I should be extremely frustrated today...but I'm not.

(if you want, skip this first section, as it's long and money-related - the rest is a little less monotonous and the last section is positive :))

DH sat down and looked at our finances the other night (I keep a loose running tab on everything in my head but I don't really "look" at it very often) and it's kind of dismaying to see how far the ends are from meeting. We're not big spenders. I don't make impulse purchases with money we don't have or without telling DH what I'm going to spend and why we need X (unlike a lot of the moms at another of my online haunts).

The problem is that we net about $1800/month, and we lose $1400 right away to utilities, rent (we live in a cramped but relatively safe complex), crappy insurance, student loans and the like. With two in diapers and the baby drinking formula (wasn't in my plans), our grocery bills aren't too pretty right now. We are grateful for food, shelter, and relative comfort compared to a lot of people in this world, but now and then the scraping by becomes audible, you know?

My grandfather, bless him, pays for my student loans right now because we just can't, and if he has a little extra at the end of the month, he rolls it into our account. It helps a ton, although sometimes we still have to put one of our grocery trips on our credit card, which is slowly maxing out on us - we make as hefty a payment as we can when we can, but sometimes that's not enough to compensate for what we spent during the last pay cycle. :-/ We've learned to eat at home, clip coupons, all that good stuff that'll stand us in good stead no matter how much we make.

Christmas is twinging me a little right now. I almost wish we could turn our paid-for-by-the-inlaws plane tickets to Germany into money in the bank, just so we could shop and not care for a month or so, but I know they deserve to see us, to play with the grandkids and I know we'll enjoy the trip. It's a colossal gift, and I'm looking forward to everything but the flights themselves. :)

Anyway, so we're tightening our belts a little, so to speak. The internet is a must for me, but if we had more kiddie videos, I'd get rid of cable in a heartbeat (though we have a reasonably good deal right now). I ditched Vent (for Guild Wars) back in February to save about $17 per quarter - not much, but everything helps. DH is too proud to fully accept that we're not doing all that well but we're cutting corners where it doesn't hurt so much. I miss Vent a lot, but I'd never admit that to him. He's working his ass off, 60ish hours a week, and getting paid for 42 at a company where even the rats are jumping ship, if you know what I mean.

Things will change for the better, hopefully soon. We're just getting our tough years out of the way first, that's all. ;-) We were discussing it the other night (stress, not just money worries) and we realized that most of the couples we know who've been together for a long time had a rather bumpy start in one way or another, my grandparents included. We're going to be fine.

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So on to the frustrations of the day...

While I was napping (thank you to my husband for that!) this afternoon, he ran the dishwasher...and apparently didn't notice any sign/sound that it ran a complete cycle without water. I don't know how that happened, but I suspect (and hope) it's just that the connection under the sink got knocked loose sometime between yesterday and today. You'd think there'd be obvious signs (before opening the dishwasher to find dishes with seared-on yuckies and a soap tray thingie that looks like it got sick after a wild party), but I guess there weren't.

Let it just be that, and let the dishwasher itself not have been harmed by running that way. It's not even ours.

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About a week ago, I placed an order at an online store I've bought from before, to complete the kids' Christmas outfits so we can get pictures taken (it'll be linebacker baby's first portraits ever) this week. (Thank you, Infernal's birthday money - the rest of which went right to bills, which felt bad for a moment.)

Well, I checked on my order status today (which I should've done sooner) and they don't even have a record of my order at all! I should have printed the "keep this page for your records" receipt when I got it, darnit. I checked our bank account online and at least they didn't charge us for it. Then I really would have been mad.

Now I have to re-order (from somewhere else this time) comparable items and hope they get here soon. We're sort of fighting time now, because we'll miss those first few weeks in December here and I want to have it all done (with pictures in hand) by then.

They're going to be so darned cute that it'll all be worth it. :) One half-decent professional shot of them in their outfits will be worth all of the time and aggravation and then some. I don't think I'm going to do a Christmasy background - just a winter one, so the pictures don't feel quite so pigeonholed into a very narrow timeframe. It'd feel weird to me to have a Christmas picture displayed after New Year's or so, but a winter one would work just fine.

Yes, I'm weird. You already know that.

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Good stuff (there's always good stuff, whether or not I remember to post it. :)):

That brought to mind destiny's matchmaker post for some reason. It made me smile wryly to myself. I don't think most people here would be too happy with me for too long - I'm just too darned weird. :-D Weird...and irrational, and intensely emotional (with a gruff "I'm fine" exterior a lot of the time that'd probably get annoying, since I refuse to cry in front of people if it can be avoided at all), and silly and bad at math and addicted to parenthetical statements, and...see, DH got stuck with all of that. The rest of you should count your blessings. ;-) I'm a much better friend than I am a life partner.

Does anyone else feel that way - that they're a better friend than a lot of the other relationship roles they play (son, parent, sister, lover, etc.)?

There's chili in my crock pot. :) DH made it - next time it's my turn, which means I'll probably be the only one who will eat it. Little one tends to have his tastes more than mine, and he likes rather bland chili, IMO. (I sneak extra spices into my bowl sometimes if he's not here.) It's so nice that it's been consistently cool enough to even consider making chili. :)

Sock post tonight if I can just get started here in a minute!