My Backstory! Part Two

The world we knew.  The childhood years I could remember my own mother worked most of the time. She did all sorts of things from owning a business, working at a bank, to cleaning houses. My husband had the same experience. His mother worked at a local factory for many years until she retired. We went to public schools all of our lives and we were taught that you need a college degree and a career.  Why? To buy the best of the best.  Success here in America, at least in my world, was exactly this:  A nice big house in town, two nice new vehicles, an extravagant vacation every summer, eating out at nice restaurants often, then throw in two kids and a dog and you have your perfect little picture. The problem is many, not all, of the people I know with all of this are the most stressed out unhappy people when you really get to know them. It's not that having all of these things are bad at all.  It's thinking that you are a failure if you don't.  So in my mind, by me not working, we would never have all of these things.  This was no longer a stepping stone to all of the things I wanted and thought we needed.  I was in a way failing my family. As much as I loved my son and I 'liked' where we were, in the back of my mind I was a failure.

Due to my thinking that we needed to have everything "better" I probably drove my husband nuts. No, I know I did. I finally shared my feelings about feeling I failed and to be completely honest here, he wasn't so crazy I wasn't working back then after a while either. He liked that his needs were met and so were our sons, but after a while of having to get up every morning and leave super early while I got to stay in bed started to wear on him too. We didn't argue a whole lot, but we did consider me going back to work.  It didn't help him much either that out of all of our friends and family I was the ONLY mother who wasn't working.  In the end I decided to clean a couple of houses.  I found two.  I let them know I had a son who would be accompanying me and one was fine with that the other was not. So once a week my mother would watch my son, who was around 3 at that time, for about 3-4 hours and I would go clean that house.  The other one she didn't mind him coming and I would bring a video and snacks and he would play with their dog. He was never one of those kids to just be unruly or destructive so it worked out well. I did that for about a year and it made enough to pay for our groceries. This was a very good solution for us.  ~I am glossing over this area a bit. It wasn't always a great time. I found out someone I trusted was not who I thought and to this day there is a big wedge in the family.  Times were tight financially until I found the houses but then it all started to fall into place.

During those lean times my budgeting and cooking skills began to improve.  We sat down and wrote out everything we owed and how much we could possibly pay to try to be debt free.  For our household needs we really paid attention to what we really needed versus just wanted.  My mom was a good role model in clearance shopping. I've always enjoyed garage sales and a good thrift store.I still do to this day. Most of our clothes, furniture, and home goods have come from them.  In the kitchen I learned how to really get creative and make many things from scratch. No more canned beans or boxed meals unless they were on a deep discount.  I made our bread from scratch and rice was now no longer bought in 5 minute boxes.  We also planted a small garden and got some chickens! My husband's love of the outdoors was a benefit too as he's a wonderful provider of fresh fish and wild game like rabbit and deer.

We were on our way and doing pretty well.  During that next year we had a teenage family member move in with us for a few months and I found out I was expecting our second child.  I ended up quitting the house cleaning when it was time for my son to start preschool.  Times were still lean but I was overjoyed that we would be adding a new baby to our family! In November of 1998 we welcomed our second child, a beautiful baby girl we named Abigail, into the world!

This was a really great time for us. We started becoming more self-sufficient and were getting some credit paid off in the process.  Other than my son's preschool 3 days a week, we stayed home a lot.  My nephew, who is a month younger than my son would stay with us most days after preschool while his parents worked.  This worked out fairly well because the boys had each other as playmates.

I know many may think how boring and unsatisfying my life must have been. To be home barefoot with little ones around all day. Well, no, actually. First off, I love to be barefoot.  Sure, I was stressed at times as all mothers are but for the most part I found comfort in just being a wife and mother.  I had a schedule for myself and I started enjoying to organize and cook and clean.  I even found a like for singing along to Disney and Barney videos.  LOL. -Back then we had no cable TV.   I also began to pull an old brown book off the shelf again during nap times.  My Bible.

*If you stayed with my story to the end, thank you!  I really look forward to getting more into detail on how you can thrive on one income, how Jesus is the key to it all, and my triumphs and failures on the way along!
I plan on posting on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.