Why I hate the newspaper

Newspapers are all well and good. They are great sources of information. More people should read them. Seriously, we all should.

What aggravates me is my husband and newspapers. I am pleased that he reads them. That's not the problem. The problem is what happens after he reads them. They never leave the house unless ~I~ take them out. That includes the wrappers too. He leaves them beside wherever he is just laying there on the floor. Then he has the nerve to complain when the dogs or the kids scatter the piles. Hello! What did he think would happen to a pile of paper on the floor? Of course they get scattered! And then he uses that as an excuse to not throw them away as if somehow the fact that they got scattered has anything to do with picking up the pile (or the scattered papers) and putting them in the trash. I could just scream!

Every week it is the same thing. Every week he takes the paper to the office and the wrapper gets dumped in the vehicle he's driving. That doesn't bother me so much because I don't see them; I don't drive his car. But then comes the weekend and the Sunday paper lingers on the floor somewhere in the house until I raise a stink about it. It bothered me less when he used to hang out in the living room. I don't spend much time there. It bothers me a lot now that he's hanging out in our bedroom and leaving them on the bedroom floor. That room is a room I spend a lot of time in. I like having a neat clean bedroom and he's ruining it. Just thinking about that mess he has there right now thoroughly pisses me off. He promised me he would throw them away today and they are still there. Aaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!

My son and Asperger's Syndrome

It finally happened. He blew up at me and got physically violent. I suppose it was just a matter of time given his history of violence.

*sigh*

I don't now what more I can do.

At this point I am ready to give up. No more telling him to clean his room, do his chores or do any school work. It is now up to him and his father if his father chooses to do anything about it. I have done all I can and gotten tackled for my efforts.

*shrug*

I would cry, but I have cried so much already over this kid.

There is nothing more I can do.

If his father is not home to be with him, I will not be around either. It's not safe for me to be around him alone.

Should I be scared?

Maybe I should be afraid, but I'm not. Well, not more than normal. Like I said in my last post, there is always something lurking around the corner. It's hard to believe it's already been a month since the Alliance guild set out to destroy us. Considering we're still here and doing as well as ever, it seems their efforts haven't been very effective.

... but that's not to say they aren't still trying and they aren't still working on getting people in place.

Still, I think that living in fear plays into their hands. We had one guildie quit because of frustration with the whole situation. It doesn't help that he knows people that hate KotE that talk about how their leader has destroyed other guilds on their faction. He only has as much power as people give him. By giving in to him and leaving the guild before he has become a real danger, their threats of destruction become a self-fulfilling prophesy for us.

"There's always an alien battle cruiser ...

"There's always an alien battle cruiser, or a Corellian death ray, or an intergalactic plague intended to wipe out life on this miserable little planet. The only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they do not know about it!" ~ Agent K, Men in Black

And that is the essence of leading a guild to me. The reason the guild thinks that there is no drama is because the officers deal with it behind the scenes. People might think that I'm paranoid, but I'm not. It's not so much that I think anybody is out to get me, although I hear from some Alliance sources that there is an Alliance guild leader that is out to destroy this guild. It's all the potential threats from the way raiding is progressing, how people in the guild are interacting, recruiting (too much or not enough), etc. There is always something changing and the job of the leadership is to be aware of the pitfalls and try to sidestep them without become a tangled mass.

Another post in the same day??

Yeah, I am sporadic. For today I'm adding to the space I take up on the internet by blogging during breaks. Now I'm back to bitching about my job.

The sad fact is that my boss must read the same management books as Dilbert's and the people that make policies are clearly taking lessons from Catbert. Today it's time sheets. They want us to have either a job number for all the work we do and we are supposed to put it on our time sheets before we turn them in. But for the work I'm doing, they still haven't created a job number. Who will be responsible for this when it comes time for reviews? Me, of course. I'm the one that failed to put a job number on my time sheet and that's somehow my fault even if they haven't created one yet. They make me crazy!!

*smiles*

For once I'm writing when things are actually going well.

My house is slowly getting cleaner than it used to be. It does have its ups and downs still, but the downs are much shorter and not as deep. While I would not say that my house is clean by any measure, it is a lot better than it was. Just walking in the door is no longer depressing because the piles of clutter are gone from the entryway and they have been beaten back in the other rooms except for the kids' rooms. Opening the door of my house, I never knew if I would be greeted by a mystery stench from the sink or trash in the kitchen, but no more. Dishes no longer build up in the sink and the trash goes out frequently enough to put a stop to that. The other day when I had last-minute visitors coming over, I didn't even bat an eye-lash. The house wasn't perfect by any means, but it was neat enough to keep me from feeling embarrassed about having somebody over. That was such a huge victory for me.

The guild is recovering. Raiding is still a struggle. Little known secret: I don't actually enjoy raiding all that much. It's ok if I'm doing it with friends, but it's not something I want to do every night. But raiding is an important part of the game and no raiding will kill the guild unless we want to be a very small guild of just a few friends. The RP and PvP sides of things are doing extremely well.

The kids are in counseling. I don't know what the therapist said to DS last week, but it made a huge difference. I was at my wits end with him. It was hard to say whether I loved or hated him more at that moment and he seemed to feel the same about me. After he talked to the therapist, it was a night-and-day difference. One thing the therapist mentioned to me was the possibility that DS might need to repeat another grade. He had a lot of good points about the benefits of that given DS's lack of maturity that goes with Asperger's Syndrome, and the need to give him more time at home to mature before expecting him to get a job. I do think he will reach the point of being self-supporting, but it will take a while longer for him that others.

There are more things to write about, but I need to get to work.

A new day

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

And my kids call me over protective

http://www.wjactv.com/news/18676842/detail.html

They might think I'm over protective when it comes to My Space, Facebook, Gaia, Warcraft, and other social sites or on-line games, but I have reason to be. This guy met the girl when she was only 10 via World of Warcraft. Four years later when she was 14 and he was in his mid 20's when he made arrangements to meet her and have sex with her. That is just so very wrong.

The explosion and the aftermath

As expected, the guild split on Saturday night, Febuary 7. It was as hard as I expected it to be. The initial shake-up is over, but the split isn't complete. We are still slowly losing members, although nothing like the first couple days.

This is the critical period that will make or break us. We have to quickly get new leadership in place so we can continue raiding and other activities, or the guild will fall apart making recovery far more difficult. Morale was low before the split, and the split only made things worse. The people that left to form their own guild are still actively recruiting our members and unless we have something to offer our members, they will have no reason to stay.

We are making headway. We resumed raiding over the weekend. We have two other activities scheduled for this week as well as more raids. Who will ultimately become the raid leadership is still being decided. It will depend on how things go.

As for the other guild *shrug* Don't know what to say there. She will burn herself out sooner or later because she can't let go of control. When she hits the wall, she will turn on those around her, even her friends. That's how she operates. Will she quit the game this time when she realizes it has taken over her life? Will her other officers be able to pick up the pieces when she does? Will they be able to pick up the slack to her satisfaction if she does try to delegate? Will they be able to weather the storm when she needlessly aggravates her members? I'm glad none of that is my problem now.