Hubs is Unemployed Now, but We Had Fun Anyway!

For those of you that don’t know already, my husband is officially unemployed. He didn’t want me to blog about it in fear that I’d say something that would come back to haunt us, but I wouldn’t say anything bad about his actual employer. Schnucks was very good to us. His last day was actually the 16^th of September (we've known about this "layoff" for quite some time now, just not WHEN), and to Gene it was just the right amount of time. You see, he hated his job; so much so that at one point he was going to quit without even having anything lined up. Like I said, he liked the employer, as did I, but the hours and some of the people he worked with just kind of ruined it for him. So, this was kind of his “blessing in disguise” so to speak.

He doesn’t have a new job yet, but he’s sure that he will find one soon. A couple of interviews have come and gone, but for whatever reason, he didn’t get any of them. I guess they weren’t in God’s plan for us. In the meantime, he’s spending each and every day with our youngest daughter. They have quite the bond now; it’s super cute.

While he did get a severance package, I’m sure you’ll understand when I say that him being out of a job is scary as heck. Severance runs out quick if you’re not careful, and now we have to pay a lot more for health insurance to boot! So right now, I’m pinching every penny I can in hopes that we can use as little of that money as possible.

While I’m pinching my pennies though, we still have Emma in daycare (we didn’t want to disrupt her normal routine if we could avoid it), and Holli’s wedding is just one week away so there will be loads of money being spent very soon on all things bridesmaid. I’m freaking out inside. We make plans and take on obligations so far in advance, that when something like this happens, it’s inevitable that you would have some big things planned out already. But, after this coming weekend, we are pretty much going to be out for the count. We have got to get our spending in check because who knows if he will find a job tomorrow, or six months from now.

Fortunately, we were able to do some pretty cool stuff this past weekend, before I put the kibosh on all spending.   

Friday Night:  My cousin Jamie got married to a beautiful woman named Julie. Their wedding was gorgeous and we had a great time. I keep thinking about the dinner they had too – wish I would have gotten seconds. Jamie is part of the Lococo Family that I always talk about. You know, that super fun Italian bunch that everyone wants to be a part of.

Beautiful ceremony!

Saturday Day:  I went with a local author friend, Lyssa Layne, to Pennedcon. Never heard of it before, but it’s authors who rent booths/tables and come together to talk about their books and sell a few as they go. It was neat to hear about all the different books, and where some of the authors come from.

Saturday Night:  The hubs and I had a date night. Our venue was something we try to go to every year, so even though we are watching what we spend, we went ahead and did it anyway. So what was it? Why, St. Charles Oktoberfest, of course! I love listening to the German music – especially the yodeling. It was a good time. It was mostly just me and Gene all night, and he may have drank too much Oktoberfest beer, but it was still fun. And we had Waffle House and got home at a decent time too.

Sunday Day:  The hubs had a rough morning, so when I went to get the kiddos, I decided to take them to the kids area at Oktoberfest to give him more time to sleep. It was SO hot. I think I was super close to a heat stroke. Haha. Maybe not, but you get how hot it was. I pulled them around in the wagon, with them all nice and shaded and me in the blazing sun. What happened to fall?!?!? They had a good time though, so that’s all that mattered. And needless to say, we didn’t stay very long.

Sunday Night:  This was the best thing of the entire weekend… Disney on Ice!!! I bought the tickets months ago, on presale, with a big discount. I think I got us all three seats, third row from the ice, for like $90 after all the fees (Chaifitz in St. Louis is nice and small compared to huge venues like Scottrade, so really anywhere in the arena is a good view). We weren’t sure at the time when Gene would be out of a job, so I had no idea we’d be watching our money so closely now. But, it was a fun time. We had hot dogs and nachos for dinner, and we gave in and got Emma a snocone (a FIFTEEN dollar snocone!) to share with Alice. The girls had a blast. Alice would squeal any time she’d see the Mickey Mouse gang, and Emma was all about Buzz Lightyear and Elsa. It was such a great show. I wish we could do things like this more often, but we’ll have to hold off for now. Maybe Sesame Street Live in February. ;-)

So, that was my busy, expensive weekend. I snuck in some grocery shopping at our new “grocery place” on Sunday – i.e. Wal-Mart – and I may have bought a lot of Ramen noodles. Haha!

If you have a prayer to spare, maybe say one that the hubs finds the job of his dreams here soon. ;-)

And thanks for reading! The blog wouldn’t be where it is today without all of my readers out there.

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Now, how was YOUR weekend?