that must be tied in her hair on demand.
* She loves dressing as a fairy.
* She on occasion played rough and tumble with Devin.
* She has played tipped dirt all over Jahshia and absolutely loved it.
* Loves her family and little sister Madison.
* Has tried to breast feed her babies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We love you Jahshia and we look forward to many more Birthdays xxx

Schools the life for me??

I have been thinking lately about returning to school and starting some meaningful tertiary study. I have always found an interest in Psychology but never thought i had the smarts to go through with my interests. But over the last few years that pull and desire to follow this interest has become stronger. I can not help tho, to recall my dreaded school days and lack of scholastic abilities. These thoughts have been and still are my barrier i must over come in order to pursue these desires to study. I thought i might share my school adventures to maybe help me get over my lack of self worth in this area.

My earliest memories of schooling was going to Kindergarten. This is where i meet one of my best friends Sina. We ended up staying friends up until 7th form - last year of high school. We still sometimes talk now but we have gone down very different paths in life and have drifted apart.
My memories of kindy are of painting, shadow puppets and hiding up the tree during clean up time.
My first teacher was very scary. I can not even recall her name only but to call her "Witch Lady" which was our endearing name we used for her. Good thing i was born in November and only had to endure her for a few short weeks till the school year was over. I do however also remember seeing all my kindy mates sitting under her wrath as well.
The next important thing that happened in my school life was that i was subject to J3. For those that are unfamiliar with the old way of school years, i will enlighten you on the order.
Primary school
- New entrants (which you did if you where born after march)
- Junior1
- J2
- J3 or Standard1 (some unlucky people did both)
- Std2
- Std3
- Std4
Intermediate school
- Form 1
- Form 2
High school
- 3rd form
- 4th form
- 5th form
- 6th form
- 7th form

Although i was not unlucky enough to do both J3 and Std1, i still knew that the smart people where never left behind in the junior part of school. When i did move into the senior sector of my primary school i went direct to Std2. Which would have been good, but it was over shadowed by my perception of the class set up. Often in our classes we would have mixed years. Std1 mixed Std2, Std2 mixed Std3, Std3 mixed Std4. I was forever the higher year in my classes. This made me feel like i was stupid. I longed to be the lesser year so i would feel smart.
Also as i journeyed up the ranks of primary school, i noticed that the songs we sung in assembly became rather babyish. It's not that i outgrew the songs, its that the music teacher ceased to sing those "grown up" songs and replaced them with ones i thought should be in pre-school. There is one that has stuck in my head because i loathed it. I have forgotten most of the words but still remember the tune. The words that i despised the greatest have never left me..
"yum yum gobble gobble crunch crunch crunch, i've got a lovely bone to munch"
These words should never be sung by 10 year olds in school assembly. I already felt stupid by always being in the higher rank of the class, and now they make us sing baby songs. Nice.

Then came Intermediate. Form1, I was put in an average class. Thats fine by me because i was never made to feel stupid. But alas, this was the year i become gravely ill with cancer and spent 5 months in hospital. On my return back to school, in the second year of Intermediate, i had the privilege of choosing my teacher. I had unfortunately chosen a teacher who did not understand my situation and i felt showed little or no mercy towards my recovery. This year holds some rather untoward emotions and situations that even to this day brings tears to my eyes. I often light-heartedly amuse myself about how i can easily talk about my dance with death with little or no sorrow, But bring up the year after and my integration into life and the tears start to flow.

