BIG, HUGE NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love this photo of me and Jug. One of my all-time favorites. Date is somewhere between, I'd say 2000-2002, at the Finley house and it was a family gathering. It just so clearly represents how my husband makes me feel....cherished, happy, content. He makes me laugh. He makes me slow down and appreciate everything. So I upload this photo and then tell you a story.....
I think we're embarking on a new and wonderful phase of our lives. It's all about to change big time! And it feels just huge. I'll just copy and paste most of my journal entry here...just explains it all..... and delete the too personal stuff!!
Journal Entry May 24, 2008 (in part):
BIG HUGE RELIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m shown again how much my writing everyday, identifying and expressing my feelings is so helpful in my life…provides me with focus and the ability to then express my feelings to others! Man, it is so huge! So very, very helpful.
(deleted text)
Then we were able to really talk. And I just told him with great emotion, tears welling up, that he absolutely, I just knew it in my heart, be away working 300 days a year (explanation: Jug's contract with major home improvement company was not renewed in December and another contractor had expressed great interest in hiring Jug. He met with this fellow yesterday and learned what earning potential was and how much he'd have to work--300 days a year!! That's working away from home six weeks and home one week!!) I told him I knew it would kill him. And I do know that. He would die. I knew he could not work that hard--68 hours a week for six weeks at a stretch away from home, away from me, away from his support system and survive. Somehow, the universe has given me this knowledge and I am thankful for it. I also realized that no matter what, no matter if we lose our place, I’d rather have my husband than all the money in the world. We’d make it work. We just had to. I showed him how we could trim the budget—(deleted text) And he saw how we could get by on so much less. He saw that it was possible and together we decided on a painting business for him. I’m still going to look for part-time, temporary hygiene just until he gets busy enough to need me to help him and us do without my hygiene income—that’s what we’re hoping anyway.
I cannot properly express how very relieved we both are/were with making this decision. Jug has expressed his heart-felt relief more than a couple times since yesterday morning. Just knowing he never has to leave home again—he said he didn’t realize how much it was always weighing on him—trying not to think about it, trying to just enjoy being home, but leaving was always in the back of his mind, ever present—kinda like a dark cloud looming just off to the side and now it’s gone!! For the first time in ten years!! It’s gone!!
I know too that hearing me say to him that I choose my husband over material comforts was huge for him. Hearing me say his health and happiness were more important to me that anything….what a gift. Goes without saying that feeling that way about him is a gift too—to love someone like I do him, it’s a gift and I’m so very grateful for having this love--this lifetime!!
Our lives will change. And change is always hard. But with this internal knowledge that we have definitely made the right choice, we’ll be fine. We’ll be just fine…all is well…. My faith has returned! I just know that the business will be there and we’ll be fine. And I know that if we just take it one step at a time and not lose our focus on today, we can manage through whatever we have to! If it turns out that we can’t pay everything, if we get way behind and the house is foreclosed, we’ll be okay! We will survive. It’ll be hard as hell but we’ll have each other!! And god knows I’d so rather have him than a nice place!!
And Grant and Olivia will now have jobs! Grant can stop looking and begging folks to hire him. He’ll earn way more working for us than he’ll even need. And just think of how life-changing it can be for them to work together! Having that quality time with his daddy!! And Livvie too when she’s home.
So I had lunch with (deleted text) yesterday and got us our first job! ______ has one (or two—can’t remember) rooms that need painting!! Yay!! And _____ said to be sure and call ______—a contractor that has told her that he cannot keep good painters. Then when I went by the store and told Annie Huffman (she works for Michelle some) about it, she said the same thing about her dad, Randy Huffman (he’s a contractor too). So there ya go! Great start.
It’s just all going to be fine. I am more hopeful than I’ve ever been!
And I realize that we’re to thank the Universe for (major home improvement company) letting go of Jug!!!! We’d never been given this opportunity to see Jug’s great potential if he hadn’t been home these months and thrived like he has and given us the ability to see that!! To see that it was even possible for him to be as happy and content (even in light of our difficulties these last months) as he has been! It’s just huge. It’s life-changing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our lives will never be the same!!!
I cherish my husband. I told him yesterday that we were like in a symbiotic relationship. We so enhance, nurture and cultivate the best in each other and that neither of us could have reached our potentials without this. And it’s so true. His love for me has fed me the necessary nutrients to grow, thrive, and blossom. And I for him. God, it’s just a beautiful thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND I AM THE LUCKIEST WOMEN IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ITS ALL GOOD
ALL IS SO VERY WELL………………
No more cookouts and gatherings, holidays without my husband! Another thing I just said yesterday: Jug you have to help me figure out how I’m going to get the tiller to the new garden space…oh, you’ll be home to do that!! No more weekends playing games with the kids without Jug!! No more lonely nights sleeping without him! OMG!!!! ---end journal entry.
So that pretty well sums it up! It really wasn't a hard decision to make--because it's the ONLY decision that could be made. It's scary--will there be enough business? But I keep in my mind that Jug can do absolutely anything to do with construction, he's very versatile, knowledgeable, so if there's not enough painting business he can do other things.
The circumstances have just occurred as they were meant to in the time frame it needed to....we saw and understood what we needed to when we were meant to..... Ain't living and learning just supposed to be this way? I love, I appreciate, the journey of living....loving....
Jug has already said this morning...."Kim, we know what's important. We know that what makes a home is who's in it, family, those we love. We can have a home anywhere. This (our home) is just a place." And when you can see like that....well, it just a huge relief. It's like we've been set free. I've known intimately others that have gone through similar difficulties and they tell me how freeing it is and how it truly demonstrates what's really important in life, in living.
Life is just good. It's just very good! And thank you listeners for listening to my ramblings.....
