Yesterday was fraught with anxiety here at my house. No sense going into the details of the dumbness of the situation, but I have come to realize that I am driving the boat of my life, navigating the waters. It is quite easy to get into that place where all I am doing is bouncing off of rocks. I will say that this involves my husband and my father (whom I struggle to have a normal relationship with). The dynamics are muddied with loyalty, blood is thicker than water, money is power, etc.

I found that while I sort of did a mini-vent with my previous post, IRL I acted quite differently. I did listen to DH vent, I had to say that my relatives are nuts, does this really surprise you, let's us move on.

The monetary ramificiations of this are DH will most likely not be working the second job for my father for some time. He has returned all keys to all buildings - rather I will be returning these to my brother's mailbox later today.

DH automatically jumped to the "I will have to find a second job because you really count on that money" branch in this tree of life.

I was able to remind him that the money that he makes goes directly to the car portion of our savings account. Granted it won't grow as fast, but it will grow.

The positive money things that have happened lately are (which will help us weather the loss of income), I haven't used any of the "car" money for things - and these are things that I might have felt justified borrowing funds, but I didn't have to:

(1) Same disowning father paid for the dance dresses for my daughters.
(2) Our school gave us an additional $2,000 tuition grant
(3) The hospital bill that I owe on was reduced to $250 (of which I'm making $25 monthly payments)
(4) My grandma just sent a $500 check as a gift
(5) The pediatrician gave us free samples for several month's for my daughter's asthma meds
(6) The tenant appears to be paying 1/2 the rent every two weeks in a timely fashion - she probably realizes if she doesn't she is out

The non-monetary benefits of this are DH will be around a lot more. I will forward all issues pertaining to apartment building management to my father's telephone number. This too shall pass.

I'm thinking that today I will be passing on my trip to use coupons on items that I *really* don't need and had better think in terms of an *as-needed* basis.

I really want to teach my children that while life throws you curves, you can manage without the drama, hence the post title of "Drama-fee Mama" - which is my goal for the day.