It got better

Just wanted to follow my downer post and let you know we're all feeling a bit better. All of your comments helped a lot- really, I'm just the type of person who feels better simply knowing that it's ok to feel like crap. Does that make sense?

Kenny came home and we all moped around the house for a while, but we're both doing much much better now. I've been working on finances and while things are still glum, they're not as end-of-the-world as I thought. My parents and sisters have been wonderfully kind about listening to me vent and cry and it's helped so much. I have a great family, and I miss thme so much.

Kenny fixed our washer! I'm so proud of him! So handy and fix-it-ish. He's fixed two power windows, one trunk latch, one washer, done two oil changes, made 4 bookshelves... and has a nice rugged beard to complete the look.

Daniel had a brief setback this afternoon and re-hurt his hip, and for a few hours I thought we were starting the process all over again, but after 4 hours or so he seemed to be back where he was with the old man limp. By the way, for those who don't know, this is how he hurt his hip- the tan slide in the picture below (at collin's park, behind the library):

He loves slides, but this one looked a bit intense, so I decided to go down with him on my lap. That proved to be his undoing though, because a mommy in jeans slides much faster then a pudgy left foot in a shoe. His left foot tried to stay towards the top of the slide, wedged between my body and the slide, as the rest of us went down. I barely even noted it at the time. When we got to the bottom, he erupted into screams, but I couldn't tell if he was scared, overly tired, or hurt. So we went home, and he was still screaming, even while I held him (which is TOTALLY unlike him). I couldn't get him to let go of me enough to check his legs. He just fell asleep in my arms (which he hasn't done since he was like 4 months home). After a THREE HOUR nap (also unlike him), he let me poke around his leg and while I couldn't see any problems, I could tell he wasn't able to put any weight on it without collapsing and crying. So we got x-rays (thank heavens for welch's fruit snacks, they can calm my baby down in any situation) and found out it was just a sprain, and sure enough 5 days later he's walking at 80% of normal.

This may sound awful, but another thing that has cheered me up, or more appropriately made me realize how good we still have it, is seeing what some of my good friends are dealing with right now. I have a few good friends battling some serious inner demons right now (bipolar disorder), a family in the ward with a daughter who just battled her leukemia into remission, a lady we are good friends with who is battling with some advanced lupus and epilepsy all at once (I gave her a ride to the ER today because she's hasn't held anything down for 4 days), various friends desperately trying to get pregnant or adopt, friends declaring bankruptcy because of medical bills, and an online friend who just spent weeks on bedrest in the hospital because of pre-eclampsia (but she had a healthy baby boy, yay!).

Lastly, our good friend and roommate, Corinne, for some unfathomable reason can't get a job- she's been looking for months! Hire her, people! She's lovely and smart and a pleasure to be around, and has a year of chef school under her belt. Texas folks, keep your eyes peeled.

In other words, we have it good. I know that. And the thing is, many of the people just listed have been comforting and pitying and sympathizing with me. I am surrounded by wonderful people every day, both virtually and in person.

And above all, I have an amazing, awesome, wonderful husband. I can't stress that enough. He is such a trooper, and takes such good care of me. Through all the crap of recent months, our marriage has definitely only gotten stronger. He's been wonderful about being a single daddy a few days a week while I work, and even still cooks and cleans while I'm gone. Where did I find such a gem?

Even if he is watching Happy Tree Friends right now. (I HATE that show).

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (the vent you've all been waiting for)

The last month and a half have been a lot for us to handle. We'll start with the Good:

• Daniel winning the award at Macy's for best costume. That seriously made my month.
• I got a part-time seasonal job at Barnes and Noble. It's the only place I'd applied, about a month ago, thinking "I could enjoy working here, and we could use the money". It's weird working minimum wage again (it's actually a quarter less than my first job was 10 years ago, because Texas minimum wage is so much lower than Washington's), but unlike my last job, when I'm done for the day I can leave it behind and not think about it until I walk back through those doors again. I could go back to consulting (it certainly pays better), but that was so all-brain-consuming, and since I worked at home, I could never just leave it behind. Anyways, I've enjoyed working there so far and I LOVE the benefits- great employee discount, plus I can borrow any book with a dustcover for 2 weeks (so I can be knowledgeable about what's out there). The staff has all been very kind and easy to work with.
• Kenny sold his three bookshelves on craigslist, and the buyers were thrilled! Once we get more time, Kenny has some more customers lined up.

