Anchors

Well, Dan made it to the first day on his new job, and survived.  It's an adjustment, for sure, to go from kicking around the house with nothing to do all day to getting back into the full time work mode, and it's an even harder adjustment when you are not feeling at the top of  your game.  His darn back/neck/arm issues are just not cooperating with our plans. Time will tell if he survives tomorrow, and time will tell how well new this gig is going to work out.  I believe we are still in crisis mode, wondering if we are only passing through the eye of the storm, if maybe the worst is still ahead of us.  I sure hope not.  I sure hope we are in for some clear sailing in the near future.

When I look back at the past seven months though, I realize I have no excuses for feeling anything but blessed.  In the past seven months, I have:

-been handed $1000 cash by a stranger so that we could go buy a new dryer when our old one broke.

-been handed a barely used over the stove microwave by an acquaintance of Dan's, that just happened to be a perfect fit for our microwave spot, and a perfect replacement for our old one that was on the verge of dying and that smelled bad every time we used it.

-started out every week at work scheduled to work 24 hours, and somehow ending up every week having worked 40 hours.  Every single week, without fail, someone would call me to cover a shift at the last minute, or my favorite pharmacist in Logan  would call and see if I wanted to work some extra hours up there.  It got to be quite entertaining for me, to just sit back and wait to see who would call, and where my hours were going to come from for that week.

-opened up all the utility bills in the middle of one particularly tight month, with no idea where I was going to get the money to pay them all, only to find out that ALL of our utilities had either zero balances or credit balances that month.  I don't know why.  It didn't show any extra payments being made.  It's like we just didn't run up any charges that month. Weirdest thing ever.

-come through seven months of unemployment with all of our bills current.  Believe me when I say that with our budgeting skills, that feat is not possible.   Most months, I just tried not to look too closely at what we were bringing in versus what we were spending.  But on the days when I would shake the sand out of my ears and force myself to do some banking, the money for the house payment was always there.  Always almost exactly enough to make the  house payment.

We always had almost exactly enough for what we needed, and never any more. I do not doubt that divine intervention was at work there.  Miracles like what we have seen will never replace faith, but for me, they are like anchors in a storm. I don't know why we have so far been spared some of the harder consequences of financial upheaval, and I don't know that we will continue to be spared.   Some people I know have been hit so much worse.  But I'm grateful for what has been.   And hopeful that I won't ever forget the source of my true security.