Stressing about School and Finances...

So this week has been full of ups and downs so far.

It started off with Josh deciding that he wasn't ready for this. I gave myself 5 minutes to cry about it and got back to taking care of my son and what not. I'm still sad about it.

Then I received a bill from PGE for $455 and I thought my eyes were going to bug outta my head. I still owe a balance from when Paul lived here. He has given me a whopping $50 to go towards PGE and thats only because they threatened to shut off my electricity back in February. When Paul lived here, he was in charge of paying rent and PGE, while I was taking care of Tallan, keeping up on the apartment and paying for groceries. I wasn't aware until January that Paul had stopped paying PGE back in April of 2010. When Paul moved out in January, he left me with a $380 PGE bill, and since then, with what little extra money I get I've been trying to pay it down on top of paying the monthly electricity costs. Thankfully, last month Cynthia paid $50 toward PGE which saved us, yet again, from being shut off. I've been trying to get a hold of the Energy assistance people but my Sprint phone got shut off so I have no idea if they've been trying to contact me to help me pay it down some. I literally have $90-something dollars to my name and I'm going to be giving PGE about $75 and Cynthia is going to pay another $40 when she gets paid.

Next, I received a letter from my landlord stating that starting June 1st, 2011 my rent is being raised from $650 to $675. To most people this doesn't seem like a huge jump, but when I'm already struggling to make ends meet, $25 is a lot. Granted Cynthia pays me $225 a month for rent, but that still leaves me with $425 for rent to come up with by myself. So I told Cynthia that I was going to split the raise in rent so its fair on both of us. So now she's going to be paying $237.50 and I will be paying $437.50.

With those two things weighing me down, I'm feeling the pressure more than ever to find a job. I have been looking and applying too. My biggest struggle so far has been finding a job that coincides with the hours of my day care. I've had to let go of two job offers so far because they want me to start a shift at 7am or earlier and I can't even drop Tallan off at daycare until 730am at the earliest.

I am so thankful that my dad and step mom help me out with anything Tallan needs. Such as Diapers, wipes, bottles, sippy cups, anything I need or want for Tallan they buy. At the same time I feel bad, it makes me feel like I'm not able to provide for him on my own. I know that one day I will though. I just gotta make it through this rough patch and eventually things will get easier.

Also, I just got an email from one of my instructors from school saying that I received only 35 out of 60 points on this entire chapter of homework. I remember following ALL of the instructions and making sure I had all 5 assignments completed. But she said I didn't and that I had done all these things wrong. It was so frustrating. It just feels like every week when I turn in an assignment/chapter of work, she nit picks every single little error and docks a ton of points for it. I just feel like why should I continue to try? She knows my situation, that I'm a single mother and I don't have a whole lot of time to spend on homework and stuff for school, yet she still docks points and wont accept any late work. And I know as much as I'm trying to stay afloat in my other classes I'm falling way behind. I know that I'm going to fail at least one class this term which means I'm going to lose my financial aid for Fall Term. It's all very DE-motivating.



I need to make a plan. My dad has taught me that you always need to have a plan. And a back up plan. When I was pregnant with Tallan, my dad sat me down and asked me to come up with a plan. He said I needed to figure out how I was going to support myself and Tallan after he was born. He also told me that I needed to come up with a back up plan if Paul decided to ditch out. And so I did and a month later Paul and I had our own apartment. Although, I was putting all my eggs in one basket, assuming that Paul and I were going to work out and everything was going to be hunky-dory. I knew that I still needed to come up with a back up plan. So when I kicked Paul out in January, I had to come up with a plan and fast. I still wasn't working and with rent and bills due, I had to act fast. This is when Cynthia moved in, and so far things have been working out well. But with Cynthia expecting baby Elijah in September, Money is going to get really tight for both of us. So I am going to spend the rest of my evening brainstorming ways to get through this and out of this financial nightmare.


In other news, Cynthia's baby shower is less than a month away, so I'm also going to be busy with Organizing and planning that. I ordered her some cute stuff for the shower on amazon. I love amazon, everything is so cheap. I'm planning out the games and the timeline. I think her mom is going to help me with some of the costs, like the cake and some of the food. I also need to pick up the prizes. But I'm super excited, and when thats all done, I get to finish planning Tallan's FIRST birthday party. I'm having it at the Oregon Zoo, so all my friends and family that have kids, actually get to go out and have fun too. The only downfall is it might wind up being very spendy, cuz I know that I will have to pay for some people.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough tonight. I just wanted to write about all the crap going on in my life this week. =)

-Ashley