I should blame myself for this.  And I do.  I feel stupid for even being upset over this because it's pretty much my own fault for giving in to her.  But there is only so much guilting you can take from someone, only so many fits you can stand watching her throw, and only so much bullshit you can tolerate.  Because mother has been asking to go to buy some flowers for many weeks now.  She is obsessed with planting and gardening and yardwork.  Which is fine.  It's a hobby and I get it.  Growing up, we always had a big garden (never blocked off, so all of our veggies were covered in dog piss, yum).  And she always had several flower gardens, which were very pretty.  She always has, and still has, a knack for planting.  Which also means she takes over any gardening that you want to do, too.  Last summer was a fucking bitch trying to have my veggie garden.  She even got so mad at me for thinking I knew better than her, that she killed half of it on purpose...just as she did my flowers I had planted, too.  I always have a veggie garden.  I have for years.  But since she had one back when I was a kid, she thought she knew better than me, as though I knew nothing at all, even though I grew all my plants from seed and she buys hers at the store (no problem with either, but I obviously also know what I am doing). 

Here are my mother's hobbies: drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, accumulating cats and not taking care of them properly, planting, and buying shoes.  Before 2010, you could also add "drinking beer" to that list, which she drank as much as she drank her coffee.  She also loves to talk in baby voices, hillbilly voices, making various sounds like a total loon, and pretending she knows everything, when in fact, she knows pretty much nothing.  As a teen, you think your parents know jack shit.  But my parents really did and still know jack shit, so my teen belief that I was smarter than them was justified.  Hell, I was probably smarter than both of them put together when I was seven (and that's not a testament to my intelligence, but rather to a lack of theirs). 

After mumsie came home from her stay at the rehab facility after a few months in the beginning of this year, I completely took over her finances.  And I took over the house.  Whereas before she left, she acted like sole owner of our house, and I was relegated to my room.  I didn't even feel like I live here, that I was just taking a really long visit in a place that wasn't mine in the least (even though I do all the cooking, all the laundry, pay all the bills, and all that jazz).  So I took over and even filled the house with new furniture while she was gone.  Dick move, I know.  But how else would I ever, ever feel like this was my family's house, too?  Not only that, we all have had some major issues moving in with things breaking (for one, our basement stairs) and who is stuck footing the bill because there is ZERO savings?  Me and my hubby, that's who.  And she a few times tried to argue with me about paying me back.  So I said that's it, we're done.  After some very shitty and strange purchases on her part for the past year prior, plus her blowing all her money each month on various bullshit (and I mean bullshit), I decided that she's on a budget and cannot be trusted to make financial decisions anymore (especially considering she a--stopped paying on her life insurance because she would go under in her bank constantly and b--she stopped paying car insurance for at least six months due to the same reason) and I put her ass on a strict budget.  She gets a certain amount of spending money each month to buy whatever bullshit she wants (and it's a lot of money for one person) and the rest goes towards bills and savings and paying off her insanely high credit card she maxed out.  And if she needs things like soap, underwear/socks, etc (needs, not wants), that will come out of her other money that would normally go into savings.  I buy all those things for her, as she's not allowed to go to the store and buy groceries or necessities because she goes hog wild and spends all her money. 

So, she ran her money down to $80 for this month.  For some reason she's been buying all sorts of things lately (which is why I don't take her shopping much, she will spent all her money for the month in ONE DAY if I let her).  She goes through cycles of this.  This spending spree crap.  Though, I have to say, she's been through one long cycle of that for many years, until I put her on a budget and stopped letting her go shopping (and stopped letting her drive last year).  She's never been on a budget and now she is, and she hates it.  So much so, she thinks that I will automatically buy her shit if she doesn't have enough money.  And sometimes I do, but most of the time I say no.  And she throws a temper tantrum.

I've been telling her all month since she spent most of her money that she only has $80 left.  But she gave me a list of all the flowers she wanted to buy online.  They equaled almost $150.  I said "Well, you don't have the money for this.  Why don't we go to the flower shop instead?"  I think that's what she was trying to get me to do anyways by showing me that list.  And of course, I fell for it.  Anyways, we go to the flower shop, and she runs off by herself and my husband and son went looking for her.  She showed them what she wanted and loaded up her cart, they didn't see the prices.  I saw the shrubs she was buying and knew they were at least $50 a piece.  And sure enough, I was right.  I marched up to her and said "You only have $80.  You were told that this morning.  Those plants in your cart are $150!"  She said "Well, I get paid in three days."  I said yes, but right now, I have to pay for your crap out of my account in order to get them.  She put her mopey face and guilted me, which worked and I said fine, but it's coming out of next month's money.  Which is silly because that's a HUGE amount of money to spend on plants for any month!  

