I Challenge You...

My last two posts have been about Reality entering our home without knocking and the realization how lucky we are that Jeff did not lose his job. This reality check made us both think of all the people who ARE out of a job, and the emotions and fears and hardships to families that come hand in hand with unemployment. It must be a horrendous feeling not to be able to provide for your family. Nevermind Christmas, weekly grocery shopping, medical bills, gas for the car -- all of these that many of us take for granted must be a trying time for folks who have lost their jobs. Unemployment is no longer about those who are too lazy to work. Unemployment is now about being gainfully employed and having the job pulled out from under you without notice. So I am putting out a challenge to all my Internet friends who are gainfully employed and able to put food on their table and gas in their cars. I challenge you to donate $25 to your closest food pantry. If you don't know where that is, simply google your town/city and the words "food pantry" and you'll find one. After our recent scare, Jeff and I talked about what it felt like to face financial hardship, and how many others are going through what we were threatened with. Our reality didn't change, but our thoughts on other folks going through all this did. So we have agreed to make a serious effort to help others. Think of the $4 cups of coffee you buy on a whim or the extra groceries you buy to simply stock your pantry, or the unnecessary trips in the car you take. $25.00 gets eaten up quickly by any of those. So I challenge you to write a check today, and help someone else who wakes up every morning ready to go to work but not having a job to go to, wondering how they are going to live on unemployment and still maintain a family life. $25.00 sifts through our fingers without our even noticing -- but it could mean several meals to a family that is suffering during these tough economic times.

Test - - passed

Just a quick update. All will be well. Jeff's boss may have had a bit of "chicken little" syndrome. It turns out, the sky wasn't falling after all. We are and will be fine. No early retirement, no financial distress, no job loss. We learned an important lesson, and that's always good. We need to keep better track of our investments and know, at a glance, where we stand at all times. We need to think before creating new long-term financial obligations because "long term" has a totally new meaning when you're nearing retirement. It's time to buckle down and save money in a liquid savings account - and not touch it. Yes, we have investments of various kinds, but if Jeff had gotten laid off, we did not have six months salary in a savings account (despite how we've advised our kids to do that!). We're going to work on that now. This whole episode was a scare (albeit unnecessary), but that's fine, so long as we learned something from it. And we did. Retirement is coming fast. If we want to retire with no mortgage payment and without financial worries, we need to be more cognizant of where our money is going and why.We do not make major purchases lightly (or often) but we both are guilty of making many small purchases without thinking. So all is well in our household, at least job wise. Today is my oldest's 30th birthday. In some ways it seems like he was a little guy playing video games and wanting to blow things up just a few weeks ago, and yet sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago that I laid my eyes on that little baby boy and knew a love like I'd never even knew existed. He's a man now, with a nice home, great job, wonderful wife... and I'm so proud of him in every way. Happy Birthday, Jeffie. I miss you, and I love you, and I'm proud of you. Mr. B is here for his 3rd day in a row. Sick again, but this time he has pneumonia. I think it's time to change pediatricians (but then, it's not my call) because it makes no sense to me that his doctor(s) do not think his getting sick every month is abnormal. He is forever on antibiotics and sometimes on steroids for his respiratory problems. Too much medicine and not enough diagnosis/testing in my book. So my house is a mess, my grandson is germifying my house, it's cold outside and our power went off this morning (temporarily), but you know what? It's a great day. My husband has a job, we're not in jeopardy of losing everything, my son is 30 years old and leading a good life, my daughter is recovering from her own bout of bronchitis, and it's a gorgeous sunny day. Some times you just need to stop and count your blessings... Mine are many.