Friday, December 20, 2013

Where are you Christmas?

We are not exactly getting our jolly on this holiday season. The bright spot has been the astounding success of the kids' toy drive, which raised almost 700 dollars, and allowed us to donate a van full of toys to St. Vincent DePaul. The kids loved seeing the "workshop" where volunteers were wrapping and sorting the gifts, and meeting a few of the children at the day shelter.

That's the good. And it's very good. But the bad is unfortunately pretty darn bad. Cassie's been sick for a week now. We thought she might have pneumonia, but fortunately it's only an upper respiratory infection. But she has coughed until she's vomited a few times, coughs all night long, and her throat is so raw that she can't eat. She hasn't felt well enough to go out, so we missed the Christmas parades and are pretty much housebound.

Our financial situation is pretty bad. Okay, make that gravely bad. Ever since I bought the van in September, I've been robbing Peter to pay Paul each month to make the payments, and then the brake repairs, the increase in insurance premiums, and now my bank account is several hundred dollars in the negative and I have about 40 bucks in cash for the next month. I can't really knit fast enough to make much money at it. I wish I had six hands. So while the kids were happy to sacrifice getting a lot of gifts this year, the lack of funds for baking, activities, or a real Christmas dinner is a downer. Walt ran over some glass on his bike and needs a new tire, and that's going to have to wait. I have no idea how I'm ever going to catch up. I'm considering turning the van back over to the dealership and living without a vehicle.

Between Cassie being sick and worrying about money, my anxiety has been at Defcon 12 and I'm not getting much sleep. She wakes up 2-4 times a night needing me, and when I try to go back to sleep my thoughts run around inside my skull like adhd monkeys on Red Bull. Joy to the world, right? Unfortunately I think I'm just ready for the holiday season to be over.

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