The Story of Brandi

My car broke down on the way to Brian's parents' house for Thanksgiving. The engine needs to be replaced, so we're not sure what we're going to do. My mother-in-law thinks we should fix it. My mom said they'd help us get a new car. Neither is a really good option, and we just haven't decided yet. Brian's car is broken down, too, and I'm completely against getting it fixed. After about $2,000 in repair work 2 years ago, we had to replace the engine. That's been since August 2003. The problems it's having are the same set, and I'm afraid we're headed down that road again. It just doesn't seem worth it. Still, we expect it with Brian's cars (they've always had problems), but mine has been Old Trusty for so long that I was caught off-guard.

Anyway, we don't really have the money to fix either car or to get a new one, so we're in a bind. My mom has suggested we move home to live near my grandparents (rent-free!) so that my family can help us out more. I could go back to work outside the home, and we could pay off debt with the money we're saving. I have to admit that it's appealing. We're looking into it, but we don't want to pack our stuff and move without having jobs lined up first.

We can pay our bills now, but there's nothing extra. My mother-in-law wants to help us with a budget. There's not much point since we know that we're careful with our money. We're going to let her see the bills, though, because we're hoping she'll finally believe us. I don't even care anymore if she believes us or not because I've just given up. I want to float away into oblivion and forget this life ever existed. I want to meet Brian and Jayden in another life where we can start out whole and prosper. I'm so tired.

I slept late today. It was unintentional. I had a very good day yesterday. I got the site up. I was able to walk. We made an excellent chicken marinara from scratch. I think the laziness of the day caught up with me, and I didn't want to get up this morning.

I wish I hadn't overslept because now it's going to mean a crazy day trying to get caught up. I have yet another doctor's appointment this afternoon at 1:30. I'm hoping it doesn't take long.

Plus, it's a short week. Thanksgiving is Thursday, and we're going to Brian's parents. It's only a two-hour drive, but we're going to try to get there as early as we can to beat the rush of traffic. He's going to work late today and tomorrow so that he can get off work at 1 on Wednesday. I hate lots of traffic, and I don't want to be traveling the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at 5:00. We've had to do it before, and it wasn't fun! So that makes for a really busy and long two days for me.

The WAHP is up now! It's been online for about four weeks, but I haven't been promoting it. I had a couple of links here and there but nothing exciting. I was tweaking the forums. I got them finished this morning, so the site's ready for visitors now. We have 7 registered users and some posts on the forums already, so I'm excited about the possibilities.

You can visit the site here: www.the-wahp.com

Yesterday was a weird day. I'm at that odd point where I'm coming out of a depression, but I'm not quite there yet. I cried for a long time over a song I heard on the radio. Come on; get over it.

I didn't get as much done as I needed to, but that's always in my life. I'm stuck on an asset valuation paper for my accounting class, and it's killing me. Accounting's killing me. The work isn't difficult. It's mainly jargon and seeing how an entire profession of people has taken a simple concept (assets vs. liabilities and equity) and made it overly complex. The whole discipline seems that way, and then they wonder why they have a bad reputation.

Anyway, I have some leads on writing jobs but nothing exciting. We got something to eat and went to the grocery store last night. Yes, we're officially parents - and middle class. Jayden's bill was $44 of the $50 we spent. He needed wipes, diapers, food, and a new hat. We got him a little snow hat. Watching him try it on was hysterical. It fastens under his chin, and he kept trying to pull it off his head. He was pissed at us. Oh, well, it won't be the last time he gets mad at us for being parents.

I got out a giant box of things we have saved for the future scrapbook project, which will take up all of our retirement. It was fun to look through everything. It reminded me of someone I used to be - someone who has gotten lost in life. Ah, enough of that...my coffee's ready.

I received an email from an old friend yesterday. Mercer (www.mercer.edu) and the Georgia Baptist Convention are having hmm...issues with each other. Beth started a group called the Mercer Triangle Symposium (www.mercer.edu/mts) right after we left Mercer. The group has come under fire from the GBC, whose members don't believe Mercer should permit students to think freely. MTS is for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender students.

This story assures me that Mercer is still the same old Mercer it was when I was there. In a way, it rejuvenates me, too. It makes me excited to think that there are relatively small actions we can take that cause such frustration on the part of ultra-conservatives. I hope it creates the time for an open debate about such issues as well.

