My problem.

As the semester has winded down and next year is looming in front of me, I face a very large challenge. How to finance my education and housing expenses for the next year.

Up until now my mom has been helping to cosign private loans to fund the costs not covered by my financial aid - which is basically everything since tuition has increased every semester for the last two years. Now we have reached a point where we have borrowed so much that in combination with her current financial obligations we are unable to borrow anymore. We haven't even borrowed that much, it's just that she already has a 70k mortgage under her name, plus her car, plus her credit cards, and so forth all on her 50k a year salary. So lenders look at that, and look at my lack of income and what we are borrowing is disproportionate to her income.

My dad simply refuses to help, even though he paid for the vast majority of my younger brothers education. I'll just say that since I'm not the golden child, I do not receive help inany area of life. In fact I am essentially not a part of their family, as is demonstrated on the holidays and special occasions. Even though I am the only one in the family to receive a 4.0 or make the Deans list while in college, and even though I hold down a full time, 24/7 job of stay at home single mom, and make time to manage all the relationships in my life including my relationship with him because otherwise we wouldn't have one. Can you tell I'm a little frustrated and PO'd?

The only hope that remains is to ask my stepdad if he will help out ... even though he's been divorced from my mom for 7 years. Obviously we still have a relationship, I see him regularly, invite him to family functions and so forth since my mom and him still have my other younger brother Alex to share. But it's still a lot to ask to have faith in me that I will graduate and repay the loans without any harm being done to him. At the same time, without his help I will be forced to drop out of school, return to work, we'll have to move, I'll have to put Halle in daycare, give up my pets, and the list goes on ... Life would get very very hard if I had to give up school, because without a degree I have no way to pull down enough income to support us. Without a degree I'd be luck to make 16-18k a year. With my degree I will start at 30-35k. That's a huge difference.

So these are the things that occupy my mind lately. I'm trying not to stress out about it. I'm trying to just remember to take it one day at a time. At the very least we will be able to take out enough to make it through the fall semester. But I'm certainly not going to sit back and wait to see what happens. My biggest wish is that I could buy a house, so I'd at least be making a mortgage payment instead of wasting $12k a year in rent. But without any guarantees as far as cosigning loans and such there is no way to do that.

Tomorrow some time I'll be calling Marc to lay out the situation for him, and ask him to think it over and get back to me within the next week or so. Since I'll need to make a decision one way or the other about my future in education based on his decision.

Going along with this financial crisis, I have decided to start my own business. I've thought about Mary Kay, Avon and what not, but since I don't work anywhere it would be hard to develop a large enough customer base to really make money that way. But I have discovered I could put my talents to use another way ... by making baby gifts and selling them online. I crochet beautifully and my baby blankets have always been in demand amongst friends and family. I can easily complete one with about 6-10 hours of work. By buying yarn in bulk and building up a supply, as well as gift wrapping them and including a special tag with our business name and washing instructions, they will make the perfect baby shower gift, or gift for a new mom. I'm going to make about 10 and sell them on ebay for about $45, which I think is reasonable since the yard and supplies will cost around $20, another $25 to cover labor and gift wrapping and I'll have a tidy profit from each blanket. It won't be a big business for sure. But any income is better than nothing. I'm still tossing around ideas for a name, printing out little cards with a logo and name will be easy, then a simply hole punch and thread it on to some ribbonused to wrap the blankets and it will look stylish and professional. I was thinking "Halle's Hope" for a name, because I'd like to donate some of our procedes to various foundations. Or "Halle Bear's Blankets", "Jessa's Joy". Or things along those lines. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Our stay at the ranch has finally come to an end and we're headed home sweet home tomorrow afternoon. I'm so overjoyed. I enjoy the peace and quiet here, but I detest the bugs, wild animals and stinking piles of animal crap everywhere. I know Halle and especially Sawyer are going to miss it. They both enjoy the freedom to run around (yet another reason it breaks my heart that we can't buy a house) and it's so much safer than a park in the city or our unfenced tiny yard.

Halle meanwhile has been very onery the last few weeks. She quite literally doesn't listen to anything I say. She flat out ignores me when I'm talking, or screams NO! My least favorite thing is when she walks out of whatever room I'm in and I call to her, "what are you doing?" and she doesn't answer. I call it out a few more times, a little louder each time, until finally I have to go see what she is into. Usually it's not good. First off, why not answer me? I guess I probably know the answer to that, she's into something she shouldn't be so she doesn't want to answer for fear of punishment. But second, why does she continually go and get into things she KNOWS she shouldn't? It's just so frustrating that we have gotten to the point where she can't be left alone even if she's just in the next room? By now, at nearly 3, I should be able to do the dishes, or the laundry, or whatever it is I'm working on, without worrying that she's on the verge of burning the house down or whatever. For quite awhile she would just simply answer me when I asked where she was and what she was doing, she was in her room playing, or going to the potty, or playing with the cats or the dog. Now there is just silence because ignoring me is so much more fun. Grrrr. If anyone has any suggestions on that front as well, my ears are wide wide wide open!