I had great plans to write about something super cutesy and fun today like 6 and 4 year old birthday parties but instead I'm choosing to dive into that terrible, horrible topic that everyone hates: MONEY. Sorry y'all but I just have to. I understand if this is the last sentence of this post that you read.
Over the past couple weeks, we've been hit with large bill after large bill. Astronomical bills, actually. At first I sort of had the nervous, giggly Wow, when it rains it really pours sort of attitude. But now it's starting to get a little old. And I'm not sure when we will have a breather from this financial pressure that is weighing on me.
Yesterday I opened what I thought would be a pat-yourself-on-the-back sort of bill. If those sorts of bills exist. Let me explain. You all know about my new vegetable garden this year which I just adore. It has been life-giving to me and a dream come true on so many different levels. One new feature at our new house has been this little built-in sprinkler system that apparently takes a PhD to operate. I mean, the thing is possessed. During the warmer months, it would come on at random times, flood the yard and do all sorts of crazy tricks. No matter how hard I tried to reprogram the darn thing, it had a mind of its own and seemed absolutely set on keeping our yard as green as a golf course oasis in the middle of the Sahara. Well. I bet you can imagine where this is going. We got our first water bill in July. Imagine a really big number. And then double it. It really hurt. Graham wouldn't even let me tell him the final amount. But let's just say theoretically that I grew a 9 pound zucchini. If we crunched the numbers, that zucchini would have cost me approximately $46.88 per pound. Just to water it. Which is a real steal if you ask me. I mean, it's giant. It's organic. What more could one want? Well, it ate up a huge chunk of our paycheck. Lesson learned. My father-in-law had tried to warn me but those sprinklers were not to be contained.
After painfully paying bill #1, I set aside an entire evening to mastering my freaking sprinkler system. I had renewed motivation and a tangible reality check. I read the entire manual (which of course didn't come with the house and so I had to scour and find one online that seemed similar...) I changed a ton of settings. I stopped the darn thing from watering 7 of the 9 areas it had been watering previously. I figured out how to have it water those two areas (my veggie bed and the front lawn) only once daily versus twice. I shorted the length of time it watered. It took about a week of trial and error but eventually I got the settings to switch and stay switched! I was thrilled and went back to my routines, anticipating that the next bill would be the pat-yourself-on-the-back type, reflecting just how dramatic and cost-saving my sprinkler adjustments had been.
Yesterday the next water bill came. I was expecting good news so I tore open the envelope, almost with excitement which is so totally weird but we won't go there. But the contents left me speechless. The numbers in bold print before me were even worse than before. They literally rivaled what my ENTIRE paychecks used to be. I burst into tears. I couldn't handle it. I felt like a total and complete failure. I was growing vegetables and grass outside, not diamonds. Who did these crazy water district people think that they were!? The doler outers of some scarce commodity here in the PNW: water? Umm, I think not. Well, ok. it was a titch more scarce this summer. But it's not like we typically have a problem with a lack of moisture here in the greater Seattle area!!
So, I think it's safe to say that the sprinkler control center is officially UNPLUGGED from our wall in the garage. Unless that thing somehow magically acquires wireless powers (which actually wouldn't surprise me), it is off for the season and it is highly unlikely that it will ever be used again. Except maybe when we go on vacation. The rest of the time, I will water my garden myself, just enough to keep my edibles alive but the rest of the yard will probably go to pot. I'm sure the HOA will have a cow, but hey! At least my highly controversial veggie bed will be green. ;)
But this post is not about the HOA or even the garden really. It's more about my feelings of failure and my struggles with doubt. I'm sure everyone is now well aware that I very recently quit my job. It was a needed move, the right move. I know this deep down. But when I see the numbers in our bank account going down and FAST, I suddenly find myself hyperventilating. Or like yesterday. just plain crying. I feel incredibly responsible. I begged to be able to stay home with our kids. I was being stretched well beyond my capacity and my kids' capacity and our sitters' capacities. Sure, it felt good when people would ask how on earth I did it - work part time, keep up a home, have three kids, run, and for a few years there, co-coordinate a ministry for young moms at my church. Well, the truth of it is that I didn't really do it well. And it required me to go on medications. Depression, anxiety and fear ruled. I was falling apart and unhappy.
