Got through another Mother's Day. Barely.

I hate how commercial it is. These holidays (Easter, Valentine's Day, Mother's/Father's Day) never used to bother me. But I think as the years go by, and the more it gets shoved in our faces and down our throats it becomes SO unappealing. Add in the fact that no one can be bothered to even get a card and it really turns into a "Why bother?" type of thing.

I got SO sick of the posts about Mother's Day everywhere. Ads, Facebook posts, family and friends' posts. Holy fuck. I'm a Mother every day of the year. I don't need a trophy for it. My mother was also a total fucking asshole so seeing the posts boasting about treating your mother right, and missing your mother and blahblahblah omfgkillmenowkthxbai. My husband and I went to a Mother's Day brunch at the Fair (his suggestion, I made the reservations). Someone assumed I was taking my mother when I mentioned I was going. Wut? *I* can't take MYSELF to a Mother's Day brunch? Bleh. When I said she was dead, they did the puppy dog look and "Oh I'm so sorry." Don't be... then shock when I was so dismissive of their sentiment.

I know, I know. It's unusual to have had a horrible, abusive and toxic mother. No one would have batted an eye if I had said that my father was meh in my life, but my MOTHER. How, why, what? How is that possible? Newsflash; women can be horrible people too. I'm not over it, obviously, but I'm over the shock of it being my mother that was a shitty part of my life, rather than my father.

My kids had to be told it was Mother's Day, and to say something to me. I still had to shop for food, cook dinner, wash dishes, do the laundry and walk the dog. No different than any other day. And so, it is what it is. Just another day. And immediately, the next day, ads for Father's Day started. Insert rolling eyes here.

Every day my list if Things that I am Failing At grows longer. I get the dishes caught up, then they languish for days. I get the laundry caught up, and the piles of clean clothes get heaped on the floor. I get D's room cleaned up and then the fucking cat pisses on the dog bed so his room stinks and the dog has nowhere to lay and I don't even. The warm weather makes the stink rise up out of the carpet in front of the door because the dog keeps pissing on the fucking thing, and it doesn't matter if I steam clean, hand soak/wash, or use Nature's Miracle, it STINKS.

And the ants. Oh my fucking christ the ants. I just called someone to get a quote on getting rid of all of the rest of the wood in our backyard so hopefully that helps. I'm terrified they're actually IN the house somewhere. And moths. Fucking hell there's moths in our bedroom. I took the drawers out of the bottom of the bed and found a couple of areas with eggs, so I wash everything down with a bleach solution and threw the dog's pjs in the wash (the only clothing-like material in the drawers) but now I think they're coming out of the dresser, so I have to take ALL of the clothes out, all of the drawers out, wash everything and inspect all of the clothing - and/or wash it all. It all just makes me so angry I don't want to do anything at all.

Overwhelmed, I think, is the word.

Trying my best to pull myself together. It's not easy, it's not going well, and it's not going to be instant. I know this.

My daughter is still having issues that require my time and effort. I am avoiding things that could be easily remedied (unhelpful coping mechanisms are in full effect here). I am over beating myself up over things that are not my fault, and also through it all I am doing my damnedest to be less miserable, less negative and less annoying.

I am doing much better at checking myself before I say something. I am doing much better at keeping things to myself. I am doing much better at letting things slide, and not letting things infuriate me. What's the point? Just makes everything else more annoying and gives me a headache.

I have three days to go and then I am off work for a week for 'vacation' (we are doing a Staycation; Hubs and I coordinated taking a week off to spend time together, play WoW, and celebrate his birthday). My goal is to Spring Clean the house. Unfortunately, since in my head I keep thinking about all the time I'll have to do that, I've let some things slide. I have a mountain of paperwork that I slid off my desk onto the floor in order to fix the keyboard tray, I cleaned out the fridge and created a mountain of dirty dishes, and although I've been keeping up with washing the laundry, it's piled up on the floor of my room ready to be folded and put away (or, adversely, picked through and worn).

Every day I've vowed to do One Thing. Most days that One Thing turned out to be stopping at the grocery store on the way home from a long day at work to grab something for dinner. I set up for a big show happening this weekend, and the hours that I have put in have taken their toll. I can't express how much I'm looking forward to this coming week, and the slow periods headed my way and throughout the summer. I know I'll regret it when it's boring and tedious, but right now those look like good things to me.

This weather is getting to me too, so that's been a battle I've been fighting. One day it's cold as balls, the next it's smotheringly hot. We had almost a full week of constant rain which just about destroyed me. We got heat and humidity yesterday that made it almost impossible to breathe, and tonight there's a chance of snow. WTF, Mother Nature, seriously, WTF?

We're looking ahead at possibly home improvement projects. I'm trying to get things organized and ideas planned out, which means I've created lists upon lists here, there and everywhere. I make lists of stuff we need to buy, lists of stuff we want to buy. My brain and my hands want the lists, but they don't do any good other than creating clutter, and get lost which infuriates me further. I'll look through the flyers, make a list, then forget the list at home. I will take a list, buy SOME of the things, and then my brain insists that I create a NEW list. I have tiny bits of paper all over the damn place, even at work I do the same thing; I create "To Do" lists and revised schedules and printouts of stuff and they're scattered all over. Come on, brain, pull it together!

Hopefully this week away can put me in a better mindspace.

It's strange, the things that sting the most. The things that shouldn't be a big deal, but seem to feel that way.

I never put much merit into Facebook 'friendships', but when it become the main (and sometimes only) way of keeping in touch with people, it became the 'true' way to be friends. Turns out something I thought I had no merit, stings really fucking bad when someone I thought I was friends with, "unfriends" me. Does it mean it can't be mended and that I can never talk to the person in RL, maybe? I dunno? Is this the true action of severing a relationship, by unfriending someone on fucking Facebook?

Every once in a while I go through my friends' list and pare down the people I don't speak to, and cull people I only know through association with someone else (do I need to be friends with someone's husband just because I'm friends with them? no, not really). Some people either don't notice, don't care, or the opposite and they're really hurt. One person I only 'spoke' to maybe twice in the last year I removed from my list and I got a message saying they were hurt. I also broke my self-purposed code not to be friends with someone just because they were coworkers, so I cleared them out as well.

It's getting to the point now where I probably don't even need to be on Facebook at all, other than to laugh at stupid pictures and have possible connections to far-flung relatives being that I don't have contact information for otherwise.