So I pay for them (I also got a bunch of veggie plants that equaled $25 in total for myself, since some of my veggies I planted from seed died).  And then I come home and we have a good day for the rest of the day.  Fun, right?  I get up this morning, and go to transfer her $80 to my account to help pay for her shrubs I paid for her (she keeps buying shrubs on purpose because she wants to show me that we're staying in this house forever, which we are not...and that really, really makes her mad, so she keeps planting things that we'll never enjoy because we'll be gone from here by the time they are full size-which is so freaking dumb, but you can't tell her anything, because she will do whatever she likes just to prove SHE has control) and what do you think I found when I opened our bank app?

Her money was practically gone.  She has a $80 credit from Spring Hill because she bought rose bushes that immediately died upon planting.  She said yesterday she REFUSES to buy plants anymore online because of that.  I said we'll you'll lose $80 then!  And those roses were from the last time I spent almost $200 on her plants out of my money because she didn't have the money last time, either.  (again, my fault, I know this--but that came after her huge meltdown of 2020--there is always one each year--where she flipped the fuck out and then cried profusely about it, and then begged me to buy her plants for her...what a manipulation, but I fell for it...like always).  And I check her bank account and see she bought two more plants online (not where she has her credit, though, of course) and she bought FOUR magazine subscriptions.  What in the hell?  

Sigh.  So obviously I should have got in the car yesterday after leaving the flower shop and immediately put that money in our bank account rather than waiting a day.  She knew that money was supposed to go to us to pay for her plants.  And she spent it anyways.  

She wasn't even grateful I did it, either.  Upon purchasing her plants, my son said "look at this plant, it's super neat!" and she replied in a shitty voice and rolled her eyes "your mother won't let me buy those!" He wasn't even asking her buy them, he was telling her look at them, because they were cool (for real, they were cool).   

I just hope I satiated the beast for a bit that she doesn't have another meltdown next month because she spent so much money this month that next month her budget is only $40.  Whoops!  

Oh and she was trying to get me to go to the grocery store a couple weeks ago because they had some rocking chair on sale and she wanted me to buy it for her.  For $50!  hahaha yeah I said no to that (for many reasons).  

For real, she has ZERO idea of how to budget her money.  ZERO.  When I was a kid, we were pretty well off (though we lived like paupers) and she would refuse to pay our electric bill until they sent us a pink disconnection notice...all because she spent all their money on beer and cigarettes back then (speaking of her cancer sticks, her spending money doesn't even cover her two carton a month addiction).  

ARGH.  I have enough to worry about budgeting OUR money, paying all the bills, and running my own family's household without having to worry about her bullshit tantrums and whatnot when I don't live up to her standards (she never usually says thank you when I do nice things for her, so why do I do nice things for her?).  I am just biding my time until Shady Pines becomes an option.  

Which I hope is: 

Let's hope she doesn't ask me for the rest of the summer to get anymore fucking plants!  Though, now she wants to buy shoes.  She has seven pairs already! Imma go through her closet and take all her shoes down and tell her to get rid of all the rest of her shoes if she wants more.  Because I have two pairs of shoes (same shoes): one for mowing and one for everything else and a broken pair of sandals.  That's it!  No 74 year old who doesn't like fashion needs seven god damned pairs of shoes LOL  (back when I was in my early 20's, I had seven pairs of shoes...they were sexy and awesome, but I am old now and I have TWO! LOL).  And I would not care if she wanted to buy $20 shoes.  But she wants to buy $100 shoes or $150 shoes, several times a year!  Again, nobody needs that many orthopedic shoes!  

Anyways, we'll see what her next meltdown will be about.  And before you think she's having meltdowns because I changed our house and her life so much, realize, she's been doing this for YEARS before any of that happened.  None of her fits are really about any of that.  They are just a part of who she is.  Always has been.  If she's awake, she'll be complaining or bitching or stomping her feet or whining or being rude to someone.  

Again.  Shady Pines will be when I can feel normal again.  Sigh.