Warning...very personal post. So if you don't want TMI...don't read. I really don't know why I'm blogging about this, I guess in a effort to vent. Maybe for our kids to look back at one day and know that we did the best that we could. This isn't a let's feel sorry for the Hodges post, either, just something that I need to get off my chest.
Our hell began when Clay lost his job at the bank in October 2009. Clay, though being VP of a bank, he was a Construction/Commercial lender and due to the economy, that was just a job not really needed anymore. The bank paid him through the rest of the year which was a huge blessing but it meant 2010 started with NO INCOME! What were we going to do? Here we are a family of 5, with 3 kids to care for, and me a stay at home mom! HOLY CRAP!!
Fortunately, my business, Three E Photography (bet you can't guess where the name came from) had really started to thrive. I was busier than I could handle. It was nice that Clay was home during the day because it allowed me time to edit photos. Yes, I was very busy but that was hardly what you would call an income. So here we were (and are) in a place that I never saw myself being. I was fortunate enough to be a stay at home mom, Clay had a great job, we wanted for nothing. We took our kids on vacations, to the zoo, the aquarium, enjoyed dinners with friends, etc., any fun adventure that we could think of doing.
Talk about a lifestyle change. Now, I'm not saying we were frivolous with our money, we certainly were not! Money Man, Clay, was very good at keeping our finances in tack, we had (yes had) no credit card debt of any kind. The only debt we had was our home, car, and student loans. Clay drove a vehicle that was over 10 years old, we traded the "fun" car to save money on a minivan, we slept on a mattress that had killed our backs for almost 12 years.
Back on track...we would go up and down, devastation to feeling really positive...The Lord would care for us!! I just knew it!! I almost had this numb feeling, that I was trusting God, so why worry about it. As time went on that changed and I became a bit depressed. It was as if, I had so much to do, that I couldn't do it all. It was an effort just to get dressed, let alone clean the house, edit photos, or do my team mom duties. I decided to take a the summer off from photography and turned a lot of people away. Probably not the best business move, but I didn't have a choice. Thanks to my husband's patience and some pretty white and green pills, I'm okay now. :) (A whole separate post, but if you take antibiotics when you're sick why not take something when you can't pick yourself up, just saying.)
My days of a stay home Mom came to an end. I now teach second grade at FBA and Clay found a job at Ramesy's Furniture Company. However, with our combined incomes, we are still living on about a third of what we were. We learned to cut back in ways that we didn't know we could cut back. We don't have to have caller id, or premium channels. We don't have to buy clothes for the kids, just because they would look cute in them, they don't have to have more than 1 pair of shoes each.
The year of 2010 certainly was hell in many ways, but much of it was like heaven. It was amazing to watch our children grow. Evan, a star athlete in baseball. The number one first baseman in the league. He played All Stars and even some travel ball. I had a blast watching his love for baseball and I know Clay loved coaching him! The twins began to do so much and during the year, we watched them grow from babies to little kids, as they went through the terrible two's...and yes there were two of them in the terrible two's!!
The lessons in cutting back were nice, but here, now, I'm faced with uncertainty. The uncertainty of will this ever change? My laid back numb feeling of trust is gone. It's been over a year now, when all of this happened, I thought we would be back up by now and yet it looks like it will be a while still. BUT...I'm hanging on...WE'RE hanging on! WE are in this thing together and nothing, nothing will change that.
BTW...I didn't reread this post. I was afraid I would chicken out and delete much of it, so if there are grammical errors...oh well.
1 comment:
Oh Brandi, I know EXACTLY what you're going through. Mike has lost his job three times in the past 2 years! That's three times since we got Harry home. You are right when you say that God will provide! We've lived on faith these past two years, and guess what - God has provided EVERYTHING we need! May not be what we WANT, but he surely gives us what we need! Hang in there my friend!
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