The post in which I cancel Christmas

I will be playing the role of "Scrooge McDuck" this year.

Seriously ~ with a baby coming AT Christmas, a toddler to provide for & a house with one income ~ I'm cancelling Christmas for anyone that I haven't given birth to.

I told MIL & my Mom to take our names out of the family hats, don't get us anything - but especially don't expect anything from us this year. We are too broke to be buying presents for adults with their own checkbooks who make more than we do & I refuse to pull out the last of my credit cards just so that they can feel loved. If you don't already feel it ... well bite me, I'm too busy to kiss your tail!

This year is all about scaling back expectations ~ for ourselves, our families and (gulp) our daughter(s). Baby New Year will be getting diapers ... and the bassinet, new (BPA free) bottles, pacis and a stuffed puppy. Basically things she'll need to survive in our house once she arrives. The Princess will be getting a toy vacuum cleaner, fridge magnets, a new bath toy, and a Little Einsteins movie for her stocking stuffer. All but the Little Einstein movie were purchases I made last year & put away for this Christmas when I realized how overboard we went on her at one year old .... ya' know, back when we had money.

Oh, Santa is bringing her an Elmo Live & Baby New Year will be bringing her a Cabbage Patch Doll.

Please tell me this sounds like a respectable showing for a 2 year old ... keep in mind this doesn't include the clothes, kitchen center & play table that her grandparents are getting her as well as any presents that my parents send for her. I may be Scrooge this year, but my kid doesn't need to see that side of me until she's at least 9. Maybe 8.

Hubs & I have decided that while Santa may not love us this year, maybe the tax man will. Since we know that we should be getting a decent tax return this year (thank you my extra little write off!!) we will use part of that money to get a family Wii.

We put our Christmas on hiatus and cancelled on everyone else .... is that selfish?

Divorcing the In-Laws

I want to keep the hubby & loose his family ... is that possible?

I knew these people were crazy before we got married. I have no excuse for not running far, FAR away, other than the fact that I am head over heels for their son. But that defense is wearing thin lately.

Both sets of in-laws showed up last night (which is weird enough in & of itself) but then they proceeded to basically sling attacks on everything in our life. By the time they left Hubs was so pissed that he's threatening to boycott Thanksgiving & I was in the bathroom in tears. I honestly don't know how much more of this crap I can deal with before I just blow my top with these people.

This time was partly Hub's fault for telling his mother about our decision to declare bankruptcy. He may as well have taken out a full page ad in the local paper & announced it to the entire city. His mother can't keep her mouth shut long enough to swallow water, why on earth he thought she wouldn't tell the entire family is BEYOND me.

His dad took this as an opportunity to lambast him about men providing for their families & how screwed up he thinks it is for J to be staying home with our girls. He told him that he needs to get out & find a job - it's my job to stay home with the kids.

I got lectured for not getting a job making "better" money. Lovely ~ I should be home with the kids, or in a job making more money ... Whatever.

We're not strict enough with the Princess ~ she should be getting paddled with a spoon & she wouldn't be pitching fits. Throwing a temper tantrum is normal for two year olds ~ I'm not spanking her for telling me that she's frustrated. When his dad popped back with "Well I would spank her for that crap" ~ I spouted off & told him "And you wonder why I won't send her to spend the weekend with you."

If we would just put the Princess in daycare she would be talking by now. She speaks just fine - she just doesn't talk to them! LOL Her pediatrician, my mom (a special ed teacher) & my aunt (a speech therapist) have all listened to her & said that she is FINE. She just goes too fast to say one word at a time ~ she's trying to say a paragraph! But according to his family ~ she doesn't say [i]anything[/i]. She said "Thank you Grammy" to them last night, clear as a bell ~ then they tell me that she doesn't speak ~ HUH!?!?!

Hubs should go work offshore to provide for the family ... forget the fact that he's had multiple surgeries on his arms & knees - there's no way he would pass the physical. They harped on this over & over again until I finally said "NO. I did NOT get married to be a single parent. I grew up with military friends & saw how hard those absences were on their wives & kids, I will not live that life. And since Step-FIL couldn't keep his marriage going while working offshore ~ that's not really a shining example for how wonderful that life is, now is it?"

But my favorite of the night ~ FIL telling me that there's no reason for me to have a c-section / no one in their family has EVER had one / I should talk to EvilSIL before I do this ... um, why? Did she suddenly become the top perinatologist in our state? I'm leaving this decision to the two very highly trained specialists who I'm paying VERY good money to get this child here safely. I don't care what EvilSIL thinks & I'm not asking her opinion or her permission.

