write this one off.

That's what I'd like to do with this week. Send it off to a faraway island, never to return.

First, The Husband tells me he's not doing so hot. He's still struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder from the war (he served 2 years in Iraq) and thought he'd be better by now. Unfortunately more and more soliders are coming foward after they've been home for months or even years and admitting that things just aren't right. I think they believe they'll "get over it" at some point, but they need to deal. So we're working on that.

Then, I get a call that my check card has been stolen. Nice. A few of the charges could have been The Husband's, so when the fraud department first called I wasn't sure. Then they mentioned a thirty-something charge at Pizza Hut and I knew it wasn't ours. Luckily Wells Fargo is right on top of these things and already filed the claim to have all the funds put back into our account. Still a major pain.

THEN, we have a meeting at work today. Not unusual, but we were still a little skeptical. Walking down the hallway we saw the Lead Pastor of the chuch we work for and we knew it couldn't be good (he NEVER comes to our building. Our church is one of the biggest Lutheran churches in the nation, with about 7-8,000 attendees, so there are about 10 pastors and the big guy doesn't usually bother with our lowly preschool!). Right behind him, the business manager. Double uh-oh. After a lengthy meeting and a whole bunch of beating around the bush, we found out we're all having our salaries reduced. How much, they don't know. All the pastors will be taking a 7% pay cut, and they say ours will be less than that. We should find out within the next week or two what the cut will be, and it will be effective in February. We also had our continuing education funds cut, and our health insurance is going up in May. For the love of all things.

Believe me, I know things could be so much worse. I know I'm incredibly lucky to have a job, a home (albeit one we'd rather NOT have!), a wonderful husband and kickass friends. And I'm going back to school, which sadly is a luxury not many can afford. I know all this and more. And most days it's enough to keep me on the up-and-up. But not today. Today I need to crab, be angry, vent, and go to bed early. It's either that or I'll eat an entire pint of (vegan) ice cream with cookies on top. Which won't help the awful feeling of being enormously fat I've been having as of late.

Aren't I just a big ball of sunshine?? :) On a happier note, I love love LOVED my Intro to Social Work class last night. It's filled with mostly people actually going into the Social Work major, so we had a lot in common and a lot to talk about. I'm just having such a great time being back in school. It's so nice to be involved with something intellectual, if that makes sense? Anyway, it was great. The whole leaving the house at 7 and not returning until 10 thing will get old, but it went by fast. And I think this professor will let us out early most nights, which would really put a smile on my face.

And a cute preschooler story of the day, to cheer us all up in the Great Depression of 2009: So I've talked about my little friend Joe before (only wears Cars shirts, revvs his engine to go anywhere, insists I call him "Lightning", as in McQueen), and today was one of the best days with him ever. We're sitting there reading a story (the classic novel The Great Gracie Chase) and he starts to sound out some words. I asked him if he wanted to try and read some, and he said yes. He got through an entire sentence and his face lit up and he said "I JUST READ THAT!!". He was so excited it made me want to cry. He ran around the room screaming "I can read! I can read!" and made me give him an "I Can Read" sticker (which we actually don't have, I have no idea where he came up with that. I ended up writing on a plain sticker "Joe Read Today!" and he deemed it good enough) and wore it with pride. There is nothing, I seriously mean nothing, like seeing a kid read his first words. But don't worry, 5 minutes later I tried to get him to read a word and all he said was "KACHOW!". I think I lost him. But there's always tomorrow... this Grandma needs to go to bed. And yes, it is 7:55 pm. And no, I'm not ashamed.