Age is Just a Number

"Mom, look."

Youngest held out her phone to me earlier this evening.

I did as asked and looked.

She was showing me the song that was playing, Lauren Daigle's "Thank God I Do." Youngest has been on a fast from secular music, so it's been nice seeing what she's listening to.

Now, Youngest is familiar with the song because she likes Lauren Daigle and has it in her playlist.

I am familiar with the song because I love The Piano Guys, and they chose to cover it and mash it up with an old hymn, "Be Still and Know," on their latest album, Unstoppable. It's one of my favorite tracks.

This led me to ask Youngest if she'd heard about the too-young death of Christian artist Mandisa, whose music I knew the girls had loved at one time.

Youngest was quite sad, she said.

At this point, Middle entered the conversation. "How old was she?"

"Forty-seven. A year younger than me."

Middle clapped her hands to her mouth, vertically. "You're 47?"

Youngest's eyes were wide. "Really?"

I nodded, a little surprised. They know my birthday. I thought.

"You're 47," Middle repeated.

"I'll be 49 in July," I pointed out.

"I've been telling people you're 45 for, like, the last five years," Youngest blurted out.

Well, I'm not gonna complain. "Keep doing that," I said. I'll take the extra free years of youth.

Always one to look on the bright side, Middle concluded, "At least you're not 50 yet."

Gee, thanks.

$2632.50

The Marital Settlement Agreement has been with Hubby's attorney, Mr. Smug, since April 1. Almost three weeks, for those of you counting that sort of thing.

It took two weeks to hear back from Mr. Smug that he had at least forwarded it on to Hubby--he must use regular mail, you see, due to Hubby's current domiciling. He can't just email it.

So we are left to assume that Hubby has received the MSA. 

And we're left to assume that Hubby is actually going to sign it.

Forgive me if I'm a little less hopeful on the second count than I am on the first. Jail mail moves slow, but it does get there. See, Hubby and I had hammered out an agreement some time in September 2022, chatting via the app the county jail had that let us communicate in the cheapest fashion, I took screenshots and forwarded those to Lady Tiger, and she drafted an MSA then. She asked Hubby to respond ASAP with any changes he wanted. That was early September. In December, I asked if he was going to do anything with the settlement paperwork, since neither I nor Lady Tiger had gotten so much as a peep from him. We finally heard from him around the first of March 2023. Six months. Six months of him doing nothing before he reneged completely on the agreement we had, going back to his first offer of more than a year before and adding insult to injury with that one. This MSA gives him more of what he wants, so he may well sign off on it, but I'm not counting on it happening in a timely fashion.

Hubby doesn't seem to like doing things in a timely fashion if it hurts me in some way.

He said at one point that he didn't want to bankrupt me, but he's doing a great job of running my finances into the ground anyway with all of his stall tactics.

The bill from Lady Tiger arrived last week, and it's going to cost me $2632.50 for her services to not go to court last month.

Thanks to an unexpected anonymous friend, I have $500 more in the legal fund than I did two weeks ago. But I'm still short $1100 (and fifty cents).

Which leaves me here again.

I can't do this without help.

I probably have another $2500 in legal bills (sorry, SnarkyDad, I know that's above where we've set the goal on this thing) coming after this, because I still have to sell the house and wrap that up before I can finally be fully free of everything.

And that's if I'm guessing my expenditures right. Lady Tiger is good, but she is not cheap.

So I'm asking again. If you can, help us out financially. Invest in the future of my kids. If the only help you can give us is sharing our link, I'm more than grateful.