Plans

The job market, our house and its issues, and this weather have been making me feel pretty down lately. I felt so happy after my surgery was over, that I am disappointed in myself for letting my emotions swing down so quickly. Yesterday we had our first January thaw (I think). It was great.

E & I went out for lunch and talked about how our goals need to change. The plan was originally for E to go back to school full-time when I graduate. It doesn't seem like that is possible in this economy, and it is probably a bad idea right now. We already have our house mortgage, and thanks to me we also have my student loans to deal with. We can't afford to pay out of pocket for him to attend school full-time, and we definitely aren't going to take out loans to pay for his tuition until I have a full-time secure job with health benefits.

The other problem is how we will pay for our living expenses (especially since we are "grown-ups" with a mortgage) while he is in school. We can take out loans for those, but the thought of putting ourselves "in the hole" even more is pretty nauseating. He's going to keep on taking night classes, and we are going to start searching for scholarships (even $500 or $1000 scholarships) for him to apply for so we can cut down on the amount of money we will have to borrow. He will also work part-time while in school. It is really annoying that he can't keep his current job and attend the I.T. full-time. Most of the classes that he needs to take are not offered at night. It is really annoying. It makes it almost impossible for him to get his degree while still holding down a job. And the tuition is so expensive, especially considering that it's a public university. All in all, I know that I will never donate money to that school (if I ever have money to give).

It's also depressing because I don't know how we are ever going to be able to afford to pay for our own kids to go to school someday, especially when we will still be paying off our own student loans. I can only imagine that college prices are going to continue increasing. Maybe we shouldn't have kids at all.

Although the tone of this post is depressing, we really are feeling better about things. Basically E's thought is that he has a good and stable (knock on wood) job in this economy and it pays the bills. It would be pretty crazy to quit working there in order to go to school and incur more debt right now. Especially when the legal job market is on the downswing, so my contribution to our income is not guaranteed.

I regret my decision to go to law school every day. I wish that E had gone to school full-time instead. It would have been a better use of our money. I hope that I forgive myself for making such a dumb decision.

Last night my thought was: some people have great careers and some people have great economic success and some people have great love in their life. At least we have one of the three :) And that is probably the most important one.