I finally took the scary plunge and turned in my two week notice at my job that I have been at for 17 years. It is hard to leave a good paying job, but when you keep feeling like God is hitting you over the head and telling you, "I have something better for you. I need you to do other things." It is hard to ignore and put off what you are being told.
I have been working towards this in many ways, we have been living on my husband's income for the last year and using my income to pay off a pretty large credit card balance, put money aside so I can finish my schooling, and build up our emergency fund and start towards saving to put a new roof on our house. I worry that I am jumping the gun too early and could finish paying off a second credit card (which currently has a zero percent interest and fixed payments for 5 years) and save for the new roof, but I felt if last year when I decided to do this I didn't put a hard stop date I would always find something else that needed more money to be done and I would be there for another 17 years. This would defeat the purpose of what God has been telling me to do.
Even though I worry, I know that God will take care of us. I know that He is telling me to take the plunge and if I follow His path for me, I will be blessed. Things may be tough for a bit and there will be sacrifices that will need to be made. But I believe in the end we will find my more happiness because of the choice that my husband and I made for me to quit my job and go in a different direction in our lives.
My husband will still keep his job and we can live on his income. Like I said, somethings will have to be sacrificed, but I still think we can do many of the things we have in the past. It will not be a hard change for us, I made sure we did it on a trial basis for the last year and it has worked.
The big changes will be for me and what I do. First, we have decided that I will homeschool our son. He has struggled for many years in school and we moved him to a private school three years ago. It seemed to work at first, but last year and this year have been more and more of a struggle. In October while on our family vacation, I felt like Heavenly Father knocked me over the head and I had a "Eureka" moment. My son is smart, people comment on it all the time. But he also has a learning disability that makes learning numbers or remembering formulas very difficult. We have tried to learn his times tables and he can remember them long enough to do them right then but by the next day he has forgotten them and looks at you like he has never seen them before a day in his life. It is frustrating for all of us. However, we have found that if he has some type of an interaction with the concept that is being taught he remembers it for years. We had multiple experiences on our vacation where he would remember something he had learned a whole year before (while on another family vacation) and could answer the tour guide or teacher of the class he took at the resort flawlessly. Some of the things I didn't even know the answer to. But what I realized was that he knew these answers from things he had done in the past, places we had gone, activities he had done. It was all interactive and I realized at that point, he needs a hands on learning curriculum. In school, most kids are told to sit down and be quite. But when you tell him to do that he shuts down. He becomes bored, not because he is so smart, but because he just can't concentrate like that. I know it will be a big challenge and some days I think I am going to want to pull my hair out, but in the end I know it is the best thing for my son.
The next change is that not only do I want to continue to run our rental property business, but I want to actually learn how to do the repair work. I want to learn how to install a new water heater, replace a bathtub, seal a bathtub, put up new insulation, etc. I have some repair work that I have schedule and luckily the guy is my friend and I have asked him to allow me to help him and learn how to do these things too. He has agreed and after school is out, I will also take my son with us so he can learn these skills too. Who knows, I may end up training a future handyman!
Finally, I love to scrapbook. I don't have much time now between work, school, family, housework, and my calling so it is on the back burner. But with the change in job status, I now want to use my skills to create digital invitations and cards. I will sell them through Etsy and the good news is, I have a friend who will be my mentor and is currently doing it and loves it. I know with some hard work and Heavenly Father's support I can be successful.
So the plunge has begun. I have done it. I finally got the courage to say goodbye to a job that has begun to take its toll on me mentally and emotionally and putting myself first. I am looking forward to the freedom, the new adventures and changes this will bring in our lives. It is scary, but exciting!
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