Tossing Out the Budget

I recently realized that we had hit a point where we were completely, utterly burnt out. I dragged into every weekend with a near-endless to-do list. I dreaded Mondays, and the long hours that came with the work week. I never felt like I was doing enough, or things well enough. I haven't been sleeping well.

And my husband is right there with me. We are tired.

The budget, and our goals, have been daunting and overwhelming. The house, while a labor of love, is starting to feel more like labor, and less like love. Work is demanding, and my husband just experienced an involuntary job change due to some restructuring in his office. And then there's the near-constant medical intervention due to our fertility treatments.

In other words, life isn't all that fun right now. It has it's moments, but mostly it is work.

So we've started talking about chucking the budget for a month and escaping for a long weekend. Unplanned. Unbudgeted. No dishes. No laundry. No paint or shovels or mulch. Just rest, relaxation, good food, and unplanned, unbooked, open time. Kind of like the time we had a couple years ago - before all our current chaos.

I'm a planner by nature, so blowing the plan doesn't come easy for me. Especially because I know that our goals will be easily derailed by the drip, drip, drip of unplanned spending. But...(you knew there was a but here, didn't you) at the same time, at what price comes our sanity?

There are other ways we could buy ourselves some serious relaxation. Spend that long weekend money on a housekeeping services for a year, for example. Except that I haven't quite bought into the idea of a housekeeper yet. I'm not all that wild about having someone in my home when I'm not there. I'm thinking about this.

I know that a time may come when I am willing to make the trade of a vacation for a housekeeper or another service, but right now, it also seems like my husband and I ought to take advantage of what times we can just pick up and go away - eventually our fertility treatments will be successful. Eventually we won't be able to just say 'we're tired, let's go'. It seems timely to take advantage now, while we can.

Another reason to up and go - because of those treatments, I am tied to the doctor 2 weeks of the month - we literally can't go anywhere. Also, some planned work trips are in limbo, so we can't make lengthy getaway plans. Work may even impact our vacation this fall. But a 4-day weekend in June we can swing.

Will this impact our goals? Yes. Without a doubt it will. How much remains to be seen.

Will it be worth it? I think so.

Stay tuned for an update on whether we decide to be 'good' or not.....