"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.." -Charles Dickens
These past few weeks have been the biggest emotional roller coaster I think I have ever ridden. Hands down.
On one side of the coin, our family has been triple blessed. Thomas is a blessing, and every little sigh and squeek he makes leaves my heart fluttering. Andrew is such an amazing kid. Every time he and I talk, I watch the blooming of a man emerging-and as much as it scares me to see him grow up so fast-I'm wholy confident that he has every quality we've prayed for him to have as he grew up. Hannah brings light to every situation, as dark or bleak as it may seem at the time. The way her eyes dance when she's telling a story leaves a huge smile on my face even after she's skipped off to her next project. We are truly, truly blessed.
On the flip side, our life is leaving us up at night wondering how we are
ever going to make it right now. Let me preface by explaining Steve's work situation. Steve is a self employed "mechanic" (though the term mechanic is the furthest thing from what he
really is.) Anyhoo.. He works in a bay that is on a lot with a guy named Randy who sells trailers & parts. Randy rents the place, and Steve pays Randy a bay fee to work out of the spot. Randy's business has been suffering for some time now. Steve, however, has been doing phenomenal at work. Sometimes he has to book clients weeks in advance because he literally does not have enough time in the day for them all.
After Thomas was born, Steve took some time off to be with us. However, because he has people relying on him (and everyone who knows Steve knows he's going to do everything in his power to help someone out when they need it) there were occasional times when he had to run up to work to finish projects as parts came in for the jobs he'd promised to fix. Well, one of those days was last week. He's happily working when all of a sudden, Randy comes up and tells him he's going to be closing shop. At the end of July.
THREE weeks away. He tells him he's really sorry, since he's got a baby and a family to worry about. Ummm.
So not only does Steve no longer have a job-he now has to figure out what to do with all of his work equipment, tools, parts for jobs, metal, EVERYTHING. We have a garage, but there is NO WAY his stuff will fit. 10 years of work stuff pushed into a 3 bedroom house with 3 kids, 2 adults, 2 dogs and 2 birds? I really truly doubt it's gonna be pulled off.
So after many tense days of stress, sleep deprivation, and LIFE we mulled over the possibilities. Steve finally decided on taking over the lot. He won't be selling trailers until later on, but he will continue to do what he already does, along with being able to sell parts (Randy currently sells the parts and makes the profit). He has a customer turned good friend that will rent out half of the lot (Steve doesn't need the office, just the work bay) so he won't have to pay the entire thing.
So. This could be the best thing that ever happened, or could put us in the hole quite quickly. I have every confidence in Steve. He is amazing at his job, and customers love him. He has people coming from as far as Orange County to have him work on their things. My worry is this economy. One thing I learned from watching my Grandpa's vaccuum cleaner shop was that when the economy goes bad people fix things. So right now, people are fixing up their trailers and tractors as opposed to buying new and Steve is profiting quite well from it. When the economy picks up, he can sell new trailers and still fix the old, and maybe, just maybe, this will work.
For now, I'm just going to squeeze my eyes shut and pray really, really hard.
