Drama and babysitting

I'm adjusting rather well to my new routines.  A little computer time--news, blog, solitaire, shopping while eating a breakfast and drinking coffee. Then off to my first project--today it is building a cat scratcher for Ewok.  Poor evil Ewok---born to be a hunter and killer and instead trying to be a socially acceptable family member.  But he's smart and will get it.  The cat scratcher is to be super sturdy as he has torn apart several of the commercially available ones---and he weighs less than 4 pounds.  Ferals in a shelter are not always the easiest to tame.

Then it's time for a little lunch and off to paint with maybe a run for cat food.

I am not watching kids for 4 days.  I like spending time with grandkids, its how we get to know each other.  I did not have a close relationship with my grandmother, she was a ways off and not really wanting to watch grandkids--she had already spent too much time watching kids.  Sometimes I completely understand her position on that.

But babysitting, if not routine, is not horrible.

Horrible is family drama.

I live alone and love that.  I don't have to argue with a spouse or have to waste time trying to not upset other family members.  I don't have to listen to people drone on that never want to listen to anyone else.  I can talk to myself without being asked if I'm crazy or senile.  I can not talk for days, potentially, with know one asking me if I'm angry or depressed.

The holidays tend to interfere with my insulation from family drama. The phone calls increase with the need to vent. and inevitably someone will translate an "I hear you" to "I totally agree with you" and make sure everyone else thinks I have taken a side on the latest petty argument.

I had plenty of drama in my life.  I try to keep most of it out anymore and generally do a decent job.  When I need to rant and rave, I've found a nice, quiet corner of the internet to do so.  But I made drama pretty easily in my twenties.  It seems to have slowly faded---sort of like hormones.  A part of me thinks that those pesky male and female hormones cause way more drama than they have any right too.

Of course, its probably not just chemical.  We have roles.  Gender roles.  Family roles.  Societal expectations of how a woman acts and how a man acts, and those create havoc with most of us, because we are not just roles.  No one wants to just act out the part of their life that fits society's current role for them.  It leaves all those other parts of our selves starving for attention. Roles limit us, and while we have no problem pointing out how our significant other is failing to meet the expectations of their role, none of us really want to hear about the parts of the roles that we are ignoring.

So, my family holiday is now over.  We had it early due to work schedules and in-law schedules and a million compromises and much drama.

I got some great gifts.

I had a wonderful time.

I love my family soooo much.

Thanks god for 4 days to myself.

The confusions of Social Security

I was notified of a cost of living raise.
Then I was notified that everything over a certain amount was taxable.
The raise is over the taxable.

I was doing well on the third size income till December, then-----Christmas.

I apparently spend too much on Christmas.

Also, I sent an estimate of how much I would make in the next two months and they removed my overpayment in the December check which arrives in January.

I will have $49 in January.

I'll figure this out.  But not sure why any social security amount is over the limit of income.

When you are planning retirement, get that nest egg growing.  It's more important than you would guess no matter how frugal you are.

There is something nonsensical about the rules.

Must have been created by a committee of people that will never care about Social Security Insurance in their post-work lives.

Happy Holidays.

Hard Changes

Soooo.
I've bought my Christmas gifts for the year.
Got my cookies planned and the ingredients gathered.

But, the two in-law females are planning the family gathering without any of the family the gathering is for.
My son is unhappy--the idea is sexist, "only women can plan Christmas?"
My daughter doesn't care, she has her own concerns and always disagrees with her brother.
My sister probably doesn't know they are planning it, no communication with either of the two--it's how she ended up at the wrong thanksgiving dinner.
And I adamantly don't want to participate.
My son wants me two because kids are only little once.
My daughter thinks I'm annoying.
My niece-in-law don't speak and that is for the best.

So, why don't I want to go?
I had to think hard about that.
All I came up with was that it wasn't right.

I want to wake up 7, not at 7am, but 7 years old, and get out of my bunkbed, run into the living room where the slightly spindly real tree bought from the Safeway parking lot was twinkling all alone in front of the picture window would now be glowing and beneath would be millions of brightly wrapped packages and at least one toy from my Santa list that was not wrapped--Santa never wraps.  I want to wake my sister and watch her fly under the tree to look, then we would jump on the bed and wake up parents to go do gifts.

Sometimes we had to wait a minute  but even teeth and faces were not mandatory before the camera came out and the gift opening began.

We had Christmas with mom's family in Kansas, but usually not on Christmas.  Occasionally we would head to a relatives for a second Christmas in the afternoon, but usually that was the weekend before or after.

OR?!?!?

I want to tuck in my own babies, then open gifts with them when they woke up.  Then my family and my sisters family would head to my parents and we would all have our own little gift opening session---not as great as at age 7, but not something I would want to avoid.

BUT?!?!?  There is no part of my heart that is dying to go to someone else's house and watch kids open gifts in a maddeningly over-the-top display of greed and disinterest.  I love my kids.  I love my grandkids.  But old pictures of our little trees from yesteryear never really reached the ceiling, there were never thousands of dollars worth of toys that don't even do anything.  These days, there really are thousands of dollars worth of gifts and the kids are bored by them.

I'm may blame my mother and that pair of Air Jordans for a 7 year old with growing feet.

Or I may  just blame time.

You really can't go home again.