Cliques and money

Remember high school? Remember the cliques in high school? They may have been different from mine, but the still boiled down to two categories- have, and have-not. If you were a have then you got it all. If you were a have-not then it meant things like not getting a limo for prom, not getting to go to all the cool concerts, not getting a car for your 16th birthday, and all kinds of things like that. Lately that whole high school mess has come back at me almost 20 years later.
For one thing, I have a great group of women at my church that I could be real friends with, but I made the mistake of going to some of their houses- haves! There's no way I'm going to reciprocate and invite them to my house. Even leaving aside what a mess it's been since my son's been born, it's a cruddy townhouse in a cruddy neighborhood and I'm just too damn embarrased to have anyone over. Call it a pride issue if you want, tell me to get over it if you want, it's still not going to change anything. I could be part of their clique, but because I'm not a have I can't let myself fit into their group.
And then there's my online friends. Great group in a forum- yeah, the occasional butthead, but they just add spice to the mix. But then one gets upset and decides to make his own forum. Great. And his website is based on a level of Flash that my computer can't handle, so I'm excluded- and I don't have the money to buy another computer. Even if I could, I'm not sure I would. It ticks me off that he's created this 'members only' forum that sounds like another high school clique. And our usually lively forum is now dead. I don't know if they're posting on his forum (since I can't get there I can't tell), but the timing is suspicious.
I'm depressed. And of course since I'm depressed everything is going badly. Don't know how I'm going to get myself out of this funk, but I better do it soon and it better not cost me any money.

Ups and downs

Ups- husband's been home a couple of times
Downs- he's only home for a couple of days (which could also be seen as an up, since both times were good and happy times, not even a disagreement to mar it)

Ups- pastor loves the idea of a Walk Through Bethlehem
Downs- it's morphed into something completely different from the original vision and I'm not sure we'll be able to pull it off

Ups- finally got some publicity material together for MOPS- and got the newsletter in on time
Downs- now I have to distribute it- and start on December's newsletter so I don't end up leaving it for the last minute

Ups- figured out that if I designate M, W, F for school board and T, Th, S for MOPS then I can prioritize and get things done
Downs- couldn't figure out a way to include a set day for housework unless I want to give up my day of rest (not!) so I'll have to keep working on it

Overall the Ups are winning, although it may not look like it from this. The irony of all of this is that if I didn't have kids I'd have so much more time for all of my commitments, but if I didn't have kids I wouldn't have these commitments!