Now we are (approximately) 68 days into this new adventure of my being a full-time stay-at-home mom (with the exception of an occasional on-call shift here and there). And CRAP is it ever hard. This year is ABSOLUTELY NUTS with the various schedules we are balancing - first grade, preschool, early release, a napping youngest, not to mention feeding and bathing and clothing the litter somewhere in there. My calendar, which used to have one to two things on it each day, now averages about five. Yeah, some of them are quick little check offs like "Wear PE shoes" for Isla, but still, it's a full time job to keep it all somewhat straight-ish. I needed to be home just to manage life. And as hard as it all is, man is it ever good. I feel like an incredible burden has lifted no longer having to to arrange babysitting for my work days. We were have been SO BLESSED to have grandparents take care of our kids but they've been doing this faithfully and regularly for 6 years and we felt we owed them a much-deserved break.
Now that Emma has started pre-K, and as long as Jack keeps napping, I have THREE AFTERNOONS every week to myself at home. The time goes by super fast but so far it has been glorious. These pockets of time are to me margins, margins that always should have been there but weren't. Sometimes I feel guilty about having them while at others, I am just plain giddy. Honestly, I don't know how I survived the past 6 mothering years without them. New mothers should be discharged from the hospital with an extra strength prescription for margins. Seriously! Because, without them, this job is a recipe for crazy-making 100% of the time.
Anyway, I'm really not sure how everything is going to work out. As I type this, our van is in the shop getting these necessary but painful things called tires. Yesterday, I submitted that tear-jerking payment for our water bill. And unfortunately just last week we'd finally taken a leap and ordered a couch for our previously empty living room. This of course was before we knew what other fun financial surprises this month would hold. First world problems, right?
After a good night's sleep and taking time to process all this in writing, I'm reminded that we made this commitment to my being home knowing it would require walking by FAITH. If I'm honest, I guess I expected something just a liiiiitle more secure. Which isn't really faith at all. We have savings. We certainly aren't destitute. Those savings had been set aside for things other than tires and water but, if that's what we have to use them for, so be it. I have seen God's hand at work in our lives in so many ways and I know His provision is faithful. It may not always look like the "provision" we anticipated but ultimately I believe it is for our betterment. I anticipate the season ahead to require a degree of sacrifice from us that we have probably not yet experienced. It will be hard but I'm also old enough now to recognize that good fruit comes from the hard. And when Christ is in it, it is amazing. We have felt God's leading in guiding our family through these big, life-changing decisions and though the exact details are still unknown, I'm comforted by the scripture in Hebrews 11:1 that reads:
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
Yesterday I opened what I thought would be a pat-yourself-on-the-back sort of bill. If those sorts of bills exist. Let me explain. You all know about my new vegetable garden this year which I just adore. It has been life-giving to me and a dream come true on so many different levels. One new feature at our new house has been this little built-in sprinkler system that apparently takes a PhD to operate. I mean, the thing is possessed. During the warmer months, it would come on at random times, flood the yard and do all sorts of crazy tricks. No matter how hard I tried to reprogram the darn thing, it had a mind of its own and seemed absolutely set on keeping our yard as green as a golf course oasis in the middle of the Sahara. Well. I bet you can imagine where this is going. We got our first water bill in July. Imagine a really big number. And then double it. It really hurt. Graham wouldn't even let me tell him the final amount. But let's just say theoretically that I grew a 9 pound zucchini. If we crunched the numbers, that zucchini would have cost me approximately $46.88 per pound. Just to water it. Which is a real steal if you ask me. I mean, it's giant. It's organic. What more could one want? Well, it ate up a huge chunk of our paycheck. Lesson learned. My father-in-law had tried to warn me but those sprinklers were not to be contained.
After painfully paying bill #1, I set aside an entire evening to mastering my freaking sprinkler system. I had renewed motivation and a tangible reality check. I read the entire manual (which of course didn't come with the house and so I had to scour and find one online that seemed similar...) I changed a ton of settings. I stopped the darn thing from watering 7 of the 9 areas it had been watering previously. I figured out how to have it water those two areas (my veggie bed and the front lawn) only once daily versus twice. I shorted the length of time it watered. It took about a week of trial and error but eventually I got the settings to switch and stay switched! I was thrilled and went back to my routines, anticipating that the next bill would be the pat-yourself-on-the-back type, reflecting just how dramatic and cost-saving my sprinkler adjustments had been.
