Holiday Horror

My whole body is tense.  Or at least it feels like it.  I wake up in the night biting down on my night guard so hard that I'm surprised I haven't snapped it.  And my shoulders.  Do I clench them all night?  What is happening? 

And then I remember that it is the holidays.  And we are fairly poor this year.  And earlier today I was facing a god damn ultrasound of my right boob at the breast center....LOCATED IN THE CANCER CENTER.  But the radiologist says there's nothing of note, and I'm good.  So let's cross that off the fucking list and focus just on holiday chaos and poverty.  Now that I live back in MO, there are three places I need to be at on Christmas; my own home is not one of those.  We're going to make it to two out of the three.  But alas, we're poor remember, so we can't afford to board our dogs.  SO THEY'RE GOING TO BE WITH US.  I realized earlier today that Christmas night we're all going to be sleeping in the same room: mouth-breathing Joe, ear flapping Lu, Dex, Maddie, and lying awake angrily, Katie, me.  God help me, next year when I have a 3.5 year old who is more aware of Christmas, we're waking up in our own home.  It was what I wanted this year, but whatever.  I really don't even know if we're going to have room in our car to even bring presents home.  Won't that be hilarious?  "Sorry, y'all - gonna have to get these later..."

So yeah.  Money is so bad that I don't even like talking about exactly how little Joe makes right now.  If you knew, you would ask how I can afford to leave the house and why I spend money on anything other than food and shelter.  I'll answer, though, because I feel deeply guilty about spending money on anything other than those things - we have savings.  It's the only reason we don't live in our cars right now.  And since this was supposed to be a short term solution - "Just wait five months, Katie," it didn't seem so bad.  Well, it's been SIX months.  Now I'm told to give it a year.  And my hands are tied.  Really fucking tied because I have a child that I have always stayed home with.  If I got a job right now with a social work salary, it would probably be to pay for her day care.  I do a small side job on the web that makes an extra $400-500/month, which is actually pretty good.  But man, we got billz.  And then there's the France trip.  It seems fucking stupid to be doing that trip at this point in our lives (thus even more guilt).  But I think if we don't do it, we're going to get divorced.  So, we gotta balance living out of our cars with divorce.  I think living out of our cars will probably lead to divorce as well.  That said, if both roads lead to divorce, we might as well go to France first, eh?

And so, 2014, please don't suck.  I'm grateful to be out of the desert and back in a normal part of the country near friends and family.  But holy shit, we don't have money to enjoy it.  Money can't buy happiness, I know.  But.  Yes, actually it can. 

Merry Christmas.  (But only if you have money.)

Okay, okay.  I see my own message here.  Being poor>boob cancer.  That's fucking very true.  So yeah, Merry Christmas, boobs.  You're not going to kill me this year.