I need a good long snotty cry...

Everything is breaking, falling apart, overwhelming, stress is building, and now my husband is headed for a nervous break down over it all. He quietly told me this morning that he is having a hard time holding it together. His jaw hurts, his muscles ache from the stress of it all. Oh my heart. It breaks when I hear him talk like this. He holds the weight of his family, the responsibility of taking care of us, all on his shoulders. He works so hard, but he feels like we never get ahead. Right now I feel like we never get ahead. But I fake it, I try desperately to reassure him, to see the positive.

When he falls apart, we all fall apart. Things get bad, very, very bad. So now I am scared, on top of being stressed and worried about him and our rapidly deteriorating situation. I begged him not to fall apart, because if he does I will. I have barely been holding it together as it is.

I wish I could do more. Since I am a stay at home mom, I try to bring in money with the daycare, and I normally bring in a good amount, but since the move I've only got one full time kid, and literally no other calls have come in. I guess I'm not the only one, daycares all over around here are having a hard time because people are trying to figure out how to cut that cost out of their already tight budgets. Plus I guess the ration of kids to daycares isn't good around here, there are too many daycares in relation to how many kids. Didn't know this when we moved here, I was told the opposite actually. It's such a big change for me because before we moved I had a full house and a waiting list. I never had less then six, which is my max. I was well known in the area and got referrals all the time. I still have a mom who drives 45 minutes to have me watch two of her boys, once a week, for a few hours.

My husband is a Union Carpenter and so he is having a hard time trying to stay with steady work. This time of year slows down anyways but add to that the fact that the economy has slowed down and it spells u.n.e.m.p.l.o.y.m.e.n.t. Waiting lists a mile long, and unemployment checks that don't even cover our mortgage payment let along the rest of the bills, oh and food, can't forget the food. He just found out that his current job will be done at the end of this week, then he has to go to school for two weeks and after that no job. So right after Christmas, my husband will most likely be jobless. First I was feeling guilty that the kids didn't have any presents, now I feel guilty that we got them presents on credit that we can't afford to pay.

Everywhere I look things are falling apart. The dishwasher is borderline at best, the coffee machine works when it wants to (I know this seems like a small thing, but to a tired mom it can make or break my day I swear). We just recently had to fix our toilet. The hot tub that my husband so desperately wanted, broke soon after we moved in, and sits empty on the back deck. The heater in the bathroom broke a while ago and we still haven't been able to fix it. I know a heater in a bathroom is not a requirement but the whole back part of the house is already so cold, because the is no heat source in any of the bedrooms. This didn't seem like a big deal in the summer when we bought the house, but now that it is snowing, well that changes things. The van needs a tune up something awful, and to top it off the hot water heater broke last night. Completely and totally broken. Which means if we don't get it fixed immediately, I can't run the daycare and we have even less income then before.

Now it is snowing again, and it really is beautiful but all I can think about is that it just makes it harder for my husband to work.

I know we still have a lot to be thankful for, but at this moment I am painfully aware that we also have a lot to loss at any moment. The weight of that makes it hard to function. Makes it hard to be a good mom. Because I just want to crawl into bed, pull the covers up over my head and have a good, long, snotty cry. Nice and loud. The kind of cry that makes you sound like a little kid all over again. But I can't. Normally when I really need to cry I take a long hot shower and let it all out in private, but I can't do that either...no hot water. A big part of me wants to run away, but obviously I won't be doing that. What do I do?