The important things
December kind of flew by around here, bringing a lot of joy and destruction in its Decembery path. It was December of last year that a powerful storm hit our home in Aberdeen, knocking out the power of the entire coast and stranding us in a freezing home with no heat and no food with washed out roads and a lot of fear.
We made it out, thanks to some local friends who were familliar with the only detour that was open. My mother put us up for a night and then my dear and kind friend lawngnome25 let us stay with her for another three nights until power was restored to our town. (Our home had power earlier than that, but the grocery stores still did not.)
This catestrophic event, amazingly enough, was what pulled us out of our "trapped" feeling about our little life in our little town. About two weeks after we were back, my husband was applying for jobs all across Puget Sound and lo and behold, I became a SAHM and we escaped. (Mostly. Yes the house is still there and is a major source of financial stress for us, even now, a year later.)
THIS year, the weather brought a different kind of event. A vacation! What? Well, Washington doesn't really get snow. At least not the kind that stays around. Not the kind that accumulates day after day after day. Lest you think we're all a bunch of wimps, it's really hilly here. Like Stephen's parents live on a 20 percent grade hill. And guess where we were when the largest part of the snow hit? Ha ha. (That was sort of on purpose! we knew it was coming and didn't want to be stranded in everett and miss Christmas.)
Anyway, Stephen ended up missing a total of five and a half days of work last month. Add in the holidays that he had to take off anyway (unpaid) and our December finances are inconceivably bleak. This would have been a hard month anyway, considering it was the first month that our medical insurance kicked in AND holiday shopping, but when you add in all that missed work? It's a disaster. We're seriously considering defaulting on our Aberdeen house mortgage. I mean, I know it's terrible, but everyone else did it, right? What do we really need credit for anyway? We thankfully already have a place to live ...
I dunno. That's a discussion for another time I guess.
But the good news is that because of the storm, we had a true family vacation. We were surrounded by loved ones for more than a week and had warm loving holidays with a ton of blessings. We were safe and warm and had no worries at all. (Even the cat came with us this time because we didn't know how long it would be before we'd be able to get back to her) Our food was paid for and we just lived in peace. We played card games, video games, I knitted, I wrapped presents, Stephen and his brothers took Ben and Cameron out to play in the snow and make snowthings.
You know how everyone says that vacation is stressful? You travel and pay a lot of money for meals and get lost and then need a vacation to recover from your vacation? Well, this was it. This was the recovering vacation. There were always so many people around that I never felt overwhelmed by Ben ... if I needed a break, I just took one. We had some special time together with my mom too, who lives just three miles away from Stephen's parents. Of course, that's not to say that we didn't get our car stuck in the snow several times on that three mile trip, but hey. It was fine. :-)
I hope you all had happy holidays too :-) Honestly, even though I had internet access while at my in-laws (no laptop though, so I would have been borrowing my FIL's computer) I never got as far as logging on. I was actually having fun and enjoying my real life life. So much so that I didn't even have the need to write about it right away. And then we got home and it took awhile to get back into the swing of things. Suddenly I realized that it had been THREE WEEKS since I'd last updated my lj. HOLY MOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I missed you all and I hope not to have such long hiatuses in the future. :-)
We made it out, thanks to some local friends who were familliar with the only detour that was open. My mother put us up for a night and then my dear and kind friend lawngnome25 let us stay with her for another three nights until power was restored to our town. (Our home had power earlier than that, but the grocery stores still did not.)
This catestrophic event, amazingly enough, was what pulled us out of our "trapped" feeling about our little life in our little town. About two weeks after we were back, my husband was applying for jobs all across Puget Sound and lo and behold, I became a SAHM and we escaped. (Mostly. Yes the house is still there and is a major source of financial stress for us, even now, a year later.)
THIS year, the weather brought a different kind of event. A vacation! What? Well, Washington doesn't really get snow. At least not the kind that stays around. Not the kind that accumulates day after day after day. Lest you think we're all a bunch of wimps, it's really hilly here. Like Stephen's parents live on a 20 percent grade hill. And guess where we were when the largest part of the snow hit? Ha ha. (That was sort of on purpose! we knew it was coming and didn't want to be stranded in everett and miss Christmas.)
Anyway, Stephen ended up missing a total of five and a half days of work last month. Add in the holidays that he had to take off anyway (unpaid) and our December finances are inconceivably bleak. This would have been a hard month anyway, considering it was the first month that our medical insurance kicked in AND holiday shopping, but when you add in all that missed work? It's a disaster. We're seriously considering defaulting on our Aberdeen house mortgage. I mean, I know it's terrible, but everyone else did it, right? What do we really need credit for anyway? We thankfully already have a place to live ...
I dunno. That's a discussion for another time I guess.
But the good news is that because of the storm, we had a true family vacation. We were surrounded by loved ones for more than a week and had warm loving holidays with a ton of blessings. We were safe and warm and had no worries at all. (Even the cat came with us this time because we didn't know how long it would be before we'd be able to get back to her) Our food was paid for and we just lived in peace. We played card games, video games, I knitted, I wrapped presents, Stephen and his brothers took Ben and Cameron out to play in the snow and make snowthings.
You know how everyone says that vacation is stressful? You travel and pay a lot of money for meals and get lost and then need a vacation to recover from your vacation? Well, this was it. This was the recovering vacation. There were always so many people around that I never felt overwhelmed by Ben ... if I needed a break, I just took one. We had some special time together with my mom too, who lives just three miles away from Stephen's parents. Of course, that's not to say that we didn't get our car stuck in the snow several times on that three mile trip, but hey. It was fine. :-)
I hope you all had happy holidays too :-) Honestly, even though I had internet access while at my in-laws (no laptop though, so I would have been borrowing my FIL's computer) I never got as far as logging on. I was actually having fun and enjoying my real life life. So much so that I didn't even have the need to write about it right away. And then we got home and it took awhile to get back into the swing of things. Suddenly I realized that it had been THREE WEEKS since I'd last updated my lj. HOLY MOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I missed you all and I hope not to have such long hiatuses in the future. :-)