One of the most common offenders of my feeling of failure has to do with our finances. I promised myself that I would not spend money needlessly on Etsy, or at any other online store so I could work towards paying down our debt which desperately needs to be attended to. But instead of keeping to my much needed promise, I have spent money that I could not afford to part with which has also caused issues with my monthly membership at WA. It is literally my inability to pay a bill that makes me feel worse than anything else in my life.

There are moments when I just want to give up, but I know that I need to keep pushing forward, to at least get something done in the course of the day, but something as simple as getting one thing listed on eBay leaves me feeling like I haven’t done enough. I am beyond angry at myself because I know all these problems come from within and the hardest thing for me is finding a way to fix this once and for all.  I hate my job and I know I want to stick with WA for the long haul, yet my boulder of debt constantly weighs on my shoulders, pushing me to find instant gratification methods to making money which I know do not exist.

Either you have to spend time to make money, or you have to spend money to make money, and money is something I don’t have, but I do have time. There is no reason/excuse for why I haven’t completed my keyword research, there is no reason why I haven’t moved forward in the 30 day club except for something inside me that keeps pushing me off on different tangents making me my own worst enemy when it comes to getting anything done.

Maybe I’m spreading myself too thin yet again, but I do not know what else to do. I have a bunch of stuff in the house that needs to go away, and all I can think of is to sell it on Etsy, but the results of my efforts thus far have not met my expectations. Three boxes of ribbon, and maybe a dozen rolls have been sold so far. Maybe I need to suck it up and just throw it all on eBay in a huge lot, but I KNOW that is the surefire way to deliver the smallest profit for my efforts, but the clutter itself stresses me out so it needs to go. The office is unusable and I can’t keep working from the kitchen table so I need to do something and fast!

Do I put my Etsy shops on hiatus,  which I really don’t want to do, so I can clean house, or do I find a way to balance time between the two, which I have not been particularly successful with as of yet. I need to find the strength needed to get this stuff done and I think the only way that may happen is to finally implement some form of To Do list, painful as it may be, but I really don’t think I have much of a choice as I fear its the only thing I can do to get myself under control as I am my own worst enemy when left to my own devices.

While the bill may “claim” that is primary goal is to eliminate piracy, I can’t help but fear that the passing of this bill will make us no different that of other countries whose government has FULL control over what their citizens have access to on the Internet. If the views of a site differ from those of the government, its blocked and as an owner of a few sites of my own, whats not to say that the government could not shut one if not all of them down because they “believe” that the content it contains is not in line with the beliefs that the American people should have about a particular product or service.

If you value your FREEDOM OF SPEECH, then go to https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ and tell your local government to say NO to this bill.

“Why do I do this?” I ask myself. “Cause I need the money,” I tell myself. On the outside I may look like I have it made. Nice house, decent cars, good paying jobs, yet I find myself unhappy most days, mostly because I carry around more debt than most could even imagine. I’ve felt the embarrassment of trying to use a card that I thought had space left, only to receive the denied msg. I don’t buy new clothes mostly cause I can’t afford to. We don’t go out to dinner because we can’t afford it. We are stuck in jobs we hate because we can’t afford a damn thing.

While I am lucky that I get to work with a good group of people, the job itself is underwhelming mostly because we constantly find ourselves getting saddled with additional tasks that are outside the scope of our project. But since we all know better, we take on the tasks with a fake smile cause we know it’s the one thing that keeps us all employed just a little bit longer cause in the world if IT contracts, you always run the risk of being here one day then gone the next.

On the other hand, my husband is not as lucky as I am. While he does have a permanent FT job, he constantly finds himself saddled with more tasks than one person can get done in a given day. Combine that with a co-worker who believes, in their own twisted little mind, that they are you manager by micro-managing every little task you are given and its enough to make life miserable. A few nights ago, hubby received a call from said person on his work cell with a briefing for the next days tasks. We still do not know what the purpose of the call was, except to be an irritant at a time when you’re supposed to be home relaxing and not thinking about work.

