Guilt

I am feeling so guilt that I can't go to Ohio this weekend. My niece, Shelby, turned one on the 14th and her birthday party is Sunday. We had planned to go and started setting money aside for it. Then I got a subpoena.

It is never fun to see your name and the word subpoena on the same piece of paper. This was my first time and it still gives me the creeps. I couldn't imagine if it said defendant instead of witness.

So now the money I set aside for Ohio has to go to drive my nosy, had to stop and see who the jackhole was screaming "I'm going to f-ing kill you!" at butt to Detroit to testify. I have to be there at least one day, and when I called they said it could take up to a week. Do they know I am driving 2 1/2 hours each way, each day? Ugh.

So now I feel guilty.

It would be very easy to fall into the old habit of "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" - or in this case, robbing the Christmas account, Winter coat envelope or other "sinking fund" (or worse, the debt snowball!)- to pay for gas, but I can't. I feel like if I do that it would undermine all of the hard work I have put into breaking out of the cycle Marty and I were both raised in, and are trying to make sure our kids don't continue. We are trying to change our family tree, and in the process I feel like we are breaking a branch. Ok, bad analogy but you get the point.

I am listening to Dave Ramsey right now because I know if anyone would kick me in the butt and tell me to get over it, it would be Dave Ramsey. Or Marie. Marie doesn't have her own nationally syndicated talk show (yet) so I'm listening to Dave.

In case you are wondering, the person he was screaming at was as 80+ year old woman who he thought had taken his parking spot. Right before he picked up a cart and was aiming to throw it at her until he saw that people were watching, and that I was on the phone with 911 giving them a description of him and his vehicle.