Seriously missin' the internet.

These trips to the library to use the internet are a huge "slap in the face" kind of reminder of just how broke I am. The bills are slowly catching up, but we are still not at the point of being able to afford internet. It gets sooooo depressing being broke like this. It has been so long since I've bought new clothes I don't even remember when it was. My husband, thankfully, has lost enough weight that he is able to fit into old jeans from 6 years ago. If he hadn't lost the weight, he would be going to work with worn out jeans. I haven't been so lucky with weight loss because of the amazing amount of stress I am under. I am just hovering and doing good to not gain anymore. I think the depression is trying to creep back into my life. Seems like I am so wrought with worry and stress that I can't think of anything else. Keeping positive is a constant effort on my part.

My husband is being more of a husband than he ever was before we split. I don't know exactly why it took the extreme measure that it did in order for him to grow up, but I am thankful that it finally did happen. Instead of putting me down to feel better about himself, he is taking the steps to make himself better. Since he got his most recent job, he has never been late for work or missed a day. Being late for work was a daily thing for years, so it is odd that he has been so different with this job. I think it being so difficult for him to get into a job at all, has impressed upon him just how important it is that he not screw this one up.

My husband has interviewed for a promotion and didn't get it, but was told that he would be put into a different department based off of his skills and interests. It sounds like a sure thing and he should be moved in a couple weeks. That will be a $2 raise and I am hoping this will mean I can cut back a few more hours at my work. I had to take one less day because I couldn't handle the work load anymore, so I am only working two days then get a day off, work two days then get my weekend. I really need the time to get things at home done, plus sleep. I have been trying to function on not enough sleep for too long. When I have to work nights and take care of the girls during the day, there isn't much time left for sleeping. When I can get down to working no more than 20 hours a week, I should feel a lot better.

Besides the promise of a promotion, my husband has still been working on getting into a trade. He took the qualification test and the interview (which went really well). In a couple weeks we should get a letter stating where he is placed on the roster. I have been praying like crazy that he get into an apprenticeship soon. That would be double his current income, which would mean my income would be "extra" to start knocking down our debt and maybe buy a new pair of sneakers for myself (seriously, my current pair is falling apart and hurts my feet to wear them). I don't know if we would get the internet again as soon as we could afford it though. As much as I hate not having internet, I would really love the security of being debt-free. We've discussed it some, but haven't came to a final decision yet.

I am counting down the weeks until tax season. I am so excited for tax return this year! Our furnace is from 1946 and thankfully still working, but it sucks energy and doesn't do a very good job of heating the house. The hot water heater is old too, but I don't know the exact year. The problem with it is that the moron that installed it put the hot and cold water hookups on backwards. So the cold water goes in on the top of the hot water, instead of the bottom of the tank. What this means is that after using about 4 minutes of hot water the cold water dumping in on top of it has cooled it off and you end up taking freezing cold showers. We could just fix the problem except that we are 95% positive doing so would cause the hookups to fall apart. This has been so annoying for the couple years we've lived here. Come tax season, we are going to use that tax return towards a Rinai system. We got an estimate a while back, and for tankless on-demand hot water and the furnace that goes with it we would be paying about $4,500. Normally a hot water heater is around $600 and a furnace is $5000+ (based on quotes we got a couple years ago when we were looking at prices for updating and fixing houses during our hunt for a home, prices could have gone up since then though). A Rinai hot water heater is about double what a regular tank water heater is, but the furnace that works with it is way cheaper than a traditional furnace. The air is heated by hot water, which also means it doesn't dry out the air. Getting this system is a little dream of mine, plus the savings in energy costs during the winter months would be awesome. With what's leftover of the tax return is still being debated where we will spend it. My husband wants to spend it on knocking out some of our smaller credit cards (ones under $500). I know that is the smart thing to do, but there is a big part of me that also feels we haven't been able to spend any money on us just for fun for many months. Depending on our income at the time, I would like to get a new tv. The 46" LED by Samsung would look pretty sweet in our living room :) Our current tv we've had for 8 years, and is a 27" RCA tube tv. It has been pretty well used, and isn't working so awesome anymore. It was a floor model that we bought on clearance at Kmart.

I feel so boring. All I do is work and trudge through life. There are some fun moments, but really labor takes up most all of my life currently. We have stopped using toys for awhile. I don't know when we will start using them again, but it seemed like they just kinda slipped out of our sex. Seems like sex isn't planned out ahead of time anymore and it isn't all that fun and mind blowing either. Now we have went to one of those couples who only have sex right before bed. It is an odd development for us, but I've been enjoying it for the most part. I had kind of assumed the days of actually making love (as apposed to fucking) and falling asleep still holding each other were over, but here we are, falling asleep without even cleaning up most nights (that I am not working anyway). Sex had become something devoid of most all emotion before my husband was arrested, so I am still getting used to the emotion-filled, heart-present, love making of the current. The sweetness of my sex life is almost sickening.

I think I've ate up all of my "me" time already. Time to go try to post this now.