High school. Need i say more. I am yet to find someone with only the fondest memories of this turbulent affair. I was shoved in the "dumb ass" class even tho according to the teachers "there is no streaming". But when you are 3rd form sitting in Math class, the teacher hands you a colour the squares picture where if you colour all boxes with half fractions it revels a picture, your mind starts to put its own puzzle together to revel that there is in fact a "dumb" class. Just to add to the torment, there was a stream of questions from the class to the teacher "Miss is 3/4 half? Miss is 5/8 half? Miss is 2/6 half?". How on earth do they not know about fractions? Isn't that primary school learning?. In my class i was dubbed "brainy", this bugged me because i knew that i was not brainy, it was in fact that the rest of the class was morons.
To sum up High School it was a stream of useless teachers mixed with ones that i swear hated me with a pinch of being tossed to the side. Its no wonder that when it came time for my youngest sister to go to High School mum said to her "Choose what ever school you want to go to, even private if you like, just not Avonside girls" My other sister also had troubles while she was there. I will never forget 6th form Math. I was having a lot of difficulty trying to understand everything. I had an average test mark of 30%. My parents payed for a tutor 2 hours a week. My test marks suddenly jumped to an average of 75%. Go figure.
I also do not have School Cert. English.
My Art History teacher in 7th form kept telling me i can't write essays. She would tell me how i should be writing them, so i would do it how she wanted, but still she would tell me i didn't know how to write them. I suppose it didn't help that she was actually the Japaneses teacher who the school decided to have her teach Art History because she took a paper on it at Uni.

I like doing personality tests. Ive done a few. Every time i do one about my type of learning i come out highly kinesthetic, which means i learn by doing. Maybe thats why i failed so miserably at school. Or it could have been a mixture of both learning style and useless teachers, who knows. All i know is that im terrified of going back to study because i do not want to fail miserably again. But i have this urge and desire to learn.

Another personality test i have indulged in is the test of "Introvert or extrovert". I seem to come up smack in the middle. 50% on either side. Go figure. But thats a whole new post all together.

Green eyes of jelousy

'mummy talk to me' Devin so kindly demanded.
'what would you like to talk about?' I replied.
'bees. bees in my mouth'
'oh really. what are they doing in your mouth?'
'ummm bees in my mouth'
'thats interesting. what colour are bees?'
'ummmm black'
'good boy. what other colour are they?'
'ahhh white'
'are you sure? is there yellow on bees to?'
'yeah yellow, bees black and yellow'
'where do bees live?'
'in the garden. bees live in the garden. bees sleep on the flowers'
'wow thats cool isn't it Devin. what do bees eat?'
'bees eat the butterflies'
'ooo ok then'

5 min of silence

'Mummy talk to me'
'alright Devin'
'spiders in my nose'

..............................................

Its harder than what you may think. Some people think that being at home all the time is so good and relaxing. Its not relaxing with kids. Not one single second of your life is your own. You are on call 24 hours 7 days a week. There is no such thing as a weekend, if you are sick you can't "call in" sick and spend the day in bed and you are constantly thinking about what other people need (mainly your children) and you forget about yourself and what you need. Your day is full of screams, crys and the almighty hissy fit tantrums. Although you are never alone, you get very lonely. The conversations you have are either ones along the lines of the one i mentioned before, which is one i had with Devin the other day, or they are to yourself. They say the first sign of insanity is talking to yourself and the second is replying to yourself. Im defiantly on the road to insanity with that one. Ive even started talking to, and answering myself when Jakob is around due to its just become a habit.

I love my children, i love them to bits and would do anything i can to be there for them. I do not regret having them at all. I do however get rather jealous of the things that Jakob is able to do right now that im not. In the grand scheme of life, this time i have now is so very short and there will soon come a time when i can do all those things that i can't now.

The things that im rather jealous of is being able to go out and not worry about the kids, he can go to the movies if he wants, he can have proper conversations with people, he can go spend time with mates and not have to say "oh hold up, baby needs a feed". I went to a Relief Society activity not that long ago. It was hard because Madison wanted me a lot and i felt that i couldn't relax and have fun. Other people came along and held and cuddled her so i could make my crafty things which was great, but i still couldn't relax. He also has many things he can talk to people about. His drama, His kids, His work etc. I have kids and thats about it. Thats all my life seems to be and when i meet with friends thats all we seem to talk about. Kids and nappies and all that stuff. I crave talking about other things, but other things have no place in my mind right now because it is so full up with baby stuff. Some nights i even go to sleep with the echos of Children screaming ringing in my mind.

