{ real }

So after the post yesterday, I decided that yes, I'm going to be real. Not that I wasn't before, heavens no. I'm not that great at faking the sweet and happy when I write. When I meet another kids mom at school, or if I meet someone in the store that I've only seen in the halls at church, well then heck yes, I can fake sweet. It's hard not to. I can't just be like "Hey! Oh yes I remember you. Guess what, I have had 2 constipated kids at home all week and boy oh boy the gas floating around, you'd think a sewer main had busted right there in my darn family room!"

Anyway, I have lots of issues, who doesn't, but there's one that just kills me. It makes my stomach hurt, it causes me to shake, it makes my body do weird things, and I hope that most of you don't deal with it but in this economy, I know you do. It's money. I'm short $500 bucks this week. I'll have it next week, but what I have to pay is due TODAY. I didn't sleep well last night, Mike didn't get to sleep til 4 am. For the last few years, we've been fine. It's just this time of year. School started, school lunches started again, I had to pay a crazy co-pay for my medical insurance and omg. Wait. Did you know that for Mike to insure me and me alone on his work insurance costs us $510 per month? Um. This is with a healthy wife. And Harper's insurance is $101 out of pocket. Oh and school clothes, shoes, and supplies for teenagers cost us almost $1000 last month. That's where the money I have to pay today went. To school stuff. Ok, so how's that for honesty and "real"? We made the decision in April to have me not work. There were lots of reasons, and the biggest 2 were these:

The kids were all failing school. Even Casey. I wasn't home with them during the day when they got home from school, and I typically got off work at 6:30, and so did Mike, and by that time they'd been home 3 hours alone, and no homework was being done. I'd get home, we'd do dinner and it would be almost 8 by that time. Then it was the fight over showers since only 1 worked at the house (there were actually 4 bathrooms, but plumbing issues made for that fun time) and after that, it would be bedtime. The kids were ALL getting D's and F's. The stress from that probably contributed to the next reason below.

My health was insane. I was receiving blood transfusions and iron infusions in the chemo lab at Huntsman Cancer Hospital on a weekly basis. My body in January decided that it was going to bleed out. Literally. I was on triple birth control pills, getting the depo shot, taking zillions of medications all to try to get me to try to stop bleeding. Finally when the doctors told me that working 10 hours per day was probably contributing to the issue, I stopped working. They weren't sure how I did it before that anyway since I had 30% of my blood left, and I was still "working"? Anyway, needless to say, I stopped working to heal.

Fun right? I am so not saying my problems are harder than yours. For real. I'm saying LOOK! Here is one of mine! I know in this economy we need to be grateful. I so am. I have healthy kids (knock on wood) and the swine flu is gone, and we're expecting a baby (yes, even still while on triple doses of birth control pills and the depo shot. Explain that one to the judge) and those things make me so happy. Mike is amazing, he takes care of us and makes us all feel loved and we adore him right the heck back. I have family who is awesome, a sister who lets me come over to her house and park on her couch while I just decompress/sit there in silence once or twice a week. I. Am. Blessed. But I'm broke today! Hip hip hooray!!!

Here's a picture of a kitten that looks like my childhood cat named Digger: