Journal Entry: April 17, 2009

So, I was wrong when I started my whining about the cost of our exterminator. I think I named a total figure around five hundred bucks, but we had the termite guys out to give us an estimate yesterday, and it's actually going to be closer to twelve hundred.

That's a big stressor, especially given other stuff that's going on. I got paid today, but we spent most of the last three days desperately watching our purchases and tracking the bank account online hoping we didn't get overdrafted before my check cleared. A number of factors went into that, but it's the sort of experience we've worked hard for the last two years to get out of. There was a time when that described pretty much every payday, and I liked having as much distance as possible between that time and me.

Anyway, we're not paying the exterminators out of our checking account, so that only applies in that both are sources of financial stress. No, we're paying for the bug treatments on our credit card. A couple months ago I had pretty realistic hopes of getting our last credit card paid off by June. Instead, we now have more total credit card debt than we ever have in our (often extremely mismanaged) financial history. That's depressing. It's been a bad couple months, moneywise.

Luckily, one of the most powerful treatments for anxiety, stress, and depression is exercise, and I've been doing well on that. After work yesteday I put in my forty minutes while T-- took AB grocery shopping. Then she made spaghetti for AB and D--, and meatball sandwiches for her and me. I think that's the first time she tried that, and they were fantastic.

After that we got caught up on The Office (which consisted of three episodes, including last night's), and watched a new 30 Rock. All of that was done with much interruption, because AB was not behaving. We had to wrestle her to the ground to put on her pajamas at bedtime, but once we got her in bed she actually fell asleep pretty easily.

By then I was too exhausted to write, so I watched the beginning of an episode of Bones with T--, then headed back to the office and played some Desktop Tower Defense. Or, in other words, killed time. Once I realized that was all I was doing, I shut it down and went to bed.

Other than that, it's just things and stuff.