Oh boy, I don’t know if you all have picked-up on the fact that I’m miserable working from home all day.
I think if I were alone at home all day, then it wouldn’t bother me so much. As I do believe that my primary issue is that my husband is ALSO home all day and I just wasn’t designed to be around someone 24/7 without a break for more than a year! It’s simply not my comfort zone.
My comfort zone is that whoever I’m living with… we do our own separate thing during the weekday (like, WORK) and have a few quality hours together in the evenings and the weekend. That’s a good balance that works for us.
But ever since covid happened, we’ve been home together non-stop. Every waking moment is together. Going on 14 months now. I’m not built for this. I’m burned out and I need a break. I physically CRY so often now because I need a break from this over-exposure so badly.
And I *might* get my break soon.
My husband has gotten his covid vaccine and his work is now telling him that he needs to go back to the office everyday!!!! Wooooo!!! I’m so happy about this I cannot wait I cannot wait I cannot wait I cannot wait!
They want him back at the office so badly that they even offered him a 20% raise to do so!
C’mon!!!!!! This is a no brainer, right?!!!!
But of course I have drama!!!!! Nothing can just be easy for me!
The husband is protesting going back to office. He’s turning down the raise AND insisting that they let him continue working from home full-time. Oh my gosh, I want to MURDER.
If he was really worried about covid, I can be sympathetic to that. But he’s not. He’s just using that as his excuse. He’s flat-out told me that he doesn’t want to go back to the office because then he “has to pretend to work all day”. And he doesn’t have to pretend that at home. That’s it. That’s his reason.
He KNOWS I’m miserable with both of us at home full-time. I hear him telling his friends that all the time so it’s not even a secret. And I don’t have a work office I can go to – I’m a legit remote employee. It’s not even an option for me or I would do it. But he’ll gladly keep me miserable, as well as turn down a 20% raise, just so he doesn’t have to pretend to work all day.
Ugh.
I’ll find out what happens soon I hope. I mean, his work is going to have to make a decision of some sort. But I NEED this. So bad. 🙁
What do you all do to celebrate Mother’s Day? It’s only a couple weeks away in the U.S. How about gifts? What do you do as gifts for the minimalist mom?
I already know that I’m spending my Mother’s Day making my mother-in-law’s favorite meal (I’m doing all the grocery-shopping and cooking too) and kissing her butt. That’s how I spend ALL my Mother’s Days – it’s all about the mother-in-law. Too bad she hates me, and vice-versa. I posted about it here if you want more deets.
But I can DREAM of what my ideal Mother’s Day would be like. And in my dream… my mother-in-law would never appear. Also in my dream… I’d be able to take a nap, eat all my favorite foods, and not have to lift a finger for a single chore. And that would be my perfect Mother’s Day. So easy.
Since I was dreaming about this, I was thinking what do people usually do or gift for Mother’s Day?
I think I’m quite close to being a minimalist as far as how I prefer my lifestyle. My family doesn’t necessarily cooperate with that, but my preference is definitely a “less is more” approach. And my kryponite is clutter. Tangible objects as gifts usually freak me out bc if I don’t have a proper place to keep it, then it falls into the clutter category to me, and that stresses me out.
So as far as what the ideal gifts for the minimalist mom would be, I came up with a list of 7 things I would definitely enjoy to receive as gifts. See below…
7 Gifts for the Minimalist Mom
Quality Time Together. This one could be a family movie in front of the tv, or a nice walk outside if the weather is comfortable, or even just a road-trip somewhere. Anything really, would be very pleasant for me. As long as it’s relaxing.
Food and drink. I do love to eat and drink! This can be either a restaurant experience, or a home-cooked meal (as long as I don’t have to cook it) and I would enjoy it immensely! Feed me! Also, food and drinks that can be stored well are also good gifts. I’m thinking about wines, alcohols, etc. Because even if I don’t drink them myself, then I’ll be able to use them when I have guests at my home or I can bring them with me when I visit someone else’s home.
Portraits! I have a shortage of actual photos of me WITH my child. Since I’m usually the one taking all the snapshots of my family in all their glory, I don’t have anyone that will take photographs FOR me so I can be in the picture too. So arranging photos that mom can be in too would be a great gift.
