"Mam, would you like a side of stress with that stress that you are having?"

If I was at a restaurant, this is what the person assigned to wait my table would say.

But before I bore you with the details of my plate full of yummy stress, I need to thank all of you who posted kind and loving comments. You said things that I needed to hear - some I was trying to tell myself, others I hadn't even considered. For those of you who have suffered from an ED, you realize how important support like this is to keeping your head on track. I will admit that I experienced a loss of appetite last night, but a few yoga postures and listening to my yoga teacher's instruction on a CD that she made for her students appears to have rectified that problem.

Ok, so what does my plate look like? There is the red goopy mess in the center of the plate - it is, of course, the mismanaged and ill-conceived concoction that is IF. AF is late, which is what I expected given I ovulated after CD20. Though she is sending her love through abdominal cramps, she has yet to arrive. And those Clo.mid pills on the counter are beckoning me at the moment. So, I sit and wait.

On the side of the plate is a orange mass, hard and crusty like stale bread. When I pick it up it starts to fall apart, leaving dusty shards in my hands. This aging ball of hope is my job situation.
A call to Mr. Flowers on Monday revealed that my paperwork has hit a series of snags. He assured me that these problems do not threaten to sink the deal. But they are delaying the process. Since I will be leaving my current job at the end of this month, this signals a potentially long delay in employment. Which leads me to....

the bright pink liquid that is attempting to overwhelm the plate. This culinary disaster was supposed to be a firm, stable foundation for the side dishes. And this, fine diners, is our financial situation.

Ok, so Mr. LIW would tell you that I am overreacting. Panicking for no reason, even. But somewhere in my mind (or in our communication), I understood us to have greater savings than we have. We both agreed to use our "new car fund" (which, I am now convinced, will never have enough money to actually buy anything more than a non-motorized scooter) to pay off debt. But a combination of mishaps has meant that our general reserves have decreased at a much faster rate than expected. These unintended ingredients include: a much smaller tax return than anticipated, a much smaller raise for Mr. LIW than he has ever gotten (though his company is bursting at the seams with wealth these days, they are cutting back on raise percentages and bonuses, the fuckers), and a trip to Colorado that was never considered in our budget.

I don't want to give the impression that we will be living off of the freezer-burned meat and the small stash of canned goods in the basement. Or, that we will have to make any major changes to our lives (read shut off electricity and share bathwater.) But we do have to cut back on "unnecessary items," which basically means nearly everything that is not food or bills. We don't eat out very often as it is but, when we do occasionally from now on, a place like this will have to suffice for fine dining. And there will be no vacation between jobs to allow for a purging of the icky residue left by this position before embarking on a completely different experience.

I know that Mr. LIW and I are luckier than so many folks in this country. And that this financial stress is NOTHING compared to the stress of millions - even billions - of people around this globe. We do not live in a warzone. We are not at risk of losing our home or being thrown out on the streets. We do not have kids that we cannot afford to feed.

But...but....we don't really have a safety net. Well, not a liquid one anyway. We have a very (very) small share of stocks that could get us through two months of bills if we suddenly lost our incomes. And, I can make decent money temping in the meantime, which is one of the benefits of living in a city. My new job will provide a small raise, which will help us to continue to pay down our debt and start saving a little once I actually start working (a date that cannot even be guessed at this point but hopefully by mid- or -late summer.) And I do tend to think in extremes and worry too much about money.

But I feel too old to not be ahead of the game, with a large savings account and bills that cause little or no stress. And I want to have a considerable safety net before a baby comes and we have the added expense of daycare.

And we never should have agreed to accompany my sister and her family to Flori.da for a vacation next month. (Of course, I assumed I would be in my new job by then, knowing that I would return to a stable salary and benefits.)

So, basically, I am simply a whiny patron at a restaurant that I thought was finer than it really is.