Snowed In

During the past couple of days, we have received a lot of snow. School was cancelled, state workers told to stay home, and many drivers found their commute taking hours instead of minutes last night. It is amazing what this beautiful white stuff can do. I am still trying to figure out why I live in Utah, as I absolutely loathe the cold and not having sunshine for sometimes days at a time is miserable for my SAD.

Over the past few days, my dreams have slowly been covered in snow, as well. As Aaron and I discussed our plans for the future of our family, I learned that he doesn’t really want to work for himself. And that is okay. I understand his feelings. I know that it is scary, to think of having to fend for your family, without a state job to feed you, make sure you can get into a doctor, or give you paid leave of absence. After spending a year, trying desperately to get a family business off the ground by myself, I totally understand his thoughts on the matter. I have sunk a huge amount of money and time into a business I thought would at least have some return, and it didn’t. At the same time, I also understand that we are going to be slowly seeing our income diminish, with the attrition that is occurring with his part-time job…..and that scares me even more.

After quite a bit of discussion, I accepted the fact that we aren’t going to be able to finish up the bus conversion and travel (at least not while we have no way of supporting ourselves financially while on the road). I also learned that Aaron could take his position with work to any location in Utah. So, I started looking around for other areas and checking on rentals and home pricing, to see if we could find somewhere else that is cheaper for us. Sadly, I learned that even if we sell our home and try to rent or buy another home in Utah, we would be paying the same amount or more. And without Aaron’s second job, this would be completely impossible.

I have not felt this defeated in years. I guess we are going to see if we can refinance and then we will be hoping to keep Aaron’s job long enough for something to magically change in our lives, that will keep us afloat. I am hoping that it doesn’t involve me having to put the kids back into public school and put Simon into daycare, so that I can get a full-time job working for minimum wage (as I don’t have any recent office skills or education beyond a couple of years of college). I am hoping that we don’t get to the point that we end up not being able to afford our mortgage and end up forclosing on our home. We put so much money down on our home, it makes me sick to think of losing all of the money we were hoping to have to put down on a next home.

If someone would have told me that this would be where I was at this time in my life, I would have laughed. Before I married, I had dreams of owning my own business, traveling, and being able to financially take care of my little family of two. I was in college, working, and raising our oldest daughter, all on my own. I don’t regret marrying Aaron, quite the contrary. He has been my rock and my light at some of my most difficult moments in life. He has so many attributes that I am awed by. We are just very different, when it comes to our view on the future. I have always been a dreamer, a planner,  always had many, many goals. I know that I often find that I have too many things on my plate, and at times, I have been overwhelmed because of this. I know that Aaron is the opposite, living in the here and now, sitting back and waiting for life to happen to him. There are admirable traits about him that I have really worked on developing myself. I am uptight at times and I do get too focused on getting things done…I know this is one of the traits that drives him nuts. But I am really struggling with the whole “wait and see” thing. I am not very good at this part, especially when it comes to the welfare of our family. I know that this is going to be a great adjustment for me. I don’t hold much faith in the whims of fate. But, in the end, I know that I can’t force someone to do something they don’t want to, especially when I demand that same respect, myself. Despite the fact that he is probably one of the best writers around and will someday make a phenomenal author, he doesn’t want to at this time. I respect him for his honesty with me. He has supported my dreams of being financially independent and has put up with my crazy bus conversion, the least I can do is support his wishes to stay in our comfort zone for a little while longer.

So, at this time, we will not be selling our home, we will not be traveling as a family, and we are just hoping and praying that a miracle occurs and we magically have money to pay our bills (once the 2nd job dwindles to nothing). What an interesting year this will be. Sounds like an adventure to me! 😉