Wednesday, December 30, 2015

snowfloodquakenado

so welcome to Oklahoma

in the last week, we have had tornado warnings (sirens blaring), flooding, an earthquake, and snow/sleet.

as my ongoing budget plan, i am trying to reduce costs. i decided to look at the car insurance and see if raising the deductible would be worth it....only $10 difference. since there is overwhelming flooding all around, i checked on flood insurance, then i wondered if i needed earthquake insurance too.  oh how i love the irony.

i got to spend the other night with joe's ex and her husband. they had been in town shopping and were concerned about the tornado so they sought refuge at our house. i am glad that syd was safe but it was a bit awkward. joe, syd, and i just sat on the couch doing our thing as if it were any other day in our life. i have been in their house, Charles gave us a grand tour but i wanted to see syd's room. it shocked me, it was nothing like syd. i suppose it was shocking because we had spent so much time in her room, i wanted her to have a place that felt like she belonged. not the log cabin walls and red shag carpet she had at her mothers. i found it odd that her mother never asked once to see her room but she is a bit dramatic and probably thought we were all crazy people when the siren went off and we did nothing, lol.

when butch had to sell the trailer to pay for his divorce, i was upset, since he always told me that would be mine. He had sold my home. I then referenced my parents house as home even though i never had a room that was truly mine which had more to do with i was in my 20's by the time they bought that house. i always want a place in our home that feels like hers.

i watched a video the other day and it was a blended family, the mother had invited the step mom to a sit down where she thanked her for how she loved her child and how she loved her ex, feeling as though it made him a better father. the father did the same with the step dad. i thought that was great but nothing i would experience.

this all makes me think that my journey was worth it. i try to do my part to not make Sydney chose, feel as though she is being used as a weapon, or in the middle of a tug a war.  i enjoy her presence in my life, try to tell her often, and let her know that she is missed when she is gone.

stopping the legacy

so....the holidays have come and gone except new years and we usually stay home because we have neurotic animals and I don't want to get killed by a drunk driver, it just gives me anxiety.

I am now the proud owner of 2 totes full of my legacy. Pictures of people I don't know and looming family secrets.  I have no children (I imagine Syd wouldn't have a clue to do with it either since she has met none of these people), my aunt, and uncle have no children.  This is my mothers side of the family so my sister has no use for it and I would give it to my aunt anyway.  I just sat here and looked at it all and thought, this is my legacy and some day, someone will just throw it in the trash.  I took out the pictures of Ryan and mementos from his childhood.  I sent him a picture the other night of him and mother. He had never seen any pictures of him and mother, he said he didn't realize how beautiful our mother was. I guess I never thought about it and it sounded weird. I have never heard anyone say "our mother".  I guess i was just shocked that he actually considered her a mother. I don't think i would have but he is obviously a better person than i am. I got out all of the pictures of me and had some of my paternal grandparents. Joe pointed out that my grandmother and I have the same hands. I look at all of these pictures and try to find some familiar feature that will link them to me and I don't see it, other people do but I don't. Sometimes i think they are just trying to be polite. I see similarities in my actions that remind me of my mother, which is usually irritating. 

I did go to Rodney's for Christmas, it was Joe, Syd, her beau, and I. I didn't really have any expectations. I was very thankful that they changed the living room furniture, it took away some of the ghosts. Earlier in the day i had made pumpkin bars....not sure what happened but they didn't set up. I had to go to the store and feed the animals anyway so i bought new ingredients (breaking my ban from shopping on holidays). I was able to find/have everything except cream cheese which Rodney and Dana had so i went to their house and cooked. I have accepted that isn't my home anymore so i wasn't as liberal as i once would have been, it wasn't awkward, i just knew my place. i even knocked at the door, which is something i would have never done before. it made me think of the last day mother and i got into it, which may have been the last day i ever saw her lucid, she told me the house rules which were to knock before i came in and to not show up uninvited. Ironic.

we played dirty Santa. i was number 2, so everyone took my gifts. I finally ended up with a choice between the gift i brought or the extra gift that Dana had. It was a new scentsy warmer, it doesn't even take a light bulb which is awesome because half the ones we have the bulbs are burned out and we cant seem to buy the correct ones. so they just sit around gathering dust which means one day i will throw them away...another thing that i just had to have that will be donated.

Friday, December 11, 2015

When a deal isn't a deal

I spent too much time the last 3 days trying to get my meds fixed so i won't kill anyone before the holiday.

Skippy paid the bills and worried about the money and tapped his parents when we were short.

I have spent the last few months getting together a budget.  Last night syd went to the game with her boyfriend. Joe and i went to a local bar and grill, shot some pool and had a few beers. It was a very nice evening. Eating out has become a luxury not an everyday splurge.

