Day Walker.

Seems like you get a whole lot of nothing on this website from Jessica and I and then it’s one after the other isn’t it? I’ve been meaning to write something new on here for quite a while now but I just never seem to get around to actually doing it. I suppose I should before everything gets forgotten. I guess the biggest news that I have to give is that after six years I’m coming off the overnight shift and going to days. Not Monday through Friday day shift, which is impossible to get where I work unless you’ve been there a minimum of a couple decades but its day shift nonetheless which is pretty hard to get no matter what days you are working. It doesn’t work the best for us when it comes to day care because its so hard to find a babysitter on the weekends that is reliable and won’t let the baby drown in the toilet while texting their boyfriend but I guess it will all work out in the end somehow. Anyway what brought this shift change on was that I applied for a team leader job on second shift, I interviewed pretty well but got beat out for it by someone else who also was a pretty good choice and was already basically taking on some of the responsibilities of the job. It is what it is I guess, I can’t get all that upset about it because there are plenty of things that I could have done to put myself over the top and make myself more of a contender that I didn’t do and the things that I thought would hurt me did hurt me. My biggest problem was that its not what you know but who you know that helps you move up the most in this world and me being on the overnight shift for so long where I’m out of sight and out of mind hurt me a lot. I’m hoping that this move to the day shift will help in that area. I’m also excited about it because to be honest, the overnight is really starting to wear thin. It was great for a single guy who had nothing to come home to but a dog, but its no good when you have a family. I feel tired and sick all the time and I don’t feel like I’m being a good husband or father and I’m tired of not being able to do anything or get anything done when I’m not at work because I always feel so crappy (except on the weekend when I’m sitting up by myself at three AM, then I feel great which doesn’t do me any good). I’m excited to be able to sleep at night like a normal person and also be awake and well rested on my days off to go do things with the family or get work done around the house.

I’ve been working as much overtime as I can get lately because of the uncertainty of Jessica’s job situation. We still don’t know how much she will be working this summer, we were told one thing but then another thing happens and she may be only getting twenty hours a week which almost isn’t enough to make it worth working at all after you pay for day care and gas. The money left over after paying those things will be less than half what she was getting on unemployment. We will try to get through it this year but if this is the new normal because of budget cuts a new job will need to be had which sucks because she likes working for the park. For now I’ve stopped adding money to any investment or retirement accounts except for Alexander’s college fund so that we can improve our cash flow. I’m keeping track of all the money I am deferring so that in the future when things improve again I can replace it and get us back on track. Hopefully the additional funding at the park will come through and Jessica can work a relatively normal season this year. I guess we shall see.

Jessica’s sister got us some tickets to see the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in Omaha last week. She said that she got us some cheap seats up in the upper balcony because that’s all that was left but when we got there and found our seats they were great seats, up close to the stage where the bigwigs normally sit. She even popped for valet parking. It was great feeling like we were part of the upper crust of society instead of borderline poor white trash (I think we are technically lower middle class but I always feel poor). It was definitely a good show but I think it would have been a lot better to experience it down in New Orleans during Mardi Gras in a much more intimate setting rather than in a big auditorium. It was still a lot of fun though and I liked getting a little exposure to that kind of music, Jessica had already gotten a taste of similar stuff when she was in Nashville so she kind of knew how it went. Anyway, thank you so much Staci for the tickets, we had a great time.

I will have to see about uploading some video and pictures of the various things going on with us and the boy, we’ve got some video of his first haircut which went very badly and some fresh video from the zoo a couple weeks ago which he thought was awesome. All that is very time consuming though so it will have to wait for another time.