I'm not a Workaholic, I swear, Part III (Final Part)

In October 2008, we welcomed the most precious, most beautiful thing to ever exist into this world. Our son, Ethan. He was born on October 08, 2008 at 11:41 pm. I had gone to the hospital at midnight the previous night. It was a long night and day before he finally decided it was okay to join us in this big, scary world. And scary it was.

I don't know if you remember October 2008. Things were falling apart. As I held my son in my arms, my husband commented on the economy (we were watching the news). Banks were falling. Wallstreet was crumbling. The housing bubble had burst in a huge way and housing prices were plummeting across the nation. My husband thought our economy might just go with it. The government didn't know what to do. We were in extreme debt as a nation. And we were involved in two wars.

The race for the presidency was heated. In the Republican corner, a man who was once a POW and deserved respect and devotion for his willingness to fight for our freedom. A man who could quite likely bring us through the two wars we're still engaged in. A man with a weak economical background and running mate that was making mistakes left and right, leaving non-party people with the idea that she was playing puppet. On the democratic side, a man who speaks so eloquently, it's hard not to be pulled in. A man who could inspire hope when it seemed there was none. A man who had little economy or war experience but could talk the talk without having to prove for the time being that he'd actually walk the walk. A black man. A man who made history just by becoming the Democratic candidate. A man destined to make history as the first Black President of the United States of America. My son was born in a year of great change, history, and economic strife.

Times were scary, and I had to quit listening to any of it. I had to have hope that things weren't as bad as they seemed. Why? Because what mother wants to bring her son into this kind of economic chaos? I was scared and even more scared when I was asked to call in to a company meeting. People were getting let go. Our company wasn't in the best place. What would I do if I lost my job? Would we lose everything? We're a two-income family. There's no way for us to make it on one salary. Not right now.

I didn't lose my job, but my salary was reduced by 4%. Lucky for me, I had received an annual pay increase and a promotion in my first year at Duck Creek, so the cut wasn't so hard for me. My husband's company made cuts, too. More than once. And with each "cut" that took place, we experienced tension, worrying, and uncertainty. But we've been lucky. We didn't get cut and now the pendulum seems to be pausing, stopping, and preparing to swing the other way.

In June 2009, I took my current position. It was a long process and one I'm thankful I made it through. Not only because I no longer have that 45-minute commute but also because I love education. In a working sense (really just an outside the family sense), education is quite likely the most important thing to me. I believe in it, and I believe in making sure people have the opportunity at higher education. I understand not everyone needs or wants to go to college, but a community college is so much more than just "college." But that's not the point. I had tried 4 years ago or more for a teaching position here, but I didn't get it. So when I got the opportunity again, I was ecstatic. Still am. I love my job, and I realize that's not something a lot of people these days can say. Do I want more? Of course I do, but that's my personality. Do I want it in education? Most definitely. I come from little means, and education saved me from a life of hardship.

This position also gave something back to me that I missed. I now had the opportunity to teach again. And I love being in the classroom. I love teaching. I love helping people learn. I sometimes think that I had I known how much I would enjoy teaching, I would've gone after that instead of English and Technical Writing. Of course, I love writing, too, and I do get to teach, so I am happy.

Monetarily, picking up a few classes brings in more money. And this is where we're at. I love to teach, but right now, I feel like I'm killing myself. I'm stressed and pulled as thin as I can go. However, I know it won't be like this forever. I can see that shimmering, beautiful light back there at the end of this dismal tunnel that we created for ourselves. My teaching money goes directly toward eliminating our debt. Granted, we won't be eliminating our student loan debt for quite a few years to come, but that one credit card that hangs over our head is dwindling, and I can be proud of that. And I can see that light that tells me that soon I will be able to teach just one class, and I'll be able to do it because I want to. This "have to" thing is bringing me down.

As for the other things I manage to pick up, such as being on a writing committee, well, I am naturally ambitious. And I rarely close the door to things I think might be helpful to me in the future. I don't think of things in terms of "right now." I try to see the big picture and how I can fit into that and pursue the avenues I wish to pursue. I haven't exactly kept my childhood or lack thereof a secret. It is that childhood and those experiences that shaped this need and drive for success. And knowing that, I know that we will and are swimming back up to the surface and soon, I will be able to breathe again.

P.S. Sorry for such a long post, but this blog is for me, too!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

I'm not sure if every post I edited has appeared in people's readers. If so, I'm sorry about that. So let's random it up.

First of all, I learned a valuable lesson today. Never, ever, ever forget how public blogs are. Every word, every sentence, every paragraph is viewable by whoever stumbles upon your blog. Keep that in mind. It's enough to make a person think twice about even having one, right?

Okay, so last night when Ethan walked into the bathroom to take a bath, he noticed that I put the toilet paper on the toilet paper holder. My second lesson? Toilet paper cannot go on toilet paper holders until Ethan is older. He can unravel a roll in seconds. Luckily, I got to the roll before he did, but he was reaching for it, and I've already seen the result. I can't wait until he figures out how to put the whole roll in the toilet. Won't that be fun?

