Rough Start to 2010

2010 hasn't gotten off to a great start for us. My wife found out that she was being laid off the first week of the New Year. She works in Real Estate as a Closing Paralegal. There simply wasn't enough work to keep her on. Her Boss promised a glowing review if a prospective employer calls her.

We both took the new pretty hard. As much as we try not to, we still need my wife's income to help make ends meet.

We can make most of the normal bills on my paycheck. The mortgage, lights, groceries, and stuff like that will be fine. It's some of the ancillary stuff like saving for Birthday Parties and Christmas that will be hard hit.

The big hole we face now is my daughter's private school tuition. I've got enough in savings to get us through the end of this school year, but sometime in March, the school will want to know if our daughter is coming back.

We've discussed different options like Home Schooling, or Magnet Schools. The Public schools in our neighborhood are not very good. We'll move before my daughter goes to one of those schools. Of course, that's not as easy as saying it. Our neighbor has had his house on the market for 4 months without much action.

I really don't want to move or for our daughter to have to change schools, especially not for 5th grade. I bounced around a bit as a kid, and I wanted to try to avoid that with my daughter.

I started looking into freelancing from the house on my off hours, and found a couple of websites that claim they help you get freelance jobs. I'm not sure why, but I'm really nervous to try that out. I'm sure most of the people they have on those sites are way more skilled than I am, and I don't have the first clue how to price out my work.

I'm scared right now. I know I'm not SUPPOSED to be scared, I'm supposed to have faith. I'm supposed to trust that God will take care of us and that everything will be okay. I know all that. So why am I still scared?

I guess I think of it a little like a skydiver. You've got faith in your parachute, but you'd have to be a little crazy not to feel some fear rise up in you as you inch your way to the open door and prepare to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. I have faith in my parachute, in my God whose very name is Jehovah Jiriah (God will provide). But as I look at my situation, I think I'd be crazy not to feel a little nervous about what 2010 is going to bring.