RACE TRAC

Money has been tight for awhile now and I am not one to wallow in my misery. I may be depressed a bit over a issue but I soon get to work finding a way to fix what ever problem is at hand. To back track in January I became a stay at home Dad. Our adopted kids have had a lot of uncertainly in their lives and they were not doing good having to go to after school care until 6 PM when we picked them up everyday. I have been in sales for 14 years and I was getting burnt out and needed a change. Plus the economy was such that my 12 hour days were spent paying for day care and not much else. Liz loves her job and made more money then I did so I became a House Husband! I am also a better cook so we tighted the budget and paid off the truck and van and the adventure was on! Being a stay at home Dad has been a lot of work and not a job for the faint at heart. People look at me like I just hang out at home doing nothing but I get stressed out if I do not do enough! I did get a lot done when school was in session. The house was clean, laundry was done, the kitchen was clean and dinner was made, the lawns and backyard looked good and little projects were done around the house. Then summer hit us! I had to entertain these guys everyday! Oh my! Needless to say that Liz no longer came home to everything being done. Thankfully she realized that I was not just sitting around watching TV! The best part about this experience is that I have built a closer bound with my adopted kids then was there before when all I did was work. Kids bound quickly with a Mom but Dads can be a different story and with adoption that is even more true. Towards the end of the school year I did get a job with Allen ISD for the last 2 weeks of the school year as a Cafeteria Monitor with the hopes that next year it will grow into a better position. We ended up having weeks go by where we had no money until Liz got paid and that has been a little scary plus we did not have any savings in case of an emergency. So this last week with the help of my friend David Mauss I got a job working the graveyard (10 PM to 6 AM) shift at the Race Trac gas station/connivance store location in McKinney, TX. I will admit that I am a Quick Trip fan but hey, they didn't hire me when I applied....twice! I could have started out in management with Race Trac making a lot more money but I wanted to make sure that this would be a good fit before I went any further. I will be the first to tell you that I feel stupid doing this. I should just get a full time day job doing "something" during the day but I want to be there for my family and not just meet their financial needs. I will say that making the change to both staying at home and deciding to work at a gas station is not easy. I will be honest in saying that I feel stupid doing something that I did when I was 20. I tried to explain all of this last week in Elders Quorum (men's group at church) when our lesson was on Provident Living but I just got bland stares. Our ward has a lot of people with money in it and is made up of Engineers and software/computer guys and I know that they think that I am a loser but I don't care. Believe me, I am the only guy in my ward or in the Universe that I know who stays home with his kids. It is a change but my kids have a parent home with them during the day! Sleep will be a luxury but if I do this and the school job we can get rid of our "bad debt" with in a year and then refinance our house since our credit score will be better. I also want to build up our savings for an emergency and save for a trip to Disneyworld next year with the Sims. I would not go on such a trip knowing that I was in debt! If I get into management or a better job with Allen ISD all the better!