Frizzle Frazzled

 The Magic School Bus is on Netflix, now. AMAZING! thank you, universe! 😀

Babysitting is going alright. The younger kid is wearing on my nerves, he’s 3 1/2 and doesn’t nap, kind of a picky eater (so far likes- pb&j, crackers, pizza, chips, cheese, popcorn. THE END.) I try to get him to nap every day, Mom says she doesnt mind whether he naps or not, and EVERY DAY I spend an hour trying to get him down before I just give up. He always looks super sleepy like he’s going to fall asleep, but never does. I’ve tried EVERYTHING, and I just CANNOT get this kid to nap. And AS SOON as I’m out of sight, he jumps up and starts playing. He’s driving me INSANE! I need a BREAK! He’s 3 1/2 but he acts like he’s 1 1/2-2, tops. He has some serious delays in speech and plays them up to make you think he doesn’t understand what you’re saying. I KNOW BETTER, but he is very much babied and he really acts younger than Milo, and so it sucks that I don’t even get a break from him during nap… ugh! FRUSTRATING! Sometimes I just want to lay down and close my eyes for a few minutes while Milo naps, and I can’t even do that with him around. 

That being said, he’s pretty cute, he’s funny, and he’s sweet. He climbs up in my lap to cuddle when we watch movies, and he laughs easily and is very mechanical/inquisitve, investigates things really thoroughly. I think I would like him a lot better in a different setting. AND IF HE NAPPED! He’s pretty easy gong for the most part, and if Milo wants to go outside, I just tell him to come on and he comes with us with no fight, and when it’s time to go in he just goes. Definite positives.

TUESDAY, his 2nd day with us, his mom got fired from her job. She paid me $300 for two weeks of babysitting, so she said she’d keep bringing him between 9 and 10am for the rest of this week and next week so she could run errands and apply for jobs and hopefully next week go to interviews. She is leaving him with me until like 6pm every day, which sort of irritates me for a number of reasons- there is NO WAY she has non-stop errands to be doing from 10am-6pm. She only sees her son for 2 months around the holidays and 2 months during the summer. Shouldn’t she want to spend as much time with him as possible?? Also, he stays later than the other kid I’m watching, whose mom has a legit job to be at all day, and it sure would be nice if they switched, because the older kid is a lot less work/stress.

ANYWAYS, I don’t know if we will end up keeping him for all of the summer or not, since his mom isn’t working… hopefully she gets another job SOON and we can keep him, because I was kind of counting on that money.. which, btw, is pretty much gone now. I have a dental appointment tomorrow at 1145 for a cleaning, and that will be my last $60 from that payday. I spent $140 on my initial new patient exam at the dentist, and $60 to repay Bubb for buying RHCP tickets for the concert in Anchorage on August 6th. We agreed to go to that before I lost my job, before all this financial stress and hardship, and now I’m sort of regretting the choice, even though Bubb and Heather are paying for the trip down and the only thing I will PROBABLY have to pay for is MAYBE a tank of gas and food once we get there, plus my ticket for the show. 

SO! In another vein-

I have mentioned here before that I topped out on government-funded student loans. The top out is at like, $57,500.00 ..ouch. i’m not due to start paying any of it back until March of 2015.. but it’s so scary having it looming over me.. and since I topped out, I can’t take out any more loan money, not to help cover tuition or books for my internship year, and not to help cover the cost of living for that year while I’m an intern. (FT, UNPAID, student teacher, for a whole school year. SERIOUSLY.)  NOW, with having lost my job for the summer and barely scraping by with babysitting, we are already in a bind for paying our rent. Ross is really bad at managing money, and won’t add me to his account or open a joint account so I can help with it, he just spends up his money and often neglects to pay bills with it.. it’s very stressful… and there’s nothing I can really do. I’m paying bills as I can, and my money from babysitting goes right to groceries, gas, and bills. Ross makes enough for us to live off of, but not with his spending habits. *sigh*

SO, that brings me to this- we, or I, are going to need to take out a personal loan… I’m thinking Ross is far more likely to get a loan, as I have sort of crappy credit, but I would really like to take it out in my own name.. the problem with that is that I can’t afford the $200/mo something payments until after my internship is over, and I would need a co-signor to even GET a loan. The amount we are going to need, just to get through my internship, and this is ONLY to cover MY HALF of rent for the year that I’m interning and my tuition costs for the internship year, is about $15,000.00 .. yep, Fifteen THOUSAND dollars. ( tuition = $4k /semester, my half of rent for 12mo is between $6k-$7k.)  

SO. I’m going to go into my bank and talk to them, and then go with Ross go to his bank and talk to them, and see what happens. I’m thinking that ROSS will get approved, and I will NOT get approved… I think they will tell me that I need a co-signor, and I think Ross will probably get along just fine without one. In the event that I have to get a co-signor, we may ask Ross’s dad, Bill, to be that person. He is VERY well off, and his parents are very rich, and honestly I wish there was some way to talk him into just paying our rent and my tuition for the year, but he’s far more frugal than that. I’m worried that he won’t be willing to co-sign for ME, but probably WOULD do it for Ross, and that is fair, honestly.. I’m afraid to ask him myself… so I’ve been emailing him and asking questions, keeping him in the loop and asking for advice, that way he has the whole thing on his mind to start with and won’t be shocked if we ask him to help out by co-signing. 

Wish me/us luck. I think it would be okay if Ross ends up being the one who takes the loan out, I could keep paying it for the next.. whatever.. 10 years.. but I think it would help my credit a lot if I was able to take this off and make the payments on time and keep it in good standing. Siiiigh. I have about 4 medical bills that have gone to collections with two different companies, and I think I might take a large lump sum if we get a loan and call them up and say "look, I have xyz amount due with your company, I know its outstanding, but I don’t have any money coming in. You can either take THIS amount right now, or I can call the next credit company I owe money to and offer it to them. Settle the account for this much, or just keep trying to collect it in vain." and see if I can’t close some of those accounts by way of settlement. I really want to get them closed. On my credit reports, it states that some of them aren’t due to be removed from my credit history until like 2018. Ugh. I so want a house. Someday.

How do people ever ever ever ever ever pay off their student loans? Do people just make payments on their student loans for ALL of eternity? My parents didnt go to college, so I don’t understand it. Anyone else?
 ~Me