A Reality Show in the Making

If you've been sitting at your computer the past week, longing for my word-vomit, wondering where oh where that Cass could be, well, here I am. Peek-a-boo! Forgive me, I was recovering from an incident. One where someone dropped a bomb on us. A nice, quiet bomb, with a side of rudeness.

By someone, I mean Andrew's "partners." And by bomb, I mean Major Life Changing Pay Cut. By dropped, I mean handed over in manila envelope after friendly meeting about a restructuring project. And by partners, I mean not really how I define the word.

To be fair, the partnership was pending on a few things...all of which had been completed, upon which the things the partnership was pending on changed conveniently, at which point we should have turned and run the other direction before the economy shook things up. Hindsight. And, this, because we trusted people. People who apparently drop bombs.

And, it should be noted. The timing of said bomb-dropping is not exactly related to the economy. If it had been, I might have some compassion. But it wasn't. Which pretty much makes it worse.

So, in lieu of blogging last week, I was job searching. And in lieu of job searching, I was staring aimlessly at the computer, in a hopeless daze of confusion and random feelings of needing to hurl, mixed with intermittent zings of it will all be okay. Because it's always okay. And that is what you would tell your friends.

And by the way, I've discovered what I already thought to be true, but never had time to test...You can go a really long time between blinking if you think of something other than going a really long time between blinking...like if you think about cancelling your cable television, or downgrading your cell plan and kissing daydreams of QWERTY keyboards good-bye, or refinancing your car at a higher interest rate. Those things, friends, will leave you staring at your computer. Not blinking. And also not job searching. And also not blogging.

So I've decided to write about all this, at the risk of sounding like I feel sorry for myself, because I don't really. Maybe a tiny bit, but I'll get over it. I know things will get better...and I also know things are still pretty good. But. I feel stressed. I feel tired. I feel anxious and angry and sad and nervous all at once. I feel sorry that we suddenly might not provide what our children are accustomed to...and a bit guilty for that too. But. We are fine. We have a beautiful house, healthy kids, and plenty of love to go around. We'll work through it. We'll pray through it. We'll love each other through it. And we'll come out the other side with a different perspective, and hopefully, better off than before. And we are doing this among many other people in the exact same situation...many of our friends, even.

And, I have a plan. We'll call it Cass and Drew Plus Two. Reality networks, here we come! It's all shits and giggles around here...what with the tired parents and the kids overtaking the home and all. And people can laugh at me trying to tell my kids to turn down the volume, and criticize me for smothering them with attention, and make themselves feel better by seeing how messy my house is. That's what it's all about right? Everyone can even come over here and watch each week as the true lives of the real people in the real world unfold. Except you can't. Because apparently real people don't have cable.