We're teething again. Oh my. Ethan did not sleep well last night. I'm tired. Very tired. I hope this episode is quick. I hate to wish it all away, I really do, but 3 is starting to look good...by that time he should have all of his teeth.

We watched the Super Bowl on Sunday. We even brought Ethan's high chair downstairs and let him eat in front of the TV. If you knew me, you'd know what a big deal that is. Ethan loved it. LOVED it.

We tried Speaker/Listener last night. It actually worked. By "worked," we actually got through a serious topic without it getting over-heated. Yay for us, right? Woo-hoo.

Okay, I think that pretty well sums up the whole Random Tuesday thing. And for you viewing pleasure. My little helper. He loves to vacuum the fireplace.

I'm not a workaholic, I swear, Part II

So when I last left off, we had increased our debt by $15,000 in the "great deal" of a house we just bought and we took out cash against our equity to pay off the credit counseling service we were using to manage our previous debt.

I suppose it might be worth mentioning that we have now lived in our house for about 4.5 years, so it's been a while. The problem with our house, other than those two major things I mentioned in the last post, is that it was also extremely outdated. There was wallpaper everywhere! Popcorn ceilings. Nasty carpet. All sorts of things. So within the first year to year and a half, we scraped popcorn from the ceiling, peeled wallpaper, and painted like mad. All upstairs, of course. We stained our deck, and that's no small deck! We laid tile in the kitchen. We did it all on our own because it's the only way we could afford it.

At some point within all this, I got a job at Duck Creek Technologies, which specializes in creating insurance software solutions. It was good money with one drawback. It was a 45-minute commute. I took it, though, and am ever thankful that I did because it gave me the experience I needed to get the job I currently have.

We started talking about if and when we might have kids. We started talking about going to Belize in March or April 2008, and then starting to try, but things happened that made Belize impossible. We decided we would never have kids if we waited until we were financially stable. We (I) decided that I was getting older and if we were going to do it, we should do it sooner rather than later. So we set a tentative start trying month for February 2008. New Year's Eve of that year, we started renovating our bedroom. We knew that we would have to renovate it before we had a kid or it would never get done. It was pink. I mean pink blinds, pink carpet, pink wallpaper. Pink, pink, pink! And I don't particularly like pink. It had to go. So we yanked the carpet, peeled the wallpaper, scraped the popcorn, replaced the shower door, replaced the lights, and had someone put carpet in (it's the only thing we haven't done ourselves).

As February came closer, we talked about waiting a little longer. While we had done most of the work ourselves, we needed to get the room paid off first. And then I was late. Talking about waiting was for naught because I already had my tiny Ethan growing inside of me. I got pregnant in January. With that came the realization that our entire basement would have to be renovated. It had flooded so many times that it smelled like mildew, and mold was growing in corners and behind baseboards. Two of our three bedrooms are downstairs in the basement. It's where Ethan's room is. Our baby couldn't come home to a moldy house; it wouldn't be safe for him. And, honestly, my protective motherly instincts kicked in the moment I found out I was pregnant.

I don't know the exact costs of renovating that basement, but I do know that it was far from cheap. My husband spent many evenings and weekends down there doing to majority of the work on his own. He took vacation days as the deadline I set neared. I wanted it done by August, so I could start getting things (the nursery) ready for my baby to come home. We laid tile and had someone lay carpet. It was a big and an expensive job. It's over 1200 square feet.

To add to the financial burdens, we owned a 1997 2-door Honda Civic that the lights would randomly go out on. It had over 200,000 miles on it. Still ran great, but I didn't want to even attempt getting a baby in and out of that car. So we went car shopping. We ended up with my Subaru Outback, which I love, but it was expensive. And we're still paying on it. Looking back, we probably could've gotten something less expensive. But hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it?

And so we managed to get rid of all the debt we had with the credit counseling service and replaced it with a higher mortgage payment. I managed to get a better-paying job that helped with the burden. We added debt through renovations and a new car.

What next? Well, in the final installment:

• A new arrival with new costs
• A lateral move with monetary opportunities
• Finally getting smart

Mommy's Little Helper

So my son loves to vacuum. Trouble is, he's too short to hold the vacuum handle and keep the front of the vacuum on the floor. So when Ethan vacuums, he's not actually doing anything, but I would never tell my little helper that. After all, he looks so happy helping, doesn't he?

Only real trouble is that I can't vacuum when he's awake because he wants to do it! I still thinks it's pretty cute, though.

A Video: Get This Bear Outta Here

This video was taken about a month and a half after Ethan turned one. For some reason, he really did not want this bear to go for a ride!

