Secret's Out

So, it seemed like just about the stupidest idea in the world to advertise this to the blogosphere while it was going on, but for the past year-and-a-month Martin has been working a second job. It started last fall when our original mortgage company sold our mortgage to an ultra scummy company and our monthly payment jumped up something like 80%. (ok, not THAT much, but the increase was huge.) we had about one month's warning for this. We knew the solution would be to refinance and get away from scummy NationStar, but that takes time and we had to keep paying the sky-high payments until then. At Martin's regular job he can't guarantee to be out of his office by a certain time. During busy times he is sometimes at work until 8 or later, so an after-work job was a no-go. Martin found an ad on craigslist for a nighttime security guard job on Friday and Saturday overnights, midnight-8am. And for awhile it was PERFECT! but then the new wore off. There were still the obvious advantages: extra money (he committed to a year, even though we were able to refinance by late winter and get our payments back to reasonable) we still could go to church as a family, and I had this amazing opportunity to stay up late watching chick flicks every Friday and Saturday night!!! (this is in fact how I got my green sweater made so quickly. I stayed up late knitting every weekend! For a long time I had this great routine--put the girls to bed, Martin napped on the couch until he had to leave, and I would get myself a Starbucks drink and sit at my kitchen table knitting and listening to the folk music programs on NPR. Lovely! But then I finished my green sweater and summer came and we wanted to be more active than during the winter when Martin would sleep during the days as soon as he got home. Meh. Still, he stuck it out until the date he'd set! And that date was TODAY!! two weeks ago he began growing his beard back (he had to shave it for the job) and this morning he came home at 8:00 for the last time. Hooray!

You can see why it would have been foolish of me to basically say "hey all you lurking Internet loonies! My children and I are all alone overnight! Come and get us!!" haha.

In other news, I've been scoring some beyond-belief deals on clothes to fit my growing-but-not-exactly-maternity-clothes-ready belly/waistline. My new rule for shopping is that I will not pay more than $5 per item. And then I find $2.99 racks!!! I am buying clothes for less than the cost of a peppermint mocha. Awesome.

We have seen the Christmas tree at the Union and the girls loved the gingerbread house there. We are enjoying Advent SO MUCH and I am impressed by Anja's spirit of preparation.

Now it's time to read some stories to my cute children who are being piglets this morning. So cute! Here's hoping this posts!