Morning Earworm

Love Throw A Line

Another Monday morning. Just before the flood comes/Just before the night falls/Just before the blood runs Into the valley/Just before my eyes go/Just before we can't go no further/Love throws a line to you and me. If you've never heard Patty Griffin (those lyrics are from that song off of Impossible Dream, my morning earworm), you are truly missing out. She can sing with such conviction and sadness. She is truly amazing.

The weekend was good -- the Astros won both playoff games and the Texans beat the Titans :-) My biggest stress point came at the end of the weekend. See, Lisa and I have been talking about going to New England at the end of this month for quite some time. She booked the flight and rental car a couple of months ago -- but that was before I found out about the upcoming layoffs and the huge increase on my monthly mortgage payments (thanks to local taxes). I recently refigured my budget -- it's going to be almost impossible to go through a month with money left over -- even without this trip.

She really wants to go, and I owe it to her. She (and my parents) think it would be a nice getaway for me to help relieve some stress. They may be right, but right now my stress comes on doubly strong when I think about the cost of this trip (over $1,400 for the two of us, and that includes the free flight we get). I gave in yesterday when we were making our final decision. She has agreed to pay for more than half of the trip, since her expenses are much lighter than mine (no mortgage, rent nor utilities). Still, even if I paid for just 25% of the trip, that's still going to put a huge burden on my account. And if I comeback from the trip to a pink slip here at work, that will only make matters worse.

Part of me wants to just grab some camping gear, plus a couple of books, and go to an isolated place by myself to ease my mind and get my life together. That's not fair to her, though. I'm really stuck on this one.

posted by Morning Earworm @ 1:19 PM