The Universe Seems To Agree With Me...At Least For Now

A little wary of puttin' this out there as Murphy's Law has a way of taking me down a notch or two.
But hey, I'm being fearless here and IT'S ON!

Yesterday, my husband came home and told me about how the head actuary had taken him aside midday and asked him to come meet with him in his office.  Yeah, my husband was kinda' worried.  But then, being the statistical analyzer that he is, he figured out that he must not be being fired because they would have done that before the end of the year.  Sometimes I gotta' love the fact that my husband is so damn all-fire rational.

So this meeting happens and it turns out that my husband has been selected to be REWARDED for his helpfulness in teaching his peers.  Yup, he will be receiving an award for his hard work and dedication to helping others.
In the form of $1500.
Project Sun has officially kicked off with a BANG!

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Humble Pie

I know I blog an awful lot about places that my husband and I travel to.  You might think that means that we never encounter money issues.  The truth would be far from that.  Oh yes, we have our fair share of budgeting woes just like everyone else, as I mentioned in my last blog entry at: http://ayellowroseoftexas.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-we-maybe-dont-take-our-sweet.html
Sure, most of the time our finances can cover most things we need and even some things we want.  With a lot of hard work, especially on the part of my husband, and some pretty tight purse strings we do what neither of our families ever taught us to do.  We live below our means almost all the time. 
We save and scrimp and do special things only for special occasions.  We rarely ever eat at restaurants.  We don't have fancy cell phones.  Entertainment is kept to what we can actually, truly afford.  We don't buy the latest or greatest.  Electronics in our house are almost always way out of date (-like the one and only computer that we have ever owned is this laptop, circa 2007 that I get to write these blog entries on and read others wonderful stuff for which I am so grateful!)  Our one caveat is travel.  We would rather do that than anything else, so we budget accordingly.
And yet, there is my husband who as I have mentioned before is ultra generous- sometimes to a fault.  Sometimes until it hurts a bit in the household budget. 
Well.....
Last year we decided it was finally time for my husband to have a new car.  He was driving a 14 year old Ford Escort.  It was starting to nickel and dime us in the form of $300-$500 repairs every few months and some more major stuff was clearly on the way.  Neither my husband or I are handy enough with cars and we don't have any car fix-it type friends.  So, we decided to sell the car. 
A funny thing happened while I was in the process of putting it on Craigslist.  A very good friend told me that she would really like to buy it.  She was truly in need of a car and has friends that could help her fix it up.  But of course, she had no money.  You guessed it.  This is where my husbands generosity comes in.  My oldest friend and my husband worked out a deal.  She would make small payments to us for the next year and be finished with them by September 2011. 
Fast forward 6 months, and suddenly my friend can't continue to make even small payments to us.  Her husband is very sick.  She has 4 kids.  My husband is more than happy to write off her debt.
I hold my tongue.  It's really not my business.  And...I actually agreed with my husband that it was best to forgive this debt.  My friendship is worth way more than the money and my husband and I would never have loaned it if we couldn't afford to lose it.  So we told my friend not to worry about the debt and not another word was ever said about it.
Well...
Guess who just surprised me by paying back every last dime?  My friend and her husband received a large settlement from the VA and she really felt strongly about paying us back.
So... my husbands generosity ended up making it so we would be paid back just in time to cover his over zealous generosity from last weekend. 
I gotta' admit it.  I'm a little peeved... but damn I love that man!

One Day When I Don't Have To Clean Up Crap For Money

This post is brought to you with much inspiration from my husband.

There is more to report on the job hunting front and it is all good news so far.  Yay!

The company we have been working with in Texas is flying my husband in for an in person interview on the 9th of August.  They have let us know that they had planned to interview for this position in September, but they have decided that they would really like to talk with my husband sooner, hence the interview coming up.  Of course we are excited, yet trying to remain tempered.  My husband & I are practicing patience, while allowing ourselves to hope a bit. 

In and amongst our daydreams of hope, we have both come up with some pretty idealistic scenarios.  While we actually know that life will be no more perfect than it is in any particular geographical location, sometimes I do find myself imagining things like a house that is truly low maintenance.  I have heard my husband dare to speak aloud about how strange and wonderful it might be to afford a little indulgence here and there without so much buyers remorse later.  While we have worked hard to get to a point in which we are fortunate to be able to pay for life's expenses without a horrendous amount of effort, sometimes it feels as if the rewards for hard work are always just a little out of reach.  So as much as neither my husband or I want to think that changing our location is all about money, we would be fooling ourselves if we did not admit that a much lower cost of living is definitely an important aspect of any future move.

