Feb 15

It's my day off today and I've been thinking too much. I'm worried I guess. And trying to look forward to a trip that I don't even know is going to happen and seems impossible at the moment. I'm thinking about turning my life on end again... maybe twice even, in the next three months and I really don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not.

I really like where I am right now. I'm enjoying my job, the people I work with, my new house. I love having my cat with me again. I have old friends popping up again, and some new ones. I'm meeting lots of useful people for my ET studies and have good reviews so far.
(Case in point- just off phone to a woman whose horse I worked on last thursday. She wants me back this thursday and has given me the phone number for a woman competing in dressage in Cromwell who wants me to do her horse also, and has offered to pay gas money for me to come up there. She apparently knows EVERYONE competing in central, so another brilliant contact.)
The problem here is that I am simply not making enough money. I know that is likely to change in the next week or so, with so many staff heading off to Dunedin for university, but I don't know if it will change enough. And the expenses here are... well. Steeper than I would like, certainly. I know my Harry and Heks are... luxuries I guess, and maybe I can't afford them. But the idea of letting them go is... I don't know how to even put it into words.
Staying here, with the few extra hours and whatever donations I make from my ET stuff I have enough to live on, and to look after the animals. But not enough to pay off the debt to Telford any time soon, or to save for this trip to the states. Certainly not both before May.
I really, really don't want to be in the states with no confirmed work and still paying bills over here.
I'm faced with the options of finding ways to make more money (ET, a second job, a different job, winning lotto....) Or ways to reduce my expenses (selling Harry, giving Heks back to Ainslie, finding a cheaper flat)

Wendy and Anne and Erica-Jane are moving to Queenstown. They want me to come with them. In Queenstown I'm likely to find a job quickly, and between four of us rent and power and food and what have you are likely to be less expensive. I guess, it sounds like a good idea, and I like the idea of living with them, and Alexandra wouldn't be at all the same without the three people I'm closest to.
But as I say... I like it here. And I'm just starting to feel like I'm finding my feet again, and I still really, really want to be in the states this year... so, I'll be just barely sorting myself out there when I leave.

This year has the potential to be so utterly fantastic and I feel like I'm already making a fuck up of it. And it's only February.

I guess I'm wondering if I am making this harder for myself than it needs to be. Certainly I'm having crazy stressed out dreams about shit hitting the fan (and spiders. Those ones are really beginning to freak me out.) and I know if I just take this time limit off myself I will breathe a lot easier. But I really. Really want to make this trip. I just don't know if I've got anything left to give to make it happen. And the idea of taking the rest of the year to pay off Telford, and actually having a little bit of extra cash behind me before I go is really appealing. And if I decide not to go now, then moving to Queenstown makes a lot of sense. I just don't know that I want to up root myself again so soon....
Ugh, I'm going round in circles again.

Financially, moving to queenstown, finding a job with more hours, selling my horse and not going to the states in May makes a lot of sense. It's just... not what I want for this year.

Help?