$ = Boo, hiss.

Glk.

Six Flags was fun. But there's a story there. The night before was awful. Abbie started to come down with a head cold, and she was miserable all night. She couldn't breathe, and it woke her up. (Just like me.) Probably close to a dozen times, she woke me up with her crying. (I gave her medicine, but it didn't help, much.) Josh went once. Anyway, it was a long night. The morning was bad, too. Abbie still felt sick, so she was not her usual cheery self, and Grant was just horrible. He was mean and angry and rotten and for a while I thought I was going to have to stay home with him.

But we finally got going, and had fun. Josh was like a kid in a toy store. The weather was wonderful, and the kids were able to ride a few little rides. We went up in the Colossus, and rode the Moon Cars, and the kids went together on some kid rides, and we all went on the Log Flume. The food at the picnic was terrible, as predicted, but the kids ran around with some other boys and girls, so they were happy. We went to the water park, too. Very cold. Abbie liked "jumping" over the waves in the wave pool, and Grant liked the waves "washing him away". Why is it that with all Josh's co-workers wandering the part the whole day, the only time we ran into them was when I was wearing a wet bathing suit under my clothes, and you could tell. We had White Castle on the way home for dinner.

More medicine helped Abbie have a little bit quieter night. Kinda. It could have been all the running around. After the kids were in bed, Josh and I watched Kung Fu Panda. Pretty cute. No snotty humor. Lotsa violence. We'll keep this one for the elementary school pile.

Today I went to taiko. I almost stayed home. I was worn out. But, I'm glad I went, and I hope that I helped, somehow. I was enjoying my ride home, too. Brother copied his James Bond collection CD for me, because one of my favorite songs is on it. The World is Not Enough! Love it. It was on a CD I had in college, but it got stolen out of my car in Yuma, along with most of my 40's music, foreign stuff and opera. Poor me. So I was diggin' the music.

The house was a little cranky when I got to it. I dove into some laundry, and while I was folding that, I got the latest news from Josh. It's a little sketchy, but it would seem that due to some "bad money management" by Josh, we have even less than the practically nothing we are used to. And he didn't tell me until today because he doesn't want me to worry. I argued that I could have done a lot of things differently had I known. His response is that he doesn't want me to do anything differently - he will, because it's his problem. This frustrates the hell out of me for a zillion reasons. Maybe I WANT to feel like I'm contributing to a solution. And even if I'm not, I want to at least be....no, I mean, I INSIST on being informed. The worst besides that is that I will be going to my mom's tomorrow, but I can't complain at her. I can't even mention it, or it would be like signing myself up for charity. And she'd worry. I'm so pathetic. I'm too old to be this unprepared for life. My emergency fund is long gone. And even if I decided that it was too desperate and I needed to work.... Guess what! I can't afford to!

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Ok. I feel better.

If you hear of someone who wants to contract out some work from home computer based editing or the like, let me know.

I heard an add for Pointfest on the radio. Wish I could go to pointfest. Isn't that a totally goofy thing to wish for, in the face of all my reality based problems? I have sick kids and no money and won't be able to afford a present for my son's 5th birthday. Gee, I sure wish I had a ticket to pointfest...

I think it might be time to visit the ice cream in the freezer.

I hope I don't forget to stop by the library on my way out of town tomorrow.

That reminds me. I bugged Josh until he looked at the Explorer. Turns out a cushioning device on the suspension got old and cracked and fell off. Driving the car now causes damage, but you guessed it - we can't afford to fix it. He didn't want to let me take it to Rolla, but I laughed at his logic, since he drives the same distance every day in whatever he takes to work.

We made ramen with chicken in it for dinner. One thing about being broke that I don't mind is ramen. This money thing is really too upsetting to think about, and impossible to fix. (For me; for now.) I'm just going to file it and try to keep going with my daily life. It's not much my style, but I'm going to see how it goes. My immediate problems now are packing for Rolla, bathing Abbie, and sneaking dessert without the kids seeing.

Hope the weekend was good to you. I'm going to try out my ice cream ninja skills.