Cars And Other Oldest Child Problems

Hey. I don’t thing I mentioned this, but a few months ago, I got my driving permit. I’ve decided not to take Driver’s Ed (I’m not required to as I’m eighteen) because the cost of the actual classes would amount to more than the discount on insurance I would receive. Anyway, I’ve been driving my dad’s old Honda Fit around. When he bought his new truck, he didn’t trade in the Honda because I was going to start driving soon. Well, I was talking to my mom about something (I don’t remember what) when it was brought up that when I move out, I’m going to have to buy another car so my brother can drive the Fit.

First, let me just say that I kinda get where she’s coming from. They already have a car for my brother to learn to drive in. However, as my little sister is five years younger than my brother, it’s not like she’ll be driving anytime soon after he is. Meaning he most likely won’t have to buy another car when he moves out since he’ll probably get to just take the Fit with him. So basically, just because I’m the oldest child, I’m going to have to buy my own car.

It’s freaking ridiculous. If anything, it should be the other way around, since I’m the oldest. I’d also say that my parents should save it for my other two little siblings to drive, since that makes sense, even though they’re five and seven years younger than my brother, but my parents will probably be like, “well, Amanda’s still five years away, why shouldn’t Roman keep the car” because they pull stuff like that all the time. I kinda feel like a brat for complaining, so let me reiterate: I’m not complaining about me not being able to keep the Honda, I’m upset that my brother most likely will be allowed to keep it just because there is a larger age gap between him and the next kid to start driving.

This is just one more annoyance to add the my ongoing mental “Oldest Child Problems” list. I get really pissed off when my little siblings complain about not being the oldest child, because seriously, I get not being able to do everything your older sibling can do, because I was always wicked close to my cousin who’s older than me by a few years, but when you’re siblings, there’s really not a lot that the parents don’t allow the slightly younger sibling to do if the older sibling can. Pretty much anything I’m allowed to do, so can my brother, and it’s always been that was, unless it was like a legal issue or something, like driving before you’re sixteen. When I first started sitting in the front seat, I was forced to take turns with my brother, even though I’m two years older than him and he has always been underweight. When I was allowed to ride my bike alone, so could Roman. When I got the new Gameboy, so did he. We always had the same bedtime, except for now, because I’m eighteen and no longer in school while he has to be in bed by 10:30 on school nights. However, he rarely, if ever, follows this rule, and it’s really not enforced by my parents. When I still had a bedtime, if it were even five minute past and I wasn’t in bed yet, I would be in trouble.

I’m just baffled by the blatant differences in my parents’ treatment of my siblings versus me. I don’t understand how it can be so much different. I get that we’re all different and thus should be reprimanded differently and treated differently in different situations, but to an extent. My sister is eleven, and I know for a fact that when I was ten, I was folding laundry, because I accidentally said “crap” in front of my mom while switching it over once (and my siblings say crap and worse all the time and are mostly just left alone or given a minor slap on the wrist). My sister has no chores at all except for sometimes bringing the hamper down to the laundry room, sometimes cleaning the bunny’s cage, and very rarely scooping the cat litter (not even changing it, just scooping). AJ is nine and has no chores at all. He doesn’t even have to clear his own plate from the table (neither does Amanda).

I guess I just don’t understand why there’s such a huge difference. Am I the only one who feels this way? Let me know in the comments.

Okay, I’ve gotta go. It’s Camp NaNoWriMo, and I have to get writing. Bye!

-Sam

You’ve Gotta Be Freaking Kidding Me….

Hey. I know I’ve been absent for just short of six months. I’m going to try to fix that. Anyway, today my parents drove up to New Hampshire to buy a camper, leaving me and my sixteen-year-old brother home alone (my parents brought my two littlest siblings to my grandma’s for the day). My mom didn’t leave a list of chores, like she usually does, but just told me to get my folding done and clean one small area of the house up. I folded and cleaned up the gaming area, and then decided to do some extra, because I wanted to surprise her. I scooped the cat litter, vacuumed around the bunny’s cage, and cleaned her cage. I then swept the kitchen floor.

So, my parents come home around four, four-thirty. My mom and I are talking and she says something like, “I’m glad you both got your stuff done today.” I’m like, wait a second, Roman did nothing all day. She says, “He cleaned the cat litter.”

Excuse me??

I start to get mad at this point, because, as conniving as he is, I never expected him to stoop this low. My mom says, “Oh, you both must’ve scooped it,” which, even if this were the case, that right there should tell you all you need to know about my brother’s idea of “clean”. I’m like, no, I scooped it, he didn’t. She gets mad at me and says that I’m taking away from the extra that I did today by arguing. I say, “I’m not arguing anything, I’m simply stating facts!”

