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Part Two:

This year started out looking fantastic. A great job, four lovely kids, happily married, getting my sanity back (as much as can be expected, anyway) after child number four, getting in shape, getting out of debt. All things we’re supposed to want in life. Right?

Then I was just driving along the road of life, and WHAM! The skybox of my life flew off the top of the car and the contents there in – quickly became strewn all over the map. Literally.

The day after we got home from Hawaii, we found out half of Peter’s company was being laid off. The half that included Peter. And so we found our selves without a job. Without a job for what ended up being six months. We were truly blessed to have a nice savings – which is now of course, gone. But it sustained us for the time we needed. It was a difficult time, as so many in this day and age know all too well. These hard financial times contributed to further debt, and a basic ruin of us financially.

(I know. I’m much better with sarcasm and jokes. It’s easier to take than real life, huh? Sorry.)

So that event was more than a few of our so called “camping chairs” thrown across our freeway of sorts. Mid way through this financial turmoil, we decided we better be done having kids. That with all that is happening in our lives, and the huge amount of stress. Let’s just close that chapter in our lives. The baby chapter.

No sooner did we have this conversation than did I never had a period again. ( I mean I literally gave away all my maternity clothes the day after my 35th birthday) Isn’t that the way it goes? Seriously. Not that we aren’t thrilled to be having a baby. We always wanted five kids. (okay I did, he wanted six – keep dreaming!) So we take things as they come, right? No job and now having a baby. That should be at least a couple of bags of luggage screeching across the pavement, right? I think so anyway.

But life goes on and you take it as it comes. You pick up the mess, say a prayer of thanks and keep driving.

So that’s what we did.

And come October first, six months after the initial lay off, Peter got a new job. A job that is not his dream, but a job that will do. He likes it – but we are making almost a third less of what we were. And although beggars can’t be choosers, life is still quite financially very tight.

I’ll just add this little diddy in. Although, I’ll list it as a “sleeping bag” flying out of my life skybox (nothing too damaging – but truly annoying), being pregnant makes me fat. Or shall I say fat – ter. This year I lost 58 pounds. That’s a lotta pounds. Trust me. I know. And getting pregnant is a bummer on your bummer, if you know what I’m sayin’. So that’s that. Boo hoo for me. I know.

The next big “duffle bag, several lawn chairs, and perhaps the entire box itself” flying off the top of the car and just missing the people behind us, so to say, is the biggest change of all.

A move.

And a BIG one.

One that is taking all the courage each member of the family can muster. One to the other side of the world. But amazingly, we are going forward with faith, and things are turning out. Like the whole skybox disaster, it’s been scary, but little damage has really been done. We are back in the car and driving on.

Peter will leave us for this part of our lives, for several months, returning for a few weeks when the baby is born. A challenge for all of us. But we are up to it. Remember when this summer I learned and wrote about hard things? And that we can do hard things? I don’t think I ever really imagined what I could possibly be talking about. But guess what? We are doing hard things. And we are going to be fine.

(Due to natural (or maybe not so natural) paranoia, that I’m sure I will look back on and laugh, I’m not posting the exact location of our move. If you read this and don't already know where we are moving, but would like to know, email me and I’ll tell you. It’s just a lot of info to put out here in cyberspace. teresa_tennis@hotmail.com)