You can read the article about it here: http://www.christianindex.org/1720.article

I got so angry yesterday. I have been seeing a therapist for what has been a years-long episode of depression. They think I'm OCD or have some other issue, but I know that I don't. Anyway, the point is that they're really bad about filing my insurance. They just filed a visit from 8 weeks ago (my first one), and my insurance company applied it against our deductible. We have this weird deductible that doesn't apply to all visits - only some. I'm not really sure which ones and how to tell, but I had to cancel this week's appointment. I paid $15 when I was there. Now they're wanting $85 additional per visit for four visits. That's a lot of money to come up with quickly - for us, anyway - and especially when we didn't plan for it because the insurance company told me it was covered but neglected to mention that it's one of the 3 appointments that count against our deductible. Arg. I'm just pissed about the whole thing.

Last night I started looking at other writing jobs. The FBI hires writers. Who knew? I mean, it makes sense now that I think about it, but I'd never realized it before. They pay pretty well, too, at least for writers. We're accustomed to being underpaid. I have to find out what it is I'm supposed to do. This whole web writing gig just won't work long-term.

I am going to work on getting more freelancing jobs. Brian and I talked about it and decided that we just aren't going to be able to make it on my web writing. The pay is too low, and the income is too unstable. Instead I'm going to look for other forms of writing. I have two on-going clients right now, and we're thinking we'll stick with them. Otherwise, I'm going to keep looking, but I'm not sure the web writing will work.

We worked on making candles for my site all day yesterday. It's a long process because you have to make them, let them harden, then work on filling them in. I enjoy it, though. It's a lot of fun. I should be done making them today. Then we can photograph them and put them up on the site.

I've also been working on my site for work at home parents. I'm not quite there yet, but it's so close to being finished. I should be able to finish it in the next day or so.

I have to write a lot this week to help us get on track financially. God, we just want to pay off debt. If we did, we'd have so much extra money every month to spend and invest. Jayden's future would be much more secure.

Well, despite the title of my post, I'll start with the bad. Georgia lost to Auburn yesterday. 31-30. It was pathetic. There was a costly delay of game penalty when Georgia was going to go for a 2-point conversion in the 3rd quarter. They should've gone for it anyway because Auburn would have won even if they hadn't made the PAT. Ahh! I can't even stomach thinking about it right now.

My personal Saturday was much better, however. I have three items remaining on my projects list that I started Friday. I'm in good shape to get them finished up, which means that I will - for once in my life - start the week without projects looming over my head! I have to finish my work at home parents site. The site's up. I just have to tweak the forums and add a link to another site. The I have to adjust the site map and add a shopping cart. I finished up a booklet yesterday. The writing's been done, but I went and test printed and got it ready to sell.

I also have to finish my candle site (Pure Awakenings) today. The main job left is to make the candles so that I can photograph them. I'm also applying for some writing jobs, so that should take up a good bit of my day.

Well, Friday was better than Thursday. Brian was off work for Veterans' Day. We made a list of 12 projects that we needed to get done. A couple were things for around the house, but most of them were work-related. It's shameful, but I've missed out on applying for freelance jobs because I needed to update my resume. I finally told Brian that we had to get this stuff done. He's watched over Jayden most of the weekend so that I could work.

It feels so good to get these things off my ever-expanding to do list. I have 4 left for Sunday, and I should be able to finish them. I have to stop to work on my accounting class. I'm getting my MBA. I really missed the school environment, and I wanted to go back. I went into an MBA program because I ran my own business, and I thought it would be beneficial. It's turned out not to teach me as much as I'd thought. Still, I'll be 1/3 of the way through when I finish the current class. I'm hoping to be done before we move from Frankfort.

Yesterday was not a great day. I had my other ultrasounds. My GYN told me everything looks great. I have to go back in three months because high blood pressure and birth control aren't a good combination. Still I'm not even at the point of treating my high blood pressure yet.

We have made some changes - slow and steady. It's all I can do right now. I've changed to sweetener instead of sugar in my coffee. I'm drinking diet soft drinks and trying to cut down on them altogether. We've stopped eating beef. Instead we're using tofu and ground turkey. When I went to the doctor Wednesday, I'd lost 7 pounds since I saw a doctor on October 21. You're only supposed to lose 1 1/2 to 2 pounds per week, so I'm losing a little too quickly. Still, I haven't made any significant changes, so I'm not going to try to stop it.