I'm not a Workaholic, I swear. Part I

So I talk a lot about how busy I am. What new thing I've taken on now. I have a full-time job, teach 3 classes, and am on a final draft committee that requires a huge document to be completed in less than 2 months. Not to mention that I'm going to a marriage class every Tuesday night and am a mother to a wonderful baby boy. Oh, and then there's the whole wife thing! My time is stretched so thin that my house is a wreck and I can't seem to figure out how to work in a good work out no matter how hard I try because I'm going so fast on so little that I can't get well enough to even visit the gym. See? Wow! That's a lot.

And then I think, "man, if I didn't know any better, I'd think I was a workaholic!" But here's the truth. I hate to work. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy what I do and couldn't ask for a better job (unless it paid more money). But I don't particularly like working. I would prefer to spend my days hanging out with Ethan or writing my book or going on trips that I could write articles about and sell to magazines. I'd love to be able to just take a contract job here and there. That'd be nice. But that's not the way it is. So if I hate working so much, why do I do it so much. Over the top? In the extreme? Why, oh, why am I killing myself?

That's easy. I don't have a choice. Well, unless losing everything we've worked for is a choice. You see, we fall into the category of "we bought a house we can't really afford." Yes, we're one of those people. The difference? We're able to make our payments. It's hard, but we do it. Barely. We have a credit card with a mildly high balance on it. We make payments to Clint's grandmother for our roof and my car. And we just started paying our student loan payments. Oh, and let's not forget child care. So how did we get here?

It was easy. My husband bought our first house shortly before we married. It was such a cute house and would have been wonderful without the druggies that lived next to us. They stayed up all night and had people living in tents in their back yards. They used their shed as their trash service, and I saw some pretty large rats over there on more than one occasion. I'm sure some of them could've beaten my cat up pretty easily. Oh, and let's not forget the prostitutes that walked the streets looking for their next trick. Oh, goody! Then there was the bullet hole in my trunk and in the upstairs window. We're pretty sure that one was from our neighbor shooting at squirrels. After several renters and the use of the house as a drug haven when no one lived there, we decided to move. We put our house on the market and started looking. That's when we discovered our current house.

Don't get me wrong. I love this house. It was a bankruptcy, so we got an amazing deal. The problem is when we moved in, it had a cedar shake roof that was covered in moss. We were told it had 6 months to a year left in it. After all the papers were signed, the stupid raccoons decided to tear off parts of the roof, leaving gaping holes. We had to fix the roof immediately to the unbelievable total of $10,000. Then the first big rain came and we realized the basement leaked. You see, when a house is a bankruptcy, the bank does not have to disclose anything. We got screwed. So we had piers put in to jack up the foundation a little. Turns out it had nothing to do with the foundation.

Apparently, when they moved the house over to city water, they didn't bother to seal the hole in the basement wall where the well pipe once was. Every time it rained hard, the water would seep into the ground and come into the house through that hole. Because we had no way of knowing that, we had to pay to have the piers put in....a $5,000 job. So within the first 6 months, our wonderful deal was jacked up a whopping $15,000.

We later decided to refinance and take some cash out to pay off some lingering debts we had. We were, at the time, participating in a credit counseling service. We knew that it affected our credit, so we thought it'd be best to get rid of it. Taking money out against our house seemed like a good idea. It wasn't. We got screwed because we were naive and didn't understand well enough the terms we were agreeing to. Now we have a fairly high interest rate of 6.75% with a debt to loan ratio of 86%, which means we can't refinance into a lower interest rate.

And this, of course, is just the beginning of our financial difficulties. Coming up in the next edition:

• A pleasant surprise
• Unexpected renovations

So Now I Remember...

Last night, I saw something absolutely amazing. I mean truly amazing and somewhat baffling.

Over the past two or three weeks, things in the Craft house have been borderline insane. We've been trampled, kicked, and discouraged by a constant influx of illnesses. First, we were plagued by the stomach flu that took its toll on the three of us at varying times. Then we were plagued by a cold that I am still contending with. Then we jumped into the teething world, cutting 2 molars at once.

As you can imagine, and I've stated, there has been little sleep between all these things. So last night, when I picked up my son, he ran into my arms and started chattering away about who knows what. He smiled and laughed on the way home, something he never does.

Once we were home, I was prepared for Mr. Cranky Pants. What I got instead was an extremely happy child. A very loving child. A child I didn't realize I was missing. Ethan is always happy and always consolable. He gets whiny when he's hungry and I'm not making his dinner fast enough. Or when I give him 3 crackers instead of 4.

Last night, however, this child still wanted 4 crackers and he was still ready to eat, but he didn't get mad and stay mad. He didn't scream at me while I was trying to get things ready. He just sort of pulled at my pants and laughed. He was overly happy. He was Ethan. He was my no more teething, coughing, stuffy kid and it showed. I didn't realize he was missing. I thought we were just entering a new phase of battle of wills. But it appears that he just wasn't feeling good. I'm so happy to have my smiling baby back!