This is after she blew her top, but you get the drift. So much pressure is building and I’m trying to stay calm and centered. Forgive me, but it’s not happening! I’ll tell you about that in a minute.

First, let me go through a few tidbits I need you to know:

• The next few weeks might be very crazy for me. Some of my storytelling work in Houston did come through after Hurricane Ike, so I’m busily packing to head down there for two weeks. The hotel where I stay was flooded during the storm, so I have no idea if I will have a reliable internet connection. If you don’t see me blogging here, and if you want to know what I’m thinking, you might just find it on my Posterous account. I told y’all about Posterous a few days ago. It’s wonderful, it’s easy, it’s free … and if this week doesn’t go well, it might be the only place I can afford to blog. I’ll tell you about that in a minute.
• This week has been so hectic that I haven’t kept up with adding the entries to the contest to win free tickets to hear Celtic Thunder. If you want to enter, all it really takes is a comment (though links back to the contest get you additional entries and are greatly appreciated). The drawing for the tickets is Thursday. If you have entered, please go check to make sure I have added your entries correctly. I have to add the Twitter tweets, and I want to catch up today, but I’m having trouble concentrating. I’ll tell you about that in a minute.
• Yes, I’m still working on the Good Medicine Project to make medicine bags for children with cancer who will be attending Camp Sanguinity next summer. If you are crafty, or full of charm (s), please check the link to see if you can help. I haven’t yet received any medicine bags, but I’m trusting that there are good hearted people out there. Even if I’m not blogging here, I will continue the project and post at my Posterous.
• At the first of this year, I started a blog called Dear Dora. She is my snarky alter ego (I need her because I try to reign in my snarkiness on this blog). Unfortunately, right after I started her, I was dealing with health issues that weren’t very funny, so I let her languish. If you haven’t seen her, you might want to look — she might have to be reduced to just a back page on this blog (to reduce my bandwidth) if this week doesn’t go well.
• The same might be true of my Out Of Chaos blog (I was trying to chronicle our attempts to simplify our lives) and the Share A Square site (I’ll make sure all the pictures are on Flickr).
• If this week gets worse, I may have to turn my attention to other things than blogging. I will probably keep this site on line (since I need a server for my work web site). I’ll just drastically reduce the bandwidth so I can afford to pay for it. If our news this week is good, I’ll exhale and keep on plugging.

So what’s my problem? My husband works as an engineer for a company that manufactures large trucks. The market, of course, sucks like a Hoover. Last week, my husband came home with the news that the engineering department was called together and notified that anyone who wished to take a voluntary lay off could do so by this Wednesday.

On Thursday, the mandatory lay offs in his department will be announced.

We don’t think he will be affected. We are trying to think positively. We will deal with it either way, but not knowing is extremely stressful.

That’s why I feel like a volcano about to erupt.