picture from Gold Bamboo

Depression
I have a tendency to be depressed. I have been on medication for it in the past, but now I usually like to try and exercise instead of taking medication! After Christmas seems to be my hardest time when it comes to depression! I have finally figured this out and this year actually kind of expected it to happen. Many times it hits as early as the day after Christmas! I don’t know if it’s just a big let down from all the excitement or what. So I was as prepared as I could be this year and what do you know, I thought I might have overcome it this year, nope, it just started a lot later than usual! I know that exercise helps, but it is so hard for me to exercise when I’m depressed, I just want to stay in bed and usually have a very hard time forcing myself to get out of bed. Of course, exercise fits in my schedule only in the mornings before the kids get up! I know its a catch 22, I know I would feel better if I just got up to exercise, but can’t seem to muster up the will power right now! When I exercise and am up and ready before my kids get up, it makes the day go so much smoother! I know one thing that is adding to my depression is money (isn’t that always the case?), I just want to be in a place where we feel comfortable. Where I don’t HAVE to shop sales and cut coupons, where I don’t freak out every time my son comes home from school and they need more money for this, that, or the other! Now I know we have come a long way (before Dave we were getting ready to start putting groceries on a credit card), and I know that there are MANY people who would LOVE to be in our shoes, but this is how I feel right now (and we can’t control how we feel, but we can control how we handle our emotions)! Before Christmas we made a $2,700 commitment and now I am regretting it in some ways. I know that it has the potential to save my family’s life, but we should have waited until we could pay cash! We will have to start making payments soon and am very glad to say that we have paid $1,900 off already! It just makes me sick to think that that money could have gone towards our car loan. Oh well, we made a choice and now have to live with the consequences!

New Hope
My husband has done a “rough draft” of our taxes and we should be getting back right around the same amount we owe on our car! However, we usually pay for certain things out of our tax return, so we will be looking at all of our options to see what we think will be the best use of this money! My shoot for the moon goal this year is to have our car paid off, and I now see that it just might be a possibility!

Now I am not sharing this testimony because I want sympathy or anything like that. I just want you all to know that I am human, I make mistakes, and we have to deal with the consequences of our mistakes! I want this blog to be a reflection of real life and not just the garden of roses aspects. It’s all about the good, the bad, and the ugly!