It can’t get any worse.  That was what I was telling myself.  I was wrong.  So here we are, my husband is unemployed again.  This time I fear he will not get unemployment.  I mean he quit this job.  We can’t pay our bills on my salary.  I am a teacher.

On one hand I was thankful this happened after school got out.  I’m not sure that I could have taught and made myself go to work each day.  However, on the other hand, now both of us are home together…all day and night.  We didn’t have any space to work this out. 

Then it gets worse.

It was Sunday morning and we were getting ready for church.  I discover that my husband has made some other choices.  Choices that were definitely not in the best interest of our family.  I then reacted.  This was not a thought out move, but a reaction.  I asked him to leave. 

I love my husband.  He is basically a good man.  We have been together for 15 years.  He has not been himself since he was laid off, but some of this goes even deeper. 

Now I am by myself with two children and definitely not enough money.  My husband has moved to his mother’s house.  What am I going to do?

I pray.

Last summer I got into blogging and reading lots of other blogs.  Some were funny (Suzanne and Pioneer Woman), some made me think (Morocco), and some just inspired me to do (Angry Chicken and Craftsanity), but they all inspired me to write.  Mostly the good stuff, and there has been a lot of good stuff in my life. 

Right now there is not as much good stuff.  Over the past year my husband was laid off.  I thought all in all I dealt with that pretty well.  Not great, but pretty well.  I tried to be supportive, and succeeded only sometimes.  There are a few things about husbands being laid off that seem to be common, well at least in my circle of friends that have experienced this.

• The first is that your husband becomes distant
• for a little while they work on home projects, building closets seemed to be popular
• communication becomes you asking what they did today and him becoming resentful
• you need reassurance that he is really looking since it mostly seems like he is playing on the computer and (in my case) going to the library for movies, books, and music
• you are rattled to your core because your husband doesn’t seem to be motivated to be working anymore and seems to like this “vacation” with an unemployment check
• tension builds and builds

It becomes overwhelming and always in the room with you.  It seems to be a part of every conversation and everything that you.  I know that there are many people dealing with this.  I know far too many others in my circle of friends.  It doesn’t make it any easier.  We were one of the first.  Eventually my husband did find another job.  I will tell about that tomorrow.

Todd starts his new job today. Ah, mornings haven’t changed much at our house even with the 6 months hiatus. Todd left the house and came back three times for stuff he forgot. The boys had difficulty getting ready, and Mama loses her mind…

Todd got the job!!!!!!!!!!

Todd had a job interview today. It sounded perfect for him. Good day hours (7-3:30 M-F), the pay is $2-3 more an hour than what he made before, and it is close to home. They want him to do the physical and drug test, and I think that looks like a great sign. He said it went really well! They won’t let him know until they get the results on the tests, but it looks good! Keep it in your prayers!!!

On Yahoo! today there is the headline, “Scientists Determine that Head Banging is Bad for Health.” It made me laugh!

Two years ago I changed my life completely. I did something drastic. I had gastric bypass surgery. This was an incredibly hard decision for me at the time. I was very aware of all the possibilities that could result from having this surgery. I was completely aware that I could DIE.

I still chose to do it. Many people couldn’t understand my reasons for voluntarily risking my life. Rather than explain it to people I chose to evade the reason I was having surgery. This was an incredibly personal decision. I still feel very vulnerable when I discuss it. People often have very strong opinions about this.

Heck, I was watching the Today Show and they were talking about how people lost weight with diet and exercise, and not surgery. The tone of the piece was that surgery was a bad thing. I don’t think weight loss surgery is the answer for all overweight people. It was the answer for me at that time of my life.

Let me explain further, I weighed 280 pounds when I made this decision. I have always been heavy. I was a fat kid (not by today’s standards), then a fat teenager, and I grew up into a fat adult. In college I at one point dropped 75 pounds. I looked pretty good through my 20’s. I wasn’t thin, but I wasn’t really big either.

Then I got pregnant. I had cravings for Whoppers with cheese and watermelon. (The second time it was biscuits and gravy from McDonald’s.) My children are only 11 months apart so my body never really lost the pregnancy weight. After my second child I struggled with trying to lose weight. I tried Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, exercise, and was making some progress.

Then my back went out. When I was in my early/mid-thirties I developed a herniated disc. For a short time I could only walk with a walker. I had a terrible time. I could hardly walk at all. I put on weight. I couldn’t lose weight, because I couldn’t move. It was a vicious circle.

