रेस ऑफ़ सुन्शिने

I have NO idea why my title is converting to a non-Arabic based language there. It should say "Rays of Sunshine." Obivously, it does...not in English.

I'm realizing that my life is becoming easier to live. There are still hard times, to be certain. Yet, I'm not crumbling quickly. Sometimes I find I can even stand strong and survive when normally I expected to shut down.

II and I have had several long conversations about the Cub Scout lady. He really and truly does not desire to have an affair and has put lots of safeguards into place. Initially, I didn't trust he really intended to stand by them, but he has done so anyway. I feel less insecure as times goes on and he continues to stay on his guard with her. Its lead to some really honest discussions about his focus on entering medicine and the surgical culture specifically. He's not naive that the world he is trying to enter will have temptations for someone with his addiction. He feels so strongly about his desire to work with sick children and their families that we're both willing to work on safeguards an accountability. Besides which, traveling alone is a far bigger trigger for him and if he returns to the business world he will be rquired to travel alone. I still think he would fall down if he were to travel on business alone at this point.

II's contract IT job messed up his invoices. They misplaced the invoice that was supposed to be paid in November and accidentally paid the one due to be paid in December. That was supposed to cover December's rent. We're thinking we'll pay all of the bills forward a month, use the subsidy check to cover rent and by the time the bills come due/late again we'll be at the end of December and coasting into January. Plus, II starts his part-time job next Saturday so he'll have paychecks coming in before December which means we'll have a small chance of staying current on the bills instead. The company did find the missing November invoice and will pay it in December, so we'll also have that for bills in December. That's all good news since II failed the vein screen to sell plasma. Two technicians couldn't get the massive needle into his arm so he couldn't donate plasma afterall. They told him to drhink a ton of Gatorade and come back next weekend.

I have Christmas almost completed. However, the kids were going to be getting 2 gifts this year instead of their normal 3. An old high school friend offered to help with Christmas a few months ago. I was grateful but didn't want to push. She contacted me again this week because she's putting things together. That will bring the kids to 3 gifts afterall. We still cannot swing the sibling gifts. Several of the kids have been working on gifts they have made for each other. I'll help the others make gifts this year so they still carry the spirit but not the $150 price tag of shopping at Goodwill for them. Now, if I can find some way to swing buying several yards of flannel and t-shirts, I can sew their Christmas PJs and they won't know there's anything amiss for their Christmas afterall.

We have two birthdays to navigate in December, C and J. J turns two. He's easy. Daddy is going to make him a set of building blocks. They are actually quite easy, the biggest challenge is sanded the rough edges adequately. I'm a tad nervous. J has taken to throwing things, including seriously heavy things. I'm afraid wooden building blocks might turn out to be a dumb idea until that stops, but its still a good gift for a two year old.

That left C. In previous years, we did a HUGE blow-out birthday celebration for double digits. For A's 10th, we went to Medieval Times as a family, plus he got several games for his DS as well. E went to the American Girl store for her 10th and got to blow a lot of money on a shopping trip. C and Ch have been looking forward to their double digit birthdays for a LONG time. We have already negotiated that we're going to go on a camping trip to DC next summer as their big thing. We can do that on a shoestring budget and everything for entertainment in DC is free. That won't happen until summer, so at least they still get something big. However, a present worthy of double digits and in my budget...yeah, really not happening.

Untl this week. The same friend who offered to help with Christmas happens to have an ipod Nano. Its the old style, but trust me my homeschooled boy-o isn't going to know that difference. What he WILL know is that a Nano will allow him to put his audio books on it, and retrieve one book and a specific book. He'll no longer be tethered to a computer to work on his reading skills. He'll quickly discover he can put podcasts on there too, and I expect we'll have an equal balance of audio books and college podcast lectures that will populate his Nano. Its perfect for him. I could never afford it for him. In fact, I have no idea how to come close to matching that for Ch's double digits in May, but I'll worry about that when we get there.

Everytime I think we've hit rock bottom and we're going to drown, things start to look better again. One more time, we're still standing. When we get to the tax return, we'll be pre-paying the bulk of our bills through August, so the monthly funds we bring in will help give us breathing room instead of just keeping us from drowning.