I keep hearing and reading everyone say find ways to reduce your stress, because it's harmful to your health, etc.

Well, these are the things I'm stressed about:

1.  My daughter, who is continually finding new ways of stressing me out, and generally acts 12 instead of 21.  She lets her daughter run all over the house making messes which generally don't get cleaned up.  She leaves scissors, knives, diet pills and other meds, straightening irons, makeup and generally everything laying all over the house for her daughter to get into, then bitches because of the mess (mascara on the floor, dog shampoo trailing down the hallway, etc.) 

2.  My mother-in-law, who owns the business I run and cannot seem to be able to do a single thing for or by herself in regards to the business.  When I came to work for her, I was to work 2 shifts per week and handle scheduling.  I had already been handling her taxes for her business & personal, for about 8 years.  After actually working for her for a year, I am now in charge of all the scheduling, payroll, hiring, bookkeeping, quarterly reports, correspondence with anyone and everyone connected to the business, and basically being at her beck and call 24/7.  I am not asked to do something, it is demanded.  She's even worse with my husband, who also works here.  When it all started, she would pull shifts and run errands for the patients and do the payroll.  Now, she does nothing except run for herself, shopping, going to the casino, etc.  and my husband does everything else, but she refuses to give either of us a raise.  "I need the money"  SO WORK FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!   Thursday I have to go to see the accountant (whom my MIL was forced to hire when I refused to do her taxes anymore due to it becoming wayyy too complicated for my brain to comprehend.)  She informed my husband that she and I have an appt with the accountant on the 16th at 930am in Broken Arrow.  As I said, she doesn't ask when is a good time for me, or even if I want to go.  She demands.  She makes plans and then you have to go along. 

3.  My husband, who never says no to anyone but me when it comes to favors.  If his mom calls, he's right on it; if his sister calls, he's right on it; if his niece calls, he's right on it; if a friend calls, he's on it.  If I need something done around the house or with the car, well, let's just say, I end up doing it myself or it doesn't get done.  He runs constantly, doesn't get enough sleep, is WAY overweight, HBP, hasn't seen a dr for a physical in years (because we are self-employed and have no insurance) and I'm afraid he's going to kick over with a heart attack soon.  THEN I WILL BE PISSED OFF, FOR SURE!  And I will blame his mother for putting all this on him.

4.  Money.  I am now working here 3-4 shifts  per week because we need the money, in order to pay self-employment tax (which is bullshit--why should I be penalized for being an entrepreneur???)  Just bought a car from a fam member, and got $300/$500 due us for the old car we are selling. That $300 was supposed to go for a payment to the fam member who sold us the car, but because my husband has a staph infection, we had to spend $200 on a doctor visit, tetanus shot and RX today.  Not only that, I have to figure out how much it's going to cost to change the title and register the new car.

5.  Health care.  Fucking Republicans!  Kiss my ass!  You call us Democrats socialists because we believe that this government (by the way, which is by the people, for the people and of the people) doesn't want the citizens of this country to have health care.  Or, I guess I should say, they want everyone to be responsible for their own healthcare.  Well, I guess if you're a senator or other high-ranking government employee you could probably afford $300-400 per month for your own healthcare, BUT YOU DONT' FUCKING HAVE TO BECAUSE US TAXPAYERS PAY FOR YOUR HEALTH PLAN, which I hear is a very good one by the way.  All you Republicans care about is yourselves and your rich friends, and fuck the poor, right??  Well, fuck you.  I say, if you don't want to help keep your constituents (yes, even the poor ones) alive, then that makes you KILLERS!  If you're against universal health care, you might as well say you're against LIFE--and that doesn't jibe very well with your PRO-LIFE anti-abortion message, does it?    Funny how you're willing to go to any lengths to keep a mass of unformed cells alive and growing, but once it's a full-fledged baby, born and alive, who cares if it has healthcare??  YOU'RE FUCKING MURDERERS!

6.  My sister, who has been fucked over by her ex-husband yet again, and her car broke down and I don't know how she's hanging onto her sanity.  I love her and I stress over the fact that I can't help her.