And that’s pretty much how the conversation went, ending with my mom and I going in separate directions for the next few minutes. But seriously, are you fucking kidding me? Who the hell does that? At least lie about something neither of us did! Don’t try to take credit for my fucking work, asshole!

Anyway, yeah, I’m kinda freaking pissed. But whatever.

Tonight, I’m sleeping in a tent in our backyard with my two youngest siblings, AJ and Amanda. They’re asleep right now. I’m going to go watch some Netflix now, then try to get some sleep. Bye!

-Sam

And People Wonder Why I’m Always Pissed….

Hey. I haven’t even been eighteen for two weeks and my life is already spiraling back to the same hellish state it’s been for years. Freaking Amanda, my sister (she’s ten now), just can’t help herself from making up lie after lie about me to get me in trouble, and my parents just eat it up, because God forbid Sam ever be allowed to not be the “problem child.” Screw that. Seriously, how the hell am I supposed to coexist with these assholes if they don’t even let me try and be good?!

I’d been doing much better at controlling myself in the midst of all of this bullshit for awhile, but these past few days have been harder. I don’t know why. All I know is that I can’t wait to get my shit together and get the hell out of here. I’m so fucking tired of being the family scapegoat for fucking everything! It’s always my fault, somehow. Doesn’t matter if I’m in a different room, or not even home, everything always ends up back at me. Seriously, I can’t make this shit up. Fuck this.

And, of course, anyone who observes this always assumes that my parents are automatically right and always have some prior reason to be extra pissed off at me this time. I can’t even really vent to anyone because they always blame me! I want to scream and cry and punch holes into walls and kick down doors and a bunch of other super-destructive shit like taking a baseball bat and smashing shit, but it’s not like I can do any of that, and imagining karma coming back to bite them in their asses isn’t really cutting it anymore. One of these days I’m just gonna snap, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen then. I really don’t. It scares me, it truly does.

Fuck this shit.

-Sam

P.S. I’m not gonna kill myself or my family or anything (because apparently I need to clarify this). Honestly, I think that would be a cop-out. Really not my style. I’m more of a flip-’em-the-bird, fuck-you-all-I-succeeded-despite-all-of-your-bullshit person, anyway.

I’ve Officially Gotten A New Generation Hooked On Bones

Hey. As I said in my last post, I’ve started watching Bones. Well, more like I binge-watched all ten-and-a-half seasons during the second week of December and have been rewatching them ever since, but whatever. Anyways, a few weeks ago, my sister was hanging out with me in my room and I happened to be watching Bones on my Xbox 360, using the Netflix app. She asked what I was watching and I was like, “Oh my God, Mina, this is Bones, it’s so awesome, oh my God, here, let’s watch it from the beginning, we’ll start at the first episode of season one!” Ever since then, she’s been hooked, watching episodes on Netflix in her free time. Turns out, she also told all of her friends about Bones, too, and now they’re obsessed with it, too, and they told their friends and now I seem to have gotten an entirely new generation obsessed with Bones.

I kinda feel like I should be getting paid for this….

Anyways, I’m gonna end this post now. I know it’s pretty short, but I want to go set everything up for Camp NaNoWriMo , which is next month. Bye!

-Sam

Just To Clarify….

Hey. I know my last post may have seemed full of hatred toward my sister; however, that is not the case. While, yes, I was super pissed at her for acting the way she did and getting me into a shitload of trouble, I love her more than life itself. She’s my little sister and I would give my life for her in a heartbeat. She’s just a fucking asshole at times (but aren’t we all?).

Ugh. I’ve been sick literally this entire fucking month! I missed every single school day from Friday, October 30, through and including the entire next week. My first day back was last Monday. And, top it off, I’m fucking sick again! My throat is fucking killing me, and MY ENTIRE FUCKING BODY HURTS!! I can’t deal with this! Ugh!

-Sam

My Annoying, Manipulative, Conniving Little Sister

Hey. I’m back, hopefully for good this time. I’ve been neglecting this for well over a year now, and I’ve come to realize just how soothing it really is to post all of my shit here. God, where do I even start…?

Well, I suppose I’ll start with right now. My fucking sister, Amanda. She’s nine now. I’ve never been anywhere near as fucking pissed off at her as I am at this moment and have been recently. My mom brought my two brothers to football practice, where my dad already was, so me and Amanda were gonna stay home alone. She was to do her homework and I was to do mine. Okay, sure. Fair enough. Right?

