God Never Closes One Door Without....

God never closes one door without….
….giving me another job, giving my husband overtime, and lowering the electricity bill! Resolution #1 (save $10,000 to build a garage) is back on track!!!

Okay, first the new job: I was knee deep in the trenches of substitute teaching in a preschool class yesterday (meaning that I was covered in glue, glitter and Valentines Day crap) when I made a decision. I was going to enjoy myself. I have only had a couple of sub jobs since I got laid off 3 weeks ago, and all I have done at these jobs is mope around and reminisce about how good I had it at my old job. But yesterday, I decided that I was going to make the best of subbing and enjoy the kids. I subbed 5 months of last year before getting my previous special needs job and I loved it. Subbing is like being the fun Auntie. I get to go in, have fun with the kids and then leave. I don’t ever have to worry about paperwork, test scores, or parents. I lost this optimism somewhere in the last couple of weeks but yesterday I got it back. Just as I was starting to enjoy the look on the kids faces as I shook the glitter off of their construction paper and it stuck on the glue, I got a phone call from the school district offering me a long term sub potion as a one-on-one aid with a special needs girl….wait, hold your applause, it get’s better. It is at my daughters school!!!!….wait, it gets better. I didn’t even have to interview for the job, I was recommended because of my reputation at my last job….oh wait, it gets even better…..! The girl I get to work with has a chromosomal disorder that makes her happy all the time! Okay now you can applaud, I know I am! That’s right, her special need is that she is happy all the time, therefore lacking in any common sense. What a great way to live. God is so amazing! Special needs kids have been touched by God. The more I am around them, the more I am convinced of it. Even though they will surely have social and physical problems here on earth, they have the gift of eternal innocence and they will surely have a special place set aside for them in heaven. And now I will get to be around one of God chosen little people every day!!!

Next on the blessings list, a bill. A couple of blogs ago, I expressed my discouragement in spending almost the entire month of January with no electricity in order to lower our bills and save money, only to get an electricity bill that had actually gone up. This month all our hard work has paid off. Our electricity bill dropped down to a shocking $25.68!!!! That is less than a dollar a day that we are spending on electricity. So all the extra money that we budgeted for that bill can go into the garage fund!

And last, but certainly not least, John got asked to do some overtime. My husband has not gotten overtime since September of ‘09. This was difficult for us because up until then, he had always worked 12 hour shifts so we had gotten comfortable with at least 30 hours of overtime on each paycheck. To go from 30 to zero hours of overtime…in September of all months (the month of the kid’s birthdays), was particularly hard. Since his income has been cut I have been praying. Not for money to fall from the sky, but for God to give both of us the opportunity to work and earn more money. Then I got my previous job which compensated for the lack of overtime at his work. Then I got laid off from that job, so I continued the same prayer: “God, please give us the opportunity to earn money.” And those prayers have been answered three times over. I got another job, John got overtime this weekend, and living with minimal utilities is finally starting to pay off. And just for show, God did all of these in a single day…within hours of each other. I got the job offer, so I immediately called John to tell him, and he tells me he gets to work overtime. I go home, check the mail and what is in the mail? Our stellar electricity bill. What a day!