My oldest daughter (yes...she looks like that) still doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up.
After 3 short years of marriage, she and her husband are divorcing. At 31 years of age, life as she knew it has come undone. She's had some serious reality checks lately and most of them involve money. Moving, rent, utility bills, groceries and the like, all on a fixed income. You know.... adult stuff.
Her lifestyle is no longer what she had grown accustomed to with a husband who used to indulge her every whim, until it wasn't pretty anymore.
"High maintenance" is how her brother describes her. I recently saw a t-shirt with "Blame My Parents" in big white letters across the front, that I thought about getting her. I imagine that I have to take some responsibility for the way my off-spring makes her way through this world. After all, she was born breech and that may explain at least part of it. I like to say she's been kicking and screaming her way through life ever since. Which reads: Why couldn't I have been born rich and beautiful, instead of just beautiful?
I love it when life lessons come along and in a flash they can drive home points I had been trying to make all along. Like.....Money does not grow on trees! It's just warmed my old parental heart lately to hear things like.........
"Mom! Do you know how much it cost to fill up my gas tank the other day? F-O-R-T-Y-FIVE DOLLARS!"
"Mom, How much is your natural gas bill? I just got mine today and it's 120 dollars! Now how can that happen? I have only been here two weeks and it's just me! I haven't even washed a load of clothes yet!"
"I have got to find someone to mow my lawn, for cheap! I can't afford to pay that kind of money each week! No, I can't do it myself, because I left the lawn mower behind in the divorce!"
"How much do you have to pay for trash pickup? I am really not liking the idea of paying 50 bucks a month to have someone dump my garbage can. Heather doesn't pay it. She just goes to the dump. Maybe I will too." (Yeah, right Princess!)
And.......the best one yet! Get this........
"I really am going to have to learn to scrimp now that I am having to pay for everything.
I've started already.....I pee twice, before I flush the toilet!"
(Yep....it's those little things that make a big difference! You go girlfriend!)
::psssssstttt....wait until Tuesday morning after everyone's put out their trash cans and left for work, then run out and dump your trash in theirs! Think of the savings! And, better yet, you aren't using a dime in gas driving to the dump!::
(I Love You, Mom!)
Posts
I absolutely love your journal! As an almost 30-year-old woman, I am not the first to way I call my mom when I don't know things. She always magically knows the answer, or makes up a good one, anyway :) Jeanne
ReplyDeleteAwww...I never realized what penny pinching modes my mom had to go through until I started footing my bills. Grrr. -=)
ReplyDeleteMy oldest daughter is getting a big dose of 'on my own' living-- I think they should make that into a new reality series. Anyway, she is now employed full time- 40 hours a week and after travel there and back it is 50+ hours. Last week was her first week and by Thursday night, her tongue was hangin' out... she wouldn't admit she was tired for anything! Kristi
ReplyDeleteIsn't it amazing what a dose of "living the consequences for your actions" can do for a body? LOL Lisa :-]
ReplyDelete