Hard Earned Money

Today was a grueling day with the little people. I sent a message to hubby before he left to come home and told him that he HAD to take the little people out - for my sanity. I won't go into all that happened... Except about the geese... Later though... Anyway... When hubby took the little people out that my was golden opportunity to clean the living room that they had taken great pleasure in destoying today.

I started cleaning and then got angry because the kids had so many pieces of games and puzzles on the floor. I had the urge to just throw it all away. Then I thought "What? Throw it away? You paid for it all with your hard earned money!" So I stopped and thought about it. Hard earned money. A concept kids really don't get. I got my first lesson about 'hard earned money' when I was really small, maybe 3 or 4. In a particularly rare and malicious moment I got my daddy's pay check and tore it into pieces. I didn't know WHAT it was, but it was something that was important to daddy and since he made me angry I would take his important thing and tear it up. I got my ass tore up for this 'hard earned money' stuff. Well that's when I learned not to touch daddy's 'hard earned money' Valuable lesson. Later in life I learned that adults talk about this 'money' stuff a lot and I learned to get STUFF I needed this 'money'. The shiny round money was more fun than the paper stuff - at least at that age! I got older and realized that the paper money was the best to have and that it was pretty damn hard to get from the parental units. When I was 11 or 12 I learned how to earn that 'hard earned money'. I baby-sat and did chores to get it, suddenly it meant a lot more. I could get stuff with my 'hard earned money', I really didn't know what the hell was up with the parental units. They worked all the time and always said they didn't have enough 'hard earned money' when I could baby sit for an evening, make $20!!! And that was MORE than enough for things I wanted... Well maybe not MORE than enough, but I could get stuff and that was pretty damn cool - the only thing cooler was when the parental units gave me money (which was RARE). When I became a teen I suddenly had to finance myself. The parentals still took care of food and a place to sleep but I paid for every thing else out of my 'hard earned money' - which really didn't seem all that hard at that time. I had a coshie after school job that made more than most of my friends did - but when you figure I had to buy my own school clothes and school supplies, lunch money, bus fare, etc... That 'hard earned money' didn't seem to last long enough for me. I had the appreciation of 'hard earned money' by the time I moved in my hubby. We lived in the cutest little apartment and bought a cute little car. We didn't make a lot but I started thinking that my parents had no freaking clue how to manage their 'hard earned money' because for some reason hubby and I could do just fine on what we made. Then came our first child. I still had the naive thought that the parents were just bad with money... Although that was getting a less harsh view of that now that I had a child. Then came the second child and everything in between. Now that 'hard earned money' had to go even further than before. And before I knew it I started sounding like my mom when my kids were begging for crap in the stores. No, no, no, no, no, no... It was like a song.
ugh... Back to the mess... I look down at the floor and all the game pieces and puzzle pieces and then it hit me. Fuck it! Picking up all this crap and sorting it all the damn time isn't worth my TIME. Something that is just a bit more valuable than my 'hard earned money'. So I bagged it all up and threw it away. The little people never noticed and I'm not stepping on it today. Sometimes time and sanity are more important than that 'hard earned money'. Life is good.