Lemonade Anyone? (Long update, you were warned)

They say when life throws you lemons, you make lemonade. Well, I must say that the recession has hit my lemonade stand hard and I have more surplus lemons then I should own these days. So...I got inventive, I made lemon bars to entice the growers to slow my shipments, I made lemon mmeringue pies for the customer service agents who have kept me and Evan on hold for obscene amounts of time and to top it off...We eat a lemon themed dinner 3 nights a week...Evan and Avery may soon plot a mutiny. Is it wrong that I'm having fun with this or at least carrying a HUGE sense of humor when the old me would boo-hoo and whine it up for days on end and throw the victim card in repeatedly when the attention got scarce? Times are a-changing.

So most if not all of you follow me on FB (cause ya know, who doesn't have a FB?!) and have endured my "cryptic" statuses for 2 weeks now. I have enjoyed the encouragement, the prayers, the guesses and most importantly the love so many of you have showered us with. Just to clear things up from the get-go.
1. I am NOT pregnant.
2. Evan and I are NOT divorcing! (we're actually offended some guessed that!)
3. We're all in good health thank you.
4. Did I mention that I'm NOT pregnant?
5. We are not buying a house..yet.

Things have been busy what with the holidays and life in general. Evan took a contract job from a consultant at the airport around the end of November that promised to pay a nice sum of money that would insure us a wonderful Christmas, a birthday party for Avery, both cars legal and fixed and some bills paid off. If it had not been for this said sum of money I doubt Evan would have took on the 2nd moonlighting job because it was indeed a LOT OF WORK. He worked his regular DFW airport job, went through his finals at UTA and also stayed up at the office until 1-3am some nights and weekends getting the contract job done. Things looked so promising for us, we were planning on moving in January with the extra funds (just another rent house possibly closer to Denton and out of our scary neighborhood) then Christmas Eve's Eve happened.....

Evan has an odd work schedule due to his school schedule, it's ubber flexible though and with him having close to 5 supervisors he's always working on drawings or whatever while there. Well, with his finals over he had a huge chunk of time to now spend at work. He asked for work and several of his supers had nothing for him so to pass the time Evan worked on his contract job until something for him to do came along...no big deal right? WRONG! His head boss approached him on Wed and asked him what he was working on, Evan not thinking anything of it told him what he was working on, showed it to him and his boss walked off. Thursday his boss approaches him again and asks what he was working on, again Evan answered him honestly and showed him and his boss got very mad and asked him if he had asked for other work which he had and the other supers told him no and knew he had the contract project and one even suggested he go work on that. Well, with DFW airport every hour you are at work your billing the work you do to the airport with Evans contract project that can't be billed to any department of the airport since it wasn't through the airport so it looked like Evan was stealing company time and being paid double for not doing airport work. He zeroed out his time sheets and spoke with his boss again but his boss had already gone to his boss and was filing a report to HR to investigate. They sent Evan home.

Christmas Eve we get a courier delivered letter (way to blow money DFW Airport) stating that an investigation was pending and Evan was being put on paid administrative leave until further notice. Evans boss even told him that if HR asked him what he thought should happen to Evan he would request termination of his post. So Evan automatically thought he was fired and right before Christmas too. Yeah, lots of tears were shed before we both promised not to dwell on it, enjoy Christmas and make the best of it. Evan took this ubber hard. Anyone who knows Evan definitely knows his character and he is nowhere near a thief or a slacker with work. He made an honest mistake and with other people aware of what he was doing and NOBODY saying anything to him he assumed it was alright. He was working so hard to provide for Avery and I and to get us the help we needed with our finances and now he may lose his job because of it.

So...We had a wonderful Christmas, Avery had an amazing but very small gathering the weekend before for her birthday, we were with tons of family and we did everything in our power to not let this scary event blow our happiness. Then the Christmas break was over and reality set back in. We went a week with no word from anyone at HR, Evans boss called him once to ask for his badge to be turned in because it was no longer valid. THEN...Evan got another call.....from an amazing person. The guy who had told Evan about the contract job called Evan and told him he had heard about what had happened and him and 2 other employees in another department were going to try to get Evan a full time position with their department and not to worry. Evan turned in his resume that night and seemed to relax a bit and was in better spirits. The other guy who was with the consultant group called Evan and informed him the invoice for the contract job went through and that oh-so-important check would be to us by the 5th!!! Yet another blessing for us in a huge time of need.

Our Anniversary and New Years came and went with no other word. (Still with me?)

