My husband was laid off from his job way back in November of 2008. He wasn’t very upset about it at the beginning, since he had worked at his job for a really long time (15 years) and was looking for a change, but with the economy and the stress of supporting the family, it’s been getting more stressful for him. I think he would call the last five months some of the hardest he’s ever been through.
We haven’t had it as bad as many people do. In fact, we’ve actually been blessed quite a bit. For one thing, he got a really nice severance pay since he’d been working for the company for so long, that has really helped me not to be stressed out about it.
The second thing, is that we’ve had so many things go right. If I compared the last 5 months to the 5 months before that, as far as spending emergencies go, (car repairs, home maintenance repairs, general necessities and emergency needs) they have all been amazingly minimal. In fact, a few months ago, our dishwasher stopped working and my husband tried to fix it. Usually when my husband tries to fix something, it usually ends up being a huge frustration, and we end up paying even more money to fix the problem. I was a little wary when he wanted to try to fix the dishwasher (I’ve hated this dishwasher, and would really just like to get a new one instead), but this time, my husband called the company, figured out what part was wrong, ordered the part ($10) and was actually able to install it himself! It was truly a miracle.
I like to notice miracles in my life, and this week was no exception. My baby was going to be blessed soon in church, and I didn’t have a blessing outfit for him. I checked “Kid to Kid”, and some thrift stores, but I couldn’t find one, and I didn’t want to spend the money to buy a new one. I decided that I could just make him one instead. I actually use to make kid clothes, when I only had one child, so I actually found a newborn pattern I could use for it. I wasn’t sure if I had any white material I could use, but looking through my fabric scraps, I found a small piece of plain white cotton material, just barely enough to fit the pattern!
I did have to go buy some white thread because I didn’t have any, and I looked for some snap tape for the legs, but Walmart didn’t have any. I started making the outfit, and then today I was almost done with the outfit, and still needed the snap tape. I thought I might be able to reuse some snap tape from one of Tyler’s other outfits, but I guess most commercial outfits don’t use snap tape, just individual snaps, so I wasn’t able to find any.
I decided I’d look one more place, and checked all my old sewing bins and craft buckets. In the very last bin that I looked in, I found a scrap cut off piece of snap tape EXACTLY the right size that I needed. Another miracle! I was so happy. I sewed in the snap tape, and the outfit is perfect. I’m so glad I made it. The cost to make it was $2 (for the thread). Of course now the outfit is actually priceless, as it can be an heirloom, and is much more special to me than any outfit I could have bought or borrowed from someone.
Tyler’s been pretty fussy lately. I think he has a bit of colick, but thankfully everything else is going well. Occasionally I’m getting a good night’s sleep (a 4 hour stretch!) I’ve actually written 2 more songs in the last couple of weeks. I’ll post one of them very soon.
Hope all is well with all of you, Blog again soon,
Lindy