Sometimes you actually need to be financially responsible.

I'll be honest, I'm probably going to get a lack of flack for this post and I'm OK with that. Because I feel like this is something we're all thinking, but nobody wants to be that jerk to say it, so I'll just be that jerk.

Gofundme.com? Is not meant to cover your ass because you are bad at budgeting your money.

In the last three months I have seen over twenty of these accounts show up on my Facebook feed for various reasons. We have people who want to buy a home, can't pay their utilities/rent/etc, wants a more reliable car, wants to bump up the Christmas fund for their kids, wants to have more money because we have a stay at home mom/one income household, etc.

Which, all things it would be so nice to have extra money for. I get it, I really do. Matt and I don't get to do a lot because we have bills and that's a total buzzkill. He works, on average, 80 hours a week, and I'm working part time so I can shuttle kids to/from things and maintain the house while he's gone almost all of the time. It sucks.

You know what else sucks? Having to say no to nice jeans so I can pay my light bill. That sucks a lot. I'd really like to get a pair of jeans that fit me properly, or shoes that don't hurt the arch of my feet. Matt would like new glasses, he hasn't had any in twelve years, but we have a mortgage and utility bill that comes every month and damn if they don't want their money.

Websites like that are meant for tragic, out of your control situations like cancer, your house burned down, someone was in a horrific accident, etc. They are not meant to be your fix all because you can't manage your money. And this is coming from someone who will donate or buy a ticket to a benefit, even if I know I won't be there. You show me a tragedy and I'm there with my checkbook out because that's awful. I try so hard to help everyone I can who genuinely needs it. I always feel like I want confirmation that this really is a necessary last resort. To the people who can't pay their bills- show me that you have made an effort to utilize every financial avenue out there, including financial counseling because you clearly need it. You need someone to teach you how to budget because it's not like bills come up out of nowhere.

And then the people who ask for money to upgrade their lifestyle? How about you get another job? Maybe cut out expenses in your life you don't need like cable/satellite, your cell phone, Internet, whatever. You don't need any of those things. You really don't. Lots of people get by every day just fine without them. It's not convenient or fun, I'll give you that, but if you really want to upgrade in your life, you're willing to sacrifice in other areas.

It's getting to be a bit ridiculous. It's like nobody understands the concept of working hard to go anywhere in life. It's not meant to be easy. I don't think Matt wants to work that much, and I'd certainly love to not work, but we need to because we want to own a home and own our vehicles. We want to pay our bills on time every month and we want to eat things other than Easy Mac for dinner. I think back to when my mom was raising my brother and I on her own. She worked her ass off every single day, she'd pull doubles regularly, sometimes more, and sleep on the couch because she had no bed. We had the only bed in our apartment. I can't tell you in all of the years I've been alive how many times my mom ever went out with friends. I honestly think it's none. I'm not saying you should sacrifice your sanity because I know the value of getting away for a night, but some of these people who want all of these things are also the people out clubbing or having drinks on the regular. You know, I feel like if you have time to go out drinking, you have time to get a second job. It's like priorities are meaningless anymore, we'd rather just have a hand out from someone else.

Mommy is on the outskirts of crazyville.

Do you ever notice that as soon as mommy gets super pissed off that everything starts getting done? It's a miracle really, which is why maybe a  mommy should be President. You need someone who can scare the shit out of Congress to make anything happen.

It's been a stressful two weeks. Once again I've not only not taken anything off my plate, but I've instead added youth indoor soccer and swim lessons for the kids. I'll talk about the soccer (with pictures!) another day, and we don't start swimming until Monday so I'll probably have stories to tell you. So that means my time that I block off for reading for reviews and catching up on emails, paperwork, PTO stuff for Olivia's school, is dwindling to almost nothing. I'm stressed out, I'm getting tired much earlier than I ever used to, and I'm starting to lose my mouth filter. I'm not kidding- one of these days I'm just going to start shouting obscenities at people for no reason.