Yeah, well, literally the second my mom closes the front door, Amanda starts being bitchy. Her new ploy to get me in trouble is to pretty much make up a whole fucking argument with me in her head, where she’s actually yelling at me in real life but I’m still SILENTLY SITTING IN THE FUCKING RECLINER WHILE TYPING MY HOMEWORK. Remember, my mom hasn’t even been out of the house for a fucking minute yet. So I turn to look at her and say simply, “Do your homework.” I’m actually quite proud of myself for keeping myself so calm.

Anyways, she does that fucking little pretend gasp thing that you really only see the shallow, bitchy girl in all those stupid Disney movies do. “That’s it, I’M telling MOM!” So my sister seriously fucking sprints to the front door, rips it open, and runs out after my mom (who isn’t even in her fucking car yet!!), screaming how I’m already yelling at her and telling her to shut up.

Excuse me?!

Naturally, my mom believes the little conniving nine-year-old over her eldest, seventeen-year-old daughter who was left in charge and hadn’t moved an inch since she walked out the door. I hear her yell my name – “Samantha Rose Murphy, get out here right now!” – and I go over to the door just in time to get yelled at about how I better not give Amanda any crap and to just leave her alone. After about five or ten “OKAY, Mom!”s, my sister and I are back inside again and my mom gets in her car and drives away.

I tell Amanda, “Okay, you heard Mom, start getting that homework done.” What does she say to me in return, you ask? Why, a fierce “shut up!” of course. Taking a deep breath to try and keep my cool (which is definitely starting to slip by now), I say to her something along the lines of, enough with the attitude, I’m the babysitter, I’m in charge, just do your homework so I can leave you alone. “Don’t make me call Mom!” she threatens, and I’m almost unable to stop myself from laughing, but luckily I hold it in, telling her to go ahead, try it, before turning back to my computer.

She proceeds to search the house for the next five minutes, looking for one of our house phones. When she finds it, she calls my mom’s cell. The first time, she leaves a message, and is (no joke) in the middle of telling the answering machine how I screamed at her to shut up and how I’m just being a big jerk to her. I call over very, very calmly and tell her to stop making up stories. She SCREAMS at me “SHUT UP!!!!” while still talking to the answering machine and starts screaming/crying. You know, that screeching kids do when they’re trying to fake sob? Yeah, that.

She then redials my mom’s number. This time, my mom picks up. Amanda goes straight into her act, telling my mom, “Mooooooommmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyy, Sammi’s being a big jerk! She’s yelling at me and calling me names and telling me to shut up!”

Which, might I remind you, is a total, 100% lie. Seriously. I am NOT making this up. Honestly? I wish I were….

My mom tells her to “put your sister on the phone right now!” Already having another handheld right next to me, I press talk and tell Amanda to hang up since I’m on with the other phone. Naturally, she yells “NO!” and of course my mom doesn’t care. She goes right into shouting at me to take my stuff and get into my room and don’t interact with Amanda and just leave her alone. I will admit that I reached my limit during this “conversation” (more like sentencing!) and snapped. I yelled at my mom over the phone, “She’s lying! Really, Mom, I’ve literally done nothing except tell her to do her homework and not be a little brat to me!”

My mom ends up screaming back at me, “I DON’T CARE, JUST GET INTO YOUR ROOM, AND IF I GET ANOTHER CALL I’M COMING BACK TO GET HER AND THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY!!!” Of course, we exchange more than just that summarization, but you get the point. I hang up and proceed to my room where I very gently close the door so I don’t accidentally slam it in my anger.

Anyways, about ten, fifteen minutes later, my mom bangs on my door. I’m super confused and ask her “why are you here, you said you weren’t gonna get her unless there was another problem?” to which she responds “maybe just think about it!” Very meanly, might I add. She then proceeds to yell in my face (literally – her toes were touching mine) to make sure I shower, do the dishes, and send my homework to her (because God forbid I actually send it to just my teacher, right? Nooooooo, cuz I would totally be lying about that unless she fucking sees it which is stupid because she’s so fucking technologically inept I get in trouble because she doesn’t know how to fucking open and view my work anyways!!). She then wordlessly turns and slams the front door on her way out, refusing to acknowledge me asking “what the hell just happened?!?!” Of course, I don’t ask like that since I don’t swear at all in front of her, but still.

And so is the story of my life. I wish I could say this is a rare, even isolated occurrence, but, alas, it is not. Not even close. I have to deal with this shit every single day! Sometimes I’m actually stumped how I haven’t literally exploded and how my guts don’t cover the walls of my house yet.

I’ll try to start doing the whole blog thing regularly again. Like, I said, I miss you guys. Later.

