oh, Life... you're a punk, you know that?

So following the pre-menstrual freak-out of late last night, I awoke this morning with renewed determination to make things work this month financially.  So much seems to have come up all of a sudden that demands financial attention (new tires, dentist, contacts... in addition to the normal rent / utils, student loans, and paying off the car repair bill I've had for the last 5 months, which by the way, was the catalyst for not going to grad school in the first place... seriously, life!) and then of course on top of everything, our heater's been acting funny so of course in the middle of the night last night (a few days before the Visitor's supposed to arrive), the world didn't just look gray, it looked some dark and horribly foreboding shade of charcoal.  I basically had a meltdown in the shower around midnight and then decided it was totally and completely necessary to blog about it, prompting an extremely sweet, yet concerned phone call from my grandparents this morning (thanks, Grandma!) as I was on my way out the door to play for a chapel service at Lutheran High. 

All that to say, today was a day of a renewed commitment to chip away again at the puzzle.  I got new front tires put on this afternoon, just in the nick of time... mere hours before the forecasted (as my 16-yr-old brother says) "snow hurricane is supposed to wax all of St. Louis tonight."  I also finally paid off my car repair bill (... the one I've been paying down since late July... yeah, that one), paid my insurance, and put away money in savings.  It all made me feel extremely industrious and made it somehow ironically easier to trust that the funds will be replenished at the right time for the other bills I have this month.  Weird.  Maybe it was just me feeling better about paying some stuff off... or maybe it was me knowing that I'd been provided for just in the nick of time, yet again.  I can't tell you the relief I felt at just making it to the mechanics' today and being able to get new tires put on.  I knew I'd been gambling with that one...
 
Either way, tonight I'm holed up in my (thank God!) cozy apartment.  Our heater still works, despite the quirks I've noticed in the last month, and even though there's not tons of food in the fridge / pantry, it's still more than some people have.  I also had a huge revelation today about the student I struggled with most all last semester, which makes me feel amazing as a teacher... I think I finally outsmarted this one (fingers crossed).  And I learned something extremely valuable this morning:  I still have a safety net, which means that a lot could go wrong and I'd still manage to make it somehow.  Not everyone has that protection.  So as I eat spaghetti for the ??th night in a row (just kidding... sorta... Mom and Dad had me over for dinner Sunday night), I consider myself a lucky girl to not only be doing what I love, but to also be loved by those who've always been there and to be loved by those who are quickly becoming like family in this new location of mine.  It's a hard, but good place to be.