While we were waiting for my prescriptions to be filled, i was waking the aisles at the drug store. There is always that aisle with the stuff that you buy for people who you don't know what to buy. It used to be foot massagers. Today it was an electric mac and cheese maker, memory foam slippers (that didn't seem very cushy), and desktop water features. I thought it would be cool to get forrest one to drink from but it would be another piece of junk sitting around my house that i would be getting rid of later.

Every day i have emails for things to buy, great deals, and credit card companies reminding me that i haven't maxed out their cards.

Our money situation, my family situation, and trying to get the store ready for a rvp visit has made me realize what a consumer i have been. Since i am not throwing money at gifts for other people to make myself feel better. Trying to stuff the hole with stuff. I am grateful for the things i have purchased that really transformed our house into a home. I look at the things i bought because they were a good deal, like the ipad keyboards i bought for syd and i. We don't even use them. It reminds me that something isn't a good deal if you don't need it or use it.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Consumption

I am overwhelmed.

I had 2 groomers walk out last week. I expect too much. I had an animal walk, found a dead hermit crab and got a care alert. A week from tomorrow i have an rvp visit and i imagine it will be hours of him telling me i suck. I think i will just medicate myself so maybe i won't cry the entire time.

It is Christmas and we have been so wreckless with our budget that we are now having to pay the piper. God always seems to provide though.

I made the office into a proper spare bedroom. I couldn't even walk into the closet. I have sold and donated too much stuff. It is funny how you get pennies on the dollar for the stuff that you just had to have at one time.

It just makes me realize how much i consume. I think i am an equal opportunity addict, at times it's food, at other times it's shopping. I have been going through a declutter phase. I did that years ago, if i didnt love it or use it had to go.

It has been really nice to eat at home though. We actually sit at the table and eat like a family. Joe and i make a really good team we cook and clean. I am so blessed to be part of a partnership.

Skippy received a letter from social security, they are garnishing his check. We were married he was supposed to notify social security of the status change. He said he did but continued to get checks. When he left i found a letter from the social security stating that he owed then 50k. I freaked out, thinking that since we were married i would be liable. Rodney says that i am not. He said that his dad would just take care of it for him. Must be nice to be a trust fund baby.

I will keep my money issues and joe. You could not pay me enough to live with that negative man again.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

This is all

I do believe this was the most stressless holiday that i have ever had. We even have a tree and it is decorated.
I think having syd around has been good for me, joe is good for me. I struggled so hard to be understood in my relationships but either the person was unable or didn't understand the importance. Joe and i had similar backgrounds but i reacted differently, he learned to be accepting of people. I put people down so that i would feel like i was better than them. Joe has never made me feel as though there was something wrong with me. I think that had allowed me to be more accepting of myself, to be a kinder person to others and myself.
I don't feel responsible for other people's feelings. Supposedly butch has been moping around asking sister if he was a bad father. I don't look at it in terms of good or bad. I do blame him for using me as a weapon against my mother. I don't know if he was aware of it at the time but i think that he was so angry that he didn't know how to do anything other than hurt her.
I wasn't trying to make him feel bad that day he called me. I only wanted to tell him my perspective on growing up. I told him that i didn't feel as if he did any of those things with malice. I just feel as if he didn't think at all. He was too busy trying to prove something with sleeping around, being a baseball coach (which he wasn't paid for), and his weekend warrior job.
My choice is to no longer participate in a relationship with an angry individual who is unable to see things from someone else's perspective. I have spent a lifetime with people who i had to battle with to get them to either acknowledge my feelings or see things from my perspective. I can't and won't do that any longer. I just don't have the fight in me.
I think he loved me the best he could. The end.

Week with sister

The week with my sister was interesting.

I think it disturbed joe more than it did me. My sister is the master manipulator. I know this and most of the time i am aware of when i am being manipulated. I have spent the last 3 years working on boundaries. I think that i was able to do a good job having my boundaries and enforcing them. I also think that she is losing her touch. I think losing her youth and not being a size 2 is taking it's toll on her.

I also think her liver is giving up on her which is why she looks so bloated. She tries to blame it on her meds but i take the same meds and i didnt gain 60lbs.

On her last night she spoke of her weight. I told her that i weighed a 170 lbs and she said that i didn't look like it, that is because i know how to dress it and i refuse to define myself and my self esteem by a pants size or a number on a scale.

She said that she couldn't dress 200lbs. I told her that is because i have had to fight weight my whole life and it had always been so easy for her. Everything had always been so easy for her. She admitted that when she stopped living in her own world and joined reality that it was really hard on her.

In my world, i always had to live in reality. I knew we were broke all of the time. I knew people pitied me and looked down upon me. I still have times that i don't feel good enough but i also know that how people treat me is more about them than me.