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May 3, 2003
For a few months now, I have thought long and hard about closing out my diary. But, I concluded it would be such a shame not to have a continued record of our lives for myself and the kids to look back on someday. Even now, I go back and read my preschoolers diary I started 3-4 years ago, and it is already mind-blowing, I am so happy to have it!
I feel like there are so many huge gaps since I closed out my previous three and waited for my Moms diary. Very often, I want to pop on and whip up an entry with details of what the kids are up too, and I always put it off....thinking I have to catch up first. I feel like my writing is all over the place, touching on different things here and there. With this entry, I hope to do a quick catch-up- to- date, so I can continue to write things as they happen and not get too far behind again. I will certainly feel better once that is done!
It feels like it's been months since I wrote about Lyssie, and Charles, and Sarah has been up to so many new things.... I fear I will certainly forget half of them before they are even written down. So, hopefully, this will be quick and then maybe next week I can catch up on the kids!
Our House
Do you believe it? Our house that bought in October 2001 is *almost* ready for us to move into.
Chuck and I put a large chunk of money down on it to have a very low mortgage payment. We thought that was just ingenius. Hahahaha Never, ever, ever, did we think it would take so much money to have it renovated. To make matters worse, I quit my job after I had Sarah because I couldn't bear to leave her. So, that caused a big delay to say the least! To say this past year has been a struggle with paying for 2 houses would be an understatement. Most times, I’ve felt as if we are in limbo, waiting and waiting and waiting. Our house here has been packed up for quite a while, pictures taken down off the walls, boxes piled in the computer room, and just some general neglect of things going on in this house here. I feel like it has taken a toll on me, as silly as that sounds. I used to have people over for dinner at least once a week, and do a lot of entertaining here. I haven’t done that in months, as we’re half packed and I am so darn sick of the endless cries of “ Are you guys in the house yet? Oh my GOD, you’re kidding me! When? How long? What’s going on?!” I know people are not out to be downright mean, but it was just like rubbing salt in my wounds. The house, and lack of our living in it, has been such a constant source of stress and frustration for us, what did some people think? We just didn’t feel like moving? I just felt like I was being berated about it constantly and it always put me in such a bad mood.
This is what has been done to the house…….it was completely gutted, and I mean completely, down to every last cloth wire, rotten pipe, and then some. A new furnace and ductwork needed to be installed, as well as new electrical and breaker boxes throughout, new framework, walls, windows, pipes, plumbing…pretty much every single thing you could imagine. After we gutted the hazardous, plaster walled, lead infested, cloth wired, open furnaced house, all that remained was a mere shell. Maybe we should have just built from scratch?! It would have been easier, probably less expensive too. To add in something good about it, it really is a charming little place, right on the water, with a fabulous view from our bedroom window and a mere block away from a 5 mile boardwalk on the shore. It is in a gorgeous neighborhood, with lots of kids and it will be a great place and area for our children to grow up in.
The final hurdle to finishing up the work on our house involved the furnace, ductwork, last of the electricity, and bathroom. A BIG chunk of money. We had been plodding away on it for the last year and a half, but were basically at a stand still for lack of funds at this point. Chuck happened to be at the house, picking up a tool he needed for a job when a neighbor approached him and they got into a conversation about working on the house. This neighbor asked Chuck if he had inquired in our town hall about the many low interest loans they have available for homeowners. Chuck said thanks, he would give it a try.
Fast forward to me running to city hall to inquire about all of the programs and finding out that we were qualified for a deferred loan. The city’s contractors would come in, purchase and install the furnace, finish up the electricity and install the bathrooms, and all that went with it, and Chuck and I could pay the city back WHEN or IF we sold the house SOMEDAY. Can you believe that one????????????????????????
To freak you all out some more, this all happened the day after our family returned to church, after Chuck and I had this sort of big God revelation. I honestly felt like He was acknowledging us and sending us a personal blessing!
So, there you have it, that’s pretty much the whole story. Chuck is there as we speak installing the new cabinets, and we giddily picked out bathroom tile yesterday. It will be so great to finally move, and put myself into making a beautiful home for my family. We are ecstatic! It shouldn’t be much longer than 2-3 weeks!
My return to work
Chuck is self employed. I always carried the health insurance with my job at the hospital. After I had Sarah, I almost had a breakdown stressing about leaving her. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to nurse her, I was clueless about daycare, and in the end, we finally decided I would stay home with her. What enabled me to do so was enrolling our family in a state funded insurance plan for low cost…. self employed, or non employed families. This solution I was grateful for, but it was not without flaws and our governor is canceling and changing guidelines to it all the time. I can’t mess around there. There are 5 of us here, and we need good health insurance. I had always remained on staff at the hospital on a per diem basis, but that excluded me from any benefit eligibility. After a particularly stressful morning and after reading a fourth article one week about the governor canceling out the health insurance again, my boss from the hospital called. She informed me they had a 20 hour position available, 6am-10am. Would I be interested?
20 hours at the hospital guarantees you health insurance, this was the answer to my prayers. Only problem was the hours. I stressed and stressed and finally called back to regretfully turn down the job. Working 6am-10am would be a nightmare. It would mean Chuck could not start work until 10:30am or so, quite late for him, especially since he does the majority of his work outside, this would be a problem. We also have 3 children, 2 to get ready and off to school, and a 1 year old to care for, It’s not that easy to get someone to take care of all of that. I explained this all to my boss, but thanked her for thinking of me.
About an hour later, I got another call. The staff decided to change the position from 5am-9am, would that work out better for me?! I excitedly called Chuck to talk more. We agreed that a start for him at 9:15, as soon as I got home, was waaaaaay better than after 10am. He would get the kids up and off to school and planned on being ready to run off to work as soon as I pulled up. In the summer, it would also work great for my mother to walk over at 8am or so, we had no school to worry about, and the kids would all still be sleeping at that time. Chuck can leave when he wants to, and I will be home a few minutes after 9am. Perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This all happened about a month ago, and we are all doing fine. Since Sarah still co sleeps and nurses during the night, I almost had a nervous breakdown about leaving her at 4 in the morning. I pictured her awake and screaming, feeling abandoned by me, and it just about tore my heart out. None of that ever happened. Sarah graciously snuggles right up to Chuck and almost acts like it’s just too much effort to wake, or put up any kind of a protest at 4am. Everything is great! No problems at all. I do get a little tired during the day sometimes and go to bed pretty early, but I am one of those people that can sit up any time of the night or morning and be pretty much wide awake, the hours don’t bother me. It has been a perfect solution. While I will be forever grateful for the insurance coverage through CT, I didn’t want to stay on the program forever, and we will again have great coverage with no cancellation worries, not to mention some more money in our pockets!
So, there you have it. That is pretty much the two big things that has been going on in our lives lately. Now I can get on to the fun stuff!
Tricia
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