We ended the night being told that we are ungrateful & rude children who won't take their advice, and won't listen to their elders ... Hubs told his mother flat out that he's not speaking to her anymore ~ if she wants to know anything she can call me (she can't guilt me the way she can with him).

And then I was told that it was irresponsible of me to have gotten pregnant, I should have been on birth control. I bit my tongue before I reminded them that they see their grandchildren by my grace and kindness & that can be changed very quickly ... I would love to say that I would never take them away from his parents, but if they say this stuff TO us ~ what do they say behind our backs, what would they say to our kids?

His mother has been blowing up my cell phone since 10:00 last night when she got home ... his step-mother has had me on redial for the last 2 hours. I'm not in the mood to deal with either of them. I just don't care any more. I know we should probably suck it up & go to Thanksgiving & play nice ~ but I don't think I have "nice" left in me anymore. Anger + Hormones + a carving knife would end in a new headline for the morning paper!

I want a divorce, I just want to keep the hubby in the end ... is that too much to ask?

In case I'm on the news tonight

Just a shout out to all my Constance Apartment girls ~ I'll be smiling at you in my mug shot.

If this day doesn't hurry up & improve you may well be seeing me on the nightly news tonight. It will be under the headline of "Woman Castrates Bosses". Hopefully they will let me clean the blood off before the news crews show up.

I'm sure bail will be too high for me to pay, so it may be a while before I post again. Just know that I'm happily sitting back and remembering the screams of the men who've pissed me off.

Too bad they can't put me in the mental ward ... but alas, I'm sane. Just a little hopped up on hormones & man-hatred.

I think I may need to take a mental health sick day before I really do snap and loose it on someone around here.

Do you hide your vote?

After the birthday party that devolved into a political debate this weekend ~ I'm forced to wonder how many of us hide our votes like the vodka in our freezers. Our families may *think* it's there, but they don't need to know the truth.

I didn't hide my political affiliation, but I was surprised at how many family members had hidden theirs. It seems that they were all waiting until there was another member of their "team" to back them in their opinion before they were willing to come out (so to speak).

I don't talk about who I'm voting for in general because I think it's a lot like religion. We all have an opinion, but I'm not in the habit of asking for a consensus before I decide where I stand.

Or maybe this is just my gut reaction to voting for an underdog ... seeing as I don't like the two main flavors being offered ~ I'm going for the strawberry vote this year. He may not win, but at least I feel comfortable & secure in where my vote will be going.

(My after-the-in-law-visit liquor is hidden in the bottom cabinet behind the cat food. Just in case you need a swig too.)

The rocks at the bottom are sharp

Have you ever wondered what it's like to sit at your kitchen table and realize that you are financially drowning, and that *this* is your rock bottom?

We have been floundering for the last 2 years, seeing the bottom coming but desperately trying to keep our heads above water ... with little success. We've tried a home equity line, we've gotten tax returns, we've used our 401K money. We've paid off our credit card debt twice in the last 6 years, only to have to turn to credit cards again later when another emergency cropped up. We've been faithful in our car and house payments, actually we paid off both of our vehicles 18 months ago.

And still, the bottom of the financial barrel has been coming closer and closer.

We both had good credit ratings until this last year ... until Hubs lost his job & tried to work from home. Doing contract work from home only works when the economy is good & companies are willing to pay you to sit at home and help them out. Turns out Apple is in a downswing & Hubs hasn't gotten any work from them in over 2 months. No need to pay him to help customers build computers when no one is buying them. We've cut back on everything from daycare to groceries. We've cut back on all the house bills that we possibly can (phone, electric, cable, etc). If I slice anything else out of our budget then we may as well become Amish!

So we sat down and reviewed our money situation ... for our family to survive and keep our roof over our head, we have to cut everything that doesn't relate to daily survival. Last Friday we did the unthinkable and sat down with a bankruptcy attorney to discuss our options. Turns out that even the federal government will agree that we are Baaaa-roke. We explained that in our 8 years together we've never been late on payments, we've lived within our means & we've had money in savings. We explained that we've paid off all of our debt twice, just to wind up back in debt months later when emergencies would appear. We've done the responsible things and tried to use every dime that we could scrounge to stay afloat ... but we can't deny the reality any longer. Either we take this step, or we risk loosing our house and making the situation 100 times worse.

