33.I am Jealous!

It isn't something I am proud of. It isn't something that I even really like to admit, but it is the truth. I am jealous of my mom. In more then one way. The biggest of these ways is her relationship to Marcus (my son). She can listen to him fuss. Can hear me try and entertain him and play with him for hours. Can come out of her room and scoop him up and have him be sweet for her. Top it all off she will say something like, "is your mommy not playing with you?" When I had been trying to for two hours! It doesn't matter if he is completely tired and refusing to sleep, she has the magic touch.

The second thing I am jealous of is her lack of responsibility. I know this one is really pathetic. But she will tell me to not be tired all the time and that I sleep too much (of course she doesn't see me trying to get things done for the day on the computer at five in the morning). But she sleeps the day and the night away. She sleeps whenever she can (sometimes it is hard for her to sleep and she is up all night), but she doesn't have any responsibilities so she can sleep all day and all night or whenever. Of course, I love Marcus, but sometimes it erks me when she says that I sleep too much or such because the responsibilities I have really give me a strict sleeping schedule. It isn't like I can say I am tired and going to bed even though it is only seven at night. Nope I have to get Marcus to bed and spend time with my husband and will be up till ten or ten thirty (I used to laugh at people who went to bed at ten, but now we get up at four thirty so that makes ten late!).

Anyway...

32. My mom is mad at me

Needless to say, my mom is mad at me. It all happened yesterday. She started complaining about not having any money and about not getting everything she wanted when the FedEx money was here. Well I told her to stop, I told her that I had heard it all before and that I was tired of all of her complaining.

So, now she is mad at me. She went to her room closed the door and laid down. Then when asked if she was joining us for dinner she informed me that she was not. That was that.

This wouldn't be such an issue if it wasn't for the fact that she gets to choose when to stop being mad at me. Till then she will have wrath and I will feel it. This is the way it works.

Hopefully she will be done being mad at me in time for me to take her to the doctor tomorrow.

31. Work, work, work and no thanks

My mom doesn't want to be left behind. That is completely understandable. I understand that she needs to get out and that sunshine and moving around do her a great deal of good. However, it is so much work for me, and with no thanks to boot. Yesterday she wanted to go to Hobby Lobby with us. Which I understand (I love that store). We were walking; it is only a block and not hard to walk it. My friend, Tanya (is down from Michigan) had her three month old daughter in the big stroller and when we have walked places in the past I have thrown Marcus in the umbrella stroller. So, it is all easy. But with mom coming it means she goes in the wheelchair and Marcus goes on her lap and I am pushing three hundred pounds up the block. Which I did, but it was a lot of work, which she didn't thank me for!

The day before that I took her with us to the pool. This puts us on her time frame, we have to leave when she wants to leave. I pushed her there (which isn't hard till we get to the stair that we have to go around). Then I helped her down the stairs (a little painful cause she uses my shoulder). Then we went swimming, got out (again the shoulder), sat in the sun for two minutes and she complained that she was burning and we had to leave right away. So, home we went.

The tale of my life.

Advertisements

I just wanted to take a moment to discuss the advertisements, which are quickly becoming a large part of this blog. First and foremost, I wanted you to know that while all of these ads are indeed paid ads none of them are things I didn't investigate and don't support. I can't stand promoting items that I don't believe in and therefore have lost a few opportunities on PayPerPost. I won't promote tutors or tutoring companies I have never tried (my son is a year old, it will be awhile if ever...). I won't support a certain clinic in doing lapband surgery. I am not sure that the surgery is a good idea let alone getting it at a certain location. That is something for you to talk to your doctor about, not your blog of choice! Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I was supporting only those things which I believed in...however they are paid advertisements.

Alzheimer's and Hope

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Visit The Alzheimer's Associations Memory Walk website today for more information on how you can help!

This is a paid advertisement.

30. Everything under the sun and moon

Today (and it is only one pm) I have a whole list of reasons that I hate living with my mom. Most of which I have complanined about before, but they seem to be compounded today.

