Tag: saving money

with a slow workweek, i’m trying to enjoy the beauty of life

 

beach

Having felt as though I wasted my entire day yesterday, yearning for work and clicking on the Refresh button a gazillion times to will something into my inbox, then wasting five hours –yes, five hours!–taking a test I correctly assumed wouldn’t lead to a job, I drove myself to the water today.

So here I sit, facing the glorious Pacific. I watch a couple, possibly honeymooners, approaching the water. Deeper out are surfers, some young, some old, enjoying the moderate-sized waves.

I’ve rolled up my sleeves (having fought off a farmer’s tan all summer, I don’t want to promote one now), and I’m busy doing what? Taking in my surroundings, I guess I’d say, enjoying the bounty of what God’s given us (for it can’t be just science and happenstance that made the deep-blue sea, the soft sand to walk on, and the sun to warm our bodies and souls).

I’m easing into the comfort of the scenery, but I’m still on edge. I don’t do “outside the box” really well. And being at the water on a beautiful day–the many that we have here on the West Coast–instead of being at my desk is, for me, literally outside the box when considering my house is shaped like a cardboard saltine container. I realize I have a lot to learn about living in the moment. With four kids, whose futures I’ve spent more than half my life shaping, I have become a planner and not an enjoyer of the present. I’m better at trying to figure out what lies ahead, who needs to get where, when the next pediatric appointments and tap lessons are, and how to get from one field to the other without leaving a kid waiting for a ride, than appreciating what is in front of me.

The fact that work is slow to nonexistent at the moment, with the promise of a very busy October and November ahead of me, should be a relief and a motivator to linger in the present, but to me, it’s not. I will try very hard, just the same, to make it so and take in what’s here and now and not what may be–or what should be. Yes, I’d love to have work that comes in steadily. I’m a person who likes having a plan. But it’s currently not possible.

I’m not starving. I’m not unclothed or homeless. We have enough to get us by and savings to fill in the gaps. I’m a pro at budgeting when times get tough too. And we will work as long as possible if the money isn’t replenishing quickly enough. I have to remember all this when the stress of not working and, therefore, not earning hits me.

So right now I will put my pen and paper away, continue along the path beneath my feet, and say a little prayer for the truly unemployed (and the underemployed) who don’t have this view of the ocean (and a soundtrack of crashing waves) before them. I may not have a perfect amount of work for my liking and the money coming in will have to stretch a little further than usual, but what I do have before me right here, right now is pretty perfect just the same.

 

the austerity program, day twenty-six–still wishing and hoping and praying

The saying goes that no news is good news, but to those of us with a strong sense of reality, no news can just be bad news put on hold. Still no word from the people my husband interviewed with for a job. And nothing else has come close to surfacing. It’s unusual to even get a ding letter these days, as most prospective employers are overwhelmed with applications and resumes and don’t even bother–or don’t have the time or resources–to get back to everyone.

So we wait.

In the meantime, I’m trying to keep our expenses down. I had to fill both vehicles with gasoline last week, but I’m garaging the gas guzzler except on occasion. And I’ve been able to keep our grocery bill down to around $70 to $80 a week. I did have to pay for my son’s college tuition the other day, which will set us back, and my husband had to see the doctor for a bad cough (it turned out to be bronchitis, which required a couple prescriptions, an over-the-counter drug, and an X-ray to analyze and treat). Now I’m sick, but I’m trying to fight it with OTC meds unless my sinuses feel ready to explode. It’s not easy looking at every trip to the store (or doctor) as a grab at your pocketbook, but that’s how it’s going to be for a while.

Yesterday, I talked with my friend whose husband lost his job recently. He’s applying all over the West Coast, trying to land anything he can, even if that means his having to move away from the family and getting an apartment in another city. That scenario has crossed my mind too, as there appear to be more jobs in certain cities for my husband. San Francisco, for one, which, ironically, is where we lived when he launched his career. I wouldn’t mind living there again, but moving no longer means packing up a diaper bag and a few boxes and small pieces of furniture and vacating one rental home for another. Owning a house, having adult children who have settled into homes in this city, having another child in college here and yet another in middle school, whose entire life has developed inside this house, is a whole ‘nother story. Add into that two elderly parents who need attention and one of whom has no other family in town, and things get even more complicated. I’m sure our friends feel the same way. They’ve moved around more than we have, but that was when the kids were not yet born or were just little ones, when the roots to friends, schools, and activities hadn’t yet taken hold.

I don’t know how things will turn out for us (or for them), but not knowing is so difficult. No news may mean that there is still hope, but that doesn’t make the wait any less painful.