Uncertain Times

I slept in until 1pm today, a thing I have not done for months. On the whole I usually get up early for work most days and wake up at least by 9-10 on Saturdays out of habit. Unfortunately, late last night I had a bit of a meltdown. Our life together has never been so uncertain. We've had uncertainties before that have caused a great deal of stress in our lives but we are walking blindly forward now, hoping our path will be layed out before us and fearing we might step right off of a cliff.

Here are the things we do know. Both of our current jobs are ending at the end of August. Ricky is graduating in December. Our landlords are expecting us to move out in December. Our bank account is running on fumes.

One lesson I've learned this summer is that seasonal work at a non-profit may be emotionally rewarding and fun, but it sure as heck doesn't pay well. I was hired to work 40 hrs/week from June 3rd-August 31st. So far I've only been allowed to work one 40 hr. week, three 30 hr. weeks, and was only allowed to work 8 hours last week. The rest of the summer looks like I will have (hopefully) 5-6 40 hr. weeks and 1-2 30 hr. weeks. I've spent several hours working at home, not getting paid because there just isn't enough time to get everything done. My coworkers and I are all really upset that the people in charge planned so poorly and weren't upfront with us when we were hired.

Needless to say, the funding we thought we were going to have this summer isn't there. Since our rent payment on our tiny 1-bedroom apartment is more than most of our friends' mortgages and our car insurance is through the roof (we live in an accident-prone city), we are having to try to find additional work to do on top of our already super busy schedules. But nobody is hiring. Especially for people that are only available after 6pm Monday-Friday and on Saturdays.

If we can make it work until the end of September we might be okay. Ricky might get a teaching position for fall term, which would be awesome, but we don't know if he will. If worst comes to worst we can always take out student loans, but we don't want to. Ricky has a real career job pending in Eugene that would start in January. Things are looking good on that front and we are very optimistic, but again, nothing is certain. Things keep working out for us in mysterious ways, it's quite uncanny really. Maybe we can just eat our faith and pay our rent with babysitting until another miracle is sent down.

Donations to the Ricky and Lauren fund are now being accepted.
Just kidding.
Sort of.