1) She has been complaining a lot.
2)She has already asked, "what's for dinner" three times.
3) She wants all the dirty dishes from my room right now so she can wash them so that I can take care of them before I make lunch.
4) By the way, "What's for lunch".
5) She finished off my husbands cranberries and my baby's prunes. She finished off the dried pinapple ages ago, as well as all the fresh fruit. So, that has been what we have been eating for fruit for a couple of weeks now. (The fresh fruit was supposed to last two weeks it lasted about three days, Marcus (my one year old) got two pieces, my husband one, and me, parts of Marcus', she ate the rest.

I just wish...she lived 1400 miles away (back in Michigan) so I could live my life, have privacy again, not have the baby sleeping in my room, and such.

A Moment About Our Anniversary

Our Anniversary is coming...!!! September 23, my husband and I will have been married 2 years. While this is certainly not a long period of time (hats off and glasses raised to those who have made it twenty something years and such), it is still pretty exciting. We haven't gotten to spend much time off on our own. We didn't have a honeymoon, we got pregnant six weeks after our wedding (which wasn't really a "wedding"), we had a baby, moved to a few different states, and haven't gotten to do anything fun. Last year we sat around wishing we had money to celebrate with. We ate out at a little family restaurant with the baby crying the whole time. This year, we want to do it in style. At least a little bit! We are hoping to book a room, nice tub, pool, breakfast, refrigerator. A little wine, a fruit basket, you know the deal. So, I found a website that has turned out to be a great deal of help and a lot of fun to use as well. Hotel Reservations can be made here, and they have the tools to help you find exactly what you want to find. You can find out what amenities the hotel, motel, inn (and even some vacation houses) have. You can book the room for a good discount. They offer a wide variety of types of rooms (found one in our area for 29 bucks, and while I said, "no, thank you", it is still there is someone really wanted a cheap room.

This site was easy to use (always a plus, I hate going to a site and being frustrated with the interface and struggling to find what I wanted), it made looking easy and fun. I even checked out some hotels farther away then we were going to go, and a few vacation houses in San Antonio. Additionally, it works for places all over the world (not just here in Texas :-P). Would be a good place to book a hotel for Paris, or such place that one would want to go. Well, at least I want to go...

Back to this website...

Each listing gives you the name of the hotel, how many stars it has been given, room information (including how much each room is each night, what the total would be for the entire stay, what the amenities of each room are, and such), then there is a section with photos and information about the hotel, a list of the properties amenities (pool, elevator, breakfast, that sort of thing), areas of interest nearby, driving direction, property information (how many rooms they have, what time check in starts, the latest check out time, etcetera), and hotel policies. Each hotel has it's own cancellation policies, but this website does a great job of letting you know what that is. Overall, an A+ website, a good savings, and a fun tool! Give it a try sometime, I know I will be booking our anniversary "get-a-way" that way!


This is a paid advertisement.

29. Trapped

We have an opportunity to move into a trailer. It would save us about three to five hundred dollars a month. But my mom won't fit. So, now I feel trapped. I feel like I have a commitment that I can't break, even if breaking it would benefit the rest of my family. She should have her hearing in November (at the latest), but what if she doesn't get her money? What then. I could make it all work so that we could move after November (I think), but I am completely uncertain as to what will happen to us all if she doesn't get her money.

I don't want to feel stuck or trapped, but I feel both. And a tad bit guilty that I want out so bad. It really makes me wish we would have left her in Michigan and helped her pay her bills and paid for someone to come in and help her. There she had housing (for thirteen bucks a month), food stamps, and a few friends. We would just have had to cover her thirteen bucks a month, electricity, money for the bus, a few personal needs. Probably about three hundred a month (which is probably less then we pay for her to live here). Well I guess it is too late now...

