You know what they say....pride goeth before a fall.  Or, in my case, as soon as you open your big fat mouth and say something, it's gonna come back to bite you.  I can remember telling my mother in early December that the downward spiral in the economy wasn't causing us any grief....in fact, we were probably doing better than we had in a while.  Gas prices were coming down, I had more work than I could readily handle, and food prices seemed to be heading back into the reasonable range.  Life was good.  Well, since then....I have lost not one, but two jobs.  The first one was a huge blow....I had what looked like a three year contract with a company to develop some software for them.  In January, they decided that now was not the time to proceed with the project.  I was crushed and spent a few days wallowing in self-pity.  But, I was given a few smaller projects to work on and things kind of settled into a hectic routine.  I worked a lot of hours and jumped through a lot of hoops and pulled of f some pretty amazing, if I do say so myself, projects.  Then, Thursday came the news that, due to the economy, I probably won't be getting any more work.  Add in to this mix the fact that our health insurance went up almost $300.00 a month in February (after an already rather hefty increase in January).  To say I'm feeling a bit sucker-punched would be a bit of an understatement.  I've spent the last couple of days wondering what the next blow is going to be.  Now, it's not like we have wolves at the door or anything...because, let's be honest here...Steve is the primary breadwinner in our family.  As he likes to tease me, he is my "Sugar Daddy'.    Coming from anyone else in my storied past, a comment like that would have warranted a swift kick in some easily hurt body part, but when Steve says it, it makes me smile.  Partly because I'm so darn proud of him for how good he is at his job and how hard he works to take care of all of us.  But, it's still all been a little unnerving and my confidence is more than a little shaken.  But, it's going to be okay...really it is.  I have all kinds of ideas for work that I can pick up.  I giggled to myself as I was driving the girls around on Friday....I'm like one of those people who always has a get rich quick scheme going...only my schemes aren't to get rich..they're just to make a few extra dollars.  So what would you call those...Make Spending Money Quick Schemes?  I was thinking I could see if I could pick up a bit of work writing feature articles for a couple of the little local newspapers (I did that many years ago) or I could use some of the stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of fabric that I have and make some cute little girl's dresses and sell them at consignment shops.  I could advertise my photography business more.  I could write closed captioning for television...okay not really, but that's always sounded like a fun job to me

So, I spent a good part of yesterday wallowing again.  But, this morning I woke up feeling a lot better (getting a full night's sleep for the first time in two weeks probably had a lot to do with that!) and realized that I might as well enjoy this time when I'm not busy.  No amount of sitting around feeling sorry for myself is going to make work magically coming my way.  And I have enough crafting supplies to keep me & the girls busy well into their adolescence.     Today we played outside and danced in the kitchen and made a birthday card.  I finished up my Valentine's Day crafts.  We went to a birthday party.  And, honestly, I felt more relaxed than I have in months.  It felt good to just have one job today...Gracie and Abigail's mommy.  

I imagine that you'll be hearing more from me now since I have more time for things like writing in poor neglected blog. So, you'll have to put up with my mindless ramblings and my pictures of my little bead-wearing babies.