Well, we are broke.  It is really slightly funny that we are broke at a point when we are really making good money.  I suppose at the end of the day, it doesn't help that shopping is my outlet, well, buying things and eating cheesecake.  For anyone who hasn't recently visited The Cheesecake Factory, a single slice now goes for about $8.  So maybe it isn't a surprise that we are broke, after all.

So, the next little slice of our life may be a bit more real than I would prefer.  My patience is thin on wanting the "finer" things in life.  But first, we must face that we have accumulated the bad "D" word.  Debt, and plenty of it.  I think it all began to snowball after we had Miles.  He is now four, and we added Gloria to the picture along the way.  Credit cards were the bandaids a few too many times.

Luckily, Nate has some good opportunity to earn some extra money to throw at the debt.  But what we are looking at right now is a change in lifestyle for us while we work hard to make some big progress on our big, ugly, steaming pile of debt.

I want to use this as an accountability project.  We are going to be going thin on babysitters, eating out, getting my nails done, all of the crazy things that I have just been doing rather willy-nilly.

In the midst of all of this I am going to be working hard on finding satisfaction on things other than purchases and physically tangible items.  Minimize, finding ways to have more meaning with many less things.

Selling some things on Craigslist while facing the cold, hard truths that we are taking only a percentage of what was spent only a year ago.

As we sit here today, I have a headache and a stomach ache.  Anxiety is high, stress is high, and patience is low.