Gift Certificates and Gift Cards. These are pretty awesome gifts for the minimalist mom – or for ANY mom to be honest. We all love gift cards like crazy. Especially if it’s for something I have to buy anyway, because in that case it actually SAVES me money!
Subscriptions and Upgrades. Ok, this is something I would never spend money on myself, but if someone else would like to spend money on it instead, then I would definitely take advantage and enjoy tremendously. I’m thinking mostly about tv subscriptions here – like for Hulu, or Discovery+ which I don’t have at the moment. Upgrades are almost the same as subscriptions. But I’m thinking here, like an upgrade to my cable tv package to get more channels. Or, once travel picks-up again… upgrades on airline memberships and hotel memberships. The perks are amazing! You can get free alcohol, special lounges, extra space, larger rooms, etc. I would never actually splurge and spend my own money on any of that… BUT, as a gift… I’d love it!
Services. So if you really want to BUY something for someone that doesn’t enjoy clutter or more traditional gifts, how about a service? This can be a hair/face/nails salon service, or even a home service such as carpet steam cleaning or a deep-cleaning from a maid service.
Take care of some routine chores for me. Holy cow, this would be my most favorite one of all!!! If someone else could just do my laundry, do my grocery shopping, cook the family meals for a change, etc. Anything to relieve me of these chores, even for a single day… would be an incredible gift to me.
Anyhow, that’s what I’ve been able to come-up with as gifts I would enjoy, since more traditional gifts like tangible objects aren’t really my thing. So hopefully these ideas for gifts for the minimalist mom will help you out if you have one in your life.
What do you all think? I am missing something that a minimalist mom would like?
Lol anyone else in this same situation? Where their mother-in-law hates them? I see this on Dr. Phil occasionally and I relate so hard because this is my life.
But yes, my mother-in-law HATES me. I’m not even exaggerating this for effect.
And the worst thing for me, is that 1) my husband is an only child so there are no other kids or grandkids to help distract her. And, 2) we are in the exact same city – we live literally 10 minutes away. And, 3) she has no friends or hobbies so there is nothing else for her to do all day. This is my trifecta of hate.
But I think it all boils down to… Me and her have nothing in common. Which isn’t bad by itself, except she’s just hateful about it and frames all our differences as if there’s something wrong with me.
The biggest issue I think, is that she was a stay-at-home mom and her main responsibilities revolved around keeping the home clean and in-order and cooking every meal from scratch for her husband and child. And that is her ideal standard for being a wife/mother.
And that’s just not me. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with me and her having different paths in life, except she’s constantly belittling me and trying to make me feel less-than for my different lifestyle.
I work full-time. And my main responsibilities are to work, and then to make sure my daughter is thriving. So when I’m not working, then I’m interacting with all my daughter’s needs, such as soccer and gymnastics and school studies. And she’s very active with all her extracurriculars so we stay quite busy.
I don’t make ANY meals from scratch. I don’t pick-up after anyone else in this home. I only pick-up after myself. I don’t have time for anything else. My daughter picks-up after herself. All the mess and clutter in the home that my MIL nags AT ME to take care of, is exclusively due to my husband – HER only child. So I don’t believe this is my problem.
Look. I don’t like my home being cluttered either. But her nagging at ME about it won’t solve the problem. The problem is so bad, that my husband actually keeps his overflow clutter (the clutter that I won’t allow in our home anymore because it is too excessive) in his own mom’s garage. She parks outside in her driveway so my husband can keep his excess clutter in her garage yet she thinks that I’m the problem. How crazy is that?!
She comes over for every single holiday. EVERY SINGLE ONE. And ruins every holiday for me. Every one.
She’s coming over for this-coming Mother’s Day as well. And we make Mother’s Day all about HER. I spend every Mother’s Day cooking her favorite meal (but not from scratch) and I listen to her complain about how she would make it better because she would grow her own green beans in her own garden and then can them herself, etc… She’s also particularly mad that I buy store-bought pies for these meals instead of making homemade pies. And she doesn’t like anything spicy so I have to make it all taste bland so I don’t enjoy it.
Sigh. See how all my holidays get ruined by her?
