Sigh

Bleh...I've been having a lousy few weeks. My hours got reduced at work because the student I work for dropped a class, which means money stress. I got a really nasty cold at the same time I had Symphony Chorus concerts, then 2 Sundays in a row singing in church. Then Chris got my cold, and now it's turned into a pneumonia-like illness that has him coughing out his lungs and we had to spend $50 on medicine...so more money stress on top of the fact that I can barely function when Chris is ill (stupid brain!!).
I don't know why it bothers me so much more when Chris gets sick than when I do, but its true. I hate being sick (thank God I have a fabulous immune system!!), but what I really dread is the semi-inevitable fact that Chris will get sick shortly after me (unless *he* started it). I'll be lying in bed feeling like crap, and thinking how much more it sucks that it's going to be Chris lying in bed sick in a few days. Plus, he always seems to get so much more sick than me! I just had a nasty few days of cold, he had to go and turn it into pneumonia....blah.
Illness aside, what really has me stressed today is money!! Rent is due on the first, we have a car payment that's a week late and we can't afford it anymore because of groceries and meds, I don't know when my next paycheck is coming, Chris isn't getting paid for another week and it'll suck because he's been home sick so much the last week or two, my checks for the foreseeable future will suck for the same reasons, and I have no idea what we are going to do about any of it!!
I am so tired of living like this!!! I just want to be in a position where I can pay all my bills and rent and buy food and gas and stuff without having to be constantly checking my bank account and credit card balances to make sure that, yes, we can actually get a full tank of gas for Schrodinger without having to worry about it going over the Speedway card limit. It would be really nice to have that plus enough extra for luxuries (for instance, my mother, sister, and brother are currently in NYC...and I'm incredibly jealous, but this isn't something I could dream of affording right now!!), but I would settle for just not having to wonder where my rent payment is going to come from, or my tax payment that's going to be due in a few weeks, or the car payment......
I just don't know what we're going to do. I hate dealing with money. HATE. Seriously. Hate.
Ok, that's out of my system. (HATE!!!)
Ok, now its out of my system. Seriously, I don't know what to do right now. Part of me thinks I need to look for a second job, but just the thought of having to go do data entry or something (even part time) makes me want to curl up in bed and cry. Earlier today I caught myself thinking that maybe I could deal with a part-time job at Meijer or somewhere, and then I realized that I could barely handle my C-Printing right now...sometimes being Aspie sucks immensely, mostly where money is concerned. I remember my summer working second shift at Meijer, and coming home every night and crying because I hated it so much. I'm not really naive enough to think that's changed at all, but part of me thinks I should just suck it up for the money, and spend a summer being completely miserable.
Honestly, if it wasn't for the animals, I would be seriously thinking about moving into the SUV. We've already proven that we can sleep in the thing, its climate controlled, and we don't really *need* our own shower and toilet...that's what truck stops are for, right? The sad thing is that this notion is seriously tempting right now, because our apartment is feeling overwhelmingly expensive (and besides that, its a complete pigsty right now...neither of us has been up for cleaning recently).
Gahhh..I better stop posting this rant now. I'm just going to start going around in circles, and I haven't even mentioned the possibility of Chris taking a medical withdrawal for the semester, and the impact that could have on our finances if they don't let him keep his job...
In some ways that would be a good thing, since it would definitely re-qualify us for food assistance again, which would be a very good thing. We ate sooooo much better on food assistance than we ever do off it, and it was not only far less stressful since we knew where our next meal was coming from, but it was healthier eating for the most part because we could actually afford to buy something other than spaghetti and mac & cheese. If Chris gets to keep his job we might still qualify, assuming GVSU doesn't screw us over again by not giving the state our employment verification info, and that would solve a whole bunch of problems right there financially...or at least a few. We aren't currently at a loss for food, since we stocked up quite a lot of non-perishables back when I was still making $500 a week regularly, but we've been spending more on food in the last couple weeks than we should have been, and eating out far too often (even when "eating out" = $0.99 sandwich from Speedway, this still adds up). I just haven't had the executive function to actually prepare food, so I've been skipping a bizarre (for me) number of meals lately. Breakfast today was the aforementioned sandwich, around 1:00pm even though I was up at 11ish, since the idea of a bowl of cereal seemed like too much effort (I would have had to go face our sty of a kitchen, find a bowl, find a spoon, decide what kind of cereal to fix....altogether too much effort for breakfast when I'm also trying to deal with Chris' sick and my stress). At least the sandwich wasn't too terribly expensive, and lunch was far better -- I actually managed to nuke up some Easter leftovers that appeared in our fridge last night courtesy Chris' parents...ham & pineapple & sweet potatoes...mmmmmm. At least today is finally looking up a bit, especially since my student decided to skip class, so I didn't have to go to work -- but I still get paid (the one good thing about my contract!!)
Now I just have to deal with dinner (or maybe I'll just skip it, between lunch and my canned-grapefruit snack I'm not really hungry yet), then get over to Symphony Chorus reauditions...which I'm a titch nervous about, but not too bad. I just hope that my voice cooperates and I can hit all the notes. Just thinking about it makes me cough...not a terribly good sign., but I think I'll be ok. Stupid cold.
Ahh, rambling. This post should give any readers out there a fairly good idea of my trains of thought, especially in the last week or so. I feel like I've been doing nothing but eat, sleep, and stress out for the last month, with emphasis on stressing out, followed by sleeping...my ability to manage anything has been going down lately.