it's been an expensive year

so i've always thought that any anxiety or stress i felt was directly related to the events that occur in my life. i also always thought that when those events are over, the stress will go away. what i'm realizing now is that it's just replaced by something equally stressful. 2009 has been a very anxiety-ridden year so far. a little run down.

january-april: spent all our free time fixing up the quitman rental and maxed out our credit cards doing so.
february: huge tree in our backyard falls down in the wind storm, causing $8K worth of damage and a month of dealing with the insurance company.
april: jared proposes (yay!) - start planning wedding and figuring out where we'll get the money
leak in fenton rental leads to mold growth in basement and months of dealing with contractors and insurance.
may: j gets into a car accident and it costs $2k to fix his jeep. i find out that j owes 3 years of back taxes.
june: tenants in fenton house get kicked out by social services and the city says that the house is uninhabitable. this is a blessing in disguise, as the tenants were HORRID, BUT we can't afford to have an empty house right now.
july: j's jeep broke down and we were forced to buy a new car. we got a used subaru forester and now have another car payment. j finally gets his crotchrocket into the shop so we can get it fixed up to sell and it costs $1700 to get it running again.
july-august: months dealing with contracts and insurance adjustors lead to a $18K insurance payment, but the work still hasn't started because the check is made out to the mortgage company and i have to jump through all their hoops to get things fixed.
august: we decide to put the quitman house on the market, and have to deal with the annoyances of trying to sell a tenant occupied house.

do you see a pattern here?

some reasons why we appear to make good money on paper, yet have none.
*i have not yet received a commission check this year because i am about 40K behind my sales goal.
*j was forced to take a 20% paycut at his job
*we have been paying two mortgages for 6 out of the last 8 months.
*we have paid cash for the following:2 insurance deductibles ($1000 each), 3 separate vehicle repairs ($4500 total), an engagement ring ($3000), and wedding downpayments ($2500).

now we have drained our savings, maxed our cards, and have 2 houses, a jeep, and a bike that we desperately want to sell.

too bad no one is buying..