The biggest dilemma that i seem to be going through with these green eyes is a concert. Jakob has recently discovered the band "Disturbed" who are coming to the good old New Zealand and to my home town Christchurch. I have liked this band since before i met Jakob and he was never keen to listen to this band till the other night when i found an album of theirs for cheep. So i bought it and put it on while Jakob was out of the room. His ears perk up and he thinks "hey these guys are rather awesome, Im going to their concert"
WHAT!!!!!! In one night he is almost forced to listen to something he hasn't wanted to for years and then declares hes going to their concert. My concert that ive been waiting for since i was 19 years old, and i can't go to it because i have a highly dependent child. When i first found out they where coming i thought "Dam. I can't go. Oh well these things happen when you have children and id prefer to have Madison than go to their concert". And that was that, till Jakob declared he was going.

I don't want him to go because i can't go and i don't see that as fair. But as he has said "what happens if they turn out to be one of my all time favourite bands and i missed out on their concert because you had a tan-trum and wouldn't let me go".
I don't want him to go, but i don't want to stop him from going.
Having him go will make me so jealous and grumpy because if anyone should go, i think it should be me. But stopping him will make me feel bad because i don't want to tell him what he can and can't do and what happens if it dose end up being one of his all time favourite bands.
What id like to do is spend that money he would have on a ticket and gas money traveling up to Christchurch on our house. Have it go towards finishing the fence and fixing bits and pieces. It wouldn't be much money but its almost half what we need to fence part of our section (thats building the fence ourselves).

So who am i going to be? The green eyes sulking in the corner, or the controlling banshee.

I hate dilemmas!!

p.s i love Madisons milky smell.

My idiosyncrasies.

This afternoon as i pulled out the try of eggs from my fridge, carefully choosing the next egg in order to be eaten, it made me think about all those little things that i have to do or things that have to be done right. I have a few of them and i thought i might take the time to shear what they are seen as its the little things in life that can create who you are.

1.
This would have to be one of the biggest things for me. Toilet paper. It must hang on the wall with it rolling over the top of the roll. Rolling upwards as i put it. That way when you pull to get some paper you can easily fold all the "wall germs" in the middle of the paper. Roll it downwards and its just harder to fold those "wall germs" away. I do not like using the side of the paper that has been smeared all over the wall. This little quirk is so strong in me that i even have to turn the paper around at other peoples house if i need to relieve myself. Ive found that people either want it rolling up, or they just don't care.

2.
Water. Im so fussy when it comes to what i drink and what i drink it from. I grew up in Christchurch with beautiful spring water freely flowing from the tap. When moving to Dunedin i had a rather hard time trying to force myself to drink tap water. I lived out in South Dunedin and ive been told that South Dunedin is the worst area for good water. I have now gotten used to the water at my house (we are on the hills now) and will only drink water from there. If i go out, i take my own water bottle with me. That brings me to my next point of drinking. I have my drink bottle which is mine. The only people who are aloud to drink from it is me. I will not shear bottles at all. Also i will not just grab any old drink bottle. If its an old bottle thats been sitting around i will not drink from it, i just can't. It sends shivers down my spine at just the thought of it. Even when im so thirsty, i still can't do it.

3.
I touched on this one at the beginning of this entry. The way i take the eggs out of the carton. They must be taken out from each end and done on a diagonal and work your way into the middle. That way when you reach into the fridge to get your carton of eggs, the carton will be even in weight distribution and there is no fear of dropping the carton due to the weight being off balanced. If i open a carton and the eggs aren't properly positioned then i will rearrange.

4.
I like my bed to be made a certain way. I would love to sleep in a bed with nice fluffy sheets and a couple of woolen blankets all tucked in, topped with a warm duvet. But alas we do not have nice big woolen blankets and Jakob likes to just have duvets so he can poke his feet out when he gets hot. So i will let up on what we sleep under, all i ask is that the domes of the duvet covers be done up and the covers aren't ridding up. I do not want to feel the domes or the inner duvet with my feet. I hate it.

5.
I have an order to how i wash the dishes. I do it in this order to maximize stacking ability. Change the order and you will not be able to stack as much on the rack. Jakob will call down from the kitchen and ask me to dry some dishes because he has run out of room. As soon as i arrive i look onto the rack and think "there is so much room left but he has everything in the wrong order"

6.
There is a certain way i like to hang my cloths. All the big items go in the middle of the line with smaller things on the outside of the line. all the things that only need one peg to hang them gets hung last, like socks. There are a few other things i need to do when i hang the washing but its hard to explain.

