Author Archives: thebitchdesk
Money Mash Up 1/7
Money Mash Up 1/7. Hosted by simply stacia.
1. The most money I’ve spent last week was for rent. Sadly it takes most of my paycheck. Now that I have a cat (in my “no pets” place), the search has begun to find a new pet-friendly place to move this summer.
2. A low-cost or free thing I did this past week was staying in on Saturday night. Hibernation mode has kicked in. It was just me, the cat, Amazing Chicken, and an evening of Nicholas Sparks movies. The Notebook makes me long for a Noah of my own.
3. The one thing I did for another was nothing. I can’t think of anything I’ve done for another this week. I did, however, do something for myself, and that was make a deposit to my 52 week savings plan!
4. Something I really need to accomplish this week is exercise. My cruise is in 48 days and I’ve not lost a pound.
5. My most favorite thing about winter is fresh snowfall on a weekend morning. There are usually no cars on the road, and the snow is hanging in the tree branches. It’s so pretty when it’s untouched!
How is your budgeting going in this New Year?
52 Week Money Challenge
I saw this making the rounds on Facebook earlier this week and Simply Stacia blogged about it today. [52 week money challenge. save $1378 in 2013]
I’m tired of wondering how I’m going to pay for Christmas and my The Rock Boat vacation that happens shortly after the New Year.
I have an empty water bottle that I throw loose change into. I’m going to be adding my bi-weekly contributions to this bottle as well, so I can watch my savings grow! (And I promise not to ‘borrow’ from it!)
Let’s do this!
This ‘n That
I’ve had thoughts swirling around for the past few weeks and meant to get them typed up, but with my #MadCowMomBrain, I lost them just as quickly as I composed them in my head.
So how about a month (or so) recap?
Tip: Don’t try to learn how to decorate cookies on the day OF your party. Some of these say 50, some look like they say SO.
I threw a surprise birthday party for FM. Using a private Facebook event inviting our close friends, I conspired with his eldest daughter and best friend on how to get him here AFTER everyone else arrived. I took off two days prior to the party to finish up with my cleaning and get started on all of the cooking. Even with a limited fun budget, I was able to pull off a decent party! #YayMe On the day of the party, the best friend kept FM busy during the day and the eldest daughter made plans to take her Dad out to dinner. I almost hit a snag when he invited me to join them, but using the excuse of just having had pizza for dinner and feeling like a night in with a movie saved me!
Vampire Boy’s senior pictures came back. He took a great picture!
I survived a week of having an extra roommate. FM’s house was having some work done so he couldn’t stay there for five days. Sometimes when the household chores and bills seem overwhelming, I think it would be nice to have someone to share the house with. I think a week of having a man live here may have fixed that curiosity. It went better than I thought it would considering my place isn’t that large and it only has one bathroom. Have been on my own for over ten years now, I’m back to wondering if I’ll ever be able to live with someone again.
I had a truly upsetting event involving Social Diva. She ended up being extremely rude to FM on his last night here. Throw in a bad literature grade and I’m ready to curb her social activities until the grade comes up. She asks to go to the football game with her good friend who lives close by. Since I adore this friend, I cave and allow her go. She ends up texting me from the game that she’s with another friend and asks if they can have a sleepover. The smoke began to stream from my ears. Since she ditched (she claims she ‘lost’) her friend and was hanging out with another friend, I call her to let her know that I am on my way over to pick her up. Did I over-react? Maybe. However, the ditching friends thing is a problem. I was not rewarding her bad behavior and bad grade by letting her stay out. On top of all of that, she flat out lied to me to get to the game and the lies continued as the night went on. In five minutes, I turned into a yelling lunatic (which I never do) and scared the hell out of both kids. There was yelling, door slamming, many tears (both her and I), the kids exchanging text messages with their father (whose house she wanted to go to), and a chat with big brother. All in all, it was a horrible evening for me.
Thankfully, today (Sunday) turned out to be a productive day. I got some errands run, weatherproofed my basement windows (it’s not pretty, but let’s hope it keeps the drafts out), and made room for my car in the garage. I’ve got high hopes that the rest of this week is better than this weekend. (This week was the anniversary of my dad’s passing and what would have been my wedding anniversary.) I have high hopes that I can snap out of this funk that I’m in.
Next weekend is a road trip to see Red Wanting Blue, so things have to improve, right?
Holy Crap! (aka First Day of School 2012)
From this (2000):
Vampire Boy’s first day of kindergarten (2000)
To this (2005):
Social Diva heading off to Kindergarten and Vampire Boy heading off to Fifth Grade (2005)
To this (2012):
Middle year of middle school/grade 7 for Social Diva and ::sniffle, sniffle:: Senior year for Vampire Boy (2012)
Holy crap, where have the years gone?!?!