The bad:
Where to start? These have honestly been the worst 6 weeks of my life. Our luck has been AWFUL. And since I've been such a drain and so whiny, I figured I'd let y'all know why I'm so glum. Just so you know how we were coming into the month- we had recently decided to save money by doing our own haircuts (requiring a haircutting kit to be purchased) and by changing our own oil (requiring jacks and tools and draining pans). We had also bought me some harping supplies for upcoming gigs, and extra tools for Kenny to build bookshelves to make money. So we had drained our already meager account to make these investments so we could start saving money. We were planning on buying new tires for the honda, as they are currently dangerously bald (and still are).

• Then the honda broke down- needed a coolant flush, a new timing belt, new spark plugs, new coil and distributor cap, and some other things I have no idea about. 1400 for repairs.
• 3 days later the honda power window broke. 6 hours of Kenny's time (when he was already overly busy building bookshelves).
• The next weekend the Durango trunk latch broke.
• The following week the Durango power window broke. Fortunately by now Kenny has learned a thing or two about dismantling car doors.
• My next (second and last) harp gig got put off indefinitely.
• And then the washer broke. We looked online and everyone who had our washer had the same problem and fixed it by replacing a certain part. We buy the part for 30 dollars. It gets here and doesn't fix it. So K goes back online and finds some forums that say "oh yeah, for a few of us that part didn't work and we had to buy a different part for 130". We are currently waiting for that part. Daniel has no clean clothes to wear today.
• Last week the durango "check engine" light came on. I don't even want to know what's wrong, but today the engine started sounding like there is a small helicopter in there.
• And the A/C in the durango started mysteriously stopped working this last week. Fortunately we are entering the three months in Houston where the weather is bleeding hot only ever OTHER week.
• On at least three different occasions (twice in the church parking lot), some random person has deeply scraped/gauged the durango and left their car paint in stripes on our car.
• Daniel broke my only pair of eyeglasses (I'm blind as a bat without them). We tried super glue and masking tape for a few weeks, but they're beyond repair. I'm wearing my contacts all the time at the moment but had to pay 120 for an appt/prescription and another 100 or so for the costco glasses (which are still being made). Thankfully my mom helped out with funding the new glasses or else I'd be stuck wearing contacts all the time, which hurts my eyes.
• Lucy sprained her foot being set down in the garage after barking at a visitor, and has been walking on three legs for 3 weeks or so now. She's putting weight on that 4th foot again, but not fully.
• All four people in our house has some combination of sore throat, snotty nose, and/or cough.
• I got a toenail and two plantar's warts removed about 6 weeks ago. A lot of billing confusion happened after the fact, and I only just discovered the true cost of getting a toenail removed is 786.31. And that's still only halfway to our deductible.
• Our healthcare premiums, which started the year at 381/month, recently jumped up again, bringing the total to 445/month. I calculated it, and by the end of the year, we will have spent nearly 7500 for medical care this year (including premiums, deductibles, prescriptions and copays). That's over 20% of Kenny's post-tax salary. For a healthy, employed, family of 3 where the biggest health problem was toenail fungus. And this doesn't include the baby I would like to have but can't afford.
• I've had a UTI and ear infection for about two months that I just can't kick. But we can't afford a doctor, or the medicine, so... I'm still drinking that foul concoction known as cranberry juice and hoping it will go away on its own.
• Daniel has had two ear infections, then the amoxicillin to treat the 2nd ear infection gave him a yeast infection and diarrhea leading to the worst diaper rash of his life. Fortunately some activia helped clear that up just in time for...
• Daniel sprained his hip going down a slide last week, so we had to get x-rays. He's finally hobbling around again today. He had a very rough weekend, full of energy but unable to run around. He stopped sleeping the night for a while because either his ear hurt or his hip hurt.
• Daniel still hasn't adjusted to Daylight sayings and is waking up at 6:30 everyday. Since I get home from work at 11:30, I'm quickly becoming a zombie.
• Kenny and I are desperately trying to deal with our losses this month and have cut out dates, our once-every-other-week fast food trips, netflix, and allowances entirely out of our budget.
• We've also stopped having "real meals" three times a week to save money, so we are once again eating college fare- pb&j sandwiches, totino's pizza, and top ramen. I've lost 7 pounds I didn't really want to lose.
• My new job, which is great, requires me to work a few days a week from 2:30-11 pm. Meaning I have to leave Daniel with Corinne for an hour until Kenny can get home. It also means I don't get to see my husband awake once the whole day.

