So if I had to sum up my life in once statement right now, it would be...
"Up in the air". Everything is soo00oo0o up in the air...jobs/careers, school, moving (or not), etc.
Doing this on my lunch break so I might cut this off short, but....
I can't wait to find out "what's going on" within this next year--it's weird being in limbo.
So right here, right now, this month, Boeing decided they are going to change the way they cover tuition costs for school. Which, I can't complain, I have paid $0.00 for 2 semesters of grad school so far. But they are now making anyone who plans to continue to take classes after this semester to sign a contract saying they will stay with the company 2 YEARS beyond receiving a degree (that they paid for), or else you OWE Boeing every tuition expense, etc. upon leaving the company. That's tons of money. This excludes lay-offs, then you don't have to pay it back. Ugh...I really really don't want to sign my life away and have to be tied to Boeing for the next 4ish years (assuming I am not laid off). I want the option to leave to another company if I so choose, without waiting for a lay-off slip to hit my desk and be SOL. Or I would just like the option to go to a higher paying (or better) job with another company if I want, even if I don't get laid off, because I am early in my career and not super specialized yet.
So I am going to be taking yet another semester off in the Spring (...), to wait for Boeing to evaluate what we are going to do/if we won the ground ops contract out here for Constellation/if Constellation exists/if KSC will be functional after 2010/if the United States wants a human space program/if politicians like the space program/if God likes the space program.
Apparently all of this will be solved magically in April, the rumored date that the lay-off slips may/may not be put into existence, and possibly distributed.
I figure if I stay with Boeing, then great...keep schooling...as I'll be able to make a more intelligent decision about that after Boeing knows what the hell is going on. Otherwise, whatever company I would go to work for could continue to pay (hopefully). And all of this (of course) also hinges on me assuming I am accepted at Colorado, and I find that out within a month or so (it's a distance program, so wherever I go, school can go).
So that's school. Work's situation is almost what I said above, so far up in the air that no one has any clue what to think. The fact is people are going to be let go from here, regardless of when/where/how (or not) Constellation happens and in what fashion. The future work force for any human space flight program after the shuttle/ISS program is going to require less of a work force. So even if the stars align and everything and everyone supports human space flight, someone out here is gonna get let go. And we have no idea who that will be.
So that's my side of the story. Now for Jake...
It's been a blessing for him to be able to stay home for the last several months with Aubrey. It ended up working out to benefit us that Jake was layed off from his last job (company went bankrupt).
She has been able to be watched by a parent during the day, instead of some daycare worker, in her house, and not some sickness-filled, loud daycare center. She's 5 months old today, and she is really starting to get big!
*BUT* (get ready for the rant)...
we are SO financially strapped right now, it's ridiculous and beyond frustrating. I keep having to tell myself we are raising a child, this is a blessing of a situation to be in with her being at home with her daddy, but really...the financial part of it is wearing on me. And it doesn't help that Jake has been job searching like MAD for the past forever, and hasn't gotten hired anywhere.
And we're in a situation where "any job" won't work. It has to be a significant job, where he makes a significant salary, works normal hours, or else it won't work. We will have daycare expenses and he will have to get a car. So somehow its turned into him searching for a needle in a haystack that seems to not exist right now.
You think you do all the right things in life, make the right decisions, both of us went to school, got 4 year degrees, I'm working on a masters...you would think a realistic reward would be a REGULAR, sustainable, comfortable (not extravagant or excessive!) life, but instead I am working my ass off by doing 10-20 hours of overtime per week (50-60 hours per week), not seeing my daughter, let alone my husband...and for what? To BARELY cover bills? Dig a deeper debt hole? We haven't spent money on anything in the last several months except necessities. There is no waste in our budget right now. My itty bitty student loans are on hold right now cause I'm in grad school. Jake doesn't even have a car cause we can't afford to have another one right now, so he's stuck at home with Aubrey while I'm at work. We hacked our car insurance in half. I bring my own lunches to work. We share a cell phone plan with his parents. We don't pay cable. We don't eat out or go out drinking. We haven't gone on any vacation in a year. We haven't spent money on entertainment in months--we didn't even go into the game in Gainesville a few weeks ago cause we couldn't spend the money. We can't go any lower on rent without moving into a ghetto (and I refuse to do that with a baby). I can't afford to buy gifts for my coworkers' baby showers because I can barely afford my own baby's expenses. I am so done. I feel like the starving college student again scraping my pennies together to buy cheap food and saving up gas money to see Jake once or twice a month. Sorry if this is melodramatic, but I am so done.