Brian's making gourmet waffles this morning for us, and then we're going out. He's home today because it's Veterans Day. I hope in 2-3 years, he can be home with us everyday. That's the plan anyway. So after the waffles, we're going to check out the sales at the stores. We're not buying anything, mind you, we're just looking. Plus, I'm supposed to walk for 30 minutes everyday. I know the shopping and walking won't be fast enough, but it's better than nothing.

We had to pay bills yesterday, and I realized that we don't have as much extra money as I'd thought. It's depressing. We really try to keep our cost of living the same when we bring in more money, but I guess we're not doing as good of a job as I'd thought. I told Brian that we have to push to get debt paid down. We have one big account that will be with us for a while, but we agreed that we're going to pull out all the stops until we've paid off everything else. That will free us up to move toward Brian working from home, too. Right now, it's just too unstable for us to do that.

No, I don't have it. Or at least I don't know yet if I do. I had an EKG this morning, which really was no big deal. I thought it would be more involved and take longer, but it was a quick procedure. It's basically an ultrasound of your heart. The whole thing took 10 minutes. I won't find out the results until November 21, so I have a while to wait. Still, it was just the first of four appointments today.

I went to the doctor today, for the 1,000th time in the last month. Now I have four appointments scheduled for tomorrow. You'd think I'm old, but alas, there's just something wrong with me. I have an EKG scheduled for tomorrow morning at 8:30. I have 2 ultrasounds - one of my reproductive system and one of my thyroid, and I have a follow-up on the GYN ultrasound. So that's pretty much my day for tomorrow - sitting in doctor's offices waiting to try to find some answer somewhere about what's wrong with me.

We're going from it could be depression to it could be a rare heart condition (cardiomyopathy) that's a post-partum complication. The tests should tell me what exactly is happening so that I can reach a point where we can find out what's wrong and can start fixing it.

I can't wait. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of feeling terrible.

Here's Part 2 of the nervous breakdown.

We never settled on anything when we were planning our online venture. We really didn't have a good game plan going in. So we jumped from project to project without any clear direction. That has proven deadly for our business.

Plus I've kind of given up on the whole online business idea. It isn't that I don't think it's possible, but I don't think it's for us, at least not right now.

Even after the pain of last night, when I went to sleeping still with tears in my eyes, I feel much better - cleansed. Crying like that is cathartic, and I'm ready to face the world again.

I lost it last night. I realized that Brian and I don't have as much money in one of our accounts as I thought. I got so angry because I'm tired of worrying about money. It causes so many other problems. Brian and I have never fought about money - not once. We have had serious financial problems, but we've learned to deal with them. The funny thing is that while I know it's getting better, we're still not where I want us to be. We have extra in our checking account every month, and that never happened even six months ago. We're paying off our debt. Still, I can't wait until the debt's all gone, and we're done with it forever!

So I went to get gas last night because I needed to get out for a few minutes. On the way there, I lost it. I cried and cried. I pulled into the parking lot of a store that had already closed and sat and cried for probably 20 minutes. Then I got gas and came home. I thought I was feeling better, but I started crying again. So I had a drink (yes, a grown-up drink) and sat outside thinking.

I've been jumping from business to business and idea to idea for a while now - well, always, really. I thought I wanted to be a history professor, but I didn't stay in graduate school because I had too much debt. And I became disenchanted with the whole process. So I became a reporter, but I stayed only 7 months. Then I started working from home. It's not that I don't like working from home. I love being here with Jayden and setting my own schedule, but I still don't have any direction. That's my problem. I'm trying to find direction.

Right now, I'm researching event planning. Brian and I were working on an online company, but we just decided to close the virtual doors. We weren't making any money, and we couldn't justify putting in more time.

I'm supposed to make this big change. I keep seeing some moment when it all comes together, and I can decide that I want to feel better. Then I'll make this huge change, and all will be well.

That day hasn't come yet.

Last night I went to the grocery store and bought crap for us to eat to get through this week. I bought those frozen dinners with six or seven patties of something that resembles meat. They're not that bad, actually. Okay, they are, but it's all I can manage this week. That's what I don't get. I absolutely understand that it's junk, and I shouldn't eat it. I know it's part of what's making me feel bad. I'm just not sure it's all of what's making me feel bad. Plus I just don't have the energy to change it right now. I don't know what to do.