Pity party

Ok...so...no, in fact, this house isn't going to work out. It turns out there is a whole bunch of stuff wrong with it and the people buying it wont have the money to fix it up. Apparently it is totally uninsulated and is like 110 degrees in the summer and costs $250 a month to heat in the winter. the people buying it wont have the money for new flooring, fixing, etc, for probably a year. so if we want to live on plywood floors...
she also, it turns out, wants a bunch of money for the place. which was not what we had originally understood.

So can we just take a moment to reflect upon all of the bad, annoying, horrible crap that has happened to our family in the past year?

• august 2007: jay gets fired from his job because his boss is a mental case
• september 2007: jay and i both find jobs, start working, find daycare
• our daycare falls through and there is a scary, desperate, last-minute struggle to find new childcare
• october: jay loses his other, new job because his boss is a jerk, which is later confirmed by several other people, but he didn't know it when he took the job. He suffers subsequently from some kind of PTSD where he is convinced that he is actually a bad person and didn't just get unlucky twice.
• november: laura suffers a mini mental breakdown from job stress; jay hates being a stay at home parent
• december: laura's temporary job ends, we lose our health insurance
• january: we get denied life insurance due to a mix-up and are STILL going through the process of trying to get it reinstated
• February: our dog leaps over our fence and bites our mailman. Chaos ensues with the post office threatens to sue us, mail delivery is stopped, we have to take our dog to another state, etc.
• Jay goes to the emergency room for abdominal freakyness
• march: the dog can't be adopted out and has to come back to us to live with us incognito. We have to basically hide him.
• We are told that we have a 'free' house waiting for us across the street from my mom. Hallelujah! we are saved!
• april: oh, actually, no, we DON'T have the house.
• Our computer crashes and we lose all data on our hard drive, including a report for jay's work that is over 15 pages long and all his research for the report. We also lose all of my application materials, resumes, letters of recommendation, etc.
• Due to miscommunication, Jay misses his first meeting with his supervisors at his new part-time, contract-based job. Thankfully they were understanding.
• Laura and Jay realize that we need at least one of us to to have stable, long-term work that provides benefits and so Laura starts looking for a teaching job full time for next year
• For the first time ever, our taxes show we OWE $1000. How is that possible?

Ok, Ok, so on paper, it looks extremely sucky. But there have been good things, too. Right? Ok...

Good stuff....

• when jay lost his job, at least i had the education/training that i could get a good paying job and a temporary position was open at my old school.
• I've been able to substitute teach every day since that job ended and the pay is pretty good, the work is easy and stress-free and its almost always at my school where i know all the staff and students.
• Jay's friends (the ones who cost him his first job due to starting up their new company) gave him a part time job at that new company which has helped him mentally and us financially
• we have lots of family and friends who support us.
• we were forced to take our dog back, which really is better than never seeing him again
• jay has recently been offered and started working for a job that could possibly turn into full time employment. for now, its a good part time job that he can do from home
• we got all our stupid life and health insurance business sorted out (we think!)
• Thanks to our great president, G.W. Bush, we will get an 'incentive' check which will pay off our tax bill and then some
• we will not be moving to a homeless shelter any time soon
• I'm sort of excited to start teaching for real next year
• We have possibly found good drop-in childcare for when we both need to be working
• our kids have never been in daycare or in the care of another person other than short-term since they were born
• nobody in our family is sick or dying (with the exception of some very old grandparents)
• I didn't get accidentally pregnant during this time (this is sort of a joke. whenever jay is really stressed out, i'm always like, look on the bright side, at least i'm not pregnant!)
• we met some amazing people and are in the process of starting something really exciting with them, but this is kind of a secret and i will tell you all about it later.
• did i mention nobody in our family has cancer or anything? yeah.
• i got to go to ireland and it was awesome
• we get to spend some time on the east coast this summer to see friends/family
• nobody has wrecked any of our cars.
• we didn't have to borrow any money or rack up any credit card debt during this past year. somehow, miraculously, our expenses and intake have evened out somewhat and we STILL have no credit card debt. student debt on the other hand...
• our children are smart, fun, cute, healthy, loving, play together now, and are just joyful (usually!)

so yeah, it hasn't been all bad. but it has been incredibly stressful. I try to remember that we have a lot to be thankful for.

Oh, and i LOVE shampoo bar! i will never use shampoo out of a bottle again! and i also love conditioner bar! its the best.

I'm proud to say, we now make our own of the following: laundry soap, dish soap, air freshener, household cleaners, food (our garden is starting to grow again!), bread, kombucha, etc. and i get to mooch homebrew beer off my brother.

on a final note, is it just us, or is food CRAZY expensive lately? i swear we spend more money on food now than we ever have. i sadly just do not have the time to go all the places that i should in order to lower the bill. i need to quit New Seasons and start loving Winco again.