-Sam

P.S. Oh yeah, and on top of everything else, I’ve been sick since early Friday morning. Yeah, like I even have the fucking energy to be a fucking asshole to you, Amanda….

Four Days Down And I’m Already 6,370 Words Behind

Hey! So, I’ve been super busy the last four nights. On Tuesday, I wrote 10+ freaking pages of a Dos quarter project (which, by the way, ended up 18 pages!), reviewed it, and re-wrote the final draft. So, I only got 963 out of 1,666 words done that day. Wednesday night, I volunteered at my school’s freshman (and LEAP) orientation, which was from 6:30 – 8:30. I didn’t get home until around 3:45, either. I only got 928 words written Wednesday. On Thursday, I was exhausted and feeling sick, so I went to bed at, like, 7 o’clock, plus I met with teachers at school until 4, so I got home around 4:30, which left 2 1/2 hours in between, where I did homework, ate dinner, and took a shower, so I only wrote 72 words. Wow. Amazing.

Last night was my sister’s 8th birthday. Which, by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMANDA!!

Last night, as you may be able to tell, was a change of pace, birthday-wise, yet it was the same, word count-wise (sort of- you’ll see why). I left school at noon because I had a doctors appointment, but that ended a half hour before school normally does, so I would’ve had a bunch of time to write, had it been a regular day. It wasn’t. My mom and I ate at McDonalds real quick, then ran to Party City (by the way, I’m very disappointed in you, Party City- iParty is way better. You shouldn’t’ve bought it out!) because we needed party stuff. We spent about an hour there, because we couldn’t find anything we needed except for party favors.

Party City, you’re a lame-o. I mean, Frozen is the biggest movie right now. It only makes sense that you’d carry Frozen themed party supplies.

But noooo, of course not- only napkins and two balloons. So, we had to improvise, and we tried to find any types of goodie bags that weren’t themed. We ended up having to ask where they were, too, since Party City is kinda disorganized, in my opinion.

Anyways, we finally leave Party City and go to Stop & Shop across the street to pick up the cake and get Mina’s card (Mina is Amanda’s nickname because that’s what she called herself when she was little), which, by the way, I picked out. By the time we get home, it’s past 4, so I have to rush to get everything ready. On a side note, I killed my thumb again (I’d slammed it between the upstairs-bathroom under-the-sink cabinets the night before) by trying to use scissors, and when I tried to squeeze the scissors together, the bump on my thumb pressed up against the scissors. I literally screamed. Ouch.

So, we go to my sister’s party. We leave at 6:15 and get home at 9:45. As of last night (not counting the words I’m supposed to do today that I’m probably going to fall short of, too), I only had 1,963 words written total, leaving me 6,370 words behind. At this rate, I won’t finish on April 30- I’ll be done sometime around the end of July!

Not that I’m not trying, of course. Because I am. It’s just, how the hell am I supposed to write about 1,600 words a day when everyone is nagging me to do something else (and the occasional thing I want to do besides write)?

Camp NaNoWriMo is great. I absolutely love it. I just wish my life wasn’t so hectic so I could actually have a chance to win it!

I guess I’ll have to do most of my work on the weekends. Scratch that, I’ll have to do most of my work locked up in my room on a Sunday, since Saturday is ~cough~ hell day ~cough~ excuse me, I must be getting sick or something 🙂 Saturday is chore day. All. Freaking. Day. And if my mom sees me doing “nothing” (a.k.a. sitting on my bed typing) on Sunday, she’ll give me more chores. It’s a lose-lose situation for me 😦

Anyways, I need to step up my game. Not only do I want to finish Running for the sake of finishing it, I want to get to the end because I absolutely love how it turns out. It’s freaking amazing (plus, I have it more planned out then I do now, so it’ll be easier to get more words in a shorter amount of time).

And, besides all that, it’d be nice just to win at something for once. Especially something I won at because of me.

I just wish it wasn’t so damn hard to find time. I swear, during NaNoWriMo months, the whole world conspires against me to make sure I have no time to write.

I came to a realization last night, which was that when I have no time to write, my brain it on idea overload, yet when my computer is in front of me, I’m working slowly (for me- it’s probably the normal person’s fast). I seriously hate that. Like, why?!

One things my ADHD brain simply cannot stand is editing. Which is what makes NaNoWriMo great, because you don’t have to edit anything for that month. I don’t really know why I hate editing so much, except for maybe because it’s a little repetitive, and my personality+ADHD+repetitive=NOT GOOD.

