Leap of Faith

Big changes are coming to our house starting tomorrow. For six years we've been slaves to the plumbing and pipefitting union and for those six years, it's been a gamble as far as employment goes. Up until this past September, Josh was an apprentice with the union and had no choice but to remain loyal to his local union until his contract was up. Well...his contract is most definitely not up yet. Technically, there are four and a half years left on it.

But we found a loop hole.

Apparently, after you turn out as a journeyman, you can withdrawal from the union due to financial hardship. Josh got this helpful bit of info from a teacher who he befriended while in school. So that's about the time I whipped up a nifty little resume for the ol' hubby and he started gettin' his interview game face on. I really don't want to go into every detail so let's do the short, short version. Months of sitting on the bench waiting for the union to pony up a job for him got us zip. Three whopping hours after sending out a resume to a local job and he's already got an interview. Thanks for your awesome work, union dudes. Talk about your epic fail on their part. After many, many phone calls and a lot of prayer and questions...Josh has a job. WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!! (Sorry. Had to be done.)

So begin the changes. This job is a career job. Retirement, vacation, paid holidays, room for growth...the whole shebang. It's a pay cut. A big one. But theoretically, the pay cut won't be so bad because Josh would be working full time with no unemployment to make up the lost days/months. We also lose union insurance which means we get to join the rest of the working peeps and pay for it out of our own pocket. The first few months leads him through a period of probation when they determine if his starting hourly pay sticks or goes higher. It may not sound like "big changes" to anyone else, but to us...this is huge! We are scared. We also know that the pay cut will make things tight around here. But hopefully tight is better than impossible (which is what unemployment is right now).

Now to the other major change. Okay. Maybe "major" isn't really accurate. But to me it's a big change. Josh has to go baby-face. He's gotta lose the beard. Not just trimmed, folks. The full on smooth effect. No facial hair allowed at this place. It's gonna be rough seeing him beardless, but I suppose I just have to get used to it. I married that beard almost 12 years ago and I'm gonna miss it. I like the scruffy look. I'm going to have my parents take a picture of us this weekend before the beard takes it's final bow.

It's been a rocky six years and I'm kinda scared what will happen next. It's all going to change now. It's time to take that leap of faith and put our lives in God's hands and hope that the path we're taking won't be as bumpy as the last. Wish us luck!