Ah-Ha Moment...

The last few weeks have been overwhelming. We host Christmas at our house every year. Both sides of the family come to our house Christmas Eve through Christmas Day dinner. It is an extravaganza of food, drinks, gifts and fun. We always have a great time and since we have the young children it is easier for the rest of our family to come to our house rather than us hauling them and their stuff around. This time of the year brings on the added stress of planning on where those people will be sleeping. Since we have family all over the U.S. with some of my siblings in Texas and Darek's in D.C. and Florida we never know until October who will all be making the trip back to WI. This year we will be blessed with four additional family members (2 couples), which of course will be fun...but where will they sleep? That means rooms that are in the midst of new trim and paint and door fixes need to get done ASAP and that curtain on the 1/2 bath downstairs...maybe should be a real door. Our kitchen is still too small for all the cooks and with no dishwasher it will be another year at the kitchen sink cleaning up after 3 meals for 14 people. 

Just for good measure we have decided to move our storage space and clean up the garage...after all why make things too easy. The biggest issue with this planning and prepping process is that Darek has been cutting back hours at work to get more done at home...that...makes for a smaller paycheck. Pretty sure we used the word "puny" to describe it to our coach Don. So now is the time to pull up the boot straps...and find the silver lining...the ah-ha moment.

Several things have created that ah-ha moment for us this time. First Darek needs to make sure he keeps his hours up or we can barley keep above water...sort of. Second the house projects will get done and if someone has to sleep in a half painted room...well so be it at least they have a bed. Last but not least...the sort of (from above)...we realized that even though the last paycheck was smaller than we were used to we did get everything paid. The bank account dipped into the teens for balance left but there is a savings account...a real live savings account...this is HUGE people! If we needed to…we could use it. What a moment for us! We realized that we were no longer just holding the account open with the $5 minimum. We had money in our savings and if an emergency showed up and the checking was too emaciated to handle it we could cover it with our savings. That ah-ha moment is priceless, with that there is a feeling of freedom and peace that feeds our soul.

This week we are celebrating our family and all their complexities.