Holidays, family, && more.

Shew, the holidays are stressful -- that is a given; everyone knows this. I thought last year was stressful...shit. I wish! This year really is stressful. Last Christmas, I had just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, was recovering from an emergency c-sec, and dealing with my father's death & my mother's absence during all of this. Daniel & I were living with his parents & grandmother --we had our own apartment in the large house, but still...5 steps from either of the other occupant's of the home isn't really what I call "privacy". As I sit here reminiscing on the past year, and of the sweet daughter I once had...she continues to turn off the screen, making it almost impossible to blog; I realize just how great my typing skills are. I typed the last 3 sentences without a screen on. Go mommy! I don't discourage her exploration, but I do set boundaries & rules for my new-found-toddler, something I will touch on later in this entry.

As I was saying, last year really was very stressfree compared to this year. This year, my daughter is practically walking. She is a terror at times! Granted, she is an exceptionally well-behaved child, but where she lacks in all other areas of noncompliance, she makes up for it by far in the area of rottenness. Also this year, we are on our own finally. Yes, this is what I only dreamed of last year....but it's more difficult in the sense of financial responsibility & worry. We live very well, but we do struggle. Daniel's company, York Label, decided to wait until Christmas to announce that they will be taxing the money that was given to us to move on this past summer this paycheck...and the next. That's $150 that they are taking out of the final two checks before Christmas. It's total bullshit. We had figured in that $150 dollars to our budget, and with that money, we had just enough to buy all of the family Christmas - and for each other (Maddy is non-negotiable). Since we found out about them taxing the money, we are now taking the money we are receiving for our Christmas present from his parents & Grandmother and using that for Christmas for them and Daniel's Blackberry Storm.

Now, I am not really complaining. It's just that with things being done that way, that pretty much makes it like I'm not getting anything from them for Christmas anyway. I am happy Daniel is getting his phone; that damn phone is all he talks about every.single.day. And he deserves it. But there's things that I don't just want - I need certain things. And these certain things, I haven't asked Daniel for because I figured I would just buy them with the money I get from his family for Xmas. Things like makeup, just a few items - I used my bottle of foundation completely dry a few weeks ago. I need a new tube of mascara because my current tube is clumping so horribly that it's not even worth putting on my lashes. I know it's only 2 minor things, but to me they are big things. They are things that I have put off and put off asking for so that I could get them with my own money, because I don't have a job right now and I felt like we could use that $15 for more important things (i.e; food). But now that I have put it off and tried to do the right thing, I'm going to have to put it off even longer....and it sucks. This economy is horrible...I saw on the news tonight that yet another factory in Asheville is closing down, putting 350 more people out of a job after Christmas. And with so very few places hiring at the moment anyway, where am I really going to get a job at? I am not 'above' putting in applications, but my confidence in actually getting hired is very, very low.

You see, I went from being a 19-year-old child who got anything & everything at Christmas time, to being a responsible adult & mother all in the snap of your fingers. Sometimes I miss the special-ness of Christmas. My mother & father were huge into Christmas....Daniel & his family, they really don't care a whole lot. They don't care about wrapping presents, stuff like that. They tell you what you're getting a month before Xmas...kinda like that ya know, like it's not special...just another day is how they seem to treat it. Which is fine - I understand that every family is different. But for my family, it was something very special. A time for us to come together and really cherise our time together, cherise each other as a family, and spend real quality time together. His family is not that way - and it's okay! I just miss that special feeling that Christmas Day with my mom & dad used to give me. I hope to someday soon incorporate that to our new little family of 3, and I don't really care if no one else wants to join in. I feel as if that is my right, as a mother....am I wrong here?

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I'm going to finish up this post later. My child is throwing an ungodly fit right now and needs some type of authority at the moment. :D Oh the joys of Mommy-hood.