Hello cheese dip, my old friend

Once again I have turned to food to help cope with stress. Right now the major source of stress is two-fold:

1. Financial. I can't support us on just my paycheck. South Florida is crazy expensive, but I didn't get a raise when we came down. Example: car insurance more than double, property tax triple, home owners insurance 8 times what we paid in NC. That amount to thousnads of extra dollars a year and not paying income tax to the state doesn't even begin to offset the extra expense. In addition, we are faced with somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000 of work that needs to be done on this house, in varying degrees of soon. Foundation - next year or so, roof and sprinkler system asap, plumbing not as important. Short term, we could mostly get by on my income plus hub's unemployment. He was approved a month ago and hasn't gotten any money yet. It should kick in soon, the back money will need to go to helping pay for car insurance ($2800 for 6 months) and car registration (about $500 per car). One option (although unattractive) is to become a one car family. I can take the bus to work and that would save us over $500 per month. but it makes it difficult (once hub gets a job) to go to dr appts, meetings, anything like that.

2. The boy. I don't even know what to say here. He is unhappy. Add that to his temperment of wanting what he wants when he wants it and a bad temper, and it's just awful. He stayed up till 1 working on his car the other day, and when I woke him up and told him he'd be grounded if he didn't go to school, he got up in my face screaming obscenities. Frankly, I sincerely hopes he takes some time off after high school (assuming he finishes) and does something else - preferably he'll go in the coast guard. He needs a dose of real life in a bad way. He doesn't do drugs or break the law, he just does not accept that he can't do what he wants when he wants. I know I'll miss him once he's grown, but right now I honestly don't enjoy having him around very much - especially with hub out of town for the nex tmonth.

Yeah. hub is up in NC doing work on my mom's house. She is not going to put it on the market before she comes down - frankly, right now I have no idea how long we'll be here. I love this house very much and I love having the pool, but I have no idea how people survive down here with the cost of living being what it is. We miss home. I hope hub finds a job as that will make things easier. Also, I should be getting a little money from my grandmother (I have no idea how much), but I'm hoping it's enough to get done on the house what we need to and get caught up.

Some good things: I am walking regularly, doing stretch and yoga at the fitness center at work (we can't afford a gym), and I am going to look for a decent weight lifting dvd so I can take that in and do it at work as well.

Work itself is okay - I'm just having a tough time focusing on it. I have a list of "to do" and I can do the easy stuff, but the more difficult analysis stuff just keeps getting postponed. Le sigh.

Today we are supposed to go to the Coral Castle. It's been raining since last night, so that may not happen today.