Yep. Still kickin

Hello. My name is OHN and I am a bad blogger.

Life has completely run away with my time. I have started to post here about 8 gazillion times but there never seems to be enough time to put it all down. Face.book has drawn me away like a drug because it's quick and I don't have to think.

Small recap: S1 is engaged. Yep, I am officially going to be a dreaded MIL. Though considering my soon to be DIL begs S1 to spend ridiculous amounts of time here, I think we are going to get along fine. As long as she learns how to make a bed, unload a full dishwasher, load an empty dishwasher-not fill the sink with dishes, wipe toothpaste out of the sink, not leave wet towels on the floor, and closes the fridge door once in awhile. All that said, she is lovely and a PERFECT match to S1. The soon to be DIL didn't have her mom around much growing up so some of the finer things that make a brilliant June Cleaver homemaker have not been shared with her. I am up to the task of gently showing her...bwahhahahahha.

On the home-front, since we last chatted, things have hit the shitter more than once. The marriage has been tested, jobs have been lost, finances have been stretched, and I have thought about running away from home. Seriously. I am a budget genius. I can make a dollar spend like five. Considering that S1 and future DIL, along with S2 and his sweetie (I introduced them, did I tell you that story??) are cleaning out the fridge on a regular basis make 1=5 necessary. It's the proverbial double-edged sword people. I LOVE the fact that my adult children still enjoy "home" but its tough to feed seven, when I am geared for three, on the spur of the moment. I have attempted to rectify that by telling them I need a little warning when they are coming. Dropping in is fine, but don't expect to be fed then. When they say "it's ok, we can order pizza", I have had to resort to telling them that spending $45-50 for one meal on pizza pies isn't in the budget right now. Which brings me to the next ohhh poor me moment:

Remember over a year ago when I was here whining about my job security. Well, Doc finally decided to pack it in and close his practice. So I have about 4 weeks before my income falls another $1000 a month (after falling $1000 a month last year) if you don't have a calculator handy, it is about $24,000 a year less than I made a couple of years ago. Yes. It makes a difference. I have been looking, right along with all the recent college grads that are slinging burgers-because the job market isn't too open in case you haven't heard. To make matters a little more complicated, my experience is all in the medical field in one aspect or another, so my market is a little specific. I am not opposed to changing fields mid-stream, but I have no idea what else to pursue without heading back to the college scene, then join the above mentioned recent grads at Mc.Donalds. I am resilient and I will find something. Anyone need their dogs walked?

Now, on to the marriage. What can I say? There are days where my patience is tried to the thinnest possible thread. Where I am the queen of monetary distribution, BigD is the opposite. He has no clue why I want to make sure we have a nest egg for emergencies (like when our 20 year old oven blows up, or my tires are bald). He will see that we have money in the bank and think....hey great, I'm gonna go buy $500 worth of shit I don't need at H.ome D.epot. It's okay though, because he can put it on the credit card. Here is a man that tracks and apprehends murders, rapists, and assorted other felons, yet he doesn't understand why he can't spend money at will. His thought (and the basis for our most recent "chat") is that if he is making it, he can spend it.

I made a spreadsheet (okay, actually it was just a word document with a numbered list) of what our actual expenses are monthly. House payment, insurances-(car, house,life, medical) prescriptions, utilities, gas, cable (yes, this IS a necessity as it bundles with our internet that I need for work), and the list goes on and on to include food etc. When it is down on paper it looks absolutely impossible that we are able to pay everything, and on time, with our income, but I make it work. When he saw the list that I presented without an attitude-I swear-he went off on a tirade that he works as much as he can, earns as much as he can etc etc. He totally missed the point. I am not asking him to make more money, just to understand that the money he (we) makes needs to be spent wisely and not on impulse. I am not a shrink, but I do know that part of his thought process is insecurity about being a good provider. He is a fine provider, its just that his siblings are all mega-mega-money makers and he has always felt "lesser" than them. This is ridiculous but he has always felt the need to keep up with them. I wish I had seen years ago his level of need for sibling approval, many things would have been different. I would have talked him out of our huge home, and the trappings that make us appear to be much more well off than we are. The appearance is very important to him. It's all smoke and mirrors people. I was young and naive.

Years ago he was in charge of our bills. Because of his line of work everything is in my name--liability etc. Guess whose credit hit the crapper when he would "forget" to pay the bills. I finally convinced him that since I am the one that grocery shops, was buying the necessities for the kids etc, I needed to have the checkbook because he wasn't always here when I needed it. I then slowly started asking "hey, I have the checkbook, want me to pay the phone bill?" and from that point on he was actually relieved to be relieved of the task of bill payments so I was off and running. At some point along the way he has forgotten how stressful it is to have $3000 worth of bills with $2000 in the account.

We got a small inheritance from a distant relative and I was breathing a sigh of relief knowing we could beef up our emergency fund, then I saw the glimmer in his eye. He had plans for all of it. Hence, another "chat". We have had more "chat's" in the past year than we have in the past thirty years. They are rather loud chats at this point. Though, this most recent one did end with him doing two home repairs that had been put off for YEARS and together they only took 2 hours. TWO HOURS and I have waited years without any nagging. I hate nags, and he knew they needed to be done so bitching about it would have just raised my blood pressure. He did hang his head like a sad puppy when he was done and admitted he should have done them long ago. (I told him some of his glimmer money was going to be spent on me hiring a husband for the day to do all the little things that haven't been done----he may have been thinking stud service, but I was thinking stud service....two entirely different kinds of studs :-)

Anyway, I have been under tremendous pressure from many avenues this summer and have neglected to write. I really should have remembered that it makes be feel incredibly good to purge here. At this point, I seriously doubt that anyone even reads this but it's good therapy for me. I have been reading some blogs, but not much. Even my favorites (yep, yours) have not been read for a bit. Hell, one went and got an awesome job and if we weren't Fbook friends I wouldn't have even known. Another traveled the world to speak at Blog.her. We WILL meet someday Eden, DD, Becky....and the list goes on and on. I have "met" some great people here and I feel like I have walked away. I haven't, life just got in the way for a bit. I will be back bitching as usual in no time.

You don't have to leave a comment, but if anyone is actually still reading, a quick "yep, still hanging with you OHN" would be great.