From the Heart

I really miss my family and all the family gatherings we use to have. It's ashame that we have all moved apart and I hope to create a family that can stay as close as we use to be. Every Christmas, we would get the family together and have a brunch buffet and Grandma's house and open presents. The presents were nice but the best part was having everyone there. It seems that as you grow up, things aren't as wonderful as they always seemed. You become less satisfied and don't like celebrating things because they aren't anything like what they were before. Every time you get your hopes up and get let down when you knew in the first place that it was going to happen. My whole family lived in San Diego, then I moved away, farther and farther every couple of years... Due to my mother and her fiance, so not by choice. Then my grandmother moved from San Diego to Texarkana, Arkansas. She was the heart of the family, but now she's so far away. I still live in Eureka, where my mother, stepfather, and I ended up. And now after they finally got married after 19 years of being engaged, have taken the steps to get divoriced (only married a year). So, my mother is in hiding, avoiding my phone calls, I don't mind seeing my stepfather (after all he did raise me), but he is really down right now and I would like to be more positive. Its hard not being around family, especially because the holidays are coming up and I really want family around. It's nice having get togethers. I miss having that warm loving feeling you get during the holidays when you are surrounded by people that love you. I really want that for my daughter too.

Money in a Family

My fiance of five years recently sold a little WW2 Paratrooper Welbike on ebay. In the years that we have lived together, the money in our relationship is our money. We have bills just like any other person and we have a daughter. We have been strapped for cash like a lot of people lately so when he got $7000 for the bike he didn't pay for, we were really happy. The thing was that he didn't talk to me about him splitting the money with his dad. He told me he was going to. It sounded nice at first but as soon as I thought about all of our bills and how much that money could help I didn't think he should give his dad half... Maybe $2000 would be fine but not half. My fiance went through so much trouble getting this bike to ship to the buyer in the UK. His father didn't give him the bike he got it through a coworker. His father made a crate which helped a lot, but I can't understand why he would rather give his dad half of the money than pay off some of our debts. We have been short on money for food! His dad would have been happy with a smaller dollar amout. Along with all of the problem with shipping. The buyer sent us the money for shipping and cost but paypal deducted the entire shipping money. Well, before my fiance knew how much shipping was going to be, he took his fathers half out of the money. Leaving him with $3500. Two weeks later, I get a bill from fedex for $940. My fiance said he will just take it out of his money!!! I couldn't believe this. First he already gave his dad more than what I was comfortable with, second he didn't even ask my opinion, third he would be getting $1000 less than his dad and the money should be going to him. I told him he has to at least get half the shipping cost from his dad. He agrees, then tells me he will pay 400 then split the remainder between him and his dad. This was wrong too!!! He doesnt' realize how his is spliting up the money, it's making me angry that he feels like he has to take care of his dad when he has a family. His father can't work cause he owes for child support and they would deduct the money from his paycheck. That's not my fiance's fault and he shouldn't be responsible for his dad at this point in time. He still has like 20 years to go. We have a family, bills, and we really could of used the money to lower our debts. Especially in this economy. I'm so frustrated and I don't feel like he even tried to see what I thought about this. He makes me feel like it's none of my business.