Life is Amazing

I am constantly amazed with life. When I have thought that life was at it's darkest, suddenly the sun breaks through and I can see the light. Of course the darkest days were when I was adjusting to the thought of being divorced. Since I got over those fears, most of my dark clouds seemed to be about money and yet like the old saying, when a door closes, someone opens a window. Whether you think it's God or just the fates, I have been so blessed in the last couple of years.

A couple of years ago when I really didn't know how I was going to make it, a job jumped right into my lap and I became the secretary at the church where I play the organ during the winter. Besides the added money, it was just good for me to be busy with a new job. I had a lot to learn but I also had a lot to offer the job.

Things went pretty good for a while then once again my finances became a little scary. I didn't know what I was going to do about some bills when suddenly I get a phone call from a guy I know telling me about a job opening that I might want to look into. Sure enough, about a month later I got my job at Aspire of WNY. This job was really a step up for me as far a money but also was a management position.

Soon the job at church was beginning to suffer so in fairness to the church and to myself, I gave that job up. Then the job of head bus driver was coming up. I applied for the job and with my added skills that I had gained at Aspire, I thought I had a pretty good shot at it. I had a good interview then it was going to be a few weeks before a choice was announced. I start crunching numbers and looking at my lifestyle and I realized that I didn't want to be head bus driver. I would be giving up too much that I had worked for in my life, believe if or not. The day before the decision was going to be made, I sent a letter saying without a better rate of pay, I was no longer interested in the position. I had a couple phone calls after that and it became pretty clear that more money would not be offered. These phone calls also made it fairly clear that I was going to be offered the job. It was almost a relief to not have to think about learning a new job.

Then another phone call came from my boss from my Aspire job. He was resigning his position at Aspire to move into a position with a school district. Suddenly I wondered if I was still needed at Aspire. A few days later I happened to stop over to the office (I had been off there all week because of school opening). I was standing outside talking to Marge, the office manager, when Percy, the head of our building stuck his head out the door asking me to step into his office for a talk. Within a few minutes I was seated at the table in Percy's office and we were talking about my future with Aspire. I guess everyone was wondering if I knew that Jim was going to resign, which of course I didn't know, but also wasn't surprised. After talking to Percy for a while, we agreed to meet on Monday to discuss my future at Aspire. On Monday when we finally sat down and talked, I was offered to expand my hours to 20 per week spread out over 5 days. So far this is temporary until a new fleet safety manager is hired but it also could become permanent. So this means I won't be able to do any mid day runs at school, but Aspire pays me well enough to make up for that. At school I was offered and accepted a temporary late run while it's regular driver recovers from surgery, probably after November. It happens to be a very long run, many times taking over 2 hours to complete so this makes up for me losing extra runs. So at the present, I'm working about 50 hours per week and I'm still planning on doing my organist gig this winter.

So once again my finances are looking a bit brighter. I'm putting extra money into my motorcycle payments with plans of paying off the bike at least four months early. Then it's time to increase my payments on my home equity and start saving up for a new roof. I'm still conflicted about whether to take advantage of the tax incentive for the new windows this year or just save up to have more of a cushion in my bank account. I have also started a 403(B) account at Aspire which I think shows my committment to continue working there.

It's rather difficult for me to think back a couple of years when I didn't know if I was going to make it to finding out I can get by without out of a lot of things that I thought were important and to learn what is truly important and of course the most important things in life have no cost.

Yes indeed, life is truly amazing.