Interesting

http://www.helium.com/user/show/274729

28. You Work For ME! boy

Okay, so she never used that frase. But she does seem to use that expectation. Yesterday she came and asked for my last four dollars (albiet from my change jar, so really the last four dollars) so that she could fill a muscle relaxer script. I couldn't say no. I know she is hurting and I am just not the type to be heartless about it. It was Sunday and my husband was lazing around. It was the first day he didn't HAVE to do something, so he was enjoying and reading a book. Mom asked if he would go get her prescription filled. Of course he said yes. But then she expected him to jump right up and go and get it. When he didn't she came back to me to see if I would make him go get it. It was like she had something she wanted something done and everyone needed to jump to do her bidding.

Well it made my husband grumpy. He hates having others tell him when and what he has to do on his day off. Especially when we are talking about going to the store. He hates going there, and it is a thirty minute wait. Just long enough you really don't want to stick around, but not long enough to go somewhere else and do something different. Top it all it was tax free weekend here in Texas (this is an odd concept to me, but they give you the weekend to buy stuff in honor of back to school), so the stores were swarming with people!

Nature Holiday Calling

Nothing is more beautiful then a wonderful holiday or vacation in the great outdoors. Fall has arrived and the colors are hitting the wonderful northern land of Canada. Now is the time to go! Before winter hits and life is cold up there, while the fishing is good, the land beautiful, and you have just a touch of vacation you might want to use up before summer has become winter. Now is a great time to relax one last time before the holidays are upon us bearing down as they always seem to do. DialAFlight will hook you up with flights to Canada
as well as helping you plan the perfect vacation of your dreams. They provide cheap flights so that you can take your great holiday. You can go to one (or several) great places to visit including Toronto, Niagara, Banff, or Quebec. Their website also lets you book hotel reservations, rent a car, and will even help you figure out where you want to go and what you want to see.

Not into nature? Don't want to see the beautiful land of Canada? There is still something to do, go see the history of a different land from the wonderful city of Toronto. There is plenty to see even if you aren't a nature lover. So, maybe nature isn't calling you, it is still good! They still have somewhere to please you, give you a place to relax, and...yep...you can still get a cheap flight!flights to Toronto

What are you waiting for? Don't let the holidays hit you before you have had this one last chance to relax!

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27. The Tension

It is very difficult for me. I feel placed in the middle between my mother, who I have always loved, and my husband, who I have loved almost since the time I met him three years ago. My husband doesn't mean to put me there, but in some ways he does do that. He has several issues, not so much with my mom being here, but with the way that she tries to "rule" his house. She wants to be queen bee and it bothers him. He also doesn't like the way that she often treats me like I owe her and like I should be more subservient to her. So, I feel like I have to try and protect my mom from my husband. I feel like I should find a way to calm him down. In the begining I tried to not talk to him about her at all. I tried to keep it all quiet and just tell you. But that was putting a strain on our marriage, me keeping all of that. He had no idea I was struggling so much.

My mom, at the same time is a whole different part of this story. She makes me feel like she is trying to separate us. She tries to talk me into getting the things that she wants by pouting and denying him sex. This is especially true if it is something I would enjoy as well. She tries to get money, spend money, and borrow money behind his back, through me. She has made it very clear that since she has moved in with us she has decided that she doesn't really like my husband. She makes me feel like I have to protect him from her. I have to stand between the two of them and hope I don't get injured in the process.

I am not sure what to do. I am not sure how long I can be in the middle without landing in a messy heap.

More Positive Things

There is nothing more positive then saving money. Saving money is always a good thing. You never hear someone go, "man I just saved a hundred dollars, I wish it wouldn't have worked out that way." Saving money is also something we should be especially excited about. As we move into fall we hit back to school days, then labor day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year. The next several months are great months to save money.

Yep, I hear you now, what's the point.

The point...is that one great place to save money is promo codes at Coupon Chief.

They have great coupons. And tons of them. From stores you shop or would shop. There is some of everything including Amazon coupons, Home Depot coupons, and even Target deals! But that isn't it! They have hundreds of stores and brand names. There is literally something for everyone here at Coupon Chief.