7.  My sister-in-law, who is a RX drug addict (to the point that she has purposely had 4 car accidents and hurt herself in other ways in order to go the ER and get drugs.  She also faked her way into a back surgery she didn't need, last year, and now, because of probs with that back surgery, they have to do 2 more.  She will not take care of herself, wants everyone to do everything for her, is selfish, self-centered, materialistic and PHONY.  Keeps moving from one man to another and expects all of us to drop everything we're doing so we can move her furniture for her.

8.  Sleep.  Neither me nor my husband get enough of it, due to working nights and being expected to run errands for MIL during the day.  Or for daughter, or for sister-in-law, or, occasionally, we might even have time to squeeze in an errand for ourselves.  If it's not running around, it's phone calls.  Constantly, day after day, while we're trying to sleep, the phone rings and of course it's always either extremely urgent, or something stupid.  Either way, we've been awakened and always have a difficult time going back to sleep.

9.  Hubby.  As in, relationship with.  Back in the day, he could always tell when something was bothering me and we'd talk about it.  Of course, he always had all the answers, and that pissed me off sometimes.  He can still read my emotions like a book, but if he asks what's wrong and I don't say "nothing, i'm good" he gets that look, like he just doesn't want to hear it.  If I comment that I'd like to see a psychiatrist to help deal with my stress, he starts asking why.  When I try to explain, he always has a pat answer for why that particular thing is stressful and how to solve it.  So, I end up not seeing a psych because, actually it would add to the stress of #4 above--MONEY! 

See, this is why I want to run far, far away sometimes.  I could go on, there's a lot more stress in my life than this, but my question is, how do I reduce any of this?  I can never find a job that pays this well, neither could my husband, can't change who my family is, will not move away from my granddaughter, can't change the healthcare system, can't make my husband stop answering the phone during the day, can't make him say NO to everyone instead of jumping like a frog when they holler, and I can't make him listen to me if he doesn't want to.  So, who do I talk to, how do I reduce my stress, how do I keep my sanity? 

Went and visited grandma and grandpa in the nursing home today.  Grandma's been there about a week now, and grandpa went earlier this week.  They have their own room and it's starting to look homey and cozy, but it pains me that they have to be there at all.  Grandma's memory problems are getting worse.  Grandpa told me that this morning grandma asked him how many kids they have.  And he's had to explain to her several times why they are in the home and why they can't go home.  He is very worried about her.  Then, this evening, Del says, I know you don't want to talk about this, but we need to go see your grandparents everyday, because your grandma doesn't have much time left and when it happens it will happen quick.  So that brought on the water-works.

Grandma and grandpa helped raise me and my sister, they are largely responsible for our Christianity, and when I moved away to go to college (with little Ashley in tow), they sold their home and land and moved into an apartment in the same complex where Ashley and I were moving to.  They watched her while I went to school, now she's all grown up and has her own baby, who isn't old enough to know grandma & grandpa very well, but could if Ashley would visit them more often.  I wish she would.

Work really sucks tonight.  It'd be better if I had been able to sleep yesterday, but 4 hours doesn't cut it.  I'm so tired, but Doc is not sleeping, so he's up every 45 min to 1 hour, so I can't even sneak a nap.  I don't understand how someone who takes 2 RX sleeping pills and 2 OTC rapid release sleeping pills can't fucking sleep.  He seems to sleep fine between bedtime at around 9pm until I get here at 11, then he's up and down all fucking night, then he sleeps fine after 7am when I leave until about 11 or noon.  I don't know what it is about the hours between 11p and 7a but he just can't or won't sleep.  Drives me nuts!

And next month I have to go to 4 nights a week rather than just 2 because Barbara has to have her back surgery (again--which she wouldn't need in the first place if she hadn't doctor-shopped around last year until she found a butcher willing to work on her back so she could get pain pills) and will be out at least 3 months, then she starts her dental assistant internship, so she prob won't come back to work at all.  Which doesn't hurt my feelings and we need the extra money, but I hate working 2 nights a week and now I have to double that.

I screwed up and drank a 5-hour energy drink tonight, knowing it would make my heart race without giving me any extra energy or make me any less tired.  I haven't drank any in a long time, because they do this to me, but I was soooo tired tonight I thought maybe it would help.  Well, it hasn't. 

I guess I better do my chores for the night.  Yay