New Year

It's the start of a new year.  I've never really marked New Year's as a new beginning until recently.  Now it seems like an easy enough date to measure goals by.

Last year I set some financial goals for myself.  I'd have to go back and look at the post to see what other goals I'd set for 2010.  I know I did do fairly well with my finances, and would have done better except for a setback from another stupid decision I made a few years back trying to help out a family member.

I took on a couple of side jobs at the end of last year which will hopefully help me towards my goal of buying a rental property.  I've wanted to do this for over a decade, but somehow the money for a down payment has not fallen out of the sky for me.  So I've done something about it and am actually setting aside the money from my side jobs for this purpose.  Hopefully I can reach this goal by the end of next year.  Hopefully the real estate market won't have rebounded so much as to make it out of reach!

My own business seems to be faltering.  I have lost almost every kid I've added this year, which is NOT good for business!  I am laying off my assistant next month, which may be a blessing in disguise.  Her work ethic has really fallen since she had her baby, and it's been difficult having to supervise at all times to make sure she is doing her job.

I've also decided not to have her work just because I know she needs the income when I don't actually need to have her here.  It costs me too much, without the income to support it, to fund her family.  The Bank of Reina is closed!

My side jobs have also kept me pretty busy since November.  Things are lightening up a little but I have my own year-end tax stuff yet to do, as well as the year-end tax filing for my husband's new side business.  That one should be easy as he and his business partner just started the business late last year and there hasn't been much activity.  My own will take a while.  It generally takes me two weeks of straight work to get everything together and recorded.  Usually I'm done by now, but I haven't even started!  I did get my filing up to date yesterday, which means at least all my receipts are together.

I do enjoy being busy, it seems.  And since finishing school in the middle of last year, it's only natural to have added a few jobs to fill in the time!

I need to spend some time this year on getting my website updated as well as the resource website presentable.  It's disappointing that every time I actually hire someone to do something for me, it rarely turns out well.  I need to give it some time and effort to make it match my vision.

We shall see.  This year is shaping up to be just as full as last year!  We'll see how I do.

Speeding Ticket

I got another speeding ticket today.  This is my third in two years.  I guess my luck has run out.  I don't know how I went for 20 years without one, and now I get three in such a short time.  My insurance carrier is going to have a conniption.  Or maybe that will just be me when I get the next insurance bill.

How is it that I never get off once I've been pulled over?  What do these people do that get off with a warning?  I obviously need lessons.

I guess it's time for me to slow down and drive like an old lady.  It sure is going to take the fun out of driving!

Christmas Sadness

It's the seventh of December, and for the first time this year I listened to Christmas music in my car.  It was an accident.  I was switching through channels and landed on one that was all Christmas.  There once was a time when I could barely wait for Thanksgiving to be over so I could start playing my Christmas music.  I loved Christmas music.

Every year Christmas gets harder and harder.  I just don't have the energy to be jolly.  Just thinking of the work involved in decorating, and then taking down the decorations, makes me want to crawl into a hole and stay there until spring.

But I feel bad for my son.  I know I am shortchanging him yet again.  This year, he decorated the tree and the house, pretty much on his own.  I put on Christmas music for him while he did the work, because he asked for it.  My husband and I put the lights on the house because that seemed important to him, and I denied him that last year.

My husband's interest in Christmas seems to be limited to the giving and receiving of gifts, so it doesn't seem worth my time and energy to get excited about the season.  I know I should for my son.  I know I should...

Every year the joy of Christmas dims just a little more.  After last year, I hoped to avoid it altogether this year by booking a trip to Disneyland for Christmas.  If I can't get excited about Christmas in Disneyland, I really am hopeless.

Hearing the music today, I felt so sad for my son.  He definitely deserves better.

The Lovely Bones

There is a scene in The Lovely Bones (the book, I didn't see the movie) where the dead girl watches her mother make out with the homicide detective assigned to her case.  The dead girl had been the oldest and was 12 when she was murdered.  Watching her mother she realizes something that she had vaguely felt when she was living; that being a mother was a mask her mother put on when the first child woke up in the morning.

She knew her mother had been keeping time until the kids where grown and she could start her own life.  When her mother unexpectedly got pregnant again when the girls were half grown, it was like getting punched in the stomach.  She watched her mother deflate, and resign herself to THIS life.

About a year after her daughter's murder, tired of being the "dead girl's" mother, she ran away and started a new life, an anonymous life, somewhere else where she only had to take care of herself.  Where she was just Ruth, and not Carl's wife, or Laura's mother.  (All those names are made up because I can't remember the names in the book!)

I know there are plenty of people who would condemn her for that.  Who would think it was utterly selfish and she had no right to leave her family like that.

But I wonder how many women have watched their lives slip away like water while they are being a mother because it was expected of them.  It was just what you do because you're a woman, and your life can't be complete without it.  I wonder how many women wish they could run away, but are duty-bound to be the mom, the wife, the caretaker.  I wonder how many women strain against the routine of getting them up, getting them dressed, making their breakfast, making their lunch, getting them to school, cleaning the house, doing the grocery shopping, picking them up from school, making their snack, helping with homework, making dinner, getting them bathed, reading the bedtime story, putting them to bed, cleaning up from dinner, falling into bed.  Rinse and repeat.  Who dare not complain, or speak her dreams aloud for fear of being thought of as a bad mom, or ungrateful.

Granted, this book was set 40 years ago, and there are hopefully fewer instances now.  Although for some, I'm sure there is most of that squeezed around a full-time job.

And yes, I know there are many women who are fulfilled by motherhood, that WOULDN'T be complete without that experience. Who have waited all their lives for that moment of giving birth to that helpless little being who depends completely on her and is hers to shape and love.  Those women have the special gift of sacrifice that comes with devoting their life to the nurturing of little ones.  These are special and necessary, and god bless them.

I'm not talking about them.

I'm just wondering how prevalent the feeling is.  I was surprised to see it in the book.  I was surprised that anyone would admit those feelings exist, even in a fiction novel.

Mother

I quit my mother a long time ago.  I was already an adult, so it wasn't anything traumatic.  Although, had I been able to as a child, I would have.

I quit her because I didn't like the person she was.  She was manipulative, mean, deceptive, and a hypocrite.  Instead of taking responsibility for her life and the choices she made, she cried about it and blamed everyone else for the way her life turned out.

I know that hypocrisy seems to be an acceptable evil, but it isn't for me.  I can't think of anything more infuriating and appalling than witnessing a person that acts completely contrary to their nature when in public.  The constant lie gets old.  Maybe that's where my intolerance of lies comes from.  Who knows.

I quit her because I have no need of people like that in my life.

It's been 21 years since I've spoken to my mother.  I don't miss her at all.  I miss having a mother, but I don't miss the one I was given.  Many times I've hoped and wished for parents that I could inherit as an adult that would fill that role for me.  I came close in my last relationship.

However, it seems that now I am faced with the same situation again.  I am having difficulty with alienating this person completely, for fear of hurting my family, but I can't lie, and I can't justify making an exception for this person that I would never make for my own mother.

They are the same in many ways, and I am having difficulty accepting that.  When I quit my mother I thought I was done dealing with dishonesty.  I can only hope I make the right choice for my son.  He is the only reason I am struggling with this at all.