Shameless Stolen Tagline

I don't know how many of you read The Dish With Ward and June--but, you all really should, lol. It's always a very inspiring read; it seems often to touch on a subject that I really needed to "hear" right then.


Today, it was based off the tagline "Let's stop competing against each other, and work on completing each other."

School starts at the end of the month(I promise, I'm getting somewhere with this), and I'm going to only working three nights a week. Granted, they'll be weekends, but..since I normally work 5-6 nights a week... I normally have a fair bit of bonus and over-time pay. The more I've thought about this, the more I've stressed. How are we going to make it? Should I try to keep picking up? School has to come first...but, just HOW first? And, then, I start to budget. Not going to lie...I've budgeted clear through June of next year.

For the chick who's used to chunking money back in to our Emergency Fund(Savings), and extra towards debt, the idea of not having any extra is a terrifying thought. And, yet, instead of leaning on Steven, and letting all his, "Hey, we're going to make it. This is why we're going to school. It's going to be tight, but hey--you married the king of making hurt work. We can do this," get through to me...I've fought. I've snapped. My attitude has been in the toilet. I've been spanked more in the last two weeks than I have in the last three months. It's been crazy.

But, last night, I think we came to a sort of resolution, one that was only hammered home by June and Ward's post. Steven and I were arguing; I asked him if he needed to use my car for the next day's work. It's not our preference, either one of us--but, my car sips gas, while his chugs it.

"No," he said, stretching out on the bed, eyes half closed, ready for sleep. "I got gas this morning." A moment of dead silence.

"How did you do that?" I asked. Maybe he didn't sense the danger in my tone.

"Out of our account, why?"

"You broke budget!" I accused, instantly incensed. After all my hours of sitting and crunching numbers! How dare he! Get gas for his car!! What??

"Grace, I had to have gas," he reasoned.

"No! No, you didn't!! We had a PLAN! You were supposed to use MY car! Then, we wouldn't have NEEDED gas!" I felt tears threatening. To be fair--I'd called him at 2:30 that morning, from work, and asked if he minded me hanging with some of the work crowd that morning. In doing so, I completely forgot he was going to take my car. And, since that's actually his night time, he didn't care about cars or anything else but the inside of his eyelids. Can't blame him...I'm the same way during the day.

"You had your car," he defended, his eyes finally coming all the way open.


"That doesn't matter! You should have remembered to tell me no!" It makes me cringe to think how I sounded. Even now, hours later, sitting on the very sore bottom that tantrum earned me. Afterwards, he was very sweet, very snuggling, very logical.

"Grace," he said. "We're doing alright. We get paid soon, and we still have money. We can't help it when unexpected expenses come up. You needed to go to the doctor. You couldn't possibly have budgeted for that. And, we can't just not get gas because something comes up. I know you're worried. I know things are going to be tight for a while. I know you aren't used to this, but there are going to be checks where we're not doing anything but making it. And, that's ok. We're in college, trying to pay for a house and everything else. But, we're going to have to work together on this. We won't have a choice. We can't fight against each other, or compete, or throw around who makes more or less money. We're going to need to pull together and make this work. And, we can. We're going to be alright."

Much as I hated to admit it then, I hadn't been unduly spanked. I was perfectly atrocious, and honestly, he probably barely covered the offense. My stress has been working quite hard to shove us apart; I've picked up 4,5,6 shift runs, and will only  see him for several hours a week. And, as he reminded me last night--we're both looking forward to the shift switch. I can't wait to see him most nights. He can't wait to see me most nights, and to have me in the bed when he goes to sleep.

All that to say--I may need reminding later: but, for now, I want to work on completing, not competing.