And it’s not much of a factor anymore since my daughter is in elementary school now, but prior to school, my daughter was in daycare all day because I was working. And my mother-in-law was so incredibly hateful to me because of that. Saying I needed to be home with my daughter during those years and I was being a neglectful mother. And I was the cause of her being sick all the time (she did have terrible allergies), etc…
That was about the time when I stopped caring what she thought of me and I stopped worrying about impressing her. How she treated me during that time was unforgivable. All she did was insult me over everything she didn’t like, BUT never lifted a finger to actually help anything. She really hasn’t changed much since then either.
So, I tolerate her. And that’s about it. I don’t buy her any cards or gifts for Mother’s Day. I just make a bland meal that she’ll say she hates but still comes over to eat. And she’ll fume at me that HER son keeps the house cluttered.
Everyone loved my first hypothetical question so much… Here’s another one!
A superhero like IronMan or SuperMan actually comes into real-world existence. Today. Would the world become a better place?
Oh boy. While I personally would be ecstatic for this to really happen, I think the real-world response would be quite the opposite.
I simply think that there are too many governments and too many people in powerful positions that would rally together AGAINST this superhero. This is someone that would threaten their ultimate control and their power.
So I believe they would either sway the superhero to be one of “them” or destroy the superhero. But neither of those outcomes would help to make the world a better place unfortunately.
So every now and then, I will find a very thought-provoking post on my Facebook… And I absolutely love these sort of hypothetical question games because the answer typically gives alot of insight into how a person feels and thinks.
The question post that appeared on my Facebook today was: “Would you accept $50,000 IF the person you hate the most in your life would receive $250,000?”
What would YOU do? Would you accept?
My answer is NO. I would not accept the $50,000.
Because that would mean that Cloudy would receive $250,000.
Lol, it’s ok if you don’t know who Cloudy is as I haven’t talked about him very much. I did introduce him in an earlier post about my toxic workplace, but I don’t like talking about that stuff very much because it was sooooo bad and it depresses me. But basically, he is an evil person, and he tried to ruin my entire career and my life. And I hate him more than anyone else I know.
If evidence appeared that would open the door to a lawsuit, I would absolutely sue him and the company I used to work for. If evidence also appeared that would lead to imprisonment, I would absolutely file criminal charges against him. No hesitation. I just don’t have the evidence.
I think the real reason why my decision is NO, is because he’s never faced any negative consequences for what he’s done to me and others like me. He keeps being rewarded for his behavior with promotions and raises and more power in the workplace.
I simply want justice. That’s it.
And him receiving $250,000 feels like a reward for his bad behavior. And I would choose to deprive myself of the $50,000 gift before participating in him receiving any further rewards for his behavior. He needs consequences.
I don’t know, am I a weirdo? What would you all do?
Covid has kept families in lockdown for a year plus, so this anniversary seemed timely to publish a proper introduction to my minimalist life with a hoarder. Also, if you wanted an introduction to minimalism – or maybe just inspiration – I would love to recommend to you the MindBeautySimplicity site – as I’m one of her biggest fans. 🙂
Certainly one of the reasons (there’s more than 1, I promise) why I’m a nutjob is that I prefer a minimalist lifestyle while my husband does not. He’s more like a hoarder – as far as he constantly buys items that are unnecessary and duplicates, and leaves them cluttered all over the home, and will not get rid of them voluntarily. I recently posted about his latest duplicate purchases here if you were curious.
But he’s not unsanitary like hoarders we see on tv. I can attest that there isn’t a bug infestation or mold growing on our dirty dishes at home. It’s nowhere near that bad.
So I don’t know, is there a better descriptive word for this than “hoarder” then? I feel like hoarder might be a bit too extreme for what I mean. Let me give you all more insight, and let’s see if there’s a better description…
Minimalist Life with a Hoarder – Sharing Spaces
Before the lockdowns, my husband used to travel all the time for work. So much so, that I could keep the house picked-up and on-par with my comfort levels for the majority of the time. And he would only occasionally disrupt that. So it was very manageable for me. And I would have a decent amount of time satisfied and comfortable in my own home. That’s all I need.
