Going against the grain a bit

When Bill had his stroke, our life was turned upside down for a bit. Illness does that, and it just can’t be helped.

It changed how we look at things…things such as time, quality of that time, and family. Our focus on God remained strong..we realize that we could take the situation and make it a positive, thanking God for our many blessings and how He chose to work on us through Bill’s illness.

Sure, I wallowed. I wailed. I cried and spent many nights awake staring at the ceiling, worrying myself into a frenzy. In the end I pulled myself up by my boot straps and carried on as one must do to live this life in a positive, happy way.

Some of our dreams were crushed. We moved on. We made some changes that worked, and some that didn’t. Bill switched jobs in an effort to secure medical benefits and life insurance for his family. The job is fine. The people he works with are super nice.

It’s just……we feel like we are doing time. We work to pay the bill’s, and our family time seems to be at the bottom of the “to-do” list. Bill is gone all day, and comes home to see the kids for a couple of hours, then it all starts over again the next day. Weekends breeze by. It is too hard to load up the trailer at 5:30 at night, haul it to the beach, spend a day, then pack it back up in less than 48 hours.

So where am I going with this? Ugh, it is so hard to put into words. Lets see…Mia is going to be 3 in March. If something happened to Bill, she would hardly remember him. I want my kids to spend as much time as possible with their father. I want them to remember him. I want to be with him as much as possible. I NEED to be with him as much as possible.

Recently an opportunity came along that was simply fantastic. It will give us the best of both worlds. Time together as a family, time for traveling, and the ability to continue to bring in $$ to do this, and have medical benefits and such.

Bill was offered a job. A job in an ER that will have him work 3 days on, then be off for 6. A job that pays really, really well (insane). A job that he took.

I can’t be anymore specific. This sounds weird given how candid I am on my blog, but our privacy is very important to me. We won’t be moving to this new town. Bill will commute. If we move, it will be to our dream town, which will be the same commute from there to new job as it is from here to new job.

If we decide to homeschool…..which I am not saying we will, just IF…..well, lets just say that the trailer would get much more use than it is getting now.

We are so dang excited. It is, like I said, the best of both worlds!! When he takes vacation, he will have 15 days off in a row, so that means we can travel to Mexico! I laugh when I say vacation, because he will basically be on a perpetual vacation…3 days on, 6 days off, 3 days on, 6 days off…….

And, come on!!! 6 days off!!!! Is that not sick!!

Did you hear that?? Listen closely. That was me screaming “Whoooohoooo!!!”!