Addendum

Ok, that was a brief meltdown, in a moment of sheer panic and frustration.

Here's how cool my life is: my sister read the last entry, apparently just after I wrote it, and she called to make sure everything was okay, and to remind me that nobody could make me do anything by 5:00.

I knew that...but as I said, I don't do well under pressure and threats - especially when they come in the middle of my afternoon at work.

And since I'm not the type to sit around singing Woe Is Me...let me finish by telling what happened after all the panic.

I called both loan places to find out exactly what I needed to do. The first place - the one I've been making payments to - told me that the loans I have with them (which include all but that one that I got the call about today) are two payments away from being out of default. Yay! They told me to make the minimum possible payment on the other loan until the rest are out of default, then I can re-consolidate, and include all the loans, or defer the first group until I can get the last loan out of default as well. And once that happens, I can go back to school. Double Yay!!

When I talked to the second place - the ones who were making all the threats - they were much nicer, and confirmed what the first place told me, except that they offered to go ahead and defer the one loan until I could get the others caught up. Which means I keep paying what I've been paying anyway, for two more months, and then I can re-consolidate and possibly get the whole mess deferred, or keep paying - at a much lower payment, hopefully - or see about getting back into school.

The school thing may still have to wait a little bit, because by the time all this happens with my student loans, I'll have a brand-new baby to take care of. But maybe next summer, maybe next fall...maybe we'll have to wait until we're sure we can afford it. But whenever we decide, I'll be able to do it. I can finally finish school.

Which means I may finally have to decide what I want to be when I grow up...

Oh yeah...and my husband's bosses? Well, they didn't just kidnap him for the day - right now they're taking him to get a 4-in-1 printer, to go with the brand-new notebook computer they got  for him (on which I'm typing right now), and they're going to fill our car up with gas. And he'll be home soon - possibly in time to watch CSI.

So all's well.