No vacation goes unpunished, Part 1

I would love to say that my lack of posting last week was because of my stellar upbringing and that I live by the rule of "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.", but I would be LYING!!

My silence was actually due to a massive tantrum followed by self-pity, followed by hopelessness, followed by ennui, followed by me growing up and dealing with all the shit that led to this emotional roller coaster.

It all started with the post-vacation blues one always has in the face of impending work, but these were compounded by the discomfort that travel causes me now that I'm so pregs: Sitting still on a cramped plane to get back to work sucks!!

We had a brief respite of niceness visiting with the in-laws in Nashville on the way home, but then we got home around 7:30 on Sunday night to discover that our house was filthy and slightly trashed! So road-weary, pregnant, hot and exhausted, we got to start cleaning our house in case there was a realtor wanting to show it that week.

Monday of our welcome home, I picked up my car in the morning from the body shop, and got to work early to begin going through the 500 emails that accumulated while we were in Canada. I met the hubby for lunch, and then on the way back to the office, my newly fixed car broke down on the side of the road. The heat index was 98 degrees, and I was not about to walk my pregnant ass around in that weather so I had to call all my colleagues until one finally answered the phone and offered to rescue me. I managed to keep it together through getting the car towed back to the body shop, arranging to pick up the rental car again, and getting half way home, and then proceeded to have a tantrum/crying jag for the rest of the evening. 10 o'clock bedtime, friends.

Tuesday was when the self-pity hit. I'm ashamed to admit I let myself be completely overwhelmed by anxiety about: a) continuing to drive a car that seemed to be on god's hit-list, b) the alternative of having a car payment again, c) spending money on anything other than daycare and diapers for the rest of our lives, d) how this was redirecting money we should be spending on further improvements to the house to get the damn thing sold, e) whether we'll ever know where we are going to live so I can figure out things like pediatricians, and painting the nursery, f) more useless stressing along these lines, g) rinse and repeat.

By Tuesday night I was sick of myself and sick of feeling hopeless, but still feeling the pressure to finish up more of the house-recovery cleaning. After sitting in front of the TV drooling for an hour after work, I finally just decided to admit that I wasn't going to finish cleaning the whole house that night. I gave Buddy a bath as a nod to cleaning, and made myself sit down and work through our whole budget. It was here that the 1st ray of hope appeared: It turns out that we spend a lot of money on total crap! Perhaps some of those funds could be redirected to address my concerns?

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion...