Oy Freakin' Vey!!

We just spent the day moving the furniture in the basement from the main room into the newly painted (yes, I said PAINTED!!) bedroom. And then my brother and Ben moved 18 sheets of drywall around the house (they were in the shed) and down the basement stairs. Monday my uncle and brother will be coming over to start hanging drywall in the main room (which will be kinda like our living room). That should take a day and a half, and then I THINK my Dad is going to hire someone to tape, mud and sand it, because the person who was doing it is tired of doing it. All of this has to be done by the time my Dad goes in for his second hip surgery on August 27th. The really cool thing is that Ben and I were able to set up our other two computers (our Dell desktop and my Mac G3 desktop) that have been lying dormant in that basement since last September. Yes we have four computers (5 acutally...my iMac is currently being loaned out to my sister's family). Yes we're geeks.

In other news....

Ben was laid off from his job last Wednesday. This came as a TOTAL shock to both of us. He was given absolutely NO warning that this might happen. As far as he and his boss were concerned, everything was going just fine. It was the owner of the company who made the decision. Actually, when he called Ben in, he said he called everyone together in a meeting and they "all agreed" that it was best for Ben to go. Yeah, well, that's not what Ben's direct supervisor said. And the owner has done this to two other people before Ben too—in just the exact way. One of them, Ben's friend Bill, was told that everyone met together and decided that he was "too devicive" to continue working well with the team. Well, Ben said there was never any meeting that HE was in where that happened. The other guy didn't even know that he had been let go until the insurance company called him and told him he didn't have insurance!!! He was on vacation or something, I think. So this was SO not Ben's fault this time...and it was done SO underhandedly. He did it right at the time when Ben was supposed to have gotten a raise AND when the new insurance plan was to take effect. I hope he enjoys his month-long ski trip in Aspen at Christmas and his two week pacific deep sea fishing trip next summer. The good news, though, is that he had an interview on Friday afternoon and has another intervew on Monday morning.

And because of how and when this is all hitting us, we have decided (after MUCH head pounding and prayer) to file for bankruptcy. [sigh] There. I said it. The girl with golden credit is bankrupt.

Let me take everyone aside for a moment, though and set down a few "ground rules," so to speak. This is my blog. I blog the things that are going on in my life...the things I do and think. Yes, I KNOW this will be on our credit for the next 10 years. We are painfully aware of how this will be affecting our lives. No matter what your intentions, please don't beat us up any further and tell us we're doing the wrong thing. Trust me—we have looked at every possible option, talked to everyone we can think of and prayed all we can pray. These are the only cards we have left in our hand. And lest you think we think this is a "quick fix" and we'll go merrily along living the same way, we're not. We have been living credit card free for the last 8 months. We know how to live without them now, so we won't be going back.

So anyway...that's where we're at. We have a meeting set up this Wednesday with a lawyer that comes highly recommended to us. We got a butt-load of paperwork in the mail today. Don't ask me how I'm going to get all that information filled out with a toddler running around and trying to do work for my Dad. Maybe I'll start dipping into those pesky unused 8 hours at night that I don't do anything with.

posted by Brandi at 5:13 PM