Love Hate Relationship with Payday

I absolutely love pay days so we can splurge and take the family out to eat and maybe something else fun.

I absolutely hate pay days because I have to sit down and pay bills that day.

When will the horror end?!!!?!??!

Ok, seriously? Never, not with 5 kids who keep growing and having birthdays and wanting more and more stuffs.

The oldest, S, who is now 23 as of January 17th, rarely calls or comes to see us. Scott was even in Albuquerque for S's birthday and called him and had to leave messages. He is, apparently, still too cool to spend more than a couple of minutes with his old man. We did get to see the S for a couple of minutes before Christmas but that's all.

The next kid, R, is now 14 and too smart for his own good still. Still wanting to go to Harvard and still studying and working hard for those SAT's again. And kissed I don't know how many girls by now.

Ethan, 11, is constantly growing out of his clothes. He's not necessarily fat but he is chunky. As long as he keeps growing taller at the same time that he is growing out, he'll be just on this side of fat. He's always wanting to see the newest movie coming out and had the hardest time during the first part of the school year because we grounded him from movies. He was back to his old tricks of hiding homework and lying about it so we took movies away and said he couldn't see another movie in a theater until January 1st. Poor kid remembered that and January 1st came along and he was begging to see a movie, any movie, at the theater, with real popcorn and candy and soda.
He still hasn't made it to the theater. That whole love hate thing with paydays and money.

Emma, almost 10, is constantly growing out of her clothes too, and shoes. And the girl loves shoes! More than anyone I've ever met. I really don't know where she gets it from. She wants the newest fashions, makeup, hair accessories, anything that is so totally cool mom and everyone else has it so she MUST have it. The item she wants most right now are a pair of Heelies. These shoes with one wheel shoved up inside it are so very frickin expensive for a child that outgrows their shoe size every 3-4 months. Scott is looking online and for something cheaper than $85. She is almost 10 going on 25.

Then there is Harley, almost 3. He doesn't ask for much except for movies. Gee, wonder where he gets that from. He's not growing very fast right now but it's really hard to find clothes that fit him right now. I should say, clothes that we like. I won't put him in something I don't like. I'm just picky that way.

Scott and I like to have the occasional date, which used to be once a week but is now down to maybe once a month. I have no idea what happened, other than I'm working very hard right now to pay off our bills down to the very minimum. I'd love to be able to save more money than we do. We manage a little every pay day but not much.

I now have to stay on top of my credit reports because I found someone had stolen my ss# and opened an account at a rather large department store, but didnt' charge anything which was strange (but now that account is closed with an alert on it if someone tries to use it), and owes some other big company a rather large amount of money, and all in my ss#. The name they used was slightly different than mine. I've disputed quite a few things on all three credit reporting agencies, filed a police report and even got that pesky lawyers office to quit calling me when I told them I had filed a police report and was able to give them the case number.

I feel so very violated when I think of someone doing this to me and wondering when I'll receive another call about money that someone says I owe but I really don't. Or hating to actually open my credit report updates to see if there is something there that wasn't there last time that I'm going to have to add to my fight. I get physically ill when I think of this.

I find myself wondering what that person is like and picture myself in those identity theft commercials where this big guy is sitting on a weight bench and talking about how much money he's just spent but the voice coming out belongs to some stupid valley girl.
I wonder what my identity theft voice sounds like. Or do I really want to know?

I've come to the obvious conclusion that the love hate relationship that I have with paydays will never end.

On to more interesting things, Scott is counting down the days til we go back to Disneyland. Only 174 more. He is such a big kid. That means only about 150 until the kids go to Washington and spend almost 2 months with their dad and stepmom. It's going to be a long summer! I've never been away from them for that long. Scott is looking at the fun we will have and I'm looking at the time spent away from my kids. I'll be ok, the kids are certainly looking forward to it. Fishing, camping, swimming, chasing peacocks around and who knows what else.
That also means about 140 days til R, the 14 year old walking hormone, gets here.

In about 6 weeks or so we will be back in Las Vegas for NASCAR. But this time we are joined by Scott's dad and one of his dad's friends. Should be an interesting trip. We would like to go to a show similar to the one we saw last time we were in Vegas but that isn't the kind of show you see with your father-in-law. There's a topless vampire show we want to see but not with my FIL! I know, topless vamps, how cheesy! It would be funny I'm sure but I'll not be finding out this trip. Oh Well.

Well, I'm off to bed now. It's been a long week, not sure why, nothing special happened, I'm just really tired.

Hope you all have a good weekend.