No really, it has to be done.

Over the past few weeks, as I've been working to get moved and get things unpacked and organized in the new house, I've really been pushing myself. I've gone past my breaking point several times and have literally had meltdowns where I've ugly cried and sobbed and snotted and screamed and honestly lost my mind. And then I sniffled and blew my nose and wiped the tears away and kept on going with what I was doing.

Why? Why do I do this to myself? Why can't I listen when people say "but you've got lots of time" or "the boxes can wait" or "take a day off and relax"?

There are so many reasons.

I'll be honest. Some of it is just me being stubborn. Shocker, I know.

But, I have reasons to be stubborn.

There are people....people who are waiting for me to fail. People who don't think that I deserve to have this house or the new vehicle or anything else that I've busted my ass for over the past few years. Yeah, I get the Social Security money, so I didn't "work" for a lot of my income. But I used that income to pay the bills and to take care of my family and I put a bunch of it aside in order to make this happen. We've gone without things that we wanted in order to make this happen. I've paid off bills from my 'past life' to make this happen. I've paid off bills that weren't even mine to make this happen. I worked full-time for a short period in order to speed up the process. I've done whatever I could do to get here, regardless of whether or not other people think that I deserve it.

There are other people.....people who will go so far as to watch me fall in order to take advantage of it and use it to hurt me even more. I know that I put a lot of my life out here for people to see, but there is so much more that happens behind the scenes. There is so much drama that I don't discuss for many reasons - and the people who are waiting for me to fall are a part of that. It might sound like I'm being dramatic - but I'm not.

There are even people who don't even know me who already have preconceived notions about me, and they're wrong. But I can't convince them of that - I can only show them that I am a better person than I've been made out to be in the past.

There are my kids. We moved in order for them to have a better home, a cleaner home, a safer home. As long as they have exposed wiring and pipes and breaker boxes and sump pumps and crawl space openings in their bedrooms, they do not have the living conditions that they deserve. Those things have to be done, and there is a time limit on those things

For those of you who are wondering, The Dude is not living here. Not yet. There are multiple reasons for that, none of which have to do with our relationship. We are just as strong as ever, and I have no intentions of letting go of him. The timing just isn't right for him to move yet. He has responsibilities at his place, and he can't ignore them. He helps me when he can, but his time is limited right now.

The older kids have been helping me - when they're here. But, they're only here 50% of the time. And when they're "here" they're also in school or at school activities or at church activities or whatnot - so yes, they help when they can.

For the most part, I'm on my own with this. I had tons of help with the actual move - friends from church have been amazing and helped clean this place and are still helping to clean the old place and they used their manpower and truck power to do the actual move. But the unpacking and organizing and fixing up and everything else is pretty much all me.

There ARE time limits and deadlines. Some of them are self-imposed. But the majority of them are not, and I have to follow them in order to avoid a lot of unnecessary drama and stress. It's just the way that it is right now.

With all of that being said....I appreciate the amount of support that I get from my friends and the readers of this blog (even though I hardly blog anymore) and from the people on my facebook page. Y'all are seriously wonderful and you give me the strength that I need on the bad days and for that I am eternally grateful. I wish that I could explain some of this in more detail, but I just can't. But hopefully this will give you a better understanding of why I am pushing myself so hard to get this stuff done.

On that note....

My kitchen is starting to look like a kitchen.... even though I don't have it all totally unpacked yet. I seriously can't wait to get it all done, but I can at least cook now.