BritanniAmerica

I hear ya on the knackered front...I say yeah lie-in, if the gas man comes the ring the bell.

I think kids in general are moody when bored and have nothing to do BUT a teenager is old enough to get up and do something on their own. I hope the moodiness goes away or you invest in some ear plugs ;-P

I have something very similar to ear plugs--we bought noise cancelling headphones the other week when they were a decent price for our trips back to the States. I can just slip those babies on and tune everything out if I need to

He's in a better mood today since he had a lie-in, and his friend is online so they're playing together on the Wii or whatever. But, the gas man still hasn't shown up and he has until 1pm to do so like they said in the letter, or else I'll assume it was rescheduled for the 5th. Bugger too, since I need to post some stuff but I've been waiting on the gas man (I guess I could let my stepson answer it if he comes around, but he'd probably just ignore it anyway : /). The bad thing about our gas man (and other engineers that come around) is they have a permit to park in the car park in the 'back' of the house (the front faces a roundabout, so no one can park there obviously). So, they just knock on the back door instead of ringing a bell

We were going to go see Toy Story 3 tonight... So we texted for the Orange Wednesday offer and got a text back saying that due to high demand for tickets today they ran out of codes! Lame! I didn't even know that was possible.

It's day 3 of summer holidays and I'm getting cabin fever.

Insomnia... (posted at 3:11am.)

It's day 3 of summer and my stepson is already grounded (well, both of them). The eldest got grounded by my husband because he broke my husband's Nintendo DS and lied about it--lying to my husband is the quickest way to get on his bad side, so he's grounding him until it gets fixed. He can't play the Wii or PS3 or anything else that's for the whole house--but his laptop is still fair game since that's exclusively for his use. The middle stepson got grounded by his stepdad for 'throwing a tantrum' (which I can believe, actually), so he was crying to my husband, begging him to let him come around to spend the night--not because he was desperate to hang out with us, or missed his dad or was upset or anything. Nooooo, it was so he could play video games, since he can't at his mom's--I saw that a mile coming, and my husband is on call this week so he couldn't come around *anyway*, especially for such a fail reason as that.

This may make me a horrible person, but a small part of me hopes their stepdad doesn't get his ILR in September--now I've probably jinxed myself But I'm sick of his crap, and his wife's crap, and how he *still* hasn't bothered to get a driving license yet but he's still driving to and from work after failing his last test. I don't even know *how* he's doing it, but I would think such a blatant disrespect for British law wouldn't bode well for a ILR. I'm not sure what the authorities (i.e. the DVLA) know since he failed his test about a month ago, but we're all just staying out of it for now. If he's going to fail and get caught breaking the law, I want him to hang himself and to keep ourselves out of their drama. With that said, I think he almost *wants* to get deported--my stepson says both his mom and stepdad are miserable all the time, money is tight (except when the stepdad buys video games and consoles and crap), and the stepdad runs the household like some third world dictator. And their mom sits there and just lets it happen as long as she doesn't have to go to work. Urgh. *is a cranky pants today obviously*

Oh, and my MIL is coming over 'sometime after lunch', great. I stress whenever she comes around since I know she judge's the crap out of our house (her place is immaculate). And granted, there's three people living here who contribute to messes, but I feel like it falls onto me to sort it all out since I don't work, and if there is a mess, it's my fault for it being there.

Where is this step dad from? The US? That is bad.This is the kind of stuff that makes us Americans look bad if that is where he's from.Also that whole domineering rainbow.

I say ground them all darn it! No one has anything enjoyable for a long time! I will make my kids go into their rooms and sit until they see the error of their ways.They usually end up reading and the house is all quiet.I take laptops and all kinds of stuff away,they get nowt......

As for the MIL,throw some extra trash around to make you REALLY look bad,lmao.You aren't married to her and she is vsiting you,you are not visiting her.As long as hubby is cool with how you do things,I wouldn't worry.x

Hehe, I try to comfort myself in saying our house would never look like it when my husband was married to his ex-wife, and I *know* my MIL hated that place, she's let me know tons of times. It's like a self-esteem booster or something that I don't have empty ketchup bottles all over my living room (I found that once in the ex-wife's house when we were dropping off the kids, urgh).

