My plan for today was to blog about something serious. Something I have been thinking about for a while. Heck, living for a while.

But then I woke up this morning and paid bills.

And now I'm at my mother's house working on laundry.

And those are probably the most awful things in anyone's life so I am much to agitated to write beautiful words and sensical similes.

So instead you're going to get a tirade on how irritating it is to pay bills!!!!

Ok, am I right?

Nobody enjoys paying those little monsters every month, nobody looks forward to the day they have to sit down at the computer and calculator and distribute your hard earned money into the hands of others. And not in the charity way.

It's just the worst.

And what makes it even worse are Due Dates.

Is there anything more wretched?

I can't do anything on time personally. I can't get anywhere on time. I can write anything on time. I can't even think in a way that will organize my day in a timely manner. Everything that I do takes at least three times as long as I think it should and that's me without kids.

That's me on a GOOD day.

Now. Take my habit for tardiness and marry it with penalties and lower credit scores and money and we have a recipe for disaster.

Thank the Lord for AutoPay. I would be lost without it. Lets not even discuss bills I have to mail in!!!! Which, I only have one. And I'm realizing, I've forgotten to pay it now this month. Shoot. Please don't shut off our water.... Actually, Country Water is super weird. There is a due date, but really only have to pay your bill once a month. And you do the reading yourself and decide how much you are going to pay. It's bizarre and they make it WAY too easy for me to forget about it!!!!!!

However, there are those certain nuggets of monthly bills that cannot be auto-paid. Or worse yet, you don't want them to be because you need to make sure you examine the bill every month and most importantly, that there is actually money in your account to pay the darn thing!

That is where I was at today. Getting all those random but important ends tied up. Now. I have a budget. And a list of bills that fall in chronological order throughout the month so I can basically sit down twice a month and make sure everything is in order. Once in the middle of the month and once at the end. It is very organized and easy to understand. I know exactly how much is coming out, when every single bill needs to be paid and the websites to move my fingers swiftly and efficiently to get to.

So, sure, I can get to the websites. But what about after I'm on the Sign In Page???? What then????? What a mess trying to remember your Sign In Names and Passwords. Good Grief. This is what makes me the most aggravated.

I swear it takes me all morning just to figure it all out. And I get so frustrated at the end of it I could just spit.

Now, an intelligent person would write them all down. And organize them. And then keep them in a safe place so that they would be protected.

In fact, I think I am an intelligent person. And guess what, I do that. I write all of the info down, I organize them and then I put them away for safe keeping. This is all of course, after I spend three hours just trying to pay three bills... But that's besides the point.

Then the month goes by.

And it's time to pay the bills again.

And we are back at square one. Every fricken' time. (Yes, I did think the use of "fricken" was vital to get my point across....)

It never fails, I can't remember where I put them. And this is months of accumulated info. Or, I just wrote down the password and now can't remember the username and vice versa.

I am a mess.

I giant mess that needs a personal assistant, not because I'm some rich thing that doesn't want to do my share of work, but because I literally can't keep anything together and for the love of Moses, I need someone sane to guide me.

Like a Seeing Eye Dog for the Blind. I need a Personal Assistant for the Tragically Scatter-Brained.

Anyway. Poor Zach this morning made the mistake of calling me during one giant fiasco. I was searching my email for the last time I had to figure this junk out and was coming up completely empty handed and digging through my files for any info or account number and also coming up empty handed and he wanted to discuss babysitters.

Do you know those times where you get off the phone with your spouse, or end a conversation with them and you're like "Ok, that was it, that was the final conversation where they realize I'm a crazy psycho that blames them for things like the world ending and snap at them for trying to set up a date, they were being super sweet and I was acting like something from a badly-ending-Lifetime-movie and tonight's the night they're finally going to leave me.....!!!!!"

No? I'm the only one that turns into Dr. Hyde with that Crazy Girl I pretend I NEVER am!!!!! Oh, thank the Lord for patient Husbands.

Well, finally, I got everything paid. Don't worry. I found a way to breath again, and my face returned to it's normal color, which is a good thing because bright red and sweaty doesn't really look good on anyone and my children remembered why they loved me and Zach just sent me a text message encouraging me to go shopping for his Christmas Party at the end of the week.

And not just because he doesn't want to be embarrassed of my Bohemian(do you like that Jen? :)) style, but because he wants me to spoil myself a little.

So, I guess he won't be filing for divorce after all. Whew.

Now, I just have to make it through a day of laundry, a trip to the DMV and recovering from a morning without coffee.

Um, is this the worst day of my life or what???? Yikes!

Well, maybe not. Something AMAZING did happen today, but I will blog about it when I'm in better spirits and not facing the Four Hounds of Hell.

And in closing, because I hate sounding ungrateful. Because I should have blogged about this in my Thanksgiving Blog and forgot because I forget everything... And because I love them so much.

I forgot to tell you how thankful I am for my Extended Family. Because truly they are the best family anyone can have! When we were growing up, My Dad, drilled into our heads that we absolutely have to love our siblings because we are all that we have, we are all that we will ever have and that if we need to be best friends and love each other always.

On a daily basis, sometimes hourly basis, I find myself repeating his words to my own children. It's one of those things where when it happens to you, you roll your eyes and laugh sarcastically and huff, "Yeah, ok, dad...." And then you grow up and realize he is right. And it's a lesson your children desperately need to know.

My dad was one of the wisest men I have ever heard of. Second, maybe only to Solomon... :) But seriously, the man had lived enough, experienced enough, messed up enough to know his stuff.

And this lesson with my siblings came from direct experience. He had three brothers who lived through hell together and when he said that you will have nothing else but family, it's because he knew what it was like to literally have Nothing but his brothers. And his Aunts and Uncles that reached out to them.

And now I have that. And not just on my dad's side, but my moms as well.

Growing up, I was a really shy child and it was really hard for me to get to know a lot of my extended family. But now, as an adult, they are some of the most important people in my life. They influence me, they help me, they offer the best advice and they do it all with the love that only family can have for each other.

They are amazing individuals. And I am truly, truly blessed and grateful to have them in my life.

My cousins too.

My parents had kids last, out of all their siblings, so I'm actually closer in age to some of my second cousins than my actual cousins. Growing up they were all married and had kids of their own and I was just this shy little girl that had no idea how to relate to them.

But then I grew up. And lost a lot of my insecurities. And opened up. And they are the sweetest people. I am so blessed to have cousins that understand me. And our family. And how crazy we can be! It's like we speak the unique language that only we understand. We have to teach it to our spouses of course, but even they don't have the shared memories of riding four wheelers in Wisconsin and going fishing with Grandma Moon, or playing games with her in a trailer that backed up to a large hill we used to roll down, or listening for hours and hours and hours to our parents talk and laugh in an old farmhouse in Gilead Nebraska with a population of 30 and home to the Pioneer Inn, or family reunions where it is impossible to learn everybody else's name but they for sure remember you when you were this tall and that you look exactly like your grandmother.

I am thankful for all of them! And I am so thankful that as I age and look more and more like my mother, and act more and more like my Grandma Lola, and get gray hairs early and spill food down my shirt every time I eat anything and venture into a career and miss my dad more and more as the years go by that I have Cousins and Aunts and Uncles to share the journey with me, reminding that I'm not alone, everybody in our family is this crazy and that it only gets worse! :) And that no matter what happens, they love me, they love my family and they support us.

It is encouraging to have that kind of support system.

It's the kind of encouraging that makes you feel like you can succeed at anything you put your mind to.

And that is exactly what I'm going to try to do.