Those things im aware of all the time and are in my day to day life no matter how im feeling. These next things appear when i am stressed or starting to become depressed.

6.5
When im hanging the washing, not only do i do all those things that i mentioned previously, but i have to match things. Each peg i use on an item must be the same colour and type. The colour also has to correspond with the colours on the item im hanging. Or else it feels off balanced and it drives me insane.

7.
I count. I count the stairs as i walk up or down them, i count the steps i take when im walking, i count the cars i drive past, count the lamp posts, i count fence posts as i walk past touching them. I count EVERYTHING! There needs to be a rhythm to the counting as well. If i drive past 3 cars then there is a gap, it must stay in that pattern or else i feel frustrated, and it never does with something like parked cars. So i must force my attention on something that can have a proper pattern like lamp posts.

8.
My steps must be even. Also the ground i walk on leaves impressions on the souls of my feet. If i stand on a crack with one foot, i must stand on a crack with my other foot. Problem is as soon as i stand on a crack with my other foot, the impression from the first crack is no longer as strong as the second so i must stand on another crack. Im forever standing on cracks and its frustrating but i have to do it. There are other rules for even steps, but they are much harder to explain than the crack thing.

Im crazy i know but i think these last things i listed are me just finding a way to balance everything. Because my internal thoughts are so off balance, im trying to balance the world around me. I remember once driving behind a car which only had one break light working. That drove me insane. I couldn't look at his car without feeling lopsided.

I would like to say as well, i am not a clean freak. I like things to be in order and be clean. But most of the time the act of cleaning up over whelms me and i don't do. When i do i only do a "half hearted job" according to Jakobs standards. Sometimes i just don't feel i can do it as good as what i should, so i end up not doing it at all.
I watched a show once that said that the pinnacle of perfection is not doing anything at all. Reason being, you are so set on having things done perfectly that you can not even do anything for fear you will not do it perfectly. I thought that makes sense. May be thats why im not a clean freak, but i don't think so.

So yes, this post has been about the crazy insane parts of me. Im sure everyone has their odd things they have to do so i decided to shear with you mine.

PS. Family Dramas are over. Mum realized what she had done and apologized to everyone. Apologies all round. Now lets get back to being a happy family.

monsters, Monsters, MONSTERS!!!!!

Our three year old mischief Devin has now become aware of the scary things in life. Well the scary things in his life. Going down the hall with the light off is "to kerry", as is going to sleep with the light off and a part of his Sesame Street dvd where Bert and Ernie go into the mummy section of a museum.
The other night i went into his bedroom to check on him and found him sitting up in bed with a look of worry smeared all over his face. I ask him what the matter is and he replyed "monter over dere" so after i "chased" them away, he smilingly went to sleep.
It got me thinking about how wild childrens imaginations are. Or are they? Are they really seeing monsters?

I grew up with a monster in my house. My mum called him the "sock monster".
For those who have never herd of this mystical monster, he is a monster who preys on single socks, leaving only one of a pair. He lives mostly in the laundry in between the washer and dryer, which is where he hunts and strikes his pray - socks. Also the more people who live in a house, the more sock monsters.

Jakob had never herd of a sock monster before we got married, and just my luck, one must have snuck into my belongings when i shifted from my parents house to our first house. Ever since then we both have fallen victim to his nasty apetite.

When we bought our own home it was so exciting. What i did not realize was that we were also buying an extremely vicious evolved sock monster. Not only do we have our regular one living in our laundry (he has gotten used to eating either wet socks or dirty socks seen as we don't have a dryer) but we also have at least one that roams around our house and yard. Often i have taken washing off the line and in the journey from the washing line to my couch to be folded, he pinches his prey and leaves no evidence that a crime has unfolded besides a missing sock. Often he will be rather greedy and take both socks.

