Adventures Starting Over

As I sit here, a mere 90 left of 2011, the faint sound of (possibly illegal) fireworks in the background, I can't help but reflect on all the extreme changes my family has gone through. We've been extremely lucky, despite my frequent panic attacks at our future prospect.

I started this year hearing all about the financial crisis, the joblessness that's affecting this country, and all the struggles that come along with being without a regular paycheck. At the time, my husband was securely employed as an Army officer. I had been out of college for about 9 months and was very unsure of what was to come next; it seemed like I had spend so much time and effort, working so hard to get my B.A. and now that I had graduated college, something I think I appreciate a little bit more now, I was giving life the deer-in-the-headlights look. I really didn't appreciate how good we had it; my husband was working, we were secure, well prepared for the future. We weren't looking at our bank account and wondering how we were going to pay the pile of bills.

Then, that Spring, Steven got the news that he would no longer be an active duty officer. Now we were faced with the prospect of being without an income. It didn't quite hit us hard at the time, only because he wouldn't get his last paycheck until November; that was a full 8 months away and we were both so sure that he would find another job in 8 months. No big deal! Talk about being out of touch.

Now we sit, living off the separation money he got (which will last us well over a year). He's got a few prospects, a space in the Army Reserves (which pays almost nothing, but now we get to keep our health insurance) but nothing concrete in terms of full-time work. I am nervous, but I know it will be okay. I know that we are so lucky to have the means to pay our bills (for now), something that I know many struggle with. We've lost out dental insurance, but everything else is pretty much as it was. Except our attitudes of course.

Looking back at how I viewed the world, I actually cringe. I believed at the beginning of this year that my family was going through a rough patch. In reality, I was feeling uncertainty; I didn't know what I was going to do with my new college degree, or when my husband was going to settle into a career that wasn't so hard on our family life. And yes, I was a little.....perhaps naive would be a better word than ungrateful. I did know that we were lucky to have a steady income, I just stupidly believed that it would be easy to find another in 8 months.

Now in some respects, we are better off. I know what I want to do with my life, and it doesn't involve school (unfortunately, because I truly love being in a higher education environment. If we won the lottery I would spent my life getting degree after degree simply for the fun of it), or a job that involves leaving the house. This has been the biggest realization for me to come to; the fact that I am needed at home, things work better when I am home, and it took a lot for me to realize it. It took me getting out of bed at 4am every morning and working all hours of the day, missing my kids so much it hurt. Now that I know where I want to be, we have a little tweaking to do when it comes to our finances, but it will be worth it.

In the upcoming new year, only hope is that my husband finds work, something that he loves, that he is good at, and that will pay the bills. Once this happens,we can finally relax and enjoy our new found perspective.

Here's to a New Year full of opportunity.

Adventures getting old

Today is my 25th birthday. I know, I know 25 is young, but I am a quarter of a century old! I am actually pretty happy about aging, as when people hear my age I get The Look. The Look that says "You're so young and you know nothing about the world." On some level I can understand That Look, as I tend to agree with it a lot of the time; most people I know in their early 20's are basically overgrown children, but on the other hand it's very annoying to get this look when I've done more in my 25 years than some of my 40-year-old family members. So I am excited to be on my way out of my 20's. I think I may just stop aging at the age of 33. We'll see.

We went out and celebrated (yes my husband and I share the same birthday) with dinner and a movie. Very cliche, but still awesome, especially with no children in tow. I went a little crazy and had 3/4 of a strawberry daiquiri. I live on the wild side what can I say?

Adventures in Hiding

Wow, it's been way too long since I updated on this thing. So much has happened in the past few months it's hard to know where to begin.

Steven is officially out of the military.....kind of. He officially left active duty in November, but he joined the National Reserves last week, and there's a good chanced that with the unit he's going to be assigned to, he will be activated, even deployed. So even though I've been running around telling all my friends and family that we're done with the military and how relived I am that my husband is out, it may not be true. That's going to be an awkward conversation.

Me: "Steven's being deployed next year."
Random family member or friend: "I thought he was out of the military?"
(thanks to the military's blatant incompetence and unreliability, I have a built in excuse)
Me: "It's the military."

But I have to be honest, as much complaining as I did about my husband's job, I seriously took for granted the steady paycheck and benefits we got regularly. I've never been in a position where I didn't know how the bills were going to be paid, and this was the month I got to know what that feels like. At that point, with a dwindling bank account and bills that would not stop showing up in our mail box, a more humbled part of me wished for his job back. And now it looks like I've got my wish. Now I won't bitch so much when he has to leave for 6 weeks or if he deploys.

We moved into a new bigger and cheaper house ( I know the words 'bigger' and 'cheaper' don't usually go together, but our real estate market is all messed up), and ended up renting our old house out. So we're officially landlords....kind of. We have a property manager, so we won't actually be doing any landlord-ing.

At the time when we moved into the new house, I had a temp job with (who else?) the military. After we moved in, something just clicked for me, and after several long talks with Hubs, we decided that I am going to be a stay-at-home mom for the foreseeable future. With this decision, and with the purse strings being pulled a little tighter, it also made the most sense for me to leave graduate school. I can't lie, I was a little disappointed with this, but it makes the most sense. Why spent thousands of dollars on a professional degree when I am not going back into the work force? I have been toying with the idea of becoming licenced to do daycare from home, and for this to work I would have to get all kinds of classes and certifications done, so it may be better for me to focus on that. 

The boys are doing very well. Orion is halfway through his first year of Preschool and not only does he love it, he is THRIVING. This is by far the best money we have ever spent on him, and I am thinking that next year he's going to be better off in a four day a week class instead of a three day a week.

All in all things are settling down, and I am very excited to see what the new year holds. I am hoping lots of cake.