The Ugly:
In july we switched insurance to geico. I called Chase to let the escrow folks know to send the new premium amount to geico. Apparently the address they had on hand for geico actually took that check to some donut shop in minnesota and geico never got it. I call and all chase can tell me is "we sent it, it's not our fault". Geico tells me "we didn't get it, it's not our fault". So two months later, Geico retroactively cancels my still-unpaid policy and it looks like I've been without insurance for 2 months... meaning my premium went from 800/year to 3500/year (because I've had a lapse in coverage). After spending about 8 hours on the phone with chase and geico (sometimes with both at once, listening to them bicker about who's fault it was), chase admitted fault and geico was kind enough to forget about the lapse in coverage and sign me up for 765 (lower then what they had quoted me for in july). Yay for geico, boo for chase.

It gets worse. In september I called Chase (who (mis)handles our current mortgage, to ask about a refinance. The guy, Eric, was oh-so-kind and helpful and said he could bring our payment down 200 dollars a month. I say "great, but don't obligate me yet, I want to talk to my husband". But the guy goes ahead and sends an appraiser and a filled-out 30-page application. Somewhere in the middle of those 30 pages, Kenny notes that our mortgage payment itself will only be going down about 58/month (definitely NOT worth losing 7000 in equity). The rest of the "savings" are from the fact the guy quoted by escrow payments as being way lower then they currently are.
For any of you who have been following our refi woes... the reason we even want to refinance is because our original loan folks underestimated the escrow so our mortgage payments have bene more than we could handle. Had we known they would take up a third of our mortgage payment, we'd probably have never even moved to Texas.

So I call Eric back and leave a message. Twice a week for 5 weeks. He returned ONE call, but I happened to be in the shower. I'm a stay at home mom with a cell phone- I'm NOT a hard person to get a hold of.
So anyways, I think "fine, whatever, so long as we don't get charged" (thinking a month has passed and they haven't charged us, so we must be good). Then we get a letter from Chase saying "by the way, sorry it took so long, but we're only just now charging you the 750 application fee". WHAT!? I call Eric back more. I call his manager. I send emails. I call billing. I call Eric. No returned calls. I finally call billing one more time and the most they can do is cancel our application, getting us 350 back. But they get to keep the other 400. They're putting it for "review" to see if I had authorized him or not (which I hadn't) but it sounds like we'll not be getting that money back. I'm seriously fuming, I'm so upset about this. DO NOT EVER BANK WITH CHASE IF YOU CAN HELP IT. Unfortunately, it's our mortgage- we can't just pick that up and walk it across the street to our bank of choice.

Both of our families have been very kind and generous and have helped us get through this, as has our ward. I know things could be so much worse, but it just feels like all of our best efforts to save our money, stay out of debt, and be financially independent have only gotten us into trouble. For the first time in our marriage, we will have credit card debt that we can't pay off at the end of the month. Even with my additional salary it will be months before we pay it off- my last hope is our tax return.

Anyone who made it this far into my pity-party deserves an award, but I have none to give. Honestly, I'm feeling a bit broken right now. Keep us in our prayers, that Daniel, Lucy and I will all heal without any more doctor fees; that Kenny and I will find a way out of this financial mess; that there won't be any more mean surprises for us in coming months.

Sorry for posting so much and for it being so depressing. I'll probably regret posting this all later. I just needed to get a few things off my chest.

PS. This is IN NO WAY a solicitation for financial help. Just some sympathy and prayers.

What baby elephants do in their spare time

In their free time (and sometimes in disguise), baby elephants can be found at the library reading a book:

At the mall (winning 50 dollar gift certificates by taking 1st place in the Macy's Department Store Costume Contest)

Fussing over their cruel fate (let's face it, being a fat elephant is hard, hot work):

Playing with sticks (and moving too quickly for nature photographers to get crisp photos):

Trying to go down slides (it's hard with a backside that wide):

Hanging out with Dr. Kunz after a long hard night grabbing candy out of bowls:

Hanging out with their friends, the gnomes (this one's name is Avery, and he's ADORABLE):

Getting pictures taken with Gandalf:

At the park boldly feeding fearless nutria and ducks:

Getting their faces painted:


And overall having an awesome halloween:) All photos can be found at our October album.