Wednesday, January 16, 2008

P.S. really happy news

I forgot to mention also that those of you who've been praying about our financial situation, God has suddenly lavished blessings on us in that surprising way She sometimes does, that makes you realize again how incredibly fortunate you are to have such a loving Parent (I'm learning so much more about God from the way I feel about this baby!).

Anyway, I think I mentioned our rent increase situation, and that turned out better than fine. I don't want to say exactly what happened on here b/c I don't know if my neighbors read this (and I don't want to start bidding wars), but suffice to say they exceeded our request and we feel wonderful about where we ended up. We will be able to handle it.

Second, we had been really worried about J's contract ending mid-May, what with the baby due in June and the need for benefits/income during that time. He was going to beg them for an extra month of benefits. Well, it turns out, he - like all the other profs - gets benefits and paid throughout the summer!! I mean, it's like the dream-come-true answer to our prayers! We are going to actually make money during the summer for the first time in years. I can't imagine what it will mean not to go into deep debt that we pay off the following year (that's been the forced pattern - thank God our credit is excellent and we can always find a no-interest credit card to stick it on), but I think it's going to be awesome. Plus he's still on board to teach a summer class, and I'm making a teeny bit of money from odds and ends, and we've heard we can get some money from the state for disability for me/bonding for him when the baby comes. So wow, that's just all really amazing, and we still get to both be home with baby all summer. Yippeee!!!!!

Right now we're even doing OK living on just one paycheck and stowing away everything from his other school for the fall (funny side note: our W-2's read like the who's who list of Christian colleges in America, between the two of us - it's pretty fun). Hopefully the savings can keep growing and we can actually make this move and the fall-with-no-income (J's dissertation time) without going into more debt (of course that depends a lot on where I go for a PhD, how much support I'm given, and what the cost of living in that place is). We'll see. We're on track. He's even got a job lined up for fall if we stay in town (they LOVE him at APU - wish they'd just hire him forever, already - the students are nuts about him. This semester many even took the honors philosophy class hoping to get him, but found out the first day that oops one of the real faculty was teaching it. They made their disappointment known, and now J has been asked to teach honors again in the fall. Which leads me back to thoughts of full-time mommyhood and letting my professor go off and do his thing...but that's just b/c I hate school at the moment).

Plus now we can actually get baby a few nice things...(we're aesthetes, you know, so J is gunning for the Stokke Xplory stroller...gotta keep checking ebay where we've found them as low as $350. J has insisted that instilling a sense of good design is paramount as early as possible, and I am inclined to follow him on that. I'd hate for my kid to not appreciate the aesthetic superiority of Mac products, for instance).

OK, now I have gone on and on and you're not going to read about my pregnancy dream which is quite the shocker (below). Oops. Read that, it's way more entertaining than my financial stuff. But at least I can here confirm that God in fact does answer prayers and/or the universe rewards those of us trying to do good and/or things just work out sometimes. As much as I love to imagine it being God, I also know She's probably got bigger things on her mind than what I'm paying for rent.

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