I decided that my children needed a more active mom, and that a decade of being overweight was enough. I couldn’t even walk on my treadmill for 5 minutes at one mph without severe back spasms. This was ridiculous.

It was two years ago, January 2nd that I had surgery. I have lost 115 pounds. I can easily walk two and a half miles in 40 minutes or so. (OK, so I don’t do that everyday. I’m much better in the summer.) I have went from a size 30 to a 12.

I can honestly say that although my activity level has certainly increased, my personality has basically stayed the same. (Suzanne can attest to that.) I’m happy about that as I’ve seen others lose weight and their minds at the same time.

One misconception though is that surgery is the easy way out. There is nothing easy about weight loss surgery. I was certain to lose weight, but not keep it off. I had a version of every side effect that was listed. I still do. I have to be very careful about what and how I eat. Pop makes me ill as does ice cream and cereal with milk. Breads don’t taste the same. Meat doesn’t always agree with me. If I eat too fast (say I’m talking) I will be in severe pain.

Even with all of that and more for me this was a very good decision.
       

Before                                                                             After

My 12 year old, N is involved in a mission project.  If you would like to read about how this started click here and here.

Update:  Last Monday we spent the day at the church.  N had organized a work day to begin creating the monster dolls that he intends to distribute to our county hospital and maybe the family homeless shelter. 

He had 24 people show up to help throughout the day.

Suzanne even came all the way from California to help!  (OK, so really she and Keb just happened to be here and we put them to work.  )

This was the hardest station, making the faces.  It takes patience. 

This was the the most popular station.  Everyone wanted to stuff the monsters.

This was one of my favorite faces (both doll and friend.)

I was a little worried when we had only completed one in the first hour and a half.

But we kept plugging away.

Altogether we created 40 monster dolls.  We still have quite a bit of fleece, so N is planning another workday.  I’m wondering how many we will end up with!

This was a smaller Christmas for my family.  It has been a hard 6 months financially since Todd lost his job.  I wanted my children to really understand how blessed they were this season and I created opportunities for them to see that.  Well I tried to at least.

First our family helped serve meals at an inner city church.  We all loved this.  It was so much fun and my kids enjoyed interacting with other people.  I will say though that my children didn’t see this as any different than when we eat dinner at our church on Wednesday nights.  They just didn’t realize the difference. 

The second opportunity was to deliver presents and food to one of our churches adopted angel tree families.  We have done this in the past and enjoy delivering the giant boxes that are always well received.  This one really didn’t work out the way that I intended.

To understand why, you must first understand where my head was at.  I was really struggling this holiday season with guilt.  I LOVE giving big Christmases.  This is probably from growing up truly poor (single mom with 5 kids.)   We didn’t have a lot of stuff, but my mom always gave it her all at Christmas time.  I have always done the same with my kids.  Of course my children have never went without and have more stuff than all the children in my old neighborhood combined. 

Still I knew this Christmas we just couldn’t get them all the things on their wish lists.  I also knew that my brothers and sisters were getting them less too.  So I have been prepping them for it since October.  Looking back, maybe I was prepping myself for it. 

Todd worked at a book fair this year so we got lots of free books.  I bought the boys  inexpensive things like art supplies and cheap games.  They had quite a few presents under our tree.  I still was feeling sad and worried about them being disappointed though.  I knew this Christmas didn’t look like our others and it certainly felt different.

Last Monday we finally were able to connect with the single mom in our angle tree family.   This mom worked every evening at the mall in one of those ear piercing kiosks.  It ended up that the boys weren’t able to help deliver as they had school.  I thought, “Great!  Another holiday plan that backfired!”

We went and delivered.  This family had very little furniture.  They had just moved.  They had a tree with no ornaments and no presents.  The kids were clean, but wearing tattered clothing.  In the living room the mom had put the kids school work all over the walls.  Through our conversation I could tell how much this mom loved her children and was willing to go the extra mile for them.

Walking into my house and seeing the presents under our tree, I realized that this lesson wasn’t mine to teach my children.  Rather I felt that the Lord was teaching and reminding me.  I am VERY blessed.  My children are not going without.  They may not have gotten everything on their wish list, but they were so happy with what they got.  We have a home.  I have a good job.  I have my husband and my children. 

Thank you Lord for the blessings you have served me so abundantly, and for reminding me of them.

My 12 year old, N, suddenly exclaims to his father, “Well, don’t blame me if my career as a plate spinner fails.”

Hmmm…wonder what was happening there.

Update 5 minutes later:  He is now going through the house exclaiming, “I’m ruined!  I’m ruined!”