Insomnia

It's 1am and I'm wide awake. Hello stress-induced insomnia. John, as always, got right into bed and began snoring. That's partially why I'm awake. The snoring has never lulled me to sleep. I have ear plugs, but they don't seem to help tonight. I must be too aware of the snoring for the ear plugs to help. So instead of trying to fight the insomnia and attempt to sleep, I thought I might get some things off my mind here first.

One of the things about the whole unemployment issue is the lack of health insurance. Obviously, Nathan has had that double ear infection that has taken us back and forth to the pediatrician's office. Thankfully, it seems to have cleared up with the latest round of stronger antibiotics. The kids, of course, qualify for Oregon Health Plan with no problem. I just need to sign them up.
I was curious how long John's health insurance through work was going to last, so he called his (ex) boss today to find out. Technically, it's supposed to end at the end of whatever month your employment ends, but they felt like that didn't give us enough time to get something else lined up and offered to pay for an extra month of insurance for us. I am extremely grateful for that. That gets us through Nathan's 15 month checkup and immunizations in April with our current pediatrician. I don't know if he accepts OHP (probably not), and I really didn't want to have to someone new for a last minute checkup.

Today was my first trip to the grocery store since he got laid off (yes, I realize it's only been five days), but I was hoping to hold out as long as possible. The problem is that we were out of some essential items, so I had to go. But I took my time and tried to get the best price possible on everything we needed. In the end, I paid just $35 for this grocery store trip. I was pretty pleased.

I had been due for a haircut for quite some time, but now that we're trying to save on everything, I decided to cut my own hair tonight. If you are familiar with my current hair style, you know that most of the cutting is focused in the back, making it a little difficult to do myself. But with some careful use of mirrors, I was able to do a decent job of it. It might not be perfect, but it will get me through for a while.

John had his first class of the term tonight and I had the day off, which meant I got to cook and have a sit-down dinner with my children for the first time in a while. It was very enjoyable. The boys took a bath after dinner and I sat by the side of the tub and we had a great time playing with their little bathtime pirate ship. John came home right before I was going to get them in bed, so they were able to have both of us here for bedtime. I think this was the first evening in quite a while where both dinner time and bath time was so stress-free and pleasant. I miss the boys sometimes.

Yesterday was our four year anniversary and I worked all day, so it went by without much of a celebration. We do have tickets for a comedy show in downtown Portland on April 17th, which we purchased a month or so back, and we figured that would be a belated anniversary date night. That made the day going past without much recognition a little easier to stomach. We have decided that once John is settled in a new job and things have gotten back to normal, we desperately need to take a weekend away. I think I'll be all too ready for a vacation by then.

Well, I've only killed about 20 minutes, but maybe I can give going to sleep another go-around now. I am stressed and my sleep has definitely been affected, but I'm happy to say that I've been feeling confident about making it through this time. I feel strong and focused on working as much as I can to just barrel through until John can find work. I do have this lingering fear that I'll burn myself out too quickly, so prayer for that would be appreciated. Right now, it's one day (or night) at a time.