The grounding is still holding, much to the stepson's angst. He was flopping around yesterday after my husband got home, hoping he'd lift the punishment since now the husband's DS is sent off for repairs. I don't think he's learned yet that the lying is what got him into trouble, but he buggered off to his mom's this morning so I don't get to look at his lovely face being all mopey

Yup, their stepdad is from Texas--came over in September 2008. It took him a year to find work--which isn't surprising in this economy, and I don't hold that against him at all. But he had a year to take driving lessons without worrying about sorting it out with an employer, and I know they had the money to do it--he just couldn't be bothered I guess. And it still doesn't seem to bother him, and I just facepalm since it'd take an act of Congress to get me to break a law like that : /

I think the problem is that until he gets caught out by a speeding camera or whatever, he just won't get caught. the HO won't have anyway of knowing he is currently driving when he sends in his ILR application other than possibly being able to look up that he failed the test.

However, I do think that once he does get caught they'd be quick to deport him.


My grumble? Orange. Posted a long bit on my blog and FB about it if anyone is interested.

My husband's best mate (who is blind, and had the ex steal money off of him when she used to clean his house) offered to phone up the police to report it--it's easy enough to get the plate number, and we already know their address and all that junk. I almost want to let him do it since I think it's a load of bollocks for him to get away with it, but I don't want anyone's hands to be dirty in this--I'm just hoping karma will come around and bite him in the arse. Then she'd have to entice someone else to give up their lives and come live with her and support her, and I think the kids would have a field day with him gone--but like I said, just keeping noses clean at this point. I guess the mature side of me will bite my tongue and watch him get his ILR while I get to toss around with Probationary Citizenship or whatever the bloody hell it'll be called

Somebody needs to report that guy.You have worked hard for the privaledge to be there.One less rule breaker makes room for one more honest one.I hope you can become a permanent fixture there

It's not going to get him deported. It probably would in the US, but it won't here.

He might have a harder time getting his citizenship, needing good character and all that, but I'm not even sure this would qualify.

Why is everyone so quiet lately?

I haven't had anything grumble-worthy. Except thinking I didn't get paid yesterday, but that turned out to be Lloyds TSB online banking being slow, as usual.

Haha, I meant in any thread! My grumble is that everyone has disappeared!

I take it back...I'd like to grumble about the code quality at my new job. I get that it's a startup, and that tends to mean "just get it done, however", but they've been in business for years, and I wouldn't write code this weirdly.

Ah, well, at least if/when I improve it loads I should look good as a result.

Been waiting at the hospital for 3 hours, still no word of when I might actually get operated on. Getting rather bored as I've finished my book.

My schedule for this week makes me grumble! As posted to LJ:



Shoot me now. I will never get everything done. I've already made Tim hide my new Jamie magazine until at least Wednesday.

Consider yourself lucky that you dont have to be at work for eight hours a day on top of the cooking, cleaning and entertaining. I'll gladly trade you for a week. Hope you get everything done, though!

It's just annoying to have it all piled up on top of everything, because we go through these long stretches of absolutely NOTHING other than regular household tasks and then boom! it's all at once! I actually hate having a social life like this. I'd much rather have one event per week or month or something than have to be doing all this entertaining and party going in the same week!

My grumble is the trains. I've pretty much had the two worst journeys of my life going to and from London this week. The trains have been cancelled on our route because of some disruption on the line, and we've had zero notification of it until I actually went to the station and saw it was cancelled on the board. Why in the world couldn't they update the national rail website with the crucial information that the train I need is cancelled? When I got to the station the ticket office woman told us all that if we were heading to London we should take the train to Birmingham and then they were holding a train to London for us there waiting for us to board when we arrived. So I took the train to Birmingham and asked an employee where the held train to London was, and he told me that I'd been lied to. That trains are never held until passengers arrive and that train didn't exist. Then the ticket office people were so mean to me in Birmingham and I was so tired and so worried about getting to London before really late in the evening that I ended up breaking down and crying for about half an hour. It was such a tiny thing to set me off, but it was so horrible, and I can't believe a person at my own little town station that I like betrayed me by lying to us. I'm definitely going to send in a letter of complaint about that. Then on the train back today the journey was nicer, but again, no warning at all that the train was cancelled until we got to the station and they've had days to set up info about alternate routes. So frustrating. And the Big Chill is on this weekend in my area so as I took the train from London to Reading, then switched to go to Oxford, then switched to go toward Worcester there were about 40 people with backpacks all running with me at each station to catch the connecting train so we wouldn't have to wait an hour for the next one. I can't believe they haven't given out better info for travellers.