I think our mischief daughter Jahshia has befriended him. She often pulls all her socks out of her draw and leaves them on the floor. Well she pulls everything out of her draws and puts it on the floor. Slowly her sock draw has shrunk somewhat. I naively assumed that her missing socks must be hiding within her pile of plushy teddy bears and other stuffed creatures . But alas i was wrong. I did a big sweep through our house not so long ago and cleaned almost every inch of our dwelling. The missing socks where nowhere to be found.

Mischief Devin also feeds our rather fat sock monster. Devin likes to run around with bare feet. Even when it is blanketed with snow outside, he will rip of his socks and leave them strewn all over the place. I also was expecting to find Devins socks hidden in various places through our house but again i was wrong in my assumptions. Not a scrap of evidence or a single crumb of a sock was found.

The sock monsters have eaten all of my socks apart from a couple of pairs, and is now starting on Jakobs rather large collection of socks.

From these experiences there is only one conclusion that can been drawn.
Monsters do in fact exist and Devin could very well be seeing our nasty sock monster chomping away on a meal when he is going to bed. Maybe sleepy child eyes are the only ones that can catch this ominous best.

Drama, Shenanagins and Absurdities

I opted for posting it seen as it has been a big part of my life lately and this is my journal. I am not making her out to be a bad person in the slightest. But if anything this is a good example of how mental illness can affect not only the life of the sufferer but those around them and those that are trying to help. Maybe this entry might help someone.
Carol i do love you.


Every time my dearest Mother in law puts on a show (which so happens to be every 10 weeks), she gets rather stressed. Most of the time she release her stress onto those that are near to her, which so happens to be Jakob and I.

My last entry talked about her latest stress and drama and thats the "normal" kind of hissy fit she has when she is stressed. But little did we know that that was only the first straw on the camels back.

Monday - We didn't really have much to do with her. We just let her have her space. We had stopped going around to her house on Mondays for dinner due to it was getting to stressful on the children. The nights we would go around, they wouldn't have their dinner till the time they normally go to bed. It was getting rather hard to control them when we got home and far to stressful on Jakob and i.

Tuesday - Jakob and Devin drove out to the airport to pick up Johanna and Kyan (Jakobs sister and her son who is the same age as Devin) By the time they get back we only had a mare 2 hours to go to the grocery shop before Jakob was due at the days rehearsals. We opted to not take the children to rehearsals due to Mums previous hissy fit. We also informed Mum that we will most likely not be coming round for dinner at her house seen as we will have dragged our kids to the shows all day and they need to be in bed by 7pm. There was also stressed involved with not having enough bookings for the show and we may not be able to make budget.
She rung us that night complaining about something and from the sounds of things (Jakob was talking to her) she was saying that we don't care about her, that no one cares about her and that shes not important enough to spend gas money on to go have dinner. Which is not true in the slightest. Jakob offered her that he would bring her back to our house after the show and drop her back off later if she so liked. That way she can spend time with her daughter and grandchildren- esp Kyan.

Wednesday - Got up and started getting ready to head to the show. I put dinner in my lovable slow cook and put extra in for Carol if she decided to come back to our house. I was somewhat apprehensive about going seen as i had no idea how she was going to be. But she kept her distance to the point that she paid practically no attention to her daughter she hardly sees and her grandchildren.
That night on the phone again (i can't remember who called who) her and Jakob where again arguing. This time about the lack of bookings and if she would change her answer machine message to add a cell phone number then they may get more bookings. But her being her would not change it. Why? I don't know. I can only assume that it was to much hassel for her. I would hate to have a life where simple tasks where to much hassel to do. How can anyone live with such feelings?
Jakob was heading off to Young Mens and decided to go round and see her to try and talk to her and make some sense of whats going on. To try and figure things out and get peace back into everyones relationships. When he turns, she says something along the lines of "Oh what are you doing here, i need a break from you, you stress me out, the very sight of you annoys me. The sight of you makes me sick". I was not there and so therefore cannot comment on the conversation that took place. I do know that Jakob threatened to quite the show and he also said that he will no longer be there for her the way he has been.
After he gets back from YM , we get a phone call from his brother William saying that she has had someone over for the last 2 hours learning Jakobs lines. He then rings her and all she can say is "you're fired you're fired you're fired you're fired you're fired you're fired". Some time during the night, if it was said at her house or on the phone im not sure but he did say to her that if she fires him then bad things will happen. She took that as he was abusing his Priesthood by saying that. But it has nothing to do with Priesthood. Its true, if she fired him then bad things would happen. She cannot train someone up in one night to play a main role, the show would look a mess and completely unprofessional and it would flop. Bad things.

