Back to work...

My husband started working on the addition. In May 2008, our twin sons were born. The Lord blessed us with two healthy full term twins. My husband also started his job search. Through a contact at Home Depot (after being up there so often with the addition) he got a job selling windows and siding for Home Depot Home Services. It was commission only, but we thought it could still work out. After about 10 weeks there, my husband realized he was paying to go to work with gas expenses, time, etc. Not exactly what we were looking for in a job!

After 12 weeks of maternity leave, I returned back to work. Unbeknownst to us, this was a blessing in disguise, my paycheck would help us get through the next year and a half.

When I returned back to work, we decided to hire a babysitter from the local area. This way we were not committed to a year with an au pair and we would have flexibility in who watched our children. We found a great sitter named Sarah.

While Home Depot was not working out, my husband landed a job with a local construction company through someone in our church. Things were looking good. We were back to two incomes!

Nearly a year after working there, the work started to dry up. My husband was laid off for a period of two months or so. The timing worked out well because there were still major tasks to accomplish with the addition. We were already living in the new space, but it was by no means completed. My husband was able to finish up the siding and collect unemployment. We were still doing okay.

The company that laid him off brought him back and he was employed again. Unfortunately, this is pretty standard process for construction companies. It's one of the reasons my husband had gotten out of that field many years before. A few months later, he was laid off again. This time, my husband set out to pursue another career. He did some career testing and wanted to find what areas he would be really good at. Engineering came out at the top of his list. Maybe he could pursue something like civil engineering or even computer engineering.

He started taking a class at a local college and continued looking for jobs. It was April of 2010 and we decided to plan a family trip to the Washington DC area to see the beautiful cherry blossoms. We were going to go while the kids were on spring break.

A week before our trip, one late night, I was poking around the internet looking for possible jobs for myself. I was on monster.com looking in the Information Technology jobs. I noticed a job for a templater, someone who makes templates for granite and marble surfaces. I left the screen up on the computer. My husband had been down chatting with my parents, when he came up I told him to check it out. He decided to apply.

This job seemed like a good combination between his construction skills and the computer skills he received while getting his associates degree in Information Technology 10 years prior.

The company called the next day and requested an interview! Yahoo!! The next day!! That sounded promising. My husband went on the interview and everything went really well.

A day before we were supposed to leave on our trip, the company called and requested a second interview. Oh man! Of course we cancelled our trip! A job for my husband was priority at this point! The kids were very understanding as well as my sister who we were going to visit.

Praise the Lord, at the end of that week, they offered my husband a job. He was going to start right away too. Finally, steady work, a chance for overtime pay, a job that combined my husbands' many interests! God is good!