Believe me, I wish I wasn't up this early. I have been lying in bed awake for a little while, with a lot on my mind, and figured what they hey...I'll blog. Seems to be a good source of therapy. Yeah...instead of talking to a shrink, I talk to a computer? lol.

So first of all, I need to get all our tax junk together, you know, receipts for all the stuff we're going to claim. What really stinks though is that however much we get back, which who knows if it'll even be as much as last year, most of it will have to go to the credit card. Who knows if it'll even be enough to pay the dang thing off. I hate credit cards. They are of the devil. Last year was really nice. We got a fat check from Uncle Sam, bought a new kitchen table, a steam cleaner, clothes for the kids, our football season tickets of course, and I really can't exactly remember what else. We had thrown around the idea of several different vacation possibilities, but no big trip this year...AGAIN. I shouldn't really complain. I mean, we have a roof over our head, food to eat, clothes to wear, 2 vehicles in the driveway, plenty of stuff to keep us entertained, and the chance every great once in awhile to do something together, like a date, or out to eat. But it would be REALLY nice to have a little more peace of mind when it comes to our finances. I'll admit, over the last year or so, we haven't exactly done the BEST JOB with our money. We blow more money than we save. We both grew up so spoiled, never had to want for anything, and it's hard to re-train your brain to do without the things you want and make some sacrifices. We've been married going on 6 years, and we've never even had a savings account, which is almost scary considering me & Michael do not have health insurance. So if one of us gets sick, we have to either A) hope our parents will chip in and pay for the doctor visit, B) pay for it ourselves on the credit card, C) have it billed, not pay for it, and let it go into collections. The thing is, over the last couple years, we've exercised all 3 of those options at one time or another. If you have health insurance, consider yourself blessed. I can't remember who it was or when it was, but I was talking to someone that was complaining for having to pay a $20 co-pay to see the doctor for a cold! Try paying $75 for an office visit, not even including if any other tests have to be done, not to mention whatever prescriptions you have to get filled.

Since we're on the topic of doctors and stuff, another thing on my mind is this pain in my neck/throat on the left side. This pain makes my jaw hurt and my ear hurt as well. It hurts to turn my head to the left to look to the side or behind me. The pain started Saturday, and it hasn't gotten any better, maybe slightly worse. The odd thing is that I feel worse during the evening hours than during the day. I was thinking that maybe it is one of those things where you're fighting off an infection, and one of your glands in your neck is swelled a little due to drainage from your sinuses or something. I've had that before...like when I was much younger...but it didn't seem to last quite this long, maybe just a day or so. If it lasts a whole week, I'd really like to go to the doctor about it, but once again, no insurance, too many medical bills already, and trying to get the credit card paid down. HELP MOM!!

I'm not really trying to depress anyone (Michael), I just thought I'd feel better if I could get this off my chest. I didn't exactly officially make any New Year's resolutions this year, because I never keep them it seems like, but if I had to put one down for the year, I'd say it's to try and get our finances in a little better shape and to make some sacrifices to cut down on the expenses.

Well, I'm off to find the Advil bottle and the couch. The kids will probably be awake soon.