If you need me, I’ll be in the corner whimpering and rocking myself! Does anyone have one of those white coats with the long sleeves that I could borrow?
Why I Love My “Staycations”
Since my separation/divorce, I haven’t had the funds to take the kids away to the beach for a week. Instead, I typically take off the week bordering my birthday in July and the week prior to the start of the school year. During these “staycations,” we have taken day trips to Erie, visited Kennywood, worked on projects around the house (well, I did; not so much the kids), shopped for back to school supplies, and have just enjoyed a relaxed, no itinerary type week.
There are a few reasons I love my staycations:
* I can wake up on my own (still as early as 6:30), but not be in a rush to be anywhere. I can enjoy my coffee while catching up on the news of the world and my Facebook and Twitter timelines.
* Live with Kelly! I watch this show anytime I am able to be home at 9 AM.
* The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Same as above. Regardless of whether it is a fresh run episode or a repeat, I still try to watch.
* I get a little slice of being a “stay at home mom.” I can run errands with the kids (otherwise known as #MomShuttle). I can keep up on household chores.
* This last week, I was able to do some serious cleaning/purging in my basement. I have boxes that haven’t been touched in the five years I’ve been here! I threw out so much crap, and I have a large stack of items going to the Vietnam Veterans of America on Monday.
* I was able to spend two days with Flawed Memory, who was released early of his two weeks’ notice. We hung out at the pool and saw a Blackberry Smoke show.
So I’m at the end of my last summer staycation week. The kids go back to school on Monday, and I go back to work. I love hanging at the pool over the summer, but I am looking forward to the cool temps of my favorite season. The Fall has much in store for me as well. Vampire Boy is a senior in high school. Two friends have their weddings scheduled in October and December. Then there’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. This year seems to have flown by so quickly. And, of course, I’m looking forward to my grown up vacation on The Rock Boat at the end of February.
I guess I should now seriously start that diet / eating more healthy / working out regularly. Now where’s that post I wrote about resolutions?
It’s Not My Parenting Style
So Vampire Boy and the Ex conspired behind my back.
I picked up Vampire Boy to drive him to work last Friday. As we’re sitting in morning traffic, chatting about nothing, I notice a piece of paper hanging out of his shorts pocket. I asked him what it was and he paused, not wanting to answer.
I pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it. It was a letter resigning him from his position at the zoo, using the excuse that it was his senior year of high school and he was going to be busy with school and soccer responsibilities.
L.A.M.E. E.X.C.U.S.E.
I didn’t say anything at first, because of the shock of their behavior doing this behind my back. But the more I drove towards the zoo, the more pissed off I got, the more I didn’t say, and the more my eyes filled with tears at the “lesson” the Ex was teaching my son. The “lesson” I don’t approve of!
* I don’t approve of him giving up before even attempting to manage his senior year schedule of responsibilities.
* I don’t approve of sneaking behind someone’s back.
* I don’t approve of neither of them trying to talk about their plan.
Instead of encouraging him to give school work, soccer responsibilities, and the zoo schedule a chance and to TEACH him how to organize his life, Dad just gave him the go-ahead, and actually helped him write/print the letter to turn in. Now Dad has not been worried about scheduling the boy for his ACT exam, hasn’t been worried about senior pictures, hasn’t been worried about soccer schedule, etc. But he can worry BEFORE SCHOOL EVEN STARTS about how he should be able to enjoy his senior year.
So in (immature) retaliation, I sent over a copy of all of the paperwork that was just received in the mail regarding the start of the school year, including the registration information for the ACT exam, as well as the thick stack of advertisements I’ve been saving for senior pictures. If he’s so worried about his son’s “senior year,” he can now worry about all of the IMPORTANT senior year things.
I have resigned myself to the fact that if he doesn’t register him for the ACT exam, that they will have to figure out what he’s going to do about college.
I have resigned myself to the fact that if they drop the ball regarding senior pictures, there is a chance my son will not be in his senior yearbook.
Being a slight bit of a control freak, it certainly won’t be easy for me to not take make sure these things are taken care of.
But it will be interesting to see how things play out over the next few months.
I Wish …
I WISH …
That instead of being “worrying” about Vampire Boy and his work schedule at the zoo that you ENCOURAGED him.
That you encouraged him to be a good employee with a good work ethic.
That you encouraged him to think ahead to manage and organize his time with work, soccer, and school responsibilities.
