Today I was listening to a lecture in PSY 200, Psychology of Personal Adjustment, and a quote struck me. "its not the death of a beloved that breaks a man, its the shoelace that breaks when your already running late". It is an accumulation of things that brings me here today. First, let me tell you about my week. Today is Thursday. On Monday, I woke up at 6am, made my husband's lunch for work, made sure my teenaged daughter went off to school and then had the place to myself until the teenager arrived home from school. An uneventful day, although you may notice I didn't say "I went to work". I had a good job making decent money. But it was high stress, I was on call 24/7 for a demanding client. I hadn't had a day off in the year I had the job. I tried to to take a day off to get married once, but I had to work remotely all the way up until I walked down the aisle. My smart phone is in all of my wedding pictures. But the story of why I quit my job is for another day. Point of my story, I'm unemployed. My husband works 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week to make up for my lost income. I'm trying to finish that pesky BA before I get a job, and I'm almost there, 1 more semester. I mentioned the teenager, well I have two actually. A high schooler and my oldest who graduated last year. He went off to college. He failed to apply for scholarships so student loans it is. He paid half and I paid half. My half was also more than half of my bank account. I couldn't afford it, but it was important to me that he have a good shot in life. He wanted to be a computer engineer. A good future. He lives on campus. Kinda. He is supposed to live on campus. He is 9 weeks in and told me Monday he is dropping out. No refund. Lost half of all the money I have because he is "Just burnt out on school". He stayed here with us on Monday and Tuesday after flunking all of his midterms and worked at his fast food job. Wednesday he was supposed to go back to school and finish out the semester. He didnt. Wednesday, I got up at 6 am, made my husband's lunch, got my teenager off to school, and my phone rang. It was my bank notifying me that my account had been garnished. There went the rest of the money I had. It was the account where my child support gets deposited from my teenager's father. Otherwise known as the money that was going to pay our heat bill for the winter and buy my kid's Christmas gifts. Gone. I had lost a lawsuit over a unpaid credit card bill from 2007. They took everything I had. My husband is none too happy about the situation. We are already practically homeless. We live in a old trailer that belonged to a relative. It had been abandoned for 5 years before we moved in. Yeah, it needs some work to say the least. Maybe I'll show you a picture someday. But for now, back to my week. So my bank account was frozen and taken, but I still have a loan to pay that used to come out of that account. My grandma put her house up to get me a loan once to buy a house. My ex convinced me to take out a 2nd mortgage to add on to said house, promising to make the payments. Stupid me. Homeless and paying a mortgage so Grandma isn't homeless with me.So my kinda in college oldest kid comes walking in when he should be in class Wednesday. And I ask the obvious question to which he responds "I didn't see the point". I explained that I spent alot of money on his dorm, food plan, books and tuition and I expect him to try to get at least a damn D so he gets his credits. He picked up his backpack, and walked out the door, slamming it on the way out. I haven't heard from him since. It was just yesterday though. He doesn't have a cell phone anymore, and I'm not sure what happened to it. He blames a shark. We live in Kentucky. I have cried more in the past few days than I have for along time. Every time I think that I have hit bottom and it can't get any worse, it inevitably does. My wonderful husband and daughter try hard to make me smile. It is quite a feat. I read in my psychology book today that stress takes years off of your life. I'm surprised I'm still alive. At this point, all it takes is a shoelace.