And so, having admitted to being excited about the idea that saving some cash is one heck of a motivator to do anything, I offer you my story of how my husband made me laugh about being paid to clean up dog crap:

My regular work will be slow for the next 6 weeks, so I agreed to take care of a dog for a person who has employed me for many different projects over the years.  I figured that I could use the money since my income would be down and I had taken care of this dog before so what was the big deal???  The big deal is that this dog has picked up some really annoying habits sometime between the last time I watched her and now.  I'm not sure what happened, but she really seems to have lost more than a few IQ points and her behavior is quite poor.  One of the worst things this dog is doing that is wreaking havoc on my household at this moment in time is that she is now stepping in her own crap when she goes outside.  Tonight she managed to drag it in on her foot and prance right across the carpet, before anyone noticed that she had done it.  That's right, I got to steam clean my carpet at midnight!  And you can sure bet that I loved that.  After the excitement had died down and I was putting away the cleaning stuff, my husband came to me and promised me that one day soon I would not have to clean up any more crap for money.  I could hear the unusual amount of frustration in his voice.  He went on to say that he felt bad that he had not reached the level of success that would insure that I would never have had to do this kind of thing for money at all. 

All of the pent up disappointment that my husband has been feeling over not finding work in the place where we really want to be has come down to this.  The man was actually apologizing to me for having to clean up dog crap.  And worse, he felt that this dogs lack of at least a half brain's worth of sense had anything at all to do with him or his ability to provide properly for me. 

While my decision to take on a rather crappy dog sitting job is really all my own, I couldn't love my husband more for seeing that I do deserve better. 

So naturally, I answered back without skipping a beat- 'hey, at least I don't have to do it for free.'

Super Bowl, Live And In Person

Sometimes it's a really good thing to take an interest in your spouse's interests, even if you're sure you're not really that interested!  I'm not a huge football fan by any means, but my husband sure is.  Ultimately, this little difference of ours landed our lucky butts in the Super dome in New Orleans on February 3, 2002 to experience Super Bowl XXXVI live and in person!

For several years prior to this event, my husband would torture me during the regular football season with this local contest that involved putting in entries to win a trip to the Super Bowl each and every week.  He wanted as many chances to win as he could get, so he would put in entries for me as well.  Fine.  But there's one thing you have to know about my husband.  He is honest to a fault.  He wouldn't just put in the entries for me.  He would make me actually do it.  Seems he was afraid of winning and then being disqualified or some dumb thing.  I remember laying on the couch and signing form after form every week and actually having to put something on them about my pick for that weeks winning team.  Like I even knew who was playing?!  Let's just say that some of my answers were a bit controversial.  I would pick teams based on the weirdest reasons while my husband was, of course, running all the stats and trying to be intelligent about all of this.  Turns out my system was a winner.  Or as my husband likes to point out, it also turns out that a barking seal has just as much likelihood of choosing a winning team as the experts do!

I had chosen a team that nobody in their right mind would have picked.  I remember the odds being like 24 to 1, again whatever that means.  I also remember the team that I picked being a college team with a name that was similar to a town near where we live.  That's why I picked them.  Somewhere along the line I must have decided to have some sort of a reason for my picks.

That's how I ended up wearing an Auburn Tigers t-shirt to the 2002 Super Bowl, in which the teams who were competing were actually the New England Patriots and the St. Louis Rams.  Neither of those teams really mattered to me.  I was just thrilled that my husband got to be there.  It was such a dream come true for him.  It wasn't half bad for me either.  New Orleans was a place I had always wanted to see.  And because of the timing of Mardi Gras that year, we got more than just a taste of what fun New Orleans truly is.  I can also honestly say that the Super Bowl in person is so much more than just a football game.  It was easily one of the best events I have ever been a part of. 

I have to be brutally honest here and admit that at first when I found out that we would be seeing the game live, I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to see the commercials.  I know, totally ridiculous.  I had someone tape it for me, so I could go back and see those commercials.  Funny thing is, I never did watch that tape.  I didn't need to.  This was one time I have to admit that my husband was 100% right!  I am so looking forward to the day when we will be able to do this again sometime.