That you encouraged him to keep his first real paying job.
BUT INSTEAD …
You complain about the road closures and the drive.
When you drive him only ONE trip, ONE WAY, per week.
And encourage him to give up this first job.
Instead of teaching him to a good work ethic.
And how to hang in for both the good AND the bad.
I guess that’s why I have had only two jobs in 26 years … and he’s had numerous jobs and periods of unemployment.
I guess that’s why I didn’t give up on our marriage and I wasn’t the one who walked away.
Instead of worrying about the job at the zoo,
How about encouraging him to study for the ACT?
How about worrying about if he’s scheduled for his senior pictures?
How about worrying what he’s wearing for senior pictures?
It’s hard to co-parent when one parent thinks a kid should do more, yet the other parent doesn’t.
#EndRant
A Woman’s Rule of Thumb …
Friday night I’ve promised to attend the burlesque debut of @BeingCharlee. Flawed Memory is also supposed to go. He offers for the two of us to ride together since parking will be limited. The plan is for me to drop my daughter off at her pool birthday party, and he’ll pick me up at 8:30.
At 8:30, my phone rings. FM’s car won’t start. So I offer to go pick him up and drive us to the show. This should be easy, right?
As I’m driving out the Parkway, I get this feeling that this Friday the 13th isn’t going to end well. FM’s car won’t start. Social Diva is at a pool party. I’m going out on a Friday (i.e., “Mom”) night (which is rare for me). I try to shake off the feeling as I reach my exit.
And then it happens. As I’m driving through the empty section of parking lot, I don’t see the concrete section/curb jutting out until it’s too late. I wasn’t playing with my phone, but I was searching the parking lot for the broken down car. The grassy area didn’t have a light pole or tree (which was pointed out to me later). I swerved at the last minute, but my front passenger side tire hits and goes up over the curb. Thinking I had damaged my front bumper, I immediately pull over into a parking spot to check for damage and find an immediately flat tire. [I had just purchased these new tires one month ago and DIDN’T get the road hazard!] FM helps change my tire and guess what? The spare has barely any air! Not only am I ready to burst into tears, I’m ready to scrap my plans for the night. Since we both said we were coming to the debut, he reassures me that everything will be ok and we head back into town. Fortunately, the spare holds the air while we were at the venue and throughout the night.
Fast forward to Saturday morning. I have to drive Vampire Boy to work. The plan is then to take FM to try to start his car which we were able to do by “popping the clutch.” We head to Wal Mart so I can check into whether my tire is salvageable (it wasn’t) and whether they can look at his car (they couldn’t). There goes $100 I didn’t need to spend to replace the tire.
This wasn’t how I planned on spending the weekend before returning to work after my staycation!
A woman’s rule of thumb: If it has tires or testicles, you’re going to have trouble with it!
We Were On A Break!
So much has happened since my last angry post. The rebound relationship is no longer, there’s been some progress in the breakdown of communication, and there have been a few nights of serious heart-to-heart conversations that have gone on into the early morning hours (lucky for me that I’m on vacation and can nap at the pool during the day).
I can’t help but chuckle and this clip keeps running through my mind.
I have also learned that my stubbornness is a detriment to my happiness. I need to work on this more.
We’ll see …
The Rebound
As defined by urbandictionary.com:
* Going from one relationship to the next right away to avoid the pain of a breakup;
* Hooking up with someone shortly after being dumped (by someone else) so that you still feel wanted;
* The kind of relationship that’s simply happening in order to get over one that recently ended.
You know it happens. I know it happens. At some point, it happens in everyone’s lives. I’ve had (and known that they were) rebound relationships. You don’t care that the person isn’t really compatible with you, but you don’t care, you just want to “be” with someone (mentally or physically) because you hate to be/feel alone.
I’m the one who stepped away from my most recent relationship. I’m smart enough to work on what I’m not happy with related to me. I can’t be (and I’m not) upset that he chose to dive right into another relationship. Where I think he is making a mistake — he’s not concerned about what went wrong with us and how to fix that for any future relationships.
Rebounds are great to help get you past the hurt, but you can’t ignore the underlying reason(s) for why prior relationships didn’t work. When that rebound relationship ends? You’re back to being alone. You’re not any better off than where you began.
In the end, you have to love yourself first. Bringing someone else into your life should be the gravy. At my age with a failed marriage and handful of ended relationships under my belt, I’m not willing to settle for “It’s OK.” The next man I allow into my circle had better plan to bring a lot to the relationship table. I can’t and won’t settle for less.
The Bitch Desk 