{ it's hard to dance with a devil on your back }

every once in a while, usually twice a year or so, we hit a perfect storm of bills and/or holidays and/or unexpecteds that put us in a financial pickle.  do you have those?  where you break into the silver pig on the dresser and turn  in your change for gas money?  this is one of those times.  i don't stress 'em too much anymore.  i do the usual shuffling and stretching, returning and well, recycling and then we get paid again.

but sometimes i get to thinking and stressing more than i should.  eric and i have become good at taking turns at panicking and breaking down (not so much him with the sobbing break downs.  that's reserved for me, i think, because i'm better at it.  i can really break it down).

do you have this give and take with your significant other?  it's an unspoken rule that if we both enter panic mode and become hysterically stressed (alright, again that's more me with the hysteria) that the walls will come tumbling down.  so, we don't.  the other bears the burden of {at the very least} pretending things will turn out ok and we'll make it through another troubling situation.  and, of course, we always do.

but lately, having recently graduated and finding myself in unfamiliar territory, owing some people somewhere a many several {cough, thousand} dollars, i panic a lot.  i have many internal panic attacks throughout the day. when they surface they often take the face of a short-tempered mother, wife, driver, sister, grocery shopper, pedestrian, what have you.  and then in my mind it boils down to the same sentence every time.  get your bleep together, lady.

so here's my panic.  i just brought upon our family a big pile of school debt, we live in one of the most expensive cities in the country, i'm working retail part-time, eric wants to go to school and i'd like to have a baby this year. i feel like i should have a name for this stress ball that has formed inside my belly.  harriet, i think?

now that it's down with ink and keyboard clicks, i can move on.  i'm going to try and drown harriet with some buttermilk chippers.  they've been moved to #2 on tonight's night list after those damn dishes.  always with the dishes.

: :

source

and because i only like to read posts that include pictures, let's lighten the mood with something nice.

wouldn't it be nice to stroll along this beach tonight?

it was 80+ degrees here today!

p.s. this song may also help if you too are feeling overwhelmed.  keep in mind that it's most effective while performing an interpretive dance of your own design.
here's a nice acoustic version.  i love me some florence.