long week

well the last post was a bit of a downer, i have to admit.  that song is one that has run through my head many times over many years (the words, not the tune- the tune is awful, i'm sorry to say.  totally un-singable).  i know it's not exactly cheerful but honestly, i don't always feel cheerful, and sometimes you just have to accept that you feel terrible, and lie there and feel it and rehearse all the sad songs you know, and then finally you just go to bed, and in the morning things are a little easier.

i have really hard days sometimes.  dark days that come out of nowhere, with no obvious cause.  days when all you can do is just put your head down and muscle through.  i'm sure you all do too.  it's easier not to talk about it, though, pretend everything is fine, but what's the point of having a put-it-all-out-there blog if you're just going to gloss over the tough stuff?

anyway it was a long week.  really depressed monday night.  tuesday night i had a disappointingly hard 2 mile run in the park, followed by a very fun evening out with a new friend (female, don't get too excited).  wednesday evening i got sick, so i stayed home from work on thursday (spent pretty much 36 hours straight in bed, which was actually not bad). and then friday i didn't have anything on the calendar at work, so i stayed home that day too, and got some more sleep and got a few other errands done too.  today was 70 degrees, so gorgeous, and i painted in the morning (yes, i am a painter.  i paint) walked the d-o-double-g for a bit (more on that in a moment) and then went to my friend std's house for her son's 1st birthday party (unbearably cute).  now i'm home, resting up for my run in the morning.

so let's assess the current status of my various situations.

what shall we start with?  fat, you say?  alright.  first of all, this week i discovered the greatest weight-loss method of all time.  it's called gastrointestinal distress, and boy howdy, it works.  briefly, but for those few brief moments, it's a sight to behold.  after not eating for about 40 hours, i stepped on the scale to see a beautiful sight: 197.5.  it was like a summer love- so sweet, so beautiful...  but i knew it wouldn't last.  we'll see what it is tomorrow.  (it's a little depressing to me that 197.5 is something to get excited about.  i remember the day when that was something to panic about.  sigh.).  anyway, my p90x routine was interrupted by illness, but i'm planning to pick up where i left off on monday morning.  not tomorrow, because tomorrow i have a fun run planned with my buddy goldie locks- the runnin' of the green - the country's largest 7k race.  i've got my green outfit all picked out (if you know me, you know i probably spend more time coordinating my running outfits that i do actually running.  i figure, even if you suck at something, you can at least look good doing it).   in terms of eating, i've been doing AWESOME with the no sugar thing.  i did have some birthday cake at the party today (what kind of sociopath doesn't have cake at a 1 year old's party??  not THIS kind of sociopath, i can tell you).  so i'm feeling good about that.

ok finances.  this is not so good.

where to start.  ok, so sticking to my budget is proving to be pretty stinking hard.  for one thing, i run out of food at approximately the same time i run out of money.  then i'm left with 6 dollars and 10 days before pay day.  so i resort to the credit card.  and then, i love races so much, i can't stop myself from signing up for them...  but they cost money and guess what, it goes on the credit card.  AAAARRGGGHHH!!    then there are things like book stores (so dangerous) and target (even worse) and visits to the vet...  i hate this!  i hate feeling so stuck.  tonight i was asked out to dinner with friends after the party, but i had to come up with some excuse not to go, because i don't have $25 to go to dinner.  in fact, right now i have exactly $52.64 in the bank, and 13 days until pay day.  i have probably 6 dinners in the freezer, half a box of cereal and some milk, and that's about it.  so i need to feed myself for the next two weeks, plus pay for ANYTHING ELSE that might come up (laundry, outings with friends, parking, etc) with $52.  i know it's not impossible, and that most people in the world get by on much less, but sheesh. 

so while we're feeling sorry for ourselves, let's do an update on the current credit card balances. we haven't glanced at those in a while:

$9,412- citi
$5,500 - citi (2)
$16,589 - capital 1
$31,501 - total

wow, so in two months, i've managed to pay off an entire $91.  clearly this plan isn't working.  is it time to panic yet?  i feel like panicking.

oh but wait, let's ADD to the panic.

so i took the d-o-double-g to the vet earlier this week.  she's developed a pretty severe limp and so i took her in to get checked out.  well the vet couldn't find anything wrong with her leg BUT she did find that a) she has a "slab fracture" in one of her teeth, and b) she has wonky calcium and alkaline phosphatase enzyme levels in her blood.  awesome.  so i ponied up the $80 for the canine SAMe prescription, and made an appointment to go back in 4 weeks for the tooth extraction, which they will do IF her enzyme levels are back to normal.  if they DO do the extraction, it will cost me about $480.  if they DON'T, it will mean she has something (as yet unidentified) pretty wrong with her, which will undoubtedly cost me WAY MORE than $480.

what's a girl to do?  what if daisy has something awful wrong with her (note to self, don't ask the vet what the worst case scenario is, unless you're sure you want to know.  trust me, you don't want to know) - how much more do i go into debt for my puppy??  i can't really even bear to think about it, let alone write about it.  because of course, you do absolutely everything possible, right??
holy crap.

can i panic now? 

i've got 3 and a half months to get my shit together. 

ok i'm doing everything i can think of.  i need to make more, and spend less. i've got my job, and my other job (yay R+F!) and my OTHER other job (did i tell you about that one?  neighborhood house-sitting service, as yet mostly un-marketed).  i'm going to take my credit cards out of my wallet so i can't use them anymore. i'm going to call at&t on monday and find out how i can lower my cell phone bill. i've been googling "eat well on $25 a week" and "secrets of selling your soul to the devil."   what else??  here's where i need your advice friends - i'm verging on serious meltdown. 

ok.  time to change the clocks, take the poor lame puppy outside, and go to bed.   thanks for cheering me on...