Promotions, Car Problems and House Guests

It has been a while and quite a bit has happened. But as my belly gets bigger and the scale reads heavier, I have less energy. Most days I sit around the house reading a book, hoping the kids aren't tearing things up around me. Anything other than that makes me tired and sends me into contractions (and lately they are occasionally painful).

First off, Alan got a promotion! Long story short (and believe me this is the short version): Alan's boss's boss came up to him on a Thursday a few weeks ago and asked if he had a few minutes to chat. They conversed very casually for 15-20 minutes about his professional goals. Then he told Alan that he was going to send him upstairs to meet with a VP while she was in town. Once he got with her, she said "You've already had your interview, I just wanted to get to know you" or something like that. He was thinking "Interview? HUH? Is that what that was?" Since he didn't apply for a position he was pretty surprised.

On Sunday at church a friend who happens to be the big VP at the company came up to us and congratulated Alan on his promotion. Then we were really confused because Alan hadn't been offered a job yet. He apologized for letting the cat out of the bag, but said that he had signed off on the promotion and thought they would offer it to Alan on Friday. But that Friday Alan had to leave early for a scout camping trip so he wasn't given the good news. Then of course we stressed out about it all weekend. It was an especially long wait because Alan had arranged previously to take Monday off.

He showed up on Tuesday for work when the original boss that interviewed him told him that he had the job if he wanted it. When Alan accepted he said "Good, I'll go round up your new team and introduce you, then you can get to work!" He was in a bit of a daze and essentially it was baptism by fire. This was almost 2 weeks ago, but so far he seems to really like the change. He manages a team of people doing what he used to do on the phones. Only now he doesn't have to be on the phone, he just gets to help others be better at it. Oh, and did I mention that the promotion came with a very generous pay raise? We still aren't rich, but it is more money than we have ever made. It will be nice not to feel so strapped financially. I feel very blessed.

Jonnie Price moved in with us 2 weeks ago. He is a friend from Utah. He and his wife and son used to live across the street from us in Brigham City. Jonnie got a job where Alan works so he came down and is staying here until he finds a place to live and can bring his family down. Who knows, Ashley and Kingston may end up here for a while too. It would be tight, but probably fun. The kids would like having Kingston to play with. Benjamin likes Jonnie. It is like having a fun second dad.

The a/c compressor broke in our car last week. We got quoted $1200 to fix it! We didn't want to dump anymore money into the car, especially after having put a new transmission in a few months ago. So we went and looked at some new cars. Ultimately we chickened out. We still need a second car pretty bad, but we didn't want to acquire another payment until we pay off the credit card which we had to use to fix the car a couple of months ago. We ended up going to a mechanic in our ward and got the a/c fixed and some other things fixed too for $1050 instead of $1200. Luckily I closed on a house earlier this week and we were able to use my small commission check to pay for the repairs on the car. In some places air conditioning may be a luxury, but in AZ in the summer it is a necessity. One afternoon I had to run a bunch of errands and it was 114 degrees outside. Luckily I was by myself, it was beyond unpleasant. I was literally afraid to drive my kids around after that until it got fixed. They likely would have gotten heat stroke since you can't even roll down the windows in the back of a mini-van. I'm glad it is taken care of though. It was rough going for 4 days with 3 adults who have different schedules and no car between them. I would have liked to use my commission check to pay down the credit card but at least I didn't have to put the new repairs on it too!

Well this has been a book of a blog. Sorry (if anyone has actually kept reading to this point). I will have to make sure that I don't take so long to write about it next time something actually happens in my dull life. The picture above is of Alan and Jonnie making their lunches this morning.