I should do this more often but usually am so tired at the end of the night that I just decide not to. Things have been pretty up and down the last few months. Tension between all of us has been mounting. Most days are ok, but some days really get me wound up and stressed out pretty bad. Most of the stressing and tension circles around money, or in this case the lack of it, and Garret's behavior (or mis-behavior). Have had to postpone going back to school again due to mom still not being up to par and with all the fruit coming ripe at the same time and the garden harvesting continuing I have been having to do way more than usual, taking over a lot of her share, as she is still getting really tired. They say it could take several more months for her to get back to normal, not that a person is ever the same after having a stroke, but to somewhat of her normality pre-stroke. What I don't understand, and no one else does either, is how she still claims to not have enough money to pay the bills after the extra money she is now getting generously from Aunt Melody moving in. Before, even without me paying "my share" of the rent, she still should have had over $300 a month to work with, after paying the household bills and all her personal bills. Now with the extra $500+ a month, there should be no reason for her to need more money, but again last week, she was complaining that she didn't have enough money to pay everything and asked Ouma for $300 more, which she didn't have, so who knows what she is doing with all her money or what expenses she hasn't told us she has. It's very frustrating nonetheless and it's starting to cause rifts between her and me and me and Jon; regarding Jon, it's because she keeps asking constantly if he is looking for a job or going to be getting a job soon or if anyone has contacted him back, etc...like it's all his fault that SHE is having financial problems when in fact this has been going on for quite a while. And since Jon has moved in he has saved us a lot of money and with the stuff he has cleaned up and sold off the property, actually made her $600-800 or more, and we have the potential to make tons more if we can continue with all the projects that need to be done and stuff that can be sold, but that is another story too. When he agreed to move here, he made several requests about the projects that were being asked of him. One most specific request was that he be give annanimity and the freedom to do what he thought was correct, as in cleaning and clearing out, determining what was garbage and what could be saved or sold, etc., and to not have interference at every step from mom. She agreed readily and was most happy at the time to concede to that stipulation, however, as time goes by she has not kept her nose out of things in any way at all and progress on almost all projects has come to a virtual standstill because of her inability to keep her agreement and mind her own business. Not to mention that she basically treats him like unpaid labor, barely remembers to thank him for 10% of the stuff he does, if at all or weeks/months later, and in one of her "discussions" moved him from being "a part of the family" and seperating us now into "two households." The agreement for when he was invited and accepted our invitation to come live here was that he was going to be part of the family, since his family has all but disowned him in many ways, and even Ouma's attitude towards him, which started out as "my adopted son", has now changed and this frustrates me to no end and has angered and hurt him immensely. But in trying to talk to Mom and Ouma, neither of them see that their attitudes have changed or that they treat him any differently, and this worries me greatly. On several occasions he has told me that if it weren't for me, he would have given up and left, moved away from here because of all this stuff. All he ever wanted was to be a part of a family, to be loved unconditionally (as he was promised), and to experience all the stuff that he was denied from his own blood relations. In the beginning it was like that but now things have changed somehow and I don't know why or how to make things better for us all. He has been such a blessing and a help with Garret, taking me under his wing to school me on being more consistent and helping me be aware of my failings in dealing with him. Garret responded so well over the summer, we had great hopes that things would be getting much better in the near future, but unfortunately when he went back to school all that hard work is now being washed away. We are almost positive that it is the classroom environment, because of all the other kids with severe disabilities and the way that the teachers treat him and it is so sad and frustrating and dissapointing to watch the digression. Short of petitioning the district to move him to another school which would screw him up completely due to the loss of his friends in his class (he was devastated last year when a friend moved away to northern WA and he wasn't allowed to contact him, he still talks about it some days) and the lack of funds to put him in the local church school that is only a few miles from our house, the only other option would be to homeschool him and I'm not quite able to do that right now either, so we are really at an impass and struggling to try and figure out how to deal with all these issues. Personally, I don't know how I've managed to keep it all together all these months. Some days are really hard and others not so bad but the last couple weeks have been very very stressful, not to mention the situation with Matt, oui, why do ex's have to do stuff or allow the kids to do stuff that we ask them not to and then act like it's not a big deal or not even care what we say??? They say they care about the kids but do they really when they don't spend hardly any time with them and we, the custodial parents, know so much more about the kids and what is best for them, yet our requests are almost completely ignored...I just don't understand how they think that it is going to benefit them or the kids....oh wait, they don't think....that must be the answer, cause nothing else makes sense. I have started cleaning out portions of the house and throwing out a lot of papers and clothes and really trying to tackle this immense clutter that has become my house, yet as always, I get distracted and it is sometimes days between getting back to the projects, but I have made some headway, but there is so much to still be done, it gets overwhelming very fast. And the spiders........I'm sorry God, but why must they all be in MY house??? I swear that someone is running a hidden lab experiment to grow the largest and most obnoxious spiders in my attic and other places in my house. The other night one came crawling out on the valances and it was so big that even Jon freaked out. Neither of us had ever seen one so large anywhere in the house or on the property and that has had me freaked out and on alert ever since. Maybe that's why I'm not sleeping well at night??? And we have way too much stuff in the house to do a bug bomb, since we'd have to wipe everything down and wash everything after it was done and that would not be humanly possible at this time. Another part of the up and down depression is the dissapearence of my baby kitty. I miss her terribly and every time I look out into the fields where we saw her running last, I start to tear up and even though I know there is no chance, I still scan the fields and still listen for her. Seeing her mama every day doesn't help either, as she was an exact clone of her mama, minus the one back foot. Even the squeaky little meow is almost exactly the same and some days it breaks my heart. It's like losing a child and now I am understanding more of what you have gone through and I understand the ever-present pain that lurks, just beneath the surface, just around the corner and it's such a heavy pain some days. I don't know why she left and I would give anything to have her back, to be able to hold her again, to see her hobbling towards me and to hear her precious squeaky meow and kneading me when she is in my arms purring from cuddles. Yes, I've been holding a lot in and have a lot of pent up emotions. Definitely need to do this more often. Here's hoping that I will be able to sleep better, must go, falling asleep but feeling more relaxed and hoping this helps a little.
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