This daily level of frustration has caused me to branch out and look for other money-making opportunities. I have been an Avon rep, I’ve sold on eBay, Amazon and Etsy, and I have also expanded my knowledge in the Internet Marketing realm but the one problem I always run into is I keep spreading myself too thin which results in an overwhelming feeling that paralyzes me from doing anything at all.

In an effort to turn over a new leaf, I made paying down the debt my primary new years resolution. While I have tried to do this many times in the past, I always found myself charging back up the free space that my monthly payments had created. Instead of struggling in this task alone, I finally took it upon myself to download David Ramsey’s Personal Finance Software with the Debt Snowball tool. While I am just starting out, I find that this tool has helped greatly in giving me the direction I so desperately needed when it came to my bills.

But since the future of my job is still so unstable, I realized I still needed to find a way to supplement my income, even if it was something as simple as $20 a week. In order to achieve that goal I realized I needed to take a new approach to marketing my Etsy store. Due to my new years resolution, I could no longer continue on the path of spending money I don’t have just to gain exposure for my shop. After some thought, I realized I could use my Internet Marketing skills to promote my shop. I can only hope that with the right amount of effort, my shop will help to deliver a steady stream of income for years to come.

It wasn’t till almost the end of the year when I finally made myself take a different look at the situation. Here I found myself putting my neck out not once, or twice, but MULTIPLE times for someone who was not ready to grow up and take control of their own life!  While I still love my step-daughter very much, I’ve had much time to think and can’t help but feel that I have been played. My own caring nature used against me. This feeling has just fueled my anger, and many a time I have found myself telling my husband, “She needs to grow up!” At 18, she thinks she’s an adult, but her words and actions come across as that of a child.

The last time she was down for a visit, we debunked all the lies that her mom has been telling her all along, yet for some reason she doesn’t want to see the truth that lies right in front of her. Her sisters B-day was the week before Christmas and mom conveniently lied to the kids and told them she called, but no one answered. That just irritated me all the more. Pushing me even further to the point of wanting to wipe my hands clean of the whole situation because no matter how much my step-daughter bitches about the situation she’s in and how much her mom sucks, she won’t pull the trigger and make the change that will result in a better life for herself.

Her dad and I have offered her the olive branch of sorts countless times. We spent a large sum of money on furniture so we could give her a place to sleep when she came to visit, and now I can’t help but feel that the purchase was nothing more than a waste! Part of me wants to hope that I’m wrong, but I’ve been pushed so far that I have reached a point of not giving a damn anymore! I’m done worrying about what happens until I see that she finally grows up and does something about the situation instead of only complaining about it. Which is why I’ve reached the point of saying I’m Done!

I’m done being the one to make the effort to try and help when it is obvious the help is not wanted, at least not yet. I’m done making myself sick. I will always be there for her if she needs it, but I just need to be more conscious of my own health cause I’m not gonna do anyone any good if I’m dead and gone…

The one thing that pushed me even further over then edge than I thought was possible happened on Thanksgiving.  Hubby and I went to my parents house for Thanksgiving dinner and after a few drinks my father made a comment to me that hurt more than I ever thought was possible. He told me I was a cold person and that he felt that I didn’t give a damn about what happened to him or my mom.  He continued on to say that if he was the last one, he assumed it wouldn’t be long before I would pull the plug. My husband was in the same room at the time and I felt like I had been slapped in the face.  While my parents and I have had our troubles in the past, things are somewhat back to normal but they will never be how they used to be. How can you honestly go back to normal when you are disowned for a year due to your life choices?