It is so frustrating, I am lucky as hell to have the job I have that pays what it does, with the benefits it gives me. I love my job also, I really do...but instead of just being normal, we are drowning. Jake had a pretty good job before, then of course shit happens and we are dead.
We were scraping together a living barely even in Orlando, where we were trying to live on a teacher's salary and a bike tech job, because the wonderful job situation wasn't much different then than it is now.
WHYYYY is it so hard to make it on your own today? What the heck does it take? What country and times do we live in where being a NASA engineer is not a good enough job to just support a small family. Anyone right now who is able to pay their bills on whatever job they have, you are damn lucky. I don't know how you are able to do it.
How does anyone live the "simple life" today? How are people able to not work and still make a living? How do people make it on incomes LESS than freaking 52,000 a year at 24 years old?
Anyway...so the point is, Jake needs to work. Like yesterday. So we are praying and crossing fingers for him to get a decent paying job, and soon...wherever it ends up being.
Which is a good segue into my next thing that's up in the air...basically we are going to move where jobs will provide us a normal living. Wherever that is, we are going there. Right now I don't think that it is here, in Florida, unless changes occur. I have no ties to Florida anymore (except our immediate families and a few friends who still live in PSL, and my parents are looking to get out ASAP), and frankly, I am getting sick of living in the same place my entire life. For some reason this is really apparent to me lately, I'm tired of the dumbass people who live here, I can live without the beach, I'm tired of the heat, no seasons, same old routine, same old stuff my whole life. I really want a change...whether it be us moving somewhere else, or just a change in our current situation.
I am glad we haven't bought a house or anything yet (like we could anyway...), because we can get up and move when we need to. So unless Jake gets something very soon, which is a possibility, there might be an opportunity for him in Orlando, we are getting the heck out of here!
Doing this on my lunch break so I might cut this off short, but....
I can't wait to find out "what's going on" within this next year--it's weird being in limbo.
So right here, right now, this month, Boeing decided they are going to change the way they cover tuition costs for school. Which, I can't complain, I have paid $0.00 for 2 semesters of grad school so far. But they are now making anyone who plans to continue to take classes after this semester to sign a contract saying they will stay with the company 2 YEARS beyond receiving a degree (that they paid for), or else you OWE Boeing every tuition expense, etc. upon leaving the company. That's tons of money. This excludes lay-offs, then you don't have to pay it back. Ugh...I really really don't want to sign my life away and have to be tied to Boeing for the next 4ish years (assuming I am not laid off). I want the option to leave to another company if I so choose, without waiting for a lay-off slip to hit my desk and be SOL. Or I would just like the option to go to a higher paying (or better) job with another company if I want, even if I don't get laid off, because I am early in my career and not super specialized yet.
So I am going to be taking yet another semester off in the Spring (...), to wait for Boeing to evaluate what we are going to do/if we won the ground ops contract out here for Constellation/if Constellation exists/if KSC will be functional after 2010/if the United States wants a human space program/if politicians like the space program/if God likes the space program.
Apparently all of this will be solved magically in April, the rumored date that the lay-off slips may/may not be put into existence, and possibly distributed.
I figure if I stay with Boeing, then great...keep schooling...as I'll be able to make a more intelligent decision about that after Boeing knows what the hell is going on. Otherwise, whatever company I would go to work for could continue to pay (hopefully). And all of this (of course) also hinges on me assuming I am accepted at Colorado, and I find that out within a month or so (it's a distance program, so wherever I go, school can go).
So that's school. Work's situation is almost what I said above, so far up in the air that no one has any clue what to think. The fact is people are going to be let go from here, regardless of when/where/how (or not) Constellation happens and in what fashion. The future work force for any human space flight program after the shuttle/ISS program is going to require less of a work force. So even if the stars align and everything and everyone supports human space flight, someone out here is gonna get let go. And we have no idea who that will be.
