In 2013, my husband lost a finger and a bit.

In 2014, my mother in law tried to ruin my marriage and my mother almost died.

So far in 2015, I went to the funeral for the mother of an old, dear friend and on our way home, my husband, our sole provider, got laid off from his job.

This would ordinarily be the part where I freak out.  I have four kids, a mortgage, just starting to think about recovering from the past year and a half of less than adequate income and now this.  Woo hoo!!!!!  Oh ya, and today is my daughter’s 9th birthday.

As we drove, I felt the sick, tingly fear coursing through my veins and I was screaming “Fuck, fuck, fuck…over and over (in my head of course, not aloud 🙂 ).  I’m not going to lie and say it just rolled off my back.  Not so.  The panic, however, didn’t last long.  I mean really, what can you do?  The wheels start turning, plans start hatching and I go into survival mode.

It’s a shitty, stressful situation to find ourselves in.  Thankfully we are both skilled and ready to get busy setting things right.  We spent part of the day polishing his resume, applied to a job, looked into some other jobs and evaluating our options.  Once I was done with his stuff, I turned to my own tasks.

I’ve been trying to register for an online service since Friday in order to order a report I need to proceed with a deal I am currently working on.  I probably had to call support three or four times before we finally figured out that my primary email account was blocking my registration email from arriving.  Great!  I finally gain access to the system.  Check!

Then, I log into my account with the local school board to check for postings.  If I’m going to have childcare, I may as well go out to work, if I can.  There are two postings I am interested in and I am already booked into a training session which will provide me with one of the requirements for the posting I am really interested in.  In I go to apply to these jobs.  Well, there is a reason I have always preferred to work for small to medium sized businesses as opposed to large corporate enterprises.  I fucking hate them.  Period.  I’m not cut out for it.  I hate their systems.  If I had one browser page open, I had six open.  I’m not that tech savvy.  I’m lucky I can post this.  So back and forth, back and forth, finally get one application completed and hit submit and……error message.  No shit!  Ok, back, resubmit, error message.  Ok, log out, log back in, redo application form, skipping from one page to the next, complete, submit…..error message!!!  Ok, log out, give up, email manager.  Check on course outline for tomorrow and posting it supports.  Read pre-requisites…hmmmm….Shit!…I don’t have them…how did I miss this when I registered?  Quickly, email the administrator who is looking for spots, tell her about my mistake and unregister myself.  Usually I get along decently with my computer and I can get through it.  Today, I got it.  I finally got why people can be driven to launch their computers right through the nearest window or wall.  In my case, because now I can’t buy a new one, I just started crying.  Now, when I need to work more than ever, how do I explain to my husband that I don’t have anywhere to go tomorrow because I couldn’t even register for a class properly?  Manager calls me back, tells me that the IT department is working to rectify the problem because apparently the inability to apply for jobs isn’t just me.  It’s an actual thing.  Whew!  Now that we’ve spoken she makes a notation and I am free to apply to these jobs even after the 4pm deadline.  Log back into my webmail, turns out I do have the pre-reqs for tomorrow’s training session, too bad I already unregistered.  Wahhhh!!!!!  Oh please, oh please, give me my spot back…best administrator ever!  She does.  I’m back in and back on track.  Walk away.

Time to go pick up my girls.  Thankfully, papa bear made the birthday cake.  Now I just have to ice it.  Oh and wrap the gifts and buy the card.  Can’t get to the gifts because he’s in the bedroom sleeping (I stash everything in my closet).  Leave my girl in the car while I run in and buy her card on her birthday.  Really!!!!  Seriously, it’s been a rough, busy couple of weeks.  Home, back to the computer.  Apply for both jobs…successfully.  Check!  Back into appraisal system….I’m not shitting you when I say I tried about 8 times to order this report.  I finally got it done.  Check!  Really feeling done with the computer.  Sit down to write this…cord comes out, which of course shuts my laptop down immediately because I fried my battery long ago.  Here we go again.

Seemed like a tough day.  I said to my husband, that even if things were static and we weren’t in this pickle that today, with my computer issues I wouldn’t have been able to keep it together.  I’ll admit that I have no patience.  I feel like a dick.  But my daughter, is so lovely.  I don’t spoil them on their birthdays, but I felt like today she was little shortchanged with her gifts from us.  Her cake, although, delicious and super amazingly moist, didn’t ice particularly well.  Not our prettiest collaboration.  All she had to say was that this was her best birthday ever and all she wanted was for me to sit down and snuggle with her.  She knows what’s going on and she showed me today how spectacular she is.  She genuinely seemed to mean it when she appeared happy with her gifts and her dinner and cake.  I felt like I had disappointed her and my hubby asked if there was anything she had asked for that we didn’t already get her.  While we’re feeling shitty, she’s trying to make us feel better.  She’s a gem.  I love her with all my heart.  I’m seeing her grow, mature and thrive.  She’s happy, healthy and loving.  I will work every day to be the mother she deserves.

Happy 9th Birthday Turtle!  I love you so much!