Amazing God

Greetings, Readers.

Well, it has been quite some time since I've posted an update actually worth the effort taken to write it. I guess I've just been keeping pretty busy in general. A lot has changed since I started this blog, and all of it is God-given. Most of it is also the reason I'm just now getting a chance to breathe enough to compose my thoughts into words.

Lately, I have had about 11 hours (sometimes more) each day during the business week taken up by work. That's 8 clock hours, one hour lunch, and about two hours going to and from work. Add another hour at the start of the day to get ready for work, and that leaves 4 hours out of a "normal" sleep schedule (16 hours up/8 down) for me to take care of personal business and errands, spend time with the family, and squeeze in a minute or two for myself. Being nocturnal by nature, my sleep schedule usually consists of 6 hours of downtime or less, with the extra uptime spent trying to gather just a little more sanity into my system. This all doesn't include the fact that Monday nights are tied up with 100% "Daddy Duty" time, while my wife is at her small group meeting, and Thursday nights are tied up with the small group meeting that I will be going to shortly. We also still try to make it to The Living Room on Friday nights once in awhile.

I am well aware that for some people, this wold hardly be considered a "busy" life, but for me this is the most hectic it has ever been. Yet, at the same time, I feel somewhat more secure in my life now than I have ever been. This sense of security is what I would like to elaborate upon for awhile, since God has really done some amazing things for me and my family in the past few years.

I'll start with the short version, outlining how various aspects of my life were then and how they are now. "Then" being some time shortly before I started this blog, and "now" being... well, just now.

Living Quarters

Then:
My wife and I were sharing a 10'x11' room with our then-newborn daughter in my Aunt's house. We also had our own bathroom and full access to the living room and kitchen, both of which had some of our stuff in them but were not ours exclusively. My Aunt is a smoker and has several animals, and the house was overall quite unkempt and not well-maintained. It was also in a very crowded neighborhood in between gang territories. We also shared cable TV, telephone, and broadband internet access with my Aunt. Fortunately, I had a router to split the internet up with.

Now:
My family has moved into my mother's house to live with her, my step-father, my step-brother, and my sister. My wife and I have our own bedroom, about the same size as the one at my Aunt's house. My daughter shares a room with my sister on the other side of the house. We also have the front living room to ourselves, which houses both my wife's computer and my own (mine was in our bedroom at my Aunt's house) as well as our own TV, albeit we don't have cable on this unit. We share broadband internet with the rest of the house via ethernet and wi-fi routers.

Transportation

Then:
My wife was driving a much-dilapidated '88 Dodge Aries, which had come to develop seepage along the fuel lines, as well as other problems. I did not have a full driver's license, and so would have to use my bicycle to get around if my wife was ever unavailable.

Now:
The Aries has been replaced with a '92 Ford Crown Victoria. The 'Vic is now in pretty rough shape itself, but still runs when it's needed. We have also more recently acqured a '93 Lincoln Mark VIII to take on the majority of our transportation needs. Perks of the Mark VIII versus both the 'Vic and the Aries include: Power everything (and it all works), sun roof, functional air conditioning, 10-disc CD changer, and more. I have also recently acquired my own driver's license and insurance, so I am no longer dependent upon my wife's availability for transportation.

Communication:

Then:
We shared one telephone line with my Aunt, paying for calling-card style flat-rate long distance service.

Now:
We pay for our own VoIP phone line with free long distance, as well as having our own cell phones for which we pay my mother a relatively small amount to carry on her Family Plan.

Financials:

Then:
I had long been in and out of dead-end jobs, averaging about $6-$7 an hour. The longest and most recent of these was a full-time job at a convenience store that I held for two years at various locations, mostly working third shifts, for $7.35/hour tops. Even with the aid of Food Stamps, WIC checks, and Medicaid for our daughter, we were living paycheck-to-paycheck by the penny. A large portion of these paychecks was going to my Aunt for rent.

Now:
I have now moved into the IT industry, finally. I am doing computer migrations and deskside support for a large corporation, with potential for advancement far beyond anything I could have wanted or imagined in any of my previous jobs. I am making $10/hour, plus benifits and get paid holidays including some government holidays, vacation time and sick time. It felt really weird, yet amazingly great to havethis past Monday (Memorial Day) off, and not have to worry about having a short paycheck. The job is much farther away from home, (30 miles, versus 3-5 miles at my previous jobs) but now that I have my own license, a second car (!!!) and insurance, the only (relatively small) challenge is keeping the gas tank full.

Oh yeah, did I mention the second car?!?! This is the most recent blessing God has placed in our laps, so I'm still really hyped about it. There is so, oh so much to say about how God has brought us here, but I should save that for another time. He truly has given us more than I ever could have expected, or even imagined to ask for. With all that He has done so far, I can't wait to see the house that He has prepared for us to call our own.

I'm really hoping to be able to discipline myself into having more time for this blog, as I have so much good news to share, and this is one of the projects that has slidden to the back burner for quite some time either due to a slight depression in our situation, or an over-abundance of blessing consuming my time.

Until next time, good night, and God bless.

- Iszi