So, took a three-year hiatus from this blog. The house still isn't finished. (Just a couple semi-major things to go.) Still a stay-at-home mom. The youngest is in third grade. The husband has hinted at me going back to work. But I really have no ambition to go back to accounting. Adding a job to the mix seems insurmountable right now. However, I feel myself as more of a liability to the household since I am NOT keeping. up. with. anything!!!
As a side note to falling behind on everything, I have also been quite accident prone lately. In the last year, I tried to drive out of my garage without opening the door. (Minus $500). I picked up my laptop and tried to take it to the couch without disconnecting the power cord. (Minus $178). This morning after a disturbing dream about my son falling, I dropped my Samsung Galaxy tablet at 4 am. (Minus ???) So at 5:18 I sit here rather annoyed at the resources I suck up versus the outflow of money for my klutziness. I also drove out of my garage and hit my sister-in-law's vehicle. Luckily we didn't need to fix my 13 year old Honda Odyssey, and USAA auto insurance paid for everything for my poor dear sister-in-law. No out-of-pocket expense, but adding feelings of inadequacy.
And of course being a klutz is not the only thing that has cost the family money. I have gained 50 pounds over the course of the last three years. In part, I believe, due to a diagnosis of fibromyalgia and the medications awakening an insatiable urge to eat in the afternoon. Anyway - it has cost a lot of money in terms of food to get my weight up to my new rotund shape. Especially money invested in Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Dark Chocolate Almond granola bars. Those things are a drug to me. On New Year's Eve, when I thought I was going to stick to my New Year's resolutions I ate four of them because I thought I was saying good-bye until my weight went back down. Of course I've had a few since then. Oh- and lots of money spent out with the girlfriends at restaurants, etc.
So, even though I love being a housewife and stay at home mom, I am beginning to feel the need to contribute financially to the family, at least to cover the debt I have created. Not to mention the need to actually get on top of the things that any woman needs to be doing in her house, working or not.
Which brings me back to the "Be the Ant" idea. My original idea was to blog on household projects only. However, I am finding that I need to "Be the Ant" in many more areas of my life.
One of the things about fibromyalgia is a sort of brain fog that seems to come over me and I am able to focus on one or two areas of my life, but everything else is on hold and before I know it, I have ten piles of paper, mold in the showers, a hundred boxes of stuff to get rid of, and an overwhelming sense that I should ignore it all and play Candy Crush Saga.
That's where I am right now. And in an energy crisis. Usually, when I fall as far behind on paperwork as I am, something kicks into gear, I sit down, enter receipts, reconcile accounts, file papers and two or three days later I'm back on track. But that "ON" button seems to be gone.
One of the first things for applying the ant is going to be to spend some time each day focusing on paperwork and getting caught up. Not to mention hopefully a real strategy that gets me to not do this a few times a year. There is always the "If I would just do a little everyday, this wouldn't happen" lecture in the back of my mind, but then life seems to run away from me and I find myself in the pit again.
Part of getting on top of the papers, the cleaning, the menu-planning, the house beautifying, training up the children well is that it adds to the value of my staying at home. If I am providing actual mastery of these areas, then I feel that the financial burden of bringing in no actual income is irrelevant, because I have brought so much value to the family through all of these areas.
The weight on me (fat included) is that I have no mastery of anything. The many areas of life are mastering me physically and mentally. I do not seem to be able to keep it up. At this point, it is a mystery as to whether or not I will be able to master any of those things. Can I get it together and cope better with the mental and physical changes fibromyalgia has brought into my life? Lord, help me follow your wisdom and "Be the Ant."
