Fadedwords

So.  Today was a friend’s daughter’s birthday.  I also needed to get my oil changed.  I took care of all of that, and had a great time at the party.  Then my friend BC asked if I wanted to go see Nights in Rodanthe, which I did.  We went to her apartment and found a showtime, went and got dinner, and I got a fairly inexpensive Halloween costume.  The movie was fabulous (bring many tissues if you’re going to see it), and then I came home.

I got on line to check my bank account, because I knew it’d be a little low.  I was somewhat surprised to see $0.00 as my checking account balance.

Apparently Sch*0lastic did not charge my debit card immediately when I paid for two books I bought at the book fair.  Instead of charging immediately, which 99.999% of companies do, they charged my card today.  So I had been budgeting under the impression that I had already spent that money, and I had not been charged yet.  So that money came out today.

I’ve had to transfer $100 from savings to cover me “just in case” until pay day, which is Tuesday.  But I’ve also had to come to a very difficult decision.

I’m going to have to give up horseback riding.  The past two months trying to save for lessons have been terrible.  By the end of the month I’m in panic mode because I don’t have any money left.  As much as I love riding and hate the thought of not doing it, it’s not responsible to do it.  I should be paying my bills, helping Jake with major household stuff, taking care of Merlin, and saving whatever is left over after that.  Right now my bills are being paid, albeit not all of them on time every month (my student loan payment is due the 28th of the month, and sometimes I don’t get paid til the 28th of the month).  I help Jake with what I can, but anything beyond basic bills is something I can’t help with… and sometimes even the basics don’t work.  And poor Merlin has had something eating at his skin for the past few weeks, and I cannot afford to take him to the vet to get it checked out.  I’m barely putting anything into savings, and the past two months I have been withdrawing from savings to cover checking.

It’s just not working.

So maybe in another year or so when I have my credit card debt paid down and my one student loan closer to paid off I can look at this again.  Right now it’s just not working.  I’m sick of living like this, and the only thing that is expendable in my budget is riding.

I don’t even know what their refund policy is… it’s quite possible (and likely) that I will be told that they don’t do refunds.  We’ll see on that.  I’ll be emailing the director of the academy to ask.

Today is a day that I wish I had gone to a state school, never gotten a credit card, or gotten a job that paid me enough to pay my bills easily.  None of those things is the case, so I have to give up the one thing I love more than anything else to be an adult.

Being an adult sucks.

Clearly I haven’t been writing all that often here.  I think I mentioned before that I wasn’t feeling in the mood.  If not, there you have it: I haven’t been in the mood to write.

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I really love being able to ride again.  But it’s hard not to feel like crap when my new instructor won’t even let me canter yet.  I don’t know what the heck the problem is, but she won’t let me canter.  Apparently I had nothing to worry about with jumping; that’s a long way off from the looks of things.

I’m down today.  I’m frustrated.  There are so many things that are not going the way I wish they were, and I can’t seem to fix any of them.  I no longer know what to do about any of it.  Riding was just the icing on the cake today.

Today was the big day: back in the saddle.  I was apprehensive because I was scheduled to ride with a new instructor, not to mention that it’d been two months without riding.  I was determined to get up there and do my absolute best though.

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I’m glad it’s Friday.  The weeks do seem to drag on sometimes, and this week was another one.  It was a good week, for the most part even though I was looking forward to today.

The little girl I do homebound service with, L, had a better week this week.  Monday was a rough day, as she had to go to the hospital.  The rest of the week was very good; she was very much her usual self.  It was really good to see her in such high spirits, especially after seeing her have such a difficult week.  I ate dinner at their house on Tuesday, and ended up babysitting for a little while so her parents could go out and arrange a surprise for her.  Yesterday we couldn’t do any school work, because unforutnately L’s white blood cells were incredibly low and she was neutropenic.  These things (amongst others) led to her being way too tired.  I did stay for about an hour and a half.  Her mom had to take her grandmother home, so we played with barbies and just had a nice time.  There is a fundraiser for her on Sunday afternoon, and I’m looking forward to going.  I’ve been working with her for over a month now, and I cannot begin to explain how blessed I feel that I’m part of this.  It breaks my heart to see what her and her family go through, but more often than not I am amazed and awestruck at the beauty I’m shown.

After playing email tag, Joy and I got riding figured out.  I am riding tomorrow at 2pm with Mattie.  I will be in Mattie’s lesson group, which I’m kind of bummed about.  I had really hoped to ride with Deb, who I did my lessons with when I first started up riding.  I really got along with her well.  I’m keeping an open mind though; I’ve had very positive experiences with everyone I met at this facility.  I’m looking forward to being in the saddle again, more than I can say.  Joy did say in her last email that it would be good if I could jump with Mattie once or twice before group begins on the 20th… so I’m pretty nervous about that.  Yes, I’ve jumped hundreds of times before… but I have not done that in well over two years.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m just excited to be back near horses and on a horse, and I’m hoping for another positive experience.  My friend Steve said he might come tomorrow, so it’s possible there will be pictures.  We’ll see.

I went to a conference today in Raleigh about bringing out the best in students.  I truly enjoyed it; there was a lot of information that I found valuable.  Quite a few people from my county went, including my former principal.  It was quite interesting to see her, and I admit that I had a nice conversation with her.

I have worked out hard this week, starting The F*irm dvd set that I bought many months ago.  I’ve pushed myself hard this week and I really hope it pays off.  Tomorrow is weigh in, and I’m nervous/anxious as I always am.  I would love to be down another 1.6… that will give me my 10%.  So we’ll see about that too.

Aaaaand… Jake just called me :)  I wasn’t expecting to hear from him, other than his nifty tracker thingy, until he pulled up in the driveway next Friday.  He’s having fun and says there are tons of pictures.  He and Brian are camping in Alabama right now, and will go back to Mississippi on Monday.  He said he’s thinking of heading back up this way early, so we’ll see on that.   It was incredibly good to hear his voice.

For now I’m off to hop in the shower, so I can try to be in prime shape for the lesson tomorrow.  Wish me luck.