But ever since Covid happened, he’s been home EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. And I have no escape from these habits of his that are making me crazy. I have no comfort in my own home.
He barely leaves the home anymore except to go buy more things that he will leave out to clutter the home, so things are really stressing me out here now.
Minimalist Life with a Hoarder – Money
When it comes to money, I am a super-saver while my husband is a super-spender. He literally lives paycheck-to-paycheck and that’s by his choice – it’s not a income situation.
I just don’t get any pleasure from spending money. I know that’s such a weird thing – I would never say that out-loud to anyone in my real life because I know how strange that is. My pleasure with money comes from saving it – it’s like, my security blanket and makes me feel safe and comfortable when it’s slowly accumulating in the bank.
One “win” that I do have under my belt, is that we both did agree to shun debt going-forward. When we got married, he was heavily in debt – due to credit cards and car payments and a loan from his parents. I don’t believe in debt as it cancels-out my security blanket, so this was my major deal-breaker. I paid-off everything he owed (including his financing for my engagement and wedding rings, so I paid for my own rings basically), and in exchange he agreed to no more debt again, as long as there were no changes to either of our employment statuses. And he’s lived up to that.
We only have mortgage debt at this point, and I’m focused on paying that off as quickly as possible. Having it really nags at me.
But he does spend every single penny he earns, as soon as he earns it basically. That still kills me, but we do have separate bank accounts so he can’t spend any money I earn. When we first got married, we had a joint bank account, but he would spend all the money we BOTH earned in that scenario, so I separated bank accounts quickly. It was necessary to keep my stress and anxiety under control.
Minimalist Life with a Hoarder – Clutter
But it’s the clutter at home that really kills me.
Here are a couple photos of our bathroom. We have separate sinks. Guess which one is his and guess which one is mine.
Minimalist Life with a Hoarder / Image Source: Pepper V.Minimalist Life with a Hoarder / Image Source: Pepper V.
Like I said, it’s not bad at all – not like what you see on tv shows about hoarders. I realize that in comparison, our home is perfectly fine. But it just makes me flip out. I admit that it’s illogical for me to feel this way, but I do. And I struggle with keeping my feelings under control.
I walk into this multiple times everyday and I immediately have a stress response that I cannot explain. And what freaks me out 10x more than anything else, are all the open cabinets and drawers. And it doesn’t make any difference if I close them myself, a few minutes later they’ll be re-opened, and LEFT open. Ugh, just kills me.
He does that everywhere too. The worst is in the kitchen. He’ll open the pantry, take out whatever he wanted from in there, LEAVE the pantry door open, and then LEAVE OUT whatever he removed from in there, never returning it from where it came from. Everytime I walk into the kitchen and see that, I feel my blood pressure rising.
Anyhow, I’m really miserable living like this everyday. It’s been a whole entire year of this now. Absolutely no comfort in my own home because I can’t keep it in a condition that satisfies me. It stresses me out.
I’ve been pretty useless today everyone, as I woke up with one of my weird headaches that started last summer. I’ve been checked out by several doctors and even had an MRI, and the doctors are telling me it’s a migraine.
I don’t know if I believe them that it’s a migraine, because the pain is very localized – the bottom right side of the back of my head. And whenever I research migraines myself, that’s not a location that’s referenced at all.
And I’ve tried everything to relieve the pain – maximum strength migraine over-the-counters, prescription meds, and I’ve also tried CBD. But nothing has worked to give me any relief.
I even tried a prescription narcotic and still… It didn’t work for any pain relief. I’m almost willing to try something illegal too, that’s how bad the pain is for me. But I wouldn’t even know how to do that so I guess that’s not possible either.
But what really freaks me out about this headache – is the frequency of it. It’s seriously every 3-4 weeks at this point, and it will last from 3-7 days. That’s SO much of my life! Maybe if it was more infrequent, I’d be able to deal with it better, but the fact that it’s almost a chronic issue for me now is just devastating.
So I’ve just given up. I don’t know what else to do. When I get one of these headaches now, I just have to ride it out until it goes away on its own.
I’m just, defeated.
For my previous posts about this, you can tap on my tags for “Headache” or “Migraine” or you can tap on these links:
