Starting Over... Again...

Since this is only my second post, I feel a need to put in a few qualifiers here for people that are surfing in for the first time. I don’t want you to feel like you’ve shown up twenty minutes late to a movie…

I am happily married to my wife Amy and we have three great kids, Alex (9, 4th grade), Jason (7, 2nd grade), and Lauren (2, Headstart), who are all getting ready to have birthdays in October and November.
Back in 2000, Amy was working at a family job (which allowed her to take the kids with her to work) and I was running a video store for a small chain. Because of certain events, I decided that the company I was working for was not the company for me and Amy was in need of a change as well.
One of the view advantages of being poor is that you can literally start any new career and chances are you won’t miss out on a lot of money. So, Amy and I decided to take a big risk. Using her associates degree, Amy got a job working at the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office and I took the position as Full Time Father. (I hate the term Stay-At-Home Dad, makes it sound like I’m sitting on the couch all day eating Bon-Bons and watching soaps.)
Those first few months were pretty scary but Amy excelled at her job and was suddenly making more money by herself than we were making combined a year earlier despite a forty-five minute commute.
Things were good. But, after several years at this job, Amy was essentially making the same amount of money she was making when she started (with a few minor raises). Unfortunately, cost of living decided to shoot up substantially. Been to the gas pump lately? Yeah.
So, after a failed attempt to work at a place that was closer to home and apparently run by monkeys, Amy walked out of her job. Amy is one of the most amicable people I know so for this one cee-to-the-unt hair to get her riled up enough to walk out in the middle of the day… It had to be bad.
My hope is that a phoenix is about to rise from the ashes. Amy has set her sights on an RN program at the local college, fast-tracked through a Vo-tech school.
Unfortunately, this means that for the next two to two-and-a-half years, we are living off student loans. And I went back to work at the local grocery store that I worked at during high school and when I went to college… and I absolutely hate it.
Okay, hate is a pretty strong word so let me quantify that. The job is good. My boss is a great guy, my co-workers are cool, and I work in a fairly compartmentalized department where we take care of our own and stay out of all the political B.S.
Sadly, I only get about 32 hours a week (sometimes less!) and this is our primary source of income! If it were a secondary income, man, it would be spectacular. But we get paid on Monday and I am broke on Wednesday… I hate it. I am working on my own projects (I’ll post that soon) and Amy says that once she is hired as an RN, we will make almost three times what we were making before. I could just go back to running the house full time. Let the wife support me. Is that the life or what, fellas? But until we get to that point, man, this is a scary time. Imagine looking at your life and trying to start over for a second time.
Pretty scary stuff. Welcome to my life…