Giving Thanks

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to all of my family & friends down south :) I know that I have many things to be thankful for, despite the trying times with our finances over the past 3 years:

I am thankful for family & friends that care about us enough to continually pray for us and to help us out when they are able. I am thankful for these same family & friends to be able to return the same in kind to. When times are down we are each others moral support, when times are up, we are each others cheer-leaders.While my own biological family is very near & dear to my heart, I can gladly say that I have many friends who are special brothers, sisters, aunties & uncles to me! I am truly rich with loving people in my life.

I am thankful that we own our home outright. As hard as things can get sometimes, I know of one certainty - we will not be thrown out on the street, even if we were to lose the bicycle shop & my online business. Knowing this gives me peace of mind for the safety & security of my children. I sure hope I'm not coming off sounding smug - I know all too well the feeling of desperation that comes with homelessness. When we moved from St.Helena, CA back into Canada, the house that we thought was going to be a good match for us turned out to be a complete dud (I'm also thankful we hadn't signed the contract yet!), and so instead of moving in in 2 days, we lived out of a hotel for 2.5 weeks while we scrambled to find a storage space for our things, hope Dan's job offer was still open and find another house - all while I was 8 months pregnant with baby #5. I am extremely thankful that it all turned out well for us.

I am thankful for Dan's new job at the glass manufacturing plant. Although all the money he is earning so far is just being funneled directly into debts, it is better than going bankrupt. I am thankful for a wonderful husband that not only is a hard worker, but even in times of financial stress, he does not lose his temper, give in to self-defeat, or otherwise be negative (unlike me, the worry-wart of the family - LOL!) I've truly blessed by him, and I love him very much :)

I'm thankful for my lovely children, just for being them :) I love when my oldest daughter shows me a new craft project or reads me a poem she just wrote. I love when my oldest son draws his "ant wars" doodles and makes plans to live sustainably on an island in the South Pacific as a scientist. I love my youngest daughter's obsession with all things pink & princess related and her wild hair. I love watching my second son's ability to build with Kinex and imitation of a T-rex. I love my third son's constant happy smile & the way he says "Otay", just like Porky in Our Gang (Little Rascals). And last, but not least, I love my youngest son's laughter when he sees a cat or tries to type on the computer keyboard.

Feast or Famine

If you are a small business owner, freelancer, farmer, fisherman, or other self-employed individual, I'm sure that you've encountered this. Either you have a lot of income coming in all at once (the Feast), or you have a lot of expenses (usually right when there's no money coming in to pay the bills! - Famine).

It seems that we've been fighting a "Famine" ourselves for the past 3 years - LOL! We had a crooked accountant mess up our taxes by literally doing nothing with the paperwork that was given to her - that travesty is now going to cost us $5000 in back taxes & penalties on our PST - we're trying to get an appeal though, as the auditor didn't put into consideration PST we paid already on products for resale & that we are supposed to be on a yearly remittance, not a quarterly one.

Then our water heater blew it's seals (water leaked inside the unit & fried it), so we have to send it down to the US for replacement. This is the third year in a row that we've headed into winter with no running hot water - one of many reasons why Dan thinks this province is cursed! So I'm back to boiling water on the stove all day for dishes, laundry & bathing needs.

My husband closed his bicycle business for the season on October 31st. Nobody in their right mind uses a bike in winter here where temperatures dip to -40º C. Then the job hunt began - which is difficult when you're strapped for cash as it is, but have to spend $30/day on gas to get into the city where the only jobs he's qualified for are. Thankfully, through the networking of a good friend of ours, he landed a job this past week at a glass manufacturing plant.

I'm glad he now has steady work, but I'm not relieved just yet - we're so far in debt that it will take about two months to "get afloat" as it were. I'm constantly praying that the weather doesn't get too severe so that he can safely get into work & back each day. With the high cost of gas being what it is, I'm also hoping that he can find somebody in Swift Current that he can stay with during the week - maybe paying them half of what he would on gas for rent - then he wouldn't risk driving off the road, which is very easy to do at this time of year. That's just a horrible possibility that I don't even want to entertain in my mind.

Maybe, just maybe we will finally move into Swift Current - even though we'd then be carrying a mortgage, it would save us a lot of money in other ways - and it would be a lot easier for Dan to get work during the bike shop's off season. I'm kind of torn though - there are so many more opportunities in Swift Current for activities (good rec center, home school support group events, six parks, to name a few), we'd be closer to Dan's & my friends, and it would be easier for my Dad to come visit us, but then we'd be in the city - the kids would miss their friends, and we'd all miss the peacefullness and wide open space that we've grown accustomed to. If we could find something on the edge of the city, that would be ideal, but there are very few properties available with the economic downturn. Hopefully, the Feast is around the corner....