Also, I hate to write a bunch of detail. I hate to read a bunch of detail, too. Like, a little bit is okay, but don’t get all J. R. R. Tolkien on me! I can’t deal with it, partly because of my ADHD, partly because I just have a short attention span in general. I literally have to force myself to write a lot of detail sometimes, like for The Crystal Guardians: Book 1, when I’m explaining all the Reddikan stuff since it’s alien (literally), and people won’t be able to picture it or understand it well unless I explain it with great detail.

My friend had 5,577 words written. As of before 6:30 p.m. two days ago (April 3). And I’m just here like, yeah, today I gotta write more than you have total to be on par.

So, yeah. I’m gonna go write. Wish me luck! Bye!

-Sam

P.S. As usual, the original image URLs can be found by clicking the images, which I do not own, nor do I pretend to own.

Please Help

Hey. So, I’m almost in tears right now. I just found out that the son of AJ’s school counselor, the mother of Amanda’s preschool best friend, has cancer. Please pray for Thomas and his family, especially that he will beat this beast. If you don’t pray, then please do something! Whatever you do, please do it!

-Sam

P.S. His CaringBridge can be found here.

Where Are You Burban?!

Hey. Burban is missing. We can’t find her anywhere. She’s been AWOL since around 3 in the afternoon (I think that’s when I saw her last). It was around when Gabby left. Which scares me, cuz it makes me wonder if she somehow got past me and out the door, even though I was watching for her. I’m crying. I’m so scared. What if she’s hurt? What if she’s dead?

Hey again! The reason I say that is because that first part was written about a half hour ago. I stopped the post and went to find Burban. Following advice from my Uncle’s mom (not my grandma, since he’s not my blood uncle, but he’s my uncle in all the other ways), I looked in Amanda and AJ’s closet (they share a room), and after pushing aside all of the crap that was in a huge pile on the closet floor, found Burban! I was so relieved! I pulled her out and into my arms for a ginormous bear hug, which, surprisingly, she stayed calm and still for (she normally stays still for hugs from me and my mom, no one else, but I hugged her very, very tightly). I am so happy right now, you don’t even know. Phew. My mind was going to dark places, like thinking she wasn’t going to be here for Christmas and stuff like that. But it’s all better now. Thank you, God! Alright, I guess that’s it. Oh, wait. I kept my posting streak. Again! This is the seventh day, I believe. Okay, that’s really it. Bye!

-Sam

Christmas Shopping Is Done!!

Hey! Thanks to Amazon and my Dad’s credit card (for the ordering- I’m paying for the stuff myself…), my Christmas shopping is D-O-N-E done! Yay! Now I can focus on other, “fun” things, like waiting for Christmas. Have I ever mentioned that I hate patience? WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! If you are Mrs. Arruda, Mom, Dad, Ro, Mina, AJ, Uncle, Gabby, Rebecca, or Zach, do not, I repeat, do NOT read any further. Skip the rest of this post until after Christmas, since I will be in the middle of telling everyone what your gifts are. So, here we go. For Mrs. Arruda, we require a bit of a backstory. She is our school’s secretary, and she does, like, EVERYTHING! Well, her dad died last month, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. When I went to his wake, I gave her a box. In it was a note (among two other things that I might say in another post). It said not to worry about her dad, because I knew he was in Heaven, since I saw two rainbows, one on each side of the sun, the day he died (I explained in the note how I read somewhere how everytime someone dies, God sends a rainbow to carry them to Heaven). Ever since then, she has been seeing rainbows everywhere. So, for Christmas, to get her into the Christmas spirit (she hasn’t been feeling it, understandably), I decided to give her a gift. It is a Kikkerland Window-Mount Solar-Powered Heart Rainbow Maker. Isn’t that a great idea?! I thought so. I just hope it isn’t late, since it is supposed to be in on Thursday, and Friday is the last school day of the year. Anyway, for Mom, I got a nice clear glass cross. For Dad, a Steelers fan, I got a Terrible Towel. For Ro (Roman), my brother, I got another Terrible Towel, plus a mini Statue Of Liberty. For Mina (Amanda), my sister, an I ❤ NY coin purse, a mini NY bell, and a mini Statue Of Liberty. For AJ, my brother, a Santa-In-The-Box, a mini NY bell, and a mini Statue Of Liberty. For Uncle, a serious Trekkie (like me 🙂 ), a replica Starfleet Command division badge. For Gabby, one of my best friends, a creeper (Minecraft) pendant necklace. For Rebecca, my other best friend and a lover of Lord Of The Rings, an action figure set with Bilbo, Thorin, Dwalin, Kili, and Fili. And for Zach, my cousin, a Patriots licence plate frame. Aren’t those great ideas?! Wow, this was a long post. I will end it here. Bye!

-Sam