But that’s not what bothered me most. I have been dealing with so much stress and other crap in my life in the past 3 years, that it hurt me and upset me to have someone I care about think that my attitude was because of them. I’m sorry, but I’m like this with everyone!!!!  Not a day goes by that I don’t deal with some amount of stress and the only way I have found to deal with it is to just become numb to the situation and not give a damn anymore since no one really seems to give a damn about the effects that everything is having on me. I’ve had days where I’ve thought I’d be better off dead, but I would never push it to that point as I am not that type of person.

To make things even worse, my step-daughter actually told me the last time she was over for a visit that she prefers me when I’m drunk as I’m happier and more fun to be around. Great, more proof that I am a generally unhappy person and I still have no clue how to fix it! The only thing I can pin down is the point in my life when everything started to change and that was when the company I was working for decided to go the cheap route and outsource all the positions in the team I was on to a consulting company whose workers are all from India.  That was the first time in my life that I found my job and my livelihood threatened by someone who was cheaper and not necessarily more skilled. As the months went on I found myself saddled with more work and with no one to turn to because those who were supposed to be my team mates would always claim they had too much work and could not help which was a complete crock of BS.

Each day that went by I began to hate my job more and hated getting out of bed in the morning simply because I knew what I was walking into each day, a position where I was not valued. A position where I constantly found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop because I KNEW my salary cost the company more than probably all the others combined. How can you possibly be happy when you find yourself stuck not knowing whether you will still have a job next month or even next year. When you constantly have a fear of not being able to pay your bills should the company you work for tell you that your skills are no longer required. It is that constant fear that has caused me to branch out and work on other endeavors to making extra money.

I have worked as a freelance writer, which I loved, but never seemed to have the time for. I worked as an Avon Rep, and while I did quite well, that too caused me to never have enough time for myself.  My husband understands how I feel about the unknowns that come with working as an IT contractor, but the countless times I have tried to tell my parents about how I feel I always get the response, “Well, be happy you have a job”. How can I be happy when I deal with the constant stress of the unknown!

A few months ago I started selling items on Etsy and must admit I love it regardless of all the pain that the crocheting has caused in my hands. It has given me back my creative side, but I still feel so far away from being normal. I would love to be able to sell on Etsy full-time which would give me the opportunity to work on my Internet Marketing dream.  On occasion I have brought the topic of working for myself up with my mom, only to have my dreams crushed because all she keeps telling me is I don’t want to work for myself, its tough, it costs a lot, etc, etc, etc.  Since she thinks she knows whats best since they own their own business and have been struggling since the economy has tanked. The last time I talked with her about this, she ended up hanging up on me because I was getting upset and frustrated with the fact that she wasn’t listening to what I had to say, instead she was just giving me advice that I was not asking for. I had tried to explain to her that what I want to do is different from what they had to contend with when they started their business over 30 years ago. With the power of the internet my reach is far beyond anything they could ever dream of when done correctly.

But that is always how its been. I can’t talk to my mom about anything without getting some form of a lecture that I haven’t asked for. This has caused me to stop talking to her about anything that bothers me because I don’t want lectures, I just want someone to listen to what I have to say. To understand what I am going through, to understand how I feel, and maybe to tell me that things will get better at some point. If I wanted advice I would ask for it.

As if to add insult to injury, my father also commented on Thanksgiving that he had wished they had more kids had my mom not had the health issues she did. That hurt as well as I almost took that to mean he was unhappy with how I have turned out. That was quite evident when he told me I was cold, and didn’t care about them. It doesn’t seem to matter which way I turn or what I do, whether its family, or life in general, something happens or something is said that causes me to put up yet another wall, to become numb to yet another thing in an effort to protect myself from completely going over the edge.

My caring nature has always caused me to put everyone else before myself, and as of recent I have reached the point of not giving a damn anymore.  My health and well-being has suffered so much, and has been ignored for so long that it took yet another bout of rapid heartbeats within the past few weeks to force me to pay attention to what is going on with me, and not whats happening with everyone else. I need to take care of myself, to get myself back to the person that I used to be when my husband and I first met, I just wish I could figure out how…..