So that's my side of the story. Now for Jake...
It's been a blessing for him to be able to stay home for the last several months with Aubrey. It ended up working out to benefit us that Jake was layed off from his last job (company went bankrupt).
She has been able to be watched by a parent during the day, instead of some daycare worker, in her house, and not some sickness-filled, loud daycare center. She's 5 months old today, and she is really starting to get big!
*BUT* (get ready for the rant)...
we are SO financially strapped right now, it's ridiculous and beyond frustrating. I keep having to tell myself we are raising a child, this is a blessing of a situation to be in with her being at home with her daddy, but really...the financial part of it is wearing on me. And it doesn't help that Jake has been job searching like MAD for the past forever, and hasn't gotten hired anywhere.
And we're in a situation where "any job" won't work. It has to be a significant job, where he makes a significant salary, works normal hours, or else it won't work. We will have daycare expenses and he will have to get a car. So somehow its turned into him searching for a needle in a haystack that seems to not exist right now.
You think you do all the right things in life, make the right decisions, both of us went to school, got 4 year degrees, I'm working on a masters...you would think a realistic reward would be a REGULAR, sustainable, comfortable (not extravagant or excessive!) life, but instead I am working my ass off by doing 10-20 hours of overtime per week (50-60 hours per week), not seeing my daughter, let alone my husband...and for what? To BARELY cover bills? Dig a deeper debt hole? We haven't spent money on anything in the last several months except necessities. There is no waste in our budget right now. My itty bitty student loans are on hold right now cause I'm in grad school. Jake doesn't even have a car cause we can't afford to have another one right now, so he's stuck at home with Aubrey while I'm at work. We hacked our car insurance in half. I bring my own lunches to work. We share a cell phone plan with his parents. We don't pay cable. We don't eat out or go out drinking. We haven't gone on any vacation in a year. We haven't spent money on entertainment in months--we didn't even go into the game in Gainesville a few weeks ago cause we couldn't spend the money. We can't go any lower on rent without moving into a ghetto (and I refuse to do that with a baby). I can't afford to buy gifts for my coworkers' baby showers because I can barely afford my own baby's expenses. I am so done. I feel like the starving college student again scraping my pennies together to buy cheap food and saving up gas money to see Jake once or twice a month. Sorry if this is melodramatic, but I am so done.
It is so frustrating, I am lucky as hell to have the job I have that pays what it does, with the benefits it gives me. I love my job also, I really do...but instead of just being normal, we are drowning. Jake had a pretty good job before, then of course shit happens and we are dead.
We were scraping together a living barely even in Orlando, where we were trying to live on a teacher's salary and a bike tech job, because the wonderful job situation wasn't much different then than it is now.
WHYYYY is it so hard to make it on your own today? What the heck does it take? What country and times do we live in where being a NASA engineer is not a good enough job to just support a small family. Anyone right now who is able to pay their bills on whatever job they have, you are damn lucky. I don't know how you are able to do it.
How does anyone live the "simple life" today? How are people able to not work and still make a living? How do people make it on incomes LESS than freaking 52,000 a year at 24 years old?
Anyway...so the point is, Jake needs to work. Like yesterday. So we are praying and crossing fingers for him to get a decent paying job, and soon...wherever it ends up being.
Which is a good segue into my next thing that's up in the air...basically we are going to move where jobs will provide us a normal living. Wherever that is, we are going there. Right now I don't think that it is here, in Florida, unless changes occur. I have no ties to Florida anymore (except our immediate families and a few friends who still live in PSL, and my parents are looking to get out ASAP), and frankly, I am getting sick of living in the same place my entire life. For some reason this is really apparent to me lately, I'm tired of the dumbass people who live here, I can live without the beach, I'm tired of the heat, no seasons, same old routine, same old stuff my whole life. I really want a change...whether it be us moving somewhere else, or just a change in our current situation.
I am glad we haven't bought a house or anything yet (like we could anyway...), because we can get up and move when we need to. So unless Jake gets something very soon, which is a possibility, there might be an opportunity for him in Orlando, we are getting the heck out of here!