Grilling

Have a barbecue to go to this afternoon.  It's with a couple my husband met through the internet, and their son loves our son.  I'm kind of neutral on the parents.  They seem nice enough, but they bicker, and the husband started to badmouth my hometown before I changed the subject.  I hope I'm not being immature about it, but it's quite a turnoff when someone does that.  It's not like we left home because we didn't like it, we left because we had job opportunities elsewhere.  I still miss home like crazy.  It's a great place to live and grow up, and quite frankly, my son is missing out by growing up here.  But I digress . . .

So I'm not excited about going, but hopefully it will be fun anyway.  Just watch the kids enjoy themselves.  And tomorrow we have company coming over to our place.  It's a couple and their 2 kids we feel a lot closer to--so far.  We don't know them too well yet.  But it's nice to meet some other southerners like us.  It should be fun.  I'm excited to have them over, for yet even more barbecue, and to have the boys play, especially since one of their boys seems like he might be gifted like my son is, and maybe they can relate well.  And it's nice to have friends who "get" you, and who understand the whole marriage-kids dynamic that a lot of people I've met here just don't understand.  Hopefully we'll get along, and hopefully we can become close, if it works out.  I'm just hoping for some close friends here, finally.

So even though I qualify everything with potential for disappointment, I'm actually pretty optimistic.  Looking forward to tomorrow and the potential for friendships.  And my son has his pinewood derby going on with the cub scouts tomorrow, too, which he is excited about.  He probably won't do well, since it was his first attempt at building a car, and it was a little bit light and the wheels are a bit crooked.  But he's excited, and who knows?  Maybe he will surprise us!  Should be fun.

Next week is our court date, for the small claims case we are defendants in.  Then WE will be grilled.  At least it will finally be over, one way or another.  Looking forward to the week after, honestly.  Nervous as all heck.    But then we'll know how broke we'll be.  Could be worse, I suppose.  Could have been regular court, instead of small claims.  Could have had to pay over $1000 for medical bills last month.  Maybe things will go our way?  Still nervous, but trying to be realistic.

That's it for now.  Lots of uncertainties, but potential for good things.  That's good.  Talk again.  :)

Get me outta here!

I'm so tired of money troubles I could just scream!!  I've always had to struggle, ever since I was a child, but I was always okay somehow.  Everything turned out fine.  When I met my husband, we each had a lot of debt, and were forced into bankruptcy when we found we were so broke we were paying bills with credit cards just to avoid being late.  We had scratched and saved and pinched every penny we could before then, even selling our car and giving up everyday things we considered luxuries.  We had to struggle to get back out of that hole, but it slowly happened.  When hubby got the job in California, it seemed like things were finally going our way.

Then he got laid off, rather suddenly.  With no warning, we were forced to move again, to scale back our lifestyle, only farther than we had before, ever.  That turned into a disaster as well, since the smaller place we moved into was horrible and unsafe for me and my child.  We broke the lease, and moved into the place we live now.  It's less than half the size of the house we owned in our home state, and with no modern conveniences.  At least it's a house, and it is in a safe neighborhood, we said.

But now we're back in the same boat again, it seems.  Just as the bankruptcy is about to disappear from our credit records, just as we seem to have weathered the storm, that horrible place unsafe for me and my child has now served us with papers--they are suing us for breaking our lease! 

Now what?  I know I don't know if they will win their case or not, but the stress is horrible.  And just as we are struggling with medical bills after hubby's employer changed the health insurance they offered this year.  The future looks so dismal right now I can't take it.  I just can't.  Why have things turned so wrong, so badly?  Did we make a mistake somewhere?  At the moment, in hindsight, I wish we hadn't moved to California.  I hate this place.  It takes so much more work to get ahead here, and life is much harder than before.  It takes such great effort just to meet people and make friends, and just groceries are almost unmanageable.  I hate how much insurance costs here, how much housing costs, and how the standards of living are so much lower than back home.  I hate that just to be able to pay our bills that we are bound to see in the near future, we're going to have to move again to an even smaller place, if we can find one.  I can't stand trying to take care of my son here, trying to keep him safe and going to a decent public school (see, no luxuries there, either), and it's almost impossible.  The smallest setback here becomes a huge one.  I miss having my family around.  I miss nice people.  I miss things being affordable.

I guess things could still be worse, but I'm tired of saying that, too.  I swear, I am fed up with this city and everything around it.