I just don't know how we got here ... I thought we did everything right. We put money in savings, we put money in 401K's, we used credit for emergencies, our house has a fixed interest rate. We've both had jobs with insurance benefits and yet my portion of the medical bills for the last 4 years totals over $15,000 - and the kicker? I've had no major illnesses or injuries! My medical bills for this pregnancy will add another $8,000 to that total ~ and I have insurance coverage PLUS medicaid!

It was nice to see that our current credit card debt is less than $9,000 ~ but the medicals are closing in at $22,000 without my pregnancy bills. I'm in constant fear that we will be sued, and several of these bills have been turned over to attorneys who want monthly payments that are higher than I can afford .... when the option is to feed my child or pay their office, who do you think wins?

The sad part is that this really isn't a solid solution. It's not like this will free up $1,000 a month for us, we will still be broke - but at least we'll be able to survive off of my paycheck until he finds another employer.

Hopefully.

I just want to quit

I just want to quit being the one in charge ... I want to quit being the one who has to be responsible for fixing everything.

I want to quit being the one in charge of the bills.

I want to quit wondering how I'll ever retire when I can't afford to put money in my 401K.

I want to quit being the one who worries about being able to buy groceries.

I want to quit being the employee who has to help all these needy freaking claimants.

I want to quit being sick and tired all the time. Seriously, always sick & forever tired.

I want to quit being the daughter-in-law who answers all the questions about "Why isn't he working?"

I want to quit being the wife who worries about "Will he ever work again? Can we survive on my paycheck alone? How will we afford a second child? What if I snap and kill him in his sleep one night?"

I want to quit being the mommy who's supposed to be happy and make my child's life happy all. the. time.

I want to quit being the gestational host for this little person who STILL makes me violently ill at least 4 times a week.

I want my life to be easy & fun again. I want to know that money will be there, one way or the other & it will all work out fine in the end.

I want to be happy again ~ without happy pills or alcohol. I want to feel free and alive again without worrying about every single little thing in my life.

So far 30 sucks. Being an adult sucks. Being the parent - ok being the parent doesn't suck, but knowing that their little lives and happiness rest on your shoulders, that part sucks.

The part where pregnant women can't take Prozac ... that part sucks big time.

I know I've been a downer lately and all my posts seem to be tainted with fear and exhaustion ... it's just getting really rough to keep being the happy person lately .... I'm sure this mood will swing again & happiness will be back (in a manic way!) soon.

A running theme in the apt complex

As I've been poking through apartments, reading up on our collective thoughts and lives, I've noticed this running theme that we all seem to have - Money. Or rather, the lack of money & the stress it's causing us.

It's nice to know I'm not the only apartment floating in this particular boat ... and yet scary to think that so many of us look at our checkbooks and wonder how the bills are going to get paid with a bit leftover so that we can eat. It's comforting to know that I'm not the only one who may have made some stupid financial decisions, or got stuck in a rut of borrowing just to survive, or experienced job loss in a slow market. And then it's scary to know that there are so many other people in the same positions. We're supposed to be the country of opportunities & most of us are barely staying afloat anymore.

It scares me that I actually went to sign up for Medicaid to help cover the costs of having this baby ... I never thought I would have to do this. When we had the princess I had 2 insurance companies covering me & 100% coverage for every dime that pregnancy. I never once had to talk to a "financial counselor" before my OB appointments, I never wondered how we were going to pay the hospital bills & we walked out without worrying about how many new bills we had just created along with this new baby. And the kicker? We both had good paying jobs & could have afforded a few medical bills + daycare.

Now? One of the poorest states in the country agrees that my household is so broke that I need Medicaid's supplement to help pay for the birth of this child. That's just a big old kick in the teeth right there. I have a good job & make decent money, unfortunately it's only enough to keep my household running ... not enough to actually thrive & pay extraneous bills.

Before anyone gets their panties in a wad about my using government funds to help pay for a baby that I created ~ consider this: None of my providers accept Medicaid. My Ob's office doesn't take it. My home health agency doesn't take it. The hospital I want to deliver at? Nope. They won't take it either. I'll have to switch hospitals for delivery so that at least they will take it, hopefully. And my primary medical coverage will still be covering the bulk of the hospital, medicaid will only kick in to cover whatever is left over there. That's fair right? I've paid in taxes for over 14 years, the government can hook me up with 20% of a hospital bill ...

It is nice to know that I'm not the only one in this row boat ... I'm just wondering when that cruise ship is supposed to come in for all of us.