I was hoping that Thursday's post would be this awesome cliff hanger. I would end it by saying I had to go car shopping and then I would be able to post a picture today about my new car.
That's not going to happen though. The Universe has other plans.
Before DH even got home from work Friday evening he got a call from the contract agency that his awesome job that he loved so very much has ended his contract.
That was a punch in the gut I was not expecting. I had anticipated a million different things that could have gone wring with the car shopping. I thought the car deals I was finding were too good to be true, and I was worried that may be would end up spending too much money buying the car and we would end up more broke than we wanted to be. Or maybe the dealership would pull a bait and switch routine and we would have to leave without the car we were promised. Or maybe the lenders would pull out at the last minute and we would be denied financing and we would be stuck looking for a cash car instead of a new one.
In all my worst-case scenarios, I never imagined that we would be cancelling the appointment entirely because we are going to have to make our little windfall stretch as far as possible for bills instead of buying a second vehicle.
Right now, we have one vehicle - a 15 year old mini-van - and we are going to have to repair the A/C that just went out so that DH won't show up to interviews hot and sweaty. At one point over the last week I had thought that maybe we could trade it in and put that money toward a different used vehicle for DH to use as a commuter car. That's not going to happen at all now. Instead of providing us with a little bit of a down payment, the van is going to cost us a chunk of change that we really need to save.
Of course, I'm still looking for the positives here. It doesn't change the fact that I am just, plain mad as hell. I'm thankful that DH got the call on the way home because if they had waited until Monday to tell him, we would have gone to the dealership and bought the car and it would have been too late to back out. I'm glad that we do actually have money in the bank - enough to pay the bills for the next month, at least. I'm thankful that the insurance is paying for a rental car until Tuesday so we had a few more days left of having two vehicles. That also means we will have a car to drive on Monday while the van is in the shop.
Now, in spite of the bad news on Friday, we still had plans to go out of town this weekend. DH was Head Man for a powwow in Houston and LH was Head Lady. This is the first time DH has been asked to be Head Man and he was very excited. It's a huge honor, especially for someone like us who was not born with Native American blood, but was brought up in the traditions by an "adopted" family. There was so much good that came out of being there, surrounded by people we know and love.
I'm thankful that we still had the rental car to take to the powwow in Houston this weekend. It was tight with all three girls crammed in the back seat of the tiny car and we barely had room in the trunk for our suitcases but it was safe and got great gas mileage. I'm thankful that because DH and LH were both Head Staff the organization even paid for our hotel room down there. The organization also gifted both of them cash for their positions so all the gas and eating out that we had to do did not actually set us back. We, incredibly, came out ahead.
Hopefully by tomorrow I will have a bunch of pictures to show off from the weekend, but tonight I am tired and sad and I have to make plans for all the things than need to happen in light of the changing job situation. We've got places to call research to do and I've got to figure out how long I can make everything work around here with one car and no income. As usual, all prayers and good thoughts are welcome and appreciated. I know we will get through this, just like always. I mean, our survival rate for job crises so far has been 100%, so we have a good chance if surviving this too.
Deb
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