There are more stores then you can think of, Old Navy, Best Buy, and Overstock.com just to name a few more!

Well, I have to say, that having a look would be worth your while. Saving money never hurt anyone!

26. Milk

Milk is a funny thing to have an issue with. But I certainly have an issue with it. And so does she.

She has always drank her milk straight out of the gallon jug. She taught me to do it. I finally picked up the habit when I was about fourteen. Well I have never quit the habit, and it didn't really bother my husband (after all he kisses me regularly).

However, my mom never quit the habit either. He caught her drinking out of the gallon (hadn't noticed before). He was grossed out. After all he doesn't kiss my mom, and doesn't want to (good thing that would be kinda weird). He asked her to stop. She came back with, "Well your wife does it all the time." So, now I have been banished from drinking milk from the gallon, as has she. Since then neither of us has had any milk.

I just want a nice cold swig...

Positive Things at PayPerPost

Normally the things I blog about here at 1001 Things I hate About Living with My Mom. Of course these things are things that annoy me or just in general drive me crazy!

Well today I have decided to throw in something positive that is happening in my life. I have recently joined Pay Per Post. blog advertising They are a company who connect advertisers with bloggers. You can actually get paid to do what you like to do best as a blogger (ramble, rant, rave, thank). I had seen their add in several location and read about them on a few different blogs that I choose to read. One of their ads read something like, "Yep, your momma blogs, and we pay her to do it!" Which of course has tickled my funny bone more then once. I finally decided to join pay per post after reading one great review of it.

It has so much freedom. You can still choose what you want to blog about. You can pick companies and opportunities according to what is involved in your blog, or what you want to ramble about. Since joining Pay Per Post, I have found that it is a great place! There are plenty of message boards to give you plenty of information on getting started. Trust me, I had a few questions that the answers were easily found on the message boards. While I haven't made any friends yet (I am very new), I am sure that I will. There is a real sense of community here.

Top it all off, there is a huge opportunity to make money. No, it isn't one of those get rich schemes. They aren't giving the money away, you will have to work for it! But none the less it is there. As someone who has been enjoying blogging for just a few months and who has spent hours looking for ways to make just a little extra money from home, this is one excellent opportunity.

Blog Roll

We are doing a quick blog roll for all of you-

As of right this second, these are our blogs and our website. If you are interested in reading more of our works...

Our Website-Our website is a non-traditional conglomerate of everything that we enjoy and think about...okay well not everything, but someday it will be everything. Right now it isn't. But you should still have a look-see, you might find something that interests you.

Our Blogs-
The Boring Recount of My Dull Life-Have you heard the story? Seen the movie? Not yet, huh...well you can start with the blog...who knows, maybe I will be famous some day, and you can say, hey, I used to read her blog!

Thought Provokers-You know, there just aren't enough thinkers in the world. Those of us who like to think...don't do it enough! Here are our thought provokers.

1001 Things I Hate about Living with My Mom-Nothing like a good catchy title. My mom has moved in with us, and is driving me crazy!

The Fattest Diary-I am trying to loose weight and more importantly get healthy, it sucks. If you could possibly understand, here's the blog for you.

Beautiful Beads-I love working with beads, and this is for all those who might love it or already love it too!

Zero to Six-This is our newest blog, about how we went from nothing to something. Of course we have to make it to something still...but see our struggles, see our faith, see our progress.

The Mommy Page-All mommy's have a busy life. Here is where I share about mine, as well as things I have been thinking about.

The Sign Language Blog-Last but not Least is the Sign Language blog, here I will be sharing about sign language, the deaf, the Deaf culture, history of the d/Deaf, and hearing loss with you. It is a fascinating topic.

25. The Brother and Her

My brother lived with my mom for an extra year. This was primarily because he got my dad's social security that last year, and that was what my mom was living off of. He hated it. I hated listening to them both complain, so sadly it has recently felt like I don't have much of a relationship with my brother because I tried to stay out of listening to them complain.

