Finally... some relief. Taxes are done and off in the mail. Joy is out working in the field, and I just got home after driving Joy to Ocala to pick up her car from the Auto Body experts and depositing a check into my account. That check will allow us to finally pay back my parents.
We borrowed money from Joy's parents and my parents right before closing on the house in early March. We borrowed $3,500 from Joy's parents and $4,000 from my parents. We did this because we weren't sure if the money that I had in my IRA would be wired in time, and I had several large checks from my brokerage accounts that were "out of state" checks that the bank wanted to hold for two weeks... which would have been after our closing.
Now all that money stuff is resolved. We owe no parents money. The credit card is paid in full. We made our first mortgage payment two weeks ago, and we're ready for the next one. (We're making payments every two weeks instead of monthly.) We will likely be getting an extra $1319 of withheld taxes back from Uncle Sam at some point too. Joy wants to spend that on doing projects around the house. I'd like to just pay off more of our mortgage, and use the money in our budget for the house... for doing projects around the house. My thought was that it would buy me some time to lighten my already too overwhelming schedule before Joy fills it up with more projects.
We decided that half would go toward the mortgage and half would go toward fixing up the house. So, I am going to have two to five house projects to do as soon as that money is wired into our account and noticed by Joy. I just hope that happens sometime after May is behind me. At that point I might actually be looking forward to doing a project. If it is pushed forward before that, then I will be pretty resistant to say the least. The "everything must be perfect now!" attitude is kinda getting to me. She has a wonderful, nearly perfect, almost new house, two cars that were made within the last two years to park in that house, a nice job, friends that stop by and visit whenever she wants, and a brand new husband. Please be happy, and let me rest from all of these huge projects.
Oh wait, we've got to do this house warming thing where over 50 people are invited, and there is a lot that we have to do before that to be ready. The best time for that is, of course, one week before your finals, but please please please try to be excited about this all this and HELP ME OUT! I really want everything to be perfect, David. I can't tell you how much this means to me!
So, I have been quite overwhelmed lately. I have basically three and a half hours to rest and chill out, but it feels more like adrenaline detox because everything has been non-stop go, go, go lately. My semester started on Groundhog Day. Since that time I have gotten a new job, I spent one weekend looking for condos and one weekend looking for houses. I did this thinking that I was doing something to spend quality time with my wife doing things she would enjoy. Given that inch, we bid on a house at the end of February, briefly celebrated my birthday, did a ton of paper work and financial wrangling to get the money ready for the house, closed on it on March 3rd, painted the house, packed up the apartment, and moved into the house before March 31st. Now we are a few weeks into April and we are still working on a constant stream of smaller projects, and to top it off we are now fighting because I would like things to slow down a bit. Joy is frustrated with me because I am "being unreasonable." I am frustrated with her because she doesn't get my situation, and I can't seem to explain it to her that I'd like to hold off on things so I can catch up on my school work.
I fear that when she discovers that I am using some of my time today to blog she will react just like she reacts when I play ogame, which takes about 3-10 minutes. "Why are you blogging when you've got so much schoolwork to do and the house isn't spotless?" My explanation would be the same as always, but it doesn't seem to click with her. Perhaps it is unreasonable. I don't know. I haven't been able to run it by any of my friends yet. Here's what I say, 'I am tired, worn out, stressed out. I just want to unwind, unload the fatique, and have a brief diversion before I get back to work in a half hour.' Her response -- "Why don't you do something with me to unwind? We could have some people over, work on our taxes (wait, that's done now, whew!) talk about (plan) the house warming, or go get some grocieries." 'Well baby, unfortunately, I need some time away from you too right now. When I am not at work or at school, I am at home and you schedule your day around that so that we can always be together doing stuff. I am really tired of doing all that stuff and I need to study. Please get off my back for a while and let me relax.' (read an exasperated tone into these quotes too, because that is definately how I am feeling at that point and it comes out clearly)
Perhaps I am being unreasonable and a dick. I really don't know. I do know that I want, and feel a desperate need for, this time that I am getting to just let it all out. I'd prefer to talk about this with some friends, but it is the middle of the day and they are typically in class or at work about this time. I will be going to work at four and working until one or two AM. I just have to do this today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. Then I open on Saturday and work until sometime between four and nine. Who knows.
I'd really like some more time to chill and unwind, but I do have to go do some reading for my class. I hope to catch up with most of my reading this week and next week. I will need to if I am going to be ready to devote a few days into preparing for this house warming. I also wish that Joy could hear what I am saying and wanting instead of the things she actually hears. Somehow when I tell her all of this she walks away thinking that I just said I don't want to spend ANY time with her AT ALL. It gets all polarized and exaggerated when she tells me what she heard me say. I don't get that at all. The good news is that when my semester is over she will probably chill out and relax. When that happens everything goes back to great again and she'll wonder what happened this spring. My next hope will be that she doesn't find a new set of things during my Fall semester.
Posted by David at April 17, 2006 01:14 PM