Yesterday the next water bill came. I was expecting good news so I tore open the envelope, almost with excitement which is so totally weird but we won't go there. But the contents left me speechless. The numbers in bold print before me were even worse than before. They literally rivaled what my ENTIRE paychecks used to be. I burst into tears. I couldn't handle it. I felt like a total and complete failure. I was growing vegetables and grass outside, not diamonds. Who did these crazy water district people think that they were!? The doler outers of some scarce commodity here in the PNW: water? Umm, I think not. Well, ok. it was a titch more scarce this summer. But it's not like we typically have a problem with a lack of moisture here in the greater Seattle area!!
So, I think it's safe to say that the sprinkler control center is officially UNPLUGGED from our wall in the garage. Unless that thing somehow magically acquires wireless powers (which actually wouldn't surprise me), it is off for the season and it is highly unlikely that it will ever be used again. Except maybe when we go on vacation. The rest of the time, I will water my garden myself, just enough to keep my edibles alive but the rest of the yard will probably go to pot. I'm sure the HOA will have a cow, but hey! At least my highly controversial veggie bed will be green. ;)
But this post is not about the HOA or even the garden really. It's more about my feelings of failure and my struggles with doubt. I'm sure everyone is now well aware that I very recently quit my job. It was a needed move, the right move. I know this deep down. But when I see the numbers in our bank account going down and FAST, I suddenly find myself hyperventilating. Or like yesterday. just plain crying. I feel incredibly responsible. I begged to be able to stay home with our kids. I was being stretched well beyond my capacity and my kids' capacity and our sitters' capacities. Sure, it felt good when people would ask how on earth I did it - work part time, keep up a home, have three kids, run, and for a few years there, co-coordinate a ministry for young moms at my church. Well, the truth of it is that I didn't really do it well. And it required me to go on medications. Depression, anxiety and fear ruled. I was falling apart and unhappy.
Now we are (approximately) 68 days into this new adventure of my being a full-time stay-at-home mom (with the exception of an occasional on-call shift here and there). And CRAP is it ever hard. This year is ABSOLUTELY NUTS with the various schedules we are balancing - first grade, preschool, early release, a napping youngest, not to mention feeding and bathing and clothing the litter somewhere in there. My calendar, which used to have one to two things on it each day, now averages about five. Yeah, some of them are quick little check offs like "Wear PE shoes" for Isla, but still, it's a full time job to keep it all somewhat straight-ish. I needed to be home just to manage life. And as hard as it all is, man is it ever good. I feel like an incredible burden has lifted no longer having to to arrange babysitting for my work days. We were have been SO BLESSED to have grandparents take care of our kids but they've been doing this faithfully and regularly for 6 years and we felt we owed them a much-deserved break.
Now that Emma has started pre-K, and as long as Jack keeps napping, I have THREE AFTERNOONS every week to myself at home. The time goes by super fast but so far it has been glorious. These pockets of time are to me margins, margins that always should have been there but weren't. Sometimes I feel guilty about having them while at others, I am just plain giddy. Honestly, I don't know how I survived the past 6 mothering years without them. New mothers should be discharged from the hospital with an extra strength prescription for margins. Seriously! Because, without them, this job is a recipe for crazy-making 100% of the time.
Anyway, I'm really not sure how everything is going to work out. As I type this, our van is in the shop getting these necessary but painful things called tires. Yesterday, I submitted that tear-jerking payment for our water bill. And unfortunately just last week we'd finally taken a leap and ordered a couch for our previously empty living room. This of course was before we knew what other fun financial surprises this month would hold. First world problems, right?
After a good night's sleep and taking time to process all this in writing, I'm reminded that we made this commitment to my being home knowing it would require walking by FAITH. If I'm honest, I guess I expected something just a liiiiitle more secure. Which isn't really faith at all. We have savings. We certainly aren't destitute. Those savings had been set aside for things other than tires and water but, if that's what we have to use them for, so be it. I have seen God's hand at work in our lives in so many ways and I know His provision is faithful. It may not always look like the "provision" we anticipated but ultimately I believe it is for our betterment. I anticipate the season ahead to require a degree of sacrifice from us that we have probably not yet experienced. It will be hard but I'm also old enough now to recognize that good fruit comes from the hard. And when Christ is in it, it is amazing. We have felt God's leading in guiding our family through these big, life-changing decisions and though the exact details are still unknown, I'm comforted by the scripture in Hebrews 11:1 that reads:
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
Kelsie, my husband says you may need to replace the valve rubber gasket (called a diaphragm). If it is bad, you will have leaking water. Sounds more like that than just overwatering. It's a $5 part. (Brant's mom)
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