We survived the family visit

I am being slightly dramatic-it wasn't that difficult to survive. It would have been better if I hadn't had to work so much and got to spend more time with everyone but that's the way it is.

My partner's mom, sister and sister's 3 kids came to visit us. We had a super full house on Friday-someone was renting our basement, the kid switched his night with his mom so he was staying the night, Sister + kids in the 3rd bedroom (she had brought a blow up mattress) and Mom on the couch in the living room (she preferred it, she needs to sleep sitting up.) Luckily our guest checked out Saturday and there was more room to spread out the rest of the visit.

We went to the kid's play on Saturday. I'm not sure if I have mentioned this but we are a "modern" family. My partner has an ex-wife, but she is not the mother of his kid. So kid has a mom, a stepmom and me (the woman who lives in his house ). I am friendly with stepmom because of kid-we both love him and want the best for him and he should have the biggest support system he can get. That being said, I am not interested in being FRIENDS with her and she cannot judge social situations at all. When partner and I first moved in together and she was picking kid up to hang out, she would come in and stay for 20-30 minutes having a one-sided conversation. She just doesn't pick up on social cues. We have dealt with that and things are better now, but obviously we still have to see and talk to her on kid's special occasions.

This is a long story to say that I was super nervous going to the play because I was going with Mom and Sister and oldest niece (partner had stayed home with the youngest two) and knew we were going to see her and have to have a conversation. I know that she was part of their lives for many years and she hasn't seen oldest niece in...4 years? And would probably want to talk to them, or them to her, and I didn't want it to be awkward. I was probably projecting all my fears onto the situation with little basis in reality. Anyway, we got in line to buy tickets and I saw her standing alone waiting for someone and trying not to look in our direction. So I called her over so everyone could say hi.

I don't know if Mom and Sister have a relationship with her-I know stepmom comments on Sister's facebook posts of the kids so she was probably happy to see the oldest one. My friends were already seated so when we got our tickets we went in and found them. And guess who had sat down next to them? Step-mom. And then kid's mom and fiance and her parents and brother were seated in front of us. And they did not acknowledge us at all. That I don't get but it's fine. The most important thing is kid and he got a great round of applause from his section and has a great many people who love him.

I probably overspent a bit this weekend. Because we had been sick and then had to work while we had guests we didn't plan as well as we could have. The good news is that I didn't have to buy much in way of groceries this week. The second part of bad news is that I only shopped at Sams so I spent more than I wanted, but for stuff that will last us a long time (30 rolls of paper towels, huge container of garlic powder).

The next two months are going to be super lean for me because of 10.5 hours of my next university paycheck missing. So I am going to do something new this month-I am going to track all my purchase. Not just the dollar amount but each line on my receipt. Because last month I thought I was doing well with keeping my spending down but I still spent over $600 on groceries and eating out (and we only ate out twice!)

I am going to make a better effort at making sure all the food gets eaten and less gets thrown out (the majority of what I threw out was because I was sick and didn't cook/wasn't planning). And I want to start planning more meals around what we have. I don't know how well I can do that, though, because sometimes it is so difficult to get my family to tell me what they want/like to eat so when they finally do I jump on it!

The other big thing I am trying to work on this month is adulting better. Specifically-keep up on the little housekeeping things before it builds up too much. I am tired of constant clutter and a dirty kitchen and a messy bedroom. I am also tired at the end of a long day of work so I am hoping by doing a little in the morning and a little at night I won't have to spend so much of my free time cleaning. This will definitely be a work in progress.