Trying to get by

Money's going to be really tight the next few weeks. Clayton took three days off work for the sake of his sanity, which, although I completely understand the necessity of it, is really going to hurt us financially. We have a lot of mid-month bills, namely two different debts I'm paying on totaling over $200. We'll have to work really hard to stretch our money as far as it'll go. The paycheck after that should be fine, assuming Clayton is able to work his full schedule, especially because I'll be getting more hours at work pretty much from next week on. Actually this past week I got over 19 hours, with my limit being 20, so the paycheck after this coming one should be quite a bit better than this one, as I only worked about 25 hours on this paycheck. I like working more. It gets me out of the house and interacting with people, plus I feel like I'm doing something productive besides sitting around and occasionally doing housework. I have to bake a German chocolate cake either today or tomorrow. It's a late birthday cake for Clayton. His 21st birthday and our anniversary were last Tuesday. We celebrated our anniversary on Monday seeing as we were having his family over for his birthday and we wanted to do something with just the two of us. We had a really special night. We made dinner together (feta-crusted chicken breasts with sauteed veggies and hummus and pita... I definitely must make the chicken again. It was awesome!) and ate by candlelight with a glass of wine. I don't think I have to say what else happened, but it was very special, and I've never felt closer to him. His birthday was kind of a bust for me though. First off, I had a few drinks after midnight the night of his birthday, which was a few too many considering how sick I got. Had the worst hangover the first part of the day, and then when we had his family over, I got stuck cooking alone in the kitchen while everyone else was having a good time and I felt very isolated. The worst part was not being able to really share in Clayton's birthday because I was busy entertaining his family. Granted his family was pretty gracious about the amount of work I put into entertaining them, but it didn't offset the feelings of isolation much.