The Other Side of That Coin

I'm well aware that my last post, though full of thrilling twists and turns, was also extremely whiny and self-serving. So please allow me to put here another truth I know to be equal to my own feelings of loneliness in terms of keeping the house and the people in it: I do not pay for it. And THAT responsibility lies solely on the shoulders of my husband.

Simply: I do not possess the earning ability to maintain our current living arrangements, and in that way, James is our only hope of staying here in this place that we love (when there isn't machine-operated construction going on both across the street and across the other street, many days simultaneously, resulting in it sounding like it is IN our front rooms). I cannot imagine the weight of that stress.

If James does not like his job, that is unfortunately not the only thing he has to think about. He can't get fed up and just quit. And if he does ever seek out another job, it has to be a certain type of job, mainly exactly what he's doing now and has done since we got married, in one form or another. I think he'd be an amazing educator, but unfortunately, he simply could not bring home the kind of money we need to pay for our relatively inexpensive (for the Austin area) home on a teacher's salary.

Fortunately, he really likes the company he works for now. I definitely want him to be happy with where he spends so much of his time! They feed him two meals a day, too, which actually takes some of the burden off of me in terms of meal prep. Shortly after Mal was born, I was still making breakfast, packing James lunch, and then putting dinner together. I can't imagine doing that now (much less when Mal was SOOooo much... and I was so frazzled).

I've never been a good "business" person. I've been a "show up and try to do more than they expect" person at any job I've ever had, but I've never worked somewhere that I developed a deep passion for what might become a career for me... except maybe TCBY when I was in high school, but a different shop turned me sour on it when a bunch of weird stuff happened, like my being framed for stealing money, which I quickly disproved by having the manager look on the counter and see that I hadn't even taken the key home and someone else closed up after I left. And NOW, most TCBYs are self-serve, so... well, I'd still probably work there if I needed to make some extra bank. Again, though, that'd be a minimum wage job. I'm basically worthless.

I appreciate James's work ethic, and that he's good at something that lets me stay home with the kids and do what I love to do. I guess it'd just be nice to have an au pair or something who would only come out of their hidey-hole a couple of times a week, and who would work for free.

Now I have to go finish watching them install this septic tank. It's truly fascinating stuff.