It's been a trying year thus far. Things are tight financially thanks to the economy, we are short a dog and I have less vacation time than when I started work 11 years ago, once again thanks to the economy.
On the other hand, there are things to be thankful for.
About the same time that we lost Scout, I started work at a second job. A great little hardware store just five minutes down the road from our house accepted my offer to help out on weekends when they are busiest over the summer. This new venture has it's ups and downs. It's a completely different kind of job from my full time post as an Art Director. So, I still feel like I get a break from work even though I'm really laboring 7 days a week. On the other hand, working in a hardware store has been more trying of my patience than I expected. It seems there is no end to the gaps in my knowledge of all things handy. Customer after customer walks through those doors to baffle me with their odd do-it-yourself questions. Occasionally I can answer, but more often than not, I find myself calling for back-up and listening for the answers myself. I'm learning though. By the end of the summer, I expect I will be answering a much greater percentage of the inquiries on my own. The knowledge won't hurt my confidence as a do-it-yourselfer.
There are some fantastic benefits to the job however. In addition to a 20% discount for everything in the store, (no small thing when you own a 100 year old home,) we will also enjoy a big bag of free dog food monthly, and free rentals of all the equipment they have. I've already taken advantage of a pipe snake to clear out a backed up drain, and intend to make this the year of the yard with all the equipment they offer.
As I discovered years ago, taking a second job also tends to save money in addition to raising money. Since I'm dedicating more of my free time and energy to this, I wind up spending far less money on other things like entertainment.
So, that's good. i just hope I can keep the pace through the summer.
Also, we have taken on a fourth animal again. Our latest addition is not permanent. Kristi found an ad on Craig's list for a family who's husband and wife are both in the military. He is getting shipped off and she is going to boot camp. They needed to find a temporary home for one of their dogs. And so we have taken on Teddy.
Teddy is a thick headed beast with a very active mind, so we have been vigilantly occupied with training him to behave. After a little over a week with us, he has learned many new tricks, but still needs a lot of attention. In fact, right now, he has laid down after nearly an hour of pacing the floor and one by one pissing off our other three. His being here is good though. He takes our minds off of Scout who is no longer with us, and is reminding us of why we love our three so much.
So things have been tough, but we are dealing with them in our own way. Life goes on, and we are attempting to keep our spirits up. You could say we are dedicated to it through hard work. Our thoughts are out there for those who have it worse than us. Spring has arrived finally, and maybe things will begin to look up. We won't be standing around waiting for the good times to come though. We will labor to stave off the bad times. So far, it seems to be working.
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