Half Time Work, Full Time Life

Well, Big Guy’s job situation was finally clarified and his hours were cut. Down to practically half. He’s now on contractor status but can only work a total of 24 hours per week, no benefits. So, we’re implementing some serious budgeting measures.

We’ve gone back to ordering from Angel Food Ministries and I am going to prepare weekly menus. Angel Food Ministries is an excellent source for good cheap food. $30 and you get an order of food that is billed as “enough to feed a family of four for a week”. This month’s order comes with steaks, chicken, pork chops, ground beef, veggies and fruit, eggs and a dessert. It’s pretty well balanced and you can come up with ways to stretch it. We order one box at a time and can generally make it last the whole month.

I’ve also got a running tally of our funds on an excel spreadsheet to keep track of our budget. We’re going to run into some issues because what we’re bringing in is less than what we need per month. If we’re careful with the payout for his vacation time, we may be able to limp along until he either gets another job or they decide they need him full time.

He is looking for another job, both full and part time, and I’m working on teaching. If we can keep it up, things should be OK.

Life and Lions

I know I’ve been gone for a while but life and work have taken up most of my attention.  Our garden, despite late breaking efforts, has not fared so well this summer.  Big Guy and I both think that our difficulties this summer had something to do with it.  I am able to harvest some very delicious tomatoes which are FINALLY turning red.  The coolness of the weather this year affected their color and I still have more green tomatoes than red ones.

We’re coming to the end of the August class.  Starting next week, I have another class of students and the cycle starts all over again. I’ve decided to go in a different direction in some cases, especially since I have access to a nice computer and a projector.

However, in the meantime, I need to finish up my OMGSUPERSECRET project because I lost a week I thought I had to work on it.  And that is what I am doing today.  I am over 2/3rds done, I just need to get that final push done and finish it this week.  Once that’s done, I can breathe a little easier and actually have some free time.  Go me!

Right now, Little Guy and I are watching MSNBC’s coverage of the death of Senator Kennedy.  It truly is a sad day.  I can only hope the health care bill doesn’t fail because of this.  That would truly be horrible.  Something that man worked so hard for, he got so close to seeing the frution of his life’s work…  And then he dies.  It’s truly a tragic story, and perhaps another chapter of the Kennedy Curse.  I’ll post more thoughts on this later, particularly my reactions to the disgusting comments the Rabid Right have posted across the internet.

On the humerous side of this story.  Senator Kennedy was known as the “Lion of the Senate.”  Every time that moniker is placed on the screen, Little Guy exclaims: “Oh!  A Lion!”  He recognizes the word.  My sweet boy, so smart and turning in to such a good reader!

Turn the Page

It’s been a busy week. I have to admit, I am glad it’s almost over.  For me, it really is.  I don’t have class tomorrow because they are moving to the new building and that means no teaching at all until Monday.  What a break!

Now, aside from grading, I really have time to focus on some other things…  Like writing in my blog and working on my OMGSOSUPERSOSECRETPROJECT and working on my novel. It’s been a rough summer, and it is probably only just beginning to hit us exactly how rough a summer it was.  I am going through, getting rid of clothes and gathering up toys, now that the house is mostly empty.  We’re still trying to adjust to life without the kids and it’s beginning to hit me exactly how much I put into the kids.

When Big Guy and I got together, I was determined to be the best step-mom ever.  I read books, made sure I didn’t overstep my bounds, and tried to follow the best, most rational advice available.  I offered support and guidance to my husband when he tired of the games his ex was playing and really devoted a lot of time and effort into both the battle and making sure the kids had the best chance at sanity that I could provide. So, for six years, I threw myself whole-heartedly into being a step-parent, to the exclusion of many things that I really should have been doing for myself.  And this May, when that effort was revealed to be useless, I really felt betrayed and destroyed by it.  But, through June and July, other things occupied my thoughts and time.  And now, I’m left with myself, Big Guy and Little Guy.  And it’s leaving me feeling a bit jittery.

So, where do I go from here?  Well, I work on something else.  I focus on the things that are important, like Big Guy and Little Guy.  I work on my projects.  And I sit back and breathe, take stock of where I am and figure out what I am feeling (aside from the surface emotions).  This is a new chapter in my life, let’s see what it says…

Cooking and Cleaning

I recently dumped the photos from my camera.  It had been a while and now my batteries are dead so it’s time to recharge them.  Luckily, I managed to get pictures of a great, relatively cheap meal that Big Guy and I partook in.

We had taken our friend shopping since her car quit working.  While we were at Kroger’s, we looked at some of the stuff that was “priced for quick sale”.  They had to get rid of it or else it was going to go bad.  This included 2 salmon filets and 2 portabello caps. We also had 3 bell peppers in the fridge, which we sliced with some onion and then grilled the entire set.  We used olive oil and went very light on the seasonings.

It was amazingly fresh and delicious.


I also spent most of today cleaning.  I managed to get our family room in reletively OK shape.  I vacuumed, picked up, and threw out all the excess papers that we seem to hang on to, “just in case”.  We’ve got company tomorrow, arriving for a D&D game.  And there was no way I was going to have company in our house when it looked like a tornado had decimated the place.

We’re going to start buckling down now that things are slowing down, and hopefully, we’ll be able to come to some sort of peace in the house as well.  We’ll pack up some of the kids’ clothes and toys and take them to Goodwill.  It’s important that we start reclaiming our lives and moving forward.