as if i wasn’t stressed enough

adam just found out today he’s getting a 10% pay cut starting with the next check (next payday is this friday). well everyone at his work is. its the boss’s way of not having to lay anyone off. which is totally fair, i get that. times are tough, and the biz isn’t doing well, so that’s what has to happen. i totally understand and can appreciate the position they’re in.

doesn’t make it any easier on us, though, understanding… *sigh*

10% doesn’t seem like much. but i think that will be roughly $130 less per paycheck. $260 less a month. that’s HUGE for us! the way it was, we did quite well with his paychecks to pay for all our regular bills. nothing extra, just the regular stuff we could count on monthly. any bills that came in quarterly (like the $200 or so for adam’s biz insurance, gifts, if the car breaks down, any repairs on the house, etc…) was money that had to come from somewhere else…which has been his freelancing work. or my websites’ advertising income (which has dwindled to just barely enough to cover the costs of running the sites but does still give us a tiny bit of income…like less than $100).

and of course, even with all that…even during GOOD months…we STILL cannot afford health insurance for me. the kids have healthy families and adam has insurance through work. i only get medi-cal when i’m pregnant…so nothing for me now. luckily (knock on wood) i’ve not had much time spent in dr’s offices in recent years. until recently i only went annually to my obgyn to get my annual poke-n-prod (aka pap smear), which i pay directly for. no discounts. recently i finally decided i needed to be seen by a doc because of my migraines (averaging 2-6 a month) and my asthma (that always kicks in hardcore whenever i develop a cold…which is not often, so i’ve been able to ignore for years…but recently it got really tiresome coughing up a lung and having nothing to ease it.) so i found a new primary care physician and am now on medication for migraines that seems to be helping and i have medicine for when my asthma kicks in. paid out of pocket (well, will be once we get the bill) for the visit.

anyway, i’m off on a tangent, sorry…recently adam’s not been getting much freelancing work and the stuff he gets don’t always pay him for awhile. times are tough for everyone, i know. so not only are we going to be short the $260ish from his salary, but we are also very short on the extra income. how the hell do we handle that?

well, we do have a little stash that we call “house money” that we try to keep in a separate bank account that is for the remodel of our “big room.” that’s our garage conversion that was remodeled to a family room by previous owners. because of a flood caused by a hose left on (by me, *sigh*) that triggered toxic mold to grow, the entire room is gutted. we are starting essentially from scratch to rebuild it. and we decided to divide it in the process so that adam will have a new office and tyren can finally have a bedroom (adam’s old office).

ANYWAY. so looks like we’re going to have to be living off our “house money” for awhile. which means we won’t be getting that room back anytime soon. *sigh* i’ve lived for over a year now without that room and its been really stressful. there really isn’t enough room in the rest of the house for what i need for the kids. that room was the playroom so now our living room is always trashed and we have crap crammed in every corner in the house (ok not every corner…in the office and in the bedroom next to the bed, though, and filling up the shed…black garbage bags full of mold spore covered items that i cannot yet clean and bring back into the house because i have NO PLACE to put them!!) this is all my homeschool books (and all sorts of other books) and all kinds of art supplies and toys and other kid related items that we cannot access at all right now. makes homeschooling hard cuz i cannot access all my stuff. and because we don’t have a good space for any messy work. the kitchen table is just not a good spot. i’m already rambling so i won’t go into why, but its not a good spot.

so back to the original thought….so now things are worse then they already were. but surprisingly i’m not feeling like i’m losing it. i really don’t know why but i feel kinda calm about it all.

we had to cancel our annual trip to marine world homeschool days. (six flags in vallejo…not called marine world anymore but it’ll always be marine world to me). too expensive. we also had to cancel our visit to our local cornfield maze. we’re prioritizing and those things just don’t make the cut. maeven’s actually taking it pretty darn well, surprisingly. and so am i. maybe i’m just remembering that there are people that have lost their jobs, and my hubby just got a pay cut. and there are people that are losing their homes all over the place….we still have ours.

not sure what’s going to happen…but if we have to go longer without the big room, so be it. at least we’ll survive. i hate to think of having to go longer, but maybe i’ll start dragging that stuff out of garbage bags and start getting rid of more of it and demolding the stuff i do want to keep. maybe i’ll get more decluttering done around the house and move stuff around and purge and purge and purge and get rid of more stuff. maybe, in all my spare time (LOL! like NONE lately…i’m so friggin busy) but once i get motivated, its hard to stop me…so i’m going to hold this thought and come back to it tomorrow when i can do something about it.

first thing in the morning, methinks i will be trying to figure out where in the world to put my bookcase so that i can start demolding my books and bringing them in!!!