Day 2- Merry Christmas

I really would rather give than receive. I got a really nice gift that is way too much money. I feel like I should bring it back but then that would make D feel bad. I love it, don’t get me wrong but I don’t need it. I have enough, I am blessed with my family and house and all that we have.
Merry Christmas and let’s try to remember the real reason for the season – Jesus’ birth!

Today’s Anxiety

Driving an hour and a half up to Hubbardston, ma. Where is that, you ask? Way out in the sticks.. past Worcester and on the way to Springfield.  If you know anything about MA, you might say “oh ok”. That’s not my anxiety though.

We are going up there because our neice is up from NC and she is six months pregnant and her mom is throwing an impromptu surprise baby shower for her.  This is still not the main source of my anxiety.

D is wonderful and always wants to help people and we have kept every single toy and piece of clothing since A was a baby. That was 5 years ago! I mean everything. Well, now D has insisted on pulling all the baby toys from the basement and bags of clothes from A’s closet. She has decided to give everything to K for this shower. Stroller and car seat combination, baby tub, next side up baby tub, exersaucer, newborn clothes (most still have tags on them), so many things that I feel like we are stocking up her baby’s nursery and this is where my anxiety comes in.

I don’t understand why I am anxious about it, they don’t have much money, E is the only one working so probably they can’t afford any of these things. The whole family is one where they don’t have much and they are happy with that. I know we are not having another child, we decided that through many tears a while ago but then why am anxious about giving this stuff away? I think it is something to do with money. I have a tendency to hold onto stuff that cost me money even if I don’t use it anymore. Isn’t not like I would be able to sell them and be able to get my money back anyway. I would like to be able to be a giving person and give to those in need without this anxiety but I guess that is only human. I’m not Jesus, but maybe this confessional blog post will help. I hope this baby shower is wonderful for her and her baby is happy and healthy and all these things that we are giving the little one helps that process.

Seems sort of sleazy

I guess I need some help with posting because I have missed several weeks in a row but man so much has happened.

Clam Festival in Yarmouth Maine was fun but was very hot. Felt very bad we were unable to stay and allow Alex to see the fireman’s muster.  She would have loved that but it was getting very hot and we needed to eat but the previous day we ate there and spent way too much money.  Understood the money goes to the school organizations but way too much money for a small pint of fried clam strips!

Looking at (what seems like) a million house in the Attleboro, MA area.  We have tried to offer on a few houses and it seems like every time we do and we think we might finally be the proud owners of a house… something BIG shows up.

For example, the last one, we made an offer, even got assistance from family in order to make a larger offer on this home and on the last call from the listing agent, she informed us of a “betterment” on the property.  Yes, we saw that word on the listing sheet, even Googled it and just found that it meant there was an improvement on the property.  I asked her what that meant.  She said there is a betterment that will be assumed by the new buyers of this home.  She said they had gotten their house connected to the town sewer and it cost them a big price which now has $67,000 left that the buyer needs to have added to their taxes.  What?  Sixty Seven Thousand Dollars??? We found out that is and extra $300+ per month added to our mortgage.  No wonder they wanted more money than what it was listed for!  The killer is that the listing agent led us down this road to this point, and THEN springs this on us.  She didn’t put it on the seller’s disclosure and was leaving it out for some reason.  I really hope the next person knows enough to ask what a “betterment” is.

Sometimes more than others

There goes my little.. no wait BIG girl going by herself on the spinning teacups on the mall carousel…
Tonight is one of those nights I miss my mother more than others, not just because I am watching my own child but because I need a non-judgemental listenining ear…
Tonight, we went to see a house, it is a very old house that has pretty much every original appliance since it was built in the 1950’s but it had cute built in’s in just about every room to make up for it’s small square footage and a very big yard. There are big problems with it and it would need lots of work before moving in. D said she would love to make it work and we could definately afford it… BUT I don’t like it. My dad said he would help me with the down payment but not with this house.. I could not justify using his money to help us buy.
D is upset with me because I discounted it and said I would not do it.
So, there is more…we are actually waiting on a response on another house. We made an offer on another house that we really like and all the big ticket items have been taken care of, roof, heater, floors… have all been done.  The problem is the bank already came back with a full price offer and we countered again and we already decided that if they don’t accept at this price, we will say no. The only problem? We will be struggling with the monthly payment even at our counter offer. We want the house and I know we will make it work but right now we are very stressed and sometimes I just get so upset missing my mom…sometimes I just need someone to vent to.
I need a person to just talk to, I need mom, my mom. Why did she have to leave me? I don’t have anyone to just call anytime to just cry to or to just talk about my day. My mom used to call me all the time. Then for some unknown reason, I decided I needed to find myself and asked her not to call for a while and then when I came back to my senses we spent a short time again re-getting to know each other… and then she left.
Now, I have a partner but when I just need to talk about stuff going on with my life, I don’t have anyone besides her. Most women have girlfriends they can call up and complain to… I don’t
Why did she have to leave? Why do I have no one to talk to? No one to listen…not try to fix…not feel obligated to do something…just listen?

What would you tell yourself 10 yrs ago?

When you feel uncomfortable, be honest about how you feel.  Think about what will make you happy.  Don’t worry about how you will get there or about the money.  Money doesn’t buy happiness, ever.  The Santa Fe doesn’t matter, it is only a car.  Working from a home doesn’t matter, you aren’t making any money anyway and you have to ask to just get a coffee. The house? Not yours, won’t ever be and don’t get the money out of your 401k. You will never get it back and you won’t be forgiven for what happened for the money, even if you are made to think so.  Money can’t buy people even friends, all the time.  Don’t make the mistake and if it is too late, don’t hurt yourself to try to make it better, you are worth more than that no matter what you do. 

It is hard to believe but in 10 years you will be married to a wonderful person and you will have a 5 year old child and will have a happy life.  Yes, you will get to name her Alexandra and she will be beautiful and smart and quite the individual.  No, you won’t have a lot of money and sometimes will struggle, but things are sometimes worth more when you struggle for them.  I don’t know if you will have a house, that struggle will be one we both will have to wait to see.

What can’t you throw away?

Baby clothes (well actually clothes from every season for her entire life) from my daughter…  the obvious extension to this question would be… why not?

We have been going around in circles for months, well years really as to whether or not we will have another child.  We keep the clothes hoping that if we do have another child, it would be a girl.  I guess if it was a boy, we would be SOL and have to start all over but we wanted to try to have a head start. 

Now our daughter is nearly 5 (she will be on May 1st) and we have not yet started trying for another one.  There really is many pros and cons to it.  I think the cons have won though and it is mostly about money.  From daycare to after school programs to “will we really be able to pay for college for 1 nevermind 2?”  How does one decide?  We want to have a house and want to do so many things and it all revolves around money, every bit of it.  At the moment, we can’t make more money from where we are, in order to do that, we have to get different jobs that make more money but it costs money to go back to school. More money issues…(ok that was an unplanned tangent)

We have attempted to go through the clothes, and each time, we put some aside thinking we could give them away to this child or that charity but each bag we look and cry over this pretty little dress or that cute pair of shoes that are so small now… oh and don’t forget about the purple little dress that we took her home from the hospital in. Can’t throw that away! Then the clothes go back in the bag and we stuff it back into the closet in her room and slam the door shut tight and walk about til the next time we think about cleaning it out. 

I know it will need to be done, but it is just so hard to think about the memories of our little little girl and know that she won’t be little like that again and won’t fit into any of those clothes again.