See A Penny, Pick It Up

It seems that the bad luck that has been an unwanted house guest for oh-so-long is tiring of the scenery and packing its bags. I don’t know if it was lots of positive thinking, searching for four-leaf clover, picking up every penny I saw, or throwing said pennies into fountains and making wishes, but things have turned around in the past few days.

At first I thought we would never escape the dark cloud hanging over our heads. On Friday I received a call from one of my freelance gigs (the one that paid the best) and my producer told me I was no longer needed. That was a huge blow, and while I tried to not take it personally since it seems everyone is cutting back, I still took it personally. I’m trying to look at it as one task off my overfilled plate, and therefore a blessing in disguise.

On Sunday we attended the Walk Now for Autism event. Our team raised over $500. The walk had thousands of people there, and it felt nice to be surrounded by those who understood if Cordy started acting out. There was also a resource fair at the event, and I talked to several service providers who we may be contacting soon to get Cordy signed up for further therapy.

When we were approved for additional therapy funding back in May, I was handed a huge list of providers – hundreds of providers – with no additional information about them. Which approach do they use? What are their specialties? I was told I’d have to call everyone on that list and interview each one if I wanted that kind of information. The autism walk gave me the chance to see some of the providers who specialize in autism treatments in person. It was like a mini-interview session, and I found several that I plan to follow up with.

Waiting in line at the bouncy castle

At the starting line of the walk

And then yesterday morning there was a flurry of phone calls, and by 10am Aaron was employed again. He has a 2-3 month contract with a company in Cincinnati, but he will be working from home for most of the project.

The down side is that it’s only a short-term contract, but if he does well the contracting company will hopefully find another position for him. The pay is enough that we’ll go off of all assistance (woo-hoo!), and it looks like we might have enough to buy COBRA insurance for those 2-3 months. Even if the company can’t find him another project, it still buys us more time for him to look for other jobs.

I’m hoping it’ll also help drive away some of our irritation with each other. It’s not that we’re having actual problems per se, but when you’re around your spouse all the time, and you have to carefully examine each expense and interrogate the other as to why we needed another pair of pants for Mira or a ticket to a horror movie marathon, well, you quickly get tired of each other. We’re in each other’s way all day long.

So now he’ll disappear upstairs to work for a few hours a day, and then I’ll take over the office for a few hours when he’s done. And hopefully that will kill some of our irritation. If that doesn’t work, I’m lobbying to bring back Family Double Dare. Dumping green slime on your spouse could be therapeutic.