I broke down and cried.
In front of my wife, no less.

After all this shit with the house - coupled with the fact that I still don't know how I'm going to come up with $8000 by the 31th - or the odd $2000 I may me short if I do...I'm gambling on so much. I'm gambling on my relo arriving on time - by the 31st; we have to close in this month or else I'll be held hostage for another $3000 I don't have. I'm gambling on getting funded - by Monday now, if the house has indeed closed - I don't even know that! was just as busy on the phone & fax Friday as I was the day before during all the drama (still no money from the sale of the house) and on top of that, as I'm driving home (to quickly change clothes and drive to my parents house for the weekend) it dawns on me that part of my relo - what I've put a stake in on the closing of the new house - was based on my agents commission: I get refunded for that. And both agents credited $1500 of their commission to get the house sold. That's money I can no longer claim, yet I still need to claim and receive $8000 in just over two-weeks time plus find somewhere another two grand still...Too many demands (I'm not paying enough attention to my friends or family, apparently) everywhere I turn. And amidst all this, I'm still expected to do my job. My day started at 0400 this morning for a 10-hour project.

I get home, and my wife wants us to move the closing up earlier than the 24th.

I stare at her blankly.

She wants the children to be in the house prior to school starting (the 27th) the Monday after we would close on that Friday (the 24th), not four days after (the 31st). She's very upset by this change of plans.

I don't even know if the kids are going to have their own home to live in, let alone whether it's three days before, or four days after school starts, and if we are, if they'll have food to eat the first month we're there.

I thought she understood all this.

I couldn't handle this latest requirement, and lost it.

I can't remember the last time I cried. I usually handle stress fairly well. I don't "love chaos" like drax0r claims he does (though hearing him glibly state that and watching him in the middle of a fiasco are two very different things) but I think things have been building up way too much these last three months.

Once we purchase the house, everything should be fine. Its just scraping together this enormous amount of cash in a given period which has proven...challenging.

I won't say that I'm calm now; its still there, just under the surface, but my wife has brilliantly outlined a solution that just may work. Its not my favorite thing to do, but I think it will do the trick. We put all purchases the next two weeks on the credit card, and keep 100% of my paycheck as ready-cash for closing.

This may actually work.