One thing that occured that I hated when I lived with them was Joel (my brother) eating everything. You would go to get something yummy and he would have eaten the whole dang thing. Or one day there is a box of cheese its and the next morning they are gone.

I hated that! So did my mom. She complained about it all of the time. Complain, complain, complain.

Oh my gosh, she does it too. It wasn't something I noticed she did until she moved into our house. But she does it too! We bought a half gallon of ice cream, we all had a little bowl. About 2/3 of it were left. Go back a week later and she has finished it off, by herself. She finished of my husbands snacks for lunch this month. She knew they were for his lunch (and I bought generic thinking she would leave them alone), and still she finished them off. She finished off the baby's crackers, the ones I use to give him at snack time!

Now this next one is a little harder to complain about, because she didn't finish of snack foods or yummies here. She finished off two bags of frozen chicken breasts. It is bad because we don't eat a lot of meat and she cooked the chicken breast and at just that (or put it in a tortillia). It is now really bad because (for the rest of the month, my husband didn't have a job the first part and his paycheck will be very late) we are almost out of meat. For the rest of the month we have, one small package of cubed chicken breast, a roast, a small package of four small pork chops, and a 3/4 pound package of burger. We eat a lot of chicken, but it is usually put into our meal...like chicken and stir fry with rice, or chicken on top of fettuccine with sauce. Meat is expensive, so we don't eat a lot of it. Oh my gosh!

I Been Thinking

I have been thinking a lot lately about how much space we would have should my mom move out. It would give us space in the living room where her wheelchair and walker currently abide. It would give us a linen closet, a nice sized bathroom (the "master bath" is ridiculously small and the idea of potty training Marcus in there makes me squirm since there isn't any floor space), the 12' by 12' bedroom would be Marcus' (and a new baby should we have one), we would get our closet, we could use part of Marcus' closet as our craft space. Everything would then have a home! Now it doesn't. I struggle to find a place for everything.

Of course when I think of this I then feel guilty for wishing my mom out. I don't know if this situation will ever be one that works for me. I hate things that happen while she is here and I feel bad that I wish she would leave, and guilty, and errrrrrrr.

24. Sugar Please

We haven't been eating a lot of dessert lately (it's hard to have a lot of sugar products in the house while trying to eat healthy). It has been driving my mom crazy (even though we bought her ten pounds of chocolate for the month). She keeps talking about all of these desserts we should back so that she feels "normal" again. Peanut butter cookies, and apple cake, and sugar cookies, and brownies, and such.

Come on!

Part of me wants to point out that she is almost 300 pounds and should go for a walk every time she thinks of sugar. But that wouldn't go far. She would say she hurts too much. And should would probably bring up the fact that I am 225 pounds. It wouldn't matter that I am the one trying to change my eating habits to aid in getting healthier and loosing weight.

Oh well...

23. Off Track Plans

I am trying to become organized and disciplined. This week has been hard for me because we are going from second shift all our lives type of people to the alarm clock rings at 4:30 type of people. But I have been working hard to come up with a schedule that allows me to accomplish the things that are important to me.

However, my mom doesn't care about the things that are important to me or the time that I have and how I am trying to use it. She makes me feel bad when she wants something and I am busy. The first day it was a walk to the office. Well walking, I believe though she doesn't, is good for her. So, I took time (about twenty five minutes) out of my day and walked with her to the office. Then on our way back she wanted to go to the pool. I really didn't want to go to the pool. I was feeling tired do to the strange new sleeping habits, and a trip to the pool didn't sound so great. It sounded tiring. Well we went home and I went back to work on my new book. She promptly interrupted me and made me feel bad, because she wanted to go to the pool and couldn't without my help. So, we went to the pool. Took two hours, and then came back. I was ready for a nap when we got back! But couldn't take one.

Next day. She makes me feel bad for not wanting to watch tv with her, so I end up watching an hour of some dumb soap!

