Yule Spirit

There is a decided lack of Yule spirit in this house.

We have the wall this year – a blanket of fairy lights with one of my little shelves holding our Jack Skellington tree on it. The presents that are already put together are on the bookshelf by the door. Everything is going sort of well, pretty much along what we usually have, only because of our financial issues this year, it’s a bit tense.

All right, to be honest I’d have to say it’s a lot tense. Pretty much all of this is down to me, having lost a major client this year due to cutbacks, as well as having several potential clients – those who requested quotes and editing samples, those who actually booked time then went elsewhere to someone I thought was a friend – things are beyond skint. I literally have $0.45 in my bank account, and that has to cover everything until the end of the month. The girls and I drew names this year, and are spending about $10 on those gifts, because we have other commitments that need more than $10 each.

Seriously, if I told people what we’re living on right now, no one would believe me. The people that do know can’t understand how we’re doing it… and basically, we’re not.

So, spirit around here is down, and there is little that can be done about it, really.

Monday night, a list of mediocre chores was put on the fridge, all of which needed to be done by this morning. Of course, time drags on and amongst everything else, some of them didn’t get done zippity-do. Some got left until this morning.

One of those things, one that gets left until every Wednesday morning, is the trash. Today is pick-up day, so we make sure that everything is out and we start fresh. The bag this morning was full of animal stuff; the litter-box and all three rodent cages were cleaned last night. Generally that’s not a problem, but for some reason, something on the can snagged the bag and it tore a bit. I pointed this out, and I got BLASTED. I mean, if looks and words could kill, the oldest would be asking our HPs to help plan my funeral right now.

The youngest decided to rip me a new one, because I guess it’s my fault that the other one didn’t do her chore on time, and it’s my fault that the bag tore and that I thought I should warn her before she got it all over herself. Then – worst offense yet – I had the absolute gall to say we could tuck it into another bag. That was cause for another round of anger.

And then I topped the trifecta of evil – during the re-bagging, some of the shavings from the guinea pig cage whoofed up and got in my eye. I said ouch.

She snarled and stopped, and I told her to keep going – she slammed her fists into the top of the bag. Shoved it in yes, but it also whoofed out a ton of the stuff all over the place. That made her even more angry (and I swear I saw some green starting to tinge the skin of her arms…) and frankly by that point I was not only in pain from my eye but confused as hell as to why her mood changed so quickly and violently.

I’m getting really tired of the tension in this house. The oldest and the youngest are not getting along because the youngest is doing most of the oldest’s stuff PLUS has to put up with me trying to work, so she’s also doing some of my stuff. The kid is seventeen, she doesn’t need to have all of this shit on her shoulders.

And then the oldest swans off to do some mid-week partying or whatever with someone who is a definite bad influence on her (and who is doing her best to lose the oldest the best real friends she’s ever had). That drives the youngest up a wall… and adds yet another level to the arguments they have.

We’re this close >< to getting out of the hole we fell into, we just need a bit more time and a bit more diligence from all of us. And in the meantime, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we have just a couple of weeks of happy.