From Mama’s Losin’ It, Ok I did it, I skipped last weeks blog prompts because, well they were boring and didn’t make me want to write anything and so I haven’t really until now.  Inspired by Dave, I am Writing a Letter.  I was blog surfing and looking at a blog I had never visited before, a single mum raising her kids in this amazing house.  Dave noted that all of the blogs I seem to read are written by pretty wealthy chicks with pretty, large houses.  Those who know us know that we don’t live this kind of life.  Life is quite often very hard for us, money is tight, I am frequently overcome with anxiety, worry and stress to the point that my heart beats out of time and I feel like I am going to explode.

Dear Chicks with Perfect Lives as you portray them in Your Blogs,

It is so nice to look at your ‘messy house pictures’, your bad day pictures  – I think this is your attempt at letting people know that under the acrylic nails and the perfect hair your are still human, but you only open this tiny window into your life.  That’s cool, that’s what blogs are for, you can decide how much or how little to disclose.  But what is really going on with you?  There is a reason why this morning you just didn’t give a shit and decided that instead of cleaning your kitchen it would just feel better to take a picture of it and hopefully garner some sympathy from other procrastinating mama’s out there.  What happened?  Was it that huge bill that just arrived?  Are you going to have to rape your meager savings to pay your mortgage this month?  Are your kids growing so fast that you can’t afford any new clothes this winter because you’re constantly shopping for your babies.  There was a reason why you didn’t load your fancy dishwasher this morning.  Lets hear it!

Why does no-one ever write about what’s really going on?  Are your lives really this golden?  Are there really that many people blogging out there with no financial concerns, no homesick husbands who want to visit their family ‘but too bad we can’t afford it”, no-one with friends coming to stay for 27 days and you’re worrying about how you are going to be able to entertain them and show them around NZ on a shoestring budget that is apt to break with the slightest amount of pressure?

Hello, my name is Melissa and we live on a budget.  We buy store brand groceries;

We turn all of our appliances off at the wall after we are done using them, and still I am scared every time we get a power bill, we cook everything from scratch there is NEVER a pack off cookies in our house because it is cheaper to make them, we eat every scrap of left-overs we have and keep our grocery bills under $140NZD per week.  All of this and still gas keeps going up, the cost of power keeps going up, food prices rise and you know what?  I want to have another baby but I am too scared that we can’t afford it.  This is our real life.  We are living in a recession, are you?

We are also lucky, we have an amazing son, our marriage is fantastic and we make the most of every minute that we have together as a family.  These are precious these days as Dave is working two jobs, but really, what a blessing that he has two jobs as so many New Zealanders can’t get one job in this climate of redundancies and unemployment.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t envy your good fortune or your hard work that has paid for your beautiful houses, you deserve every blessing that you receive.  But what’s really going on?  That’s all I’m saying.  Why don’t you blog about the real hardships you face, the things that turn your stomach into knots?  Because we all know that the world ain’t just rainbows and unicorns that poop cinnamon buns.

I hope your manicure tomorrow is all that you hoped for,

Love Melissa