22. 9am Confrontational

I have said it before and I will say it again. I am messy. I can trace this charateristic back to rebellion. As a teen I felt nagged by a mother who was a perfectionist. My chores were never done well enough and my room was a disaster. During high school there were times when the floor of my room had so much stuff piled on it that I had to climb over it to get to my bed. It was actually mounded higher then my bed was. Today, it isn't quite this bad, but it is still pretty bad. The rest of the house is (was) also messy. I can follow that line of rebellion and see how it turned into habit and lack of self discipline. On top of it I married someone who was used to being picked up after (plates were cleared by younger siblings, his mother and sisters pick up after all the boys regularly). This makes for quite the mess around the house.

We have decided that we wanted to change this and become self disciplined.

The plan for our Saturday was to get up and clean the house so as to have company in the afternoon. The alarm clock was set for 9:30.

At 9am there is a knock and a, "you better cover up cause I am coming in." Then will little to no time to react in comes my mother to tell us that we need to get up and clean the house. Her tone is bright and cheery and her demeanor determined. After all she has "been kind about it long enough". I was angry. How dare she come in and demand that I clean my own house. How dare she have so little respect for me and my husband that she would barge into our bedroom. How dare she was to decide what are day was going to look like.

However, we wanted the house clean. So, we cleaned the house. She feels like she "won". She feels like we got up and cleaned the house for her. I feel frustrated, hurt, and angry, but she will never know because she doesn't like to think about what others are feeling and thinking.

21. Guilt Trip Continued

Last night there was a huge storm, the biggest I can ever remember seeing. I got up at about 1:30 to have a look see. I went to the dinning room and was checking it all, that's where my mom was. So, I started a friendly chat.

"Where should I live?" She asked.

I carefully tried to point out the benefits and disadvantages of each place. I really don't know where she should live.

"Mom thinks I should stay here in Texas so you can still take care of me."

I then tell her, that is certainly one option. She points out that housing costs a lot here and she wouldn't be able to afford it. To which I point out that there is income based housing.

"But then I would have to live with poor people."

Stunned I have no response. We have always fallen into that catigory saved only by a housing grant that allowed us to live anywhere. Top it all of she has spent a huge portion of her life "helping" poor people. When I was a child she worked for an organization called "Up and Out of Poverty, Now" which strived to teach the poor to get out of poverty. When I was a teen she spent sixty to eighty hours a week working as the director of the Community Food Pantry. But she has a problem with poor people? That was certainly news to me...

I say nothing, and sit in total shock.

"All the trips and traveling I want to do will be out." She says as tears begin to flow down her face. "I won't be able to go anywhere. I will be struggling to live once again."

I say nothing for fear of a fight. What I was really thinking is that she has no problem helping us struggle by asking for her debts to be paid above our own. Or by eating all of the fresh fruits and more meat then the three of us combined.

"I thought I had finally earned a time to have fun. I have worked so hard throughout my life."

I have always felt that she had worked hard all of her life. After all single mothers work harder then mothers with fathers. My dad had nothing to do with us, which made it worse. But she wants to have her fun while causing us a burden. Her hope is that she will get 879 dollars a month (that's what my brother got in death benefits from my dads social security which she will be elligible to draw on). She wants to pay us 200 a month and have 679 to buy yarn and go on trips. She wants that 200 to include all of her personal needs (T.P., soap, and such), her rent (ours is 759 a month even though the apartment isn't worth 759 and a large portion goes to her for her stuff and needs), and her utilities (why is it when I was a kid she would nag, complain, and charge us quarters for leaving lights and tvs on, but she does it all the time and doesn't think twice?).

This conversation went on further, all the time feeling like she was expecting, hoping, and trying to get me to say, "Don't worry mom, you can just stay here."

So, if she traveled would it be so bad? Could we live with our lives like this. Without use of the main bathroom or the linen closet. With our son sleeping in our walk in closet (which is just big enough for his bed and a couple of small plastic drawer units)? How can we all walk away feeling good about this. What about the fact that the TV drives me crazy and is on almost all the time. We don't see it since it isn't in the living room, but we hear it coming from her bedroom?