Depression

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I suffer from depression. After my youngest child was born it was bad again and I was put on anti-depressants shortly after his birth.

Some days are ok, and other days (weeks) are not so ok. This is one of those times.

I'm not one of those people that feel like they're going to hurt themselves or their kids or anything crazy like that. I'm one of those people that fantasize about running away. I feel like a trapped bird anxious to get out and be free.

What brought on this latest round of depression? It started about a week and a half ago. My cat got out and we haven't seen him since. I know he's dead. If he weren't, he'd come back. I left food and water out, and the dishes were being emptied every night until last night when I set up the baby's monitor to see what was going on. Whatever was eating the food decided to stay away from the monitor and they didn't touch any of the food. Obviously, it's not my cat. He's used to seeing that thing, so there's no way it would scare him.

On top of that, we are in the process of re-financing our house to consolidate the debt racked up during the building of the addition. We needed the addition to house our growing family, but unfortunately, it cost a lot of money. Now that we can finally refinance to pay off the building debt, we're looking at being in a situation where we can't leave, even if we want to. The house is worth more than it'll be financed for, but after realtor fees we won't have enough left over to put 20% down on another house. So, we either need to pay down the mortgage A LOT in a short period of time (won't happen) or sock away some savings now that we'll have some cash freed up (hopefully) from rolling building debts into the new mortgage. Either way, it'll be years before we can move out of this state and into (hopefully) a larger house.

That doesn't sound too bad, but in just 2 years my parents will no longer be in the area. We'll need to use a plane to visit them, which is expensive, so we won't see them often. Right now they are 2.5 hours away, so we see them once a month, sometimes twice. My sister lives on the other side of the country now and my brother lives with my parents, so he will be moving with them. I have 1 grandparent that's still living and he's on the other side of the country too. That means I won't have any family left in the area, save for a random uncle and a couple of cousins that I don't really know. I feel like I'm being abandoned.

On top of that, I wanted to move out of here before my middle child started school. Her birthday is just 16 days after the cut-off to start school, which means she will likely be the oldest kid in her class. She's big already and seems older because of her verbal skills, so I'm afraid she'll be bored in school by waiting another year and she'll become a bully. Unfortunately, that's how it'll play out now.

The town itself is also going to poo. We are being charged an extra $75 each quarter for "capital improvements" related to the water system. They want to charge $186 per year beginning next year for each of the kids to ride the school bus. The sewer charges are through the roof. We pay $300-$400 per quarter for water and sewer. That's a huge increase. If we want to be able to afford to live here, we'll have to consider spending tens of thousands of dollars on a septic system and well. So basically we can't afford to live here and we can't afford to leave either.

It's a terrible situation. I know my husband isn't bothered because his family lives about an hour away. The odd situation with his family is another post all on its own, but suffice to say, having them near is no consolation.

I've been trying to figure out ways to cheer myself up, and I just keep coming up blank. I need to get out of the house, but with 3 young kids - one that's in her terrible 2's - that's just an exercise in futility.

Market Basket

I haven't been posting lately because all of my "free time" has been spent navigating new grocery stores. I've been the one with the 3 kids wandering for 10 minutes looking for cake mix only to find said cake mix and not get it because it's 4 times more expensive than at my regular store.

You see, I'm a displaced Market Basket shopper.

I drive by, I honk and I long to return to my red and white checked haven where I know I can get groceries at a decent price. Sure, in recent months I'd turned to the big boys of Shaws and Big Y for meat sales to feed my family. Market Basket's meat sales just weren't matching our tastes, so I had to go elsewhere. However, I returned to my local store for deli, dairy, produce and grocery items.

That all stopped when the workers started holding up signs and picketing. I'm not one of those people that can cross a picket line without feeling bad and besides that, I agree with them. Their jobs, their salaries and their pensions are being threatened. If ASD once tried to claim that he wouldn't change anything for the worse, he can't say the same thing now. His actions over the past few weeks have shown that he's all about money. I know he'd raise prices and cut salaries because he's in it for one person and one person alone - himself. He doesn't care about customers. He doesn't care about employees. If he did, he'd have ended the work stoppage weeks ago by giving everyone what they wanted - his cousin.

So while I hope that there will be a resolution sooner rather than later, I'm not holding my breath. I know ASD's greed and jealousy has the power to bring down Market Basket. I hope that there's a positive resolution, but at the same time I'm trying to get used to shopping at other stores and I'm trying to make their higher prices fit into my budget.

Organization Goals

Anyone that reads this blog on a semi-regular basis knows that I'm unhappy with how organized and clean my house is. With that in mind, I thought hey... why not challenge myself YET AGAIN to get organized in a week. A week should be plenty of time, right? Ha. We'll see.

In an effort to get things going, I'll post my "timeline" here so maybe I'll feel some sort of accountability to the internet or something crazy like that.

Monday: Organize & clean the kitchen & mudroom. Focus on cabinets. Clean out the fridge.
Tuesday: Organize & clean the dining room. Focus on the hutch. Clean out/organize the pantry.
Wednesday: Organize & clean my bedroom & the master bath.
Thursday: Organize & clean the kids' rooms. Remove at least 1 bag of toys. Fix the bookshelf.
Friday: Organize & Clean the living room & hall bath. Wipe down the fireplace and clean under the couches. Clean the living room closet out.

I'm sure that I'm being way too ambitious with all of this, but on the off chance that it's not as much as it seems like, I'd also like to clean the windows. They rarely get cleaned because our blinds are large and don't lift-up anymore (broke under their own weight).

Wish me luck, and if you don't hear back from my by next week - send an ambulance!