well, not quite the end, but yesterday did mark the beginning of the end of this little nightmare of partial and total unemployment.
saxy got his first check from the driving job.
it really was a pretty decent sized check. not enough to bail us out completely, obviously, but it is a start. phone bill paid. today we get more money and will pay the auto insurance. everything after that has to go to things like work clothes for saxy (this time it was work shoes; next time it will be pants -- he needs blues for driving job, and tans for target), a real grocery trip rather than some little "just get us by" thing -- especially since we now need to cover 2 meals a day for saxy, gas for the car (in georgia, that's a real concern), and a myriad of little things that will generally eat the money up before we know what's happening. and, really, that's fine. at least he's employed and we know more money is coming -- his next check is already as big as this one was, and the pay period isn't over yet.
so, it is just the beginning of the end, but it is a beginning. already it feels like a weight is off the shoulders. 3 months of total unemployment takes at least 6 months of catching up, but at least now we can catch up. we can pay bills. we can pay rent. we can eat better. we can get meds without having to scrounge or trim payments.
the hope is that we'll also eventually be able to take care of all the broken down things in the house as well -- get a new washer and drier (first priority once the financial tangles are smoother out), get me an office chair that doesn't sink to child size every time i sit in it, replace the stereo that died 3 years ago, get a real vacuum cleaner, and, eventually, get clothes for everyone -- we're all wearing stuff that's starting to get raggy. and taz! taz is growing! the kid needs longer shirts (they otherwise fit him, but the same goes for his jeans -- he gets taller but seems to stay just as thin...we're working on that...). i need to replace my uncomfortable, "professional" teaching clothes with stuff i can actually wear every day.
hell, we can actually make (and go to) dental and optometry appointments! (well, once the target insurance kicks in....)
and so it goes. we have a lot to take care of, so even the end is just a beginning, but we can deal with that.
there are some possible bumps in the road still. saxy may end up having to quit the driving job if they can't or won't work around the target schedule. i met his immediate supervisor yesterday when picking up saxy's check for him, and he seems pretty determined to keep saxy on one way or another. on the one hand i worry about how tired saxy will be, on the other the money is probably the best he'll find anywhere. we need target for the benefits since the driving job has a crazy idea of what benefits are, but the money is definitely better at the driving job. and while saxy probably could replace it with another job, it's doubtful the money will be as good. so we're really hoping this will work out.
in a weird way, being on the edge the way we have has been a good thing. the end of the financial markets as we know them has almost no affect on us: we have no stocks and bonds or i.r.a.'s, no savings, and until the car, we never got any credit (the timing on the car couldn't have been more perfect though!). and we're more than used to living on the edge, finding the cheapest deal in the grocery store, stretching the gas out a few more days, and so on. a lot of people are going to have life crashing around their ears and have no idea how to live without the better things in life and the credit and all that. for us, it's just another day.
until now, that is. we're finally moving out of our own personal recession and heading towards something better. who knows? we might actually have a savings one day if we can just get caught up.
and the end of being behind is one ending i would really look forward to.
and speaking of endings...i move one year closer to 50 this month. okay, so not quite an ending, except of being 44, but even that's got to count for something...right?
~*~
word of the moment: virgate
having the form of a straight rod; wand-shaped; straight and slender; a yardland, or measure of land varying from fifteen to forty acres