But I do a lot around the house, I'd even say as much as 80% of the housework, plus I cook dinner, I make sure the kid's have their homework done, I help them get organized for the next day, I take them to school, I run them to their activities, I keep on top of what's happening at said activities, and more. A lot more. More than I can even remember because I'm that overwhelmed. And I don't even ask for a lot of other people. I really don't. If I'm asking for help, it's because I have a twitchy eye and I'm stabby.

We don't need a stabby person with a twitchy eye.

So when we got our new bedroom furniture (pictures and report on that coming soon) LAST Friday, we had to do a huge furniture shuffle. Olivia got our old bed and my dresser, Jackson got Matt's dresser, their dressers came downstairs, side tables moved, etc. Then of course I have to go through and clean everyone's room and purge stuff because I'm crazy. And my dining room ends up looking like this:

I believe I've mentioned I'm crazy and I have a problem with clutter and mess. My dining room has been hoarder's paradise for oh... a FULL FUCKING WEEK. I can't even go in there. Matt promised to take it out last Saturday. 

And didn't. 

Every day since then, he's promised to take it out to the garage. 

And hasn't. 

Tonight, I lost it. Admittedly, throwing a pot of cheesy rice and broccoli was probably a poor choice of communication skills. But I think with me holding an empty pot with cheese sauce dripping down my arm and probably a twitchy eye, Matt all of a sudden decided right now is a super time to take it all out. 

And that's what pisses me off. 

Why do I have to get incredibly crazy ass angry for it to get someone to do something? Even the kids, who bitched every 15 minutes about being hungry so I'm furiously cooking supper while sorting through thousands of milk caps, box tops, and soup labels (fundraiser for Olivia's school), then refuse to eat when I get it done. 

STAB. 

Seriously. These are the times nobody tells you about motherhood and wedded bliss. There will be times where you hate your spouse and want to run away. 

This is one of those times. 

Thanks + More Crafty - More Snow = Less Ghetto?

To get you started this evening (I swear on my right boob that I have funny in this post) I am posting a vlog. You can see me stumble through a terrible thank you to some of my readers. I suck at that but I figured THAT would be better than me doing my regular "thanks- you are cool". So.. ok. And I didn't preview it because you people freaked me about telling me I sound weird. Now I'm all self conscious when I say "about" and such. One time I actually said "a boot" and now I'm getting teased. Whatever. So I refuse to see what I look like. HA!

(Edit to add: Forgive the static. I decided to listen to it and guess what? THIS IS PROOF I'M NOT CRAZY, Matt!! It does make a static noise! Any techie people?? Help me prove my husband I'm not a retard.)

So I haven't had a chance to show you what is in my shop. And my "link" button isn't working so you're gonna have to just go to www.scrapinsara.etsy.com (which links.. WTF blogger? WTF?) and check them out. But I have an entire greeting card set (more coming soon):

 And cutie Valentine's cards. I have a few different ones and I made myself an extra set of these.

OK. So we are all familiar with the ghetto state of my van window, right? If not, you need to click on that link and be ashamed of yourself for not knowing what's going on. Anyways. So right now the only thing keeping my van from being robbed of it's seats and random shit in there is a huge sheet of plastic and some duck tape. Well, I'll tell you one thing- neither of these things will keep you warm but they WILL give you the experience of scraping the inside of all your windows so you can see out them. And I've also discovered that I think I have freakishly small arms because folks? I'm struggling. I got my boob stuck in my steering wheel today and it hurts. I'd show you a picture of the huge red mark that is still there but I think that's porn and my blog will get flagged or something. Anyways.

So today it snowed and shit and I didn't think anything of it. Until I went outside to find that some of the tape is not longer sticking so I had a snow drift. IN MY VAN. Guess how awesome it is to shovel out the interior of a vehicle? Um, it's not. Seriously pissed me off. So I put even more duck tape on it and I hope to god that it not only stays sticked to the van door part but that if it does fall off... my seats are still in there. I heard that some people will steal your seats and stuff. I don't know if that's true but sad day because I don't know if I have a clause for that in my insurance.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow morning brings me. :/

But I will tell you one thing- I will never have this problem again. Granted, if we're being honest my window will probably get shot out again. BUT I told Matt we are going to have a special account with my deductibles sitting in it. But until then.... I'm without a window and $125 short. Oh payday.. where art thou??