Thursday - I was so worried about going to the show because i have no idea what her reaction will be with us turning up. We dropped Jakob off and headed off the find a park. As we walk into the theater, all we can here is "you're fired you're fired you're fired you're fired you're fired" She is saying this with a funny smile on her face as her head is bobbying side to side. goodness me. She then rants and raves about how hes stressful and he abuses his Priesthood. I had enough. I just had enough and her being angry at us for no reason just frustrated me. So many times ive seen jakob so happy about something but then when he rings her to tell her she brushes him off and takes away his happiness. it sux to see that happen. So i jump in and say something along the lines of (i can't remember word for word what i said) "You bring this on yourself, All the stress and troubles in your life are cause by you and your laziness" she then then jumps in and says
"i don't care, i love you Alicia"
"I love you too but what kind of mother says to her son i need a break from you, you stress me out, the very sight of you annoys me, the sight of you makes me sick?"
I walk away feeling so angry and shacking because im so scared of confrintation and i have never said anything like that to her. I have always been far to worried about how she will react if i ever tell her how her actions affect me. Ive always kept quiet just to try and keep the peace and not cause her more stress. Even if what she has done throws me into a depression.
Just before the show is due to start, she goes back stage and starts swearing at Jakob rather loudly in front of half the cast and we in the front row of the audience can hear her yelling. she turns to run away and Jakob grabs her and wraps his arms around her and she then falls to the floor in a panic attack.
later that night we get a phone call from her saying she has admitted herself into a mental hospital and needed us to go deal with her children. While Jakob was over there he changed the answer phone message. In the end we got and extra $200 we would not have otherwise gotten if it was not changed.
We then find out that she hasn't admitted herself to hospital, she has just taken herself into emergency psych services (E.P.S) and that she would be going home that night.

I am glad that she went there because she really needed to. But i can't help but wander if it was me that pushed her to it seen as i got in her face and said what i did. But i suppose it doesn't matter if it was what i said or not because she needed help and i don't think she would have gone and gotten help unless she was pushed right to breaking point.

She is still to this day holding grudges against Jakob and I and has also lashed out at Johanna as well. I know she has told anyone and everyone about what happened and has made it out that both Jakob and I abused her. Thats hurtful. I do feel though that i could have said what i did in a more calm manor and not in the heat of the moment. I did however keep what i said relevant to the drama that was going on but i had the thoughts and pain from everything she has ever done.

I still love her and im so happy to know that she is getting the help she needs.
Knowing that this is all happened because she had a melt down and if her mental health wasn't the way it was then none of this would have happened, helps me to be able to forgive her and move on with my life and family. but just because i forgive her doesn't mean that our relationship will go back to the way things used to be. I will never forget what she can be like and keep my eyes open and try to jump out of the way when she starts rolling out of control. That is if she ever can come to the realization that this has all be caused by her mental health and not because Jakob and I are these nasty abusive people and start talking to us again instead of yelling at us.

This has affected my family in a highly negative way. Both Jakob and I are mentally drained. Jakob is spending a lot of time in bed and im rather snappy with my children. This is why i need to forgive her. I see forgiveness as something you need to do in able to let go of the pain you carry. It is not something to do just to make who ever offended you feel better. It is something you do in order to make yourself feel better. If you never forgive someone then you will forever carry that person and what they did around with you. Forgive them and let it go, then you free yourself from them and the pain they caused. If you never forgive then you will forever have anger, hate and bitterness within you and who wants that in their lives.

So Carol, im over this and the pain and anger you have caused my famliy. I forgive you and i let go of all wrongs that you have done. That dose not mean though that i am ready to be all buddy buddy with you. It just means that i am no longer going to let what has happened affect me and my children anymore. I love you and im glad to see you are getting the help you need.