Monday rolled around and things were looking less bleak when yet another call came in. A man who owned several houses for rent had remembered us from months ago and wanted to let us know he had 3 properties available and if we may be interested. We immediately went and looked at all 3 and fell in love with 2 of them. One was in south Fort Worth but was huge and upgraded and closer to school and work for Evan but ridiculously far for my commute to Denton, the other was in our neighborhood but in the North end and in a better area. I fell in love! By Tuesday we had agreed to stop payment on the check we post dated for rent and just take it because we had so many things coming in as far as job opportunities, extra money and this house was  less in rent and size but was the perfect "transition" house for our plans for the next year. We could use part of the rent money to pay the deposit and put in our 30 days notice and take our time moving in since it won't be ready until 2 weeks from now due to the owner replacing all the flooring. Then HR called....

Evan went in Tuesday for over an hour and was asked a million questions about his intentions, his loyalty to his job, who told him about the extra work, had he done any other side projects, etc., etc., etc.They even told him they don't know how to handle this situation because it's never happened before (um, hello there's a sign for you HR he didn't do anything illegal and he certainly isn't out to screw over a company he has been devoted to for over 4 years) Before he left he went to his office and grabbed the last bit of drawings for the contract job (he wasn't finished yet) and several co-workers flocked him with concern and even gave us money to help tie us over until this mess was resolved (he has amazing co-workers who from day one have been our saving grace periodically) then he ran into the guy who was in charge of the consult job and he informed Evan the check was printed but wouldn't arrive until the end of the month!! He also informed Evan of a job opening with his company and suggested Evan apply for it. Evan thought this guy and the other guy worked together but no, turns out he's being offered 2 different full time positions with 2 different companies (God is indeed faithful) he also told Evan to take his time on getting the last drawings done, he was in no rush. Evan came home in a better mood but we now had to seriously think about moving into this house since the big check wasn't coming in a few days from now like we were hoping.

Then Thursday happened.....our land lord called asking if he could deposit the rent check (for all he lacks in keeping our repairs up to date he's been patient with us being late with rent 3 months in a row) Evan called the bank to check on the account since he should have been paid at midnight...well, we had a negative balance...no check, no rent money!! Evan called DFW and they told him the paperwork wasn't turned in on time and his check would probably be in NEXT THURSDAY with almost 3 weeks of pay (2 of which from paid-leave). Our land lord was not happy and Evan explained our situation and offered to pay a fine next week when his check came through which thank the Lord he agreed to do. But that also brought up the deadline to pay the deposit on the other house by 5pm that day and we could no longer go forward with our plan.

So yeah....so many things have come along for us to nibble on and then they have been yanked out of our reach. Evan was supposed to hear from HR on wed. to know if he's been terminated or put on probation, or has to pay them back for 40 hours of work just an ANSWER to this whole thing, he's waiting on 2 different calls on 2 potential jobs (prayers please!!!) and we're now waiting on 2 checks so we can pay our now way past due rent, insurance, cell phone and groceries. Definitely a bittersweet turn of events. So much to be Thankful for and so much to be fearful/worried about. I love Joshua 1:9 it's always been a favorite of mine and it has come in handy a million times over the last 2 weeks. Thanks to the money from Evans co-workers we're able to be alright until next week but if his paycheck doesn't come in, we're more than likely being evicted and are in a lot of trouble.

We lost both houses needless to say and we now have a new plan of action that we're fervently praying God allows to pan out for us. We plan on paying off a huge debt with our refund this year and moving into an apartment for a year in Denton to save money and focus on buying a house once Evan graduates. We plan on downsizing and donating a lot of stuff we do not need or have use for and I'm planning on getting a new job come the summer (My deferred judification ends in APRIL, PRAISE GOD).

Please continue to pour your good thoughts and prayers towards Evan. Both jobs would mean more pay and a flexible schedule for school. This big check would be a huge blessing for us on top of our refund so hopefully Feb can be a much better month for us than January. With all this going on though I must praise Evan and I for our faith and our determination to not allow this to turn into a sin. We've not argued about it, nor let it stress us out, we've been praying together and being more faith-based than fear-based and focusing on Avery and this "extended vacation" daddy is on and spending more quality time with us. He goes back to school on the 17th.

Whew, if you're still with me I'll make you a cookie of your choice. Thanks for all your patience. Evan hates talking about this (he feels like he's disappointed so many people :(..) and I'm the exact opposite, I needed to get this out in the open but with so many things happening at once and not being sure what was the result, I had to wait it out.

Patience is a Virtue.

Britt & Co.