We have placed ourselves "on hold" with the agency for awhile. My brain/heart can only handle so much at a time and right now my focus is on Squishy (he is having some struggles at work) and our current family. The new house is AMAZING, but with it comes new bills and a necessity to overhaul our budget. I've never before in my life paid a water bill or a gas bill, so I am completely clueless as to how to estimate them (I even tried googling "average water bill for our city" and no success).
My heart is just overwhelmed right now. A friend lost her husband who was deployed last weekend. Kind of just feels like a punch to the gut. As wives, we do our best to prepare ourselves, but I just want to run to her and hold her tight. And a co-workers daughter recently got told she has cancer. And the father of two dear friends is in the hospital... this man was a primary male role model for me for many years and my heart is breaking for my "brother and sister," who have enough on their plate. There is so much bad and sad in the world, that I find myself completely unable to tolerate people who are negative about minor things.
Things were pretty stressful in our house this week and I know it was a combination of stress from the move/overtiredness/and illness. I was very crabby and negative must of the week. I've learned that when I'm in a that kind of mood, I tend to attract more negative things into my life. Or I notice the bad things more. And I let them impact me more. For example, on Thursday, I stopped by the store to buy a get well card for the above mentioned daughter with cancer. Debit card got declined. WHAT?!? It seriously put me in a funk the rest of the day, even after I logged onto our account and got it squared away (we have overdraft protection, so no harm, no foul). It was just a simple mistake since I have been distracted, but I let it eat away at me.
My point is, we all have bad days. We are all allowed bad days. But the key here is "DAYS." I'm so over the people who just complain. I'm tempted to go through my facebook account and if you haven't said anything positive in your last three status updates... DELETE.
Like I said, this week was pretty rough for me. I'm a compulsive planner type and suddenly events happened with Squishy's job that made me question our long term financial future. To put it mildly, I freaked the heck out. But after a few days, I feel in a much better place. Maybe even better than I was before the scary events because I'm in a much deeper place of gratitude.
When I was freaking out on Monday, I did something that I don't think I have ever done: I turned to my dad for guidance first. I usually go to my mom (the 'rents have never been together in my lifetime), but this time, within minutes, I was firing off an e-mail to my dad. God bless that man... he e-mailed me back almost instantly, and e-mailed several times over the course of the next few days to follow up. And on Thursday (the same crappy Thursday above), he left me a voice mail message in which he told me he loved me twice in about 30 seconds. It made a world of difference to me.
Some big lessons/reminders that came out of this week: on our very worst day, Squishy and I still have each other. I take that for granted A LOT. I take him for granted A LOT. But the fact is that life is always going to have struggles, but I am so very thankful that during all of the struggles, I have him as my co-captain. We have an incredibly amazing and healthy son. Squirt is a lot of things right now at 2 1/2.... stubborn being the first one that comes to mine. But he is healthy and he is here and he is ours. As I type, the tears start as I think about the friends who don't have that.
I've mentioned it before, but I find great comfort in counting my blessings. Some days I have to start with the very basics: clean air and water. I heard that song "and I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free" the other day. I'm not super uber patriotic and "Go America," but I am completely thankful for the things we have in this country that we so often take for granted. The song says something about how if you woke up and had absolutely nothing but your spouse and kids, you would be thankful to be in America, where starting over is possible.
Sorry this is kind of an all-over the place post... I'm just kind of feeling all over the place inside. It is hard coping with struggles and trying to remain focused on the positives and the basics.
And now, I'm going to get off the computer and go snuggle with that amazing husband of mine and whisper in his ear just how truly appreciative I am of him.
I don't know exactly what to say, because I don't know all of your struggles, but I think it will get better. =) I can tell you that OUR water/sewer/garbage (all on one) bill is about $40.00 a month. And our electric/gas bill (all on one) is $170.00 a month. In the 11 years we have lived here they have not changed much at all. And we have pretty poor insulation/windows in an old house which is drafty.
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