Recap of 2009: Quite possibly the worst year EVER

It's now 2010 and I realize it's been a year since I've blogged. Never mind that 2009 has been an atrocious year save for the birth of our beautiful little Eve.  Here's a a quick recap:


And baby makes 4:
Found out we were pregnant in February 2009 - a big shock, Joe lost his job in May, then in August, we were told we had 60 days to move because our landlady was going into foreclosure.  The budget crisis temporarily took away our Healthy Families insurance for the kids, so for awhile, we had no insurance for them and ran up quite a bill at the medical clinic.  I began teaching as many hours as possible to keep up with bills and fill in for Joe's lack of income.  Being hugely pregnant made it a challenge, but I got through it okay - in fact, I kept begging to go full-time, but knew my boss wouldn't have it while I was pregnant.  Complete discrimination, of course, but par for the course there.  My income doesn't come close to Joe's anyway.

Moving:
Then we moved - another horrible experience.  We found an older 4-bedroom home close to my mom's - not the greatest place in terms of upkeep - the landlady is sentimental but broke - but it was available and we were desperate.  We moved less than one month before Eve was born.  A difficult experience moving at 9 months pregnant.  But we did it.  Lost our entire deposit to the management company at the old house who decided to use our money to recarpet that crappy house so the desperate owner could sell it.  Not fair, pretty sure it's not legal either, and completely despicable behavior from people we go to church with.  Add it to the pile of crap we were handed.


All Hallow's "Eve":
After Eve arrived on Halloween morning, I just sort of withdrew into that special mom-baby place where I could cuddle and sleep and nurse and feel like everything else in the world was just unimportant for awhile.  It was wonderful.  Stayed in our comfy chair for days on end, or so it seemed, while friends brought us food and family came to visit.  Eve is beautiful (I mean, really beautiful) and sweet and easy.  Thank you, Lord.  We couldn't have survived cranky.  Our nerves are shot and our stress level the highest it could be.  Our hopes of buying our own home were dashed with Joe's layoff, and renting a house in which we found more troubles than we bargained (toilet and shower overflowed in the first two weeks of living here) has been depressing to say the least.  The holidays were lean but the kids never noticed.  We put up the tree and decorated around our mess of moving boxes.  It was lovely.


Back to work (well, one of us anyway):
Went back to work in late January to find that I still could not get on full-time.  Had an angry meeting with my boss (and his boss) to argue my point and was told there was nothing available right now.  Lies.  They had already hired someone while I was on maternity leave and now couldn't justify hiring me.  I went back to work and Joe stayed home with the kids - settling into his house husband role very well.  The kids love having him home and he manages to keep them occupied and get dinner ready everyday.  I spend most of my time taking care of Eve and resting between classes.  We are almost out of savings now and the unemployment has also been affected by the economic downturn.  So many people on unemployment, Joe's checks keep getting screwed up.  Sometimes they come, sometimes they don't, sometimes he has to fill out more paperwork, sometimes he has to go down to the EDD office.  My grandparents helped us out, which was a blessing, but it is all going into savings for the "just in case" times.  Just in case Joe doesn't get a job, just in case we can't pay the rent, just in case one of the kids ends up in the hospital with a 104 fever or a broken bone or worse.  Joe has applied for everything under the sun - no one is hiring, and those who are, aren't willing to pay him.  He has too much school, too much experience, and the only job he's been offered is less money than his unemployment.  Combine that with the  cost of childcare and wow...we'll never make it.  Eventually I will get a full time job at school because I won't give up until I do.  I will drive my boss crazy if I have to.


April showers bring a New Job!
Joe finds a job - ohmigosh, praise the Lord - after almost a year of unemployment!  An industrial company that makes window screens and security doors just happens to be based in Visalia and also happens to need a graphic designer in-house.  They have always outsourced their design work.  Now they are looking to expand to the public and need a face.  Enter Joe: the new face of marketing and design.  He is a one man art department now and he loves it.  Much more relaxed than advertising.  Pay is good - a little more than he was making at Lockwood, and the hours are nice 8-4:30.  I gotta go back to working part-time nights now - and after all that pleading - oh, well.  Joe and I switch roles again - I am home with kids and teaching at night, he works days and will teach at COS in the fall.  His new job offers flexibility - wonderful.  We were able to take a day off to go to Lily's 8th grade promotion, and another day to take the kids on a long weekend to the cabin. Life is feeling better.

Still...

We want to buy a house, we want the kids to have their own place to grow up - not someone else's place.  I realize they don't care, but we do.  Eve is now crawling, Olivia will start kindergarten soon, and Lily enters high school.  It's going too fast... can't slow it down.... and always feel like there is never enough time to enjoy it all.