As my break winds down into its last two days or so, I'm beginning to steel myself and prepare myself for a return to the normal routine of teaching/eating/showering/sleeping for the rest of the semester. This afternoon, I attempted to get back into that mindset a little more, and sent out emails to my students (who I haven't contacted in over a week, mind you, since we've been on break) reminding them what we're doing next week -- lest they ignore the fact that they're college students and let all of their work go to shit in my classes. I'll sketch out my normal lesson plans tomorrow or Monday, more than likely, and review the lessons I'm going to cover in my classes between now and when I get back on campus in order to refresh myself.
Ironically, it was warmer (and nicer), at least most of the time, in Omaha when I was there than it is and has been here in Kansas. Today, the high barely reached 50 and struggled to get there. It's going to dip down way into the 20s again tonight, and most of this coming week it's going to be chilly as well, with highs mostly in the 40s. It's almost April; normally, by this time, I've been wearing shorts every day for a good two weeks or so, and I've normally put away most of my shoes in favor of sandals. I'm absolutely itching to switch out my wardrobes from winter to summer clothing, if only because I'll need to pack a lot of those clothes up for the move anyway. I planned to do a good chunk of that wardrobe switch over this weekend, since I figured that it would be warm enough to do so, but it doesn't appear as if that's going to be the case. I'll more than likely have to put it off until next weekend, by which time the temperatures are supposed to be in the 70s again (and will hopefully stay there). On the plus side, as it's not been too incredibly cold as of late, I haven't had to run the furnace nearly at all -- which means my electric bill will/should be much lower this month than it has been. Hopefully, anyway. I still run it when it needs to run, obviously -- but it's not a "constantly on" scenario as it was, say, last month, when the high temperatures were barely above the single digits almost every day. It felt very, very nice to be able to wear shorts two of the three days I was in Omaha; I desperately want that every day. Soon.
There are some little things around the house that I have to do for the remainder of my weekend, though most of my tasks are already done. I already paid the two bills I had, I already did almost all of the laundry I needed to do, and I cleaned the cat room and gave them new food, litter, and water. I cooked a meal of very rich gnocchi and sauce last night, and still have half a bowl of it left for tonight's dinner (whenever I choose to eat, that is). I don't need to do any shopping until at least Wednesday night, if not Thursday afternoon when I'm done teaching for the week. Even my two smaller credit cards, the ones I get most of my gas and other small purchases with, are almost paid off -- I should be able to pay them off completely in another month or two at the most.
This is a good thing, as one of the big discussion topics Daisy and I went through while we were together is how we're planning for our survival after the wedding, when I will be unemployed after the semester ends (at least for some time, more than likely, and the shorter the better).
I've mentioned before that I don't have a whole lot of hope for the university to come through in the next few weeks and tell me "hey, we're all greenlighted here, so here's your new $40k-a-year position with us if you want it, and a guaranteed paycheck/some duties/work for the summer." Because (apparently) the chances for that now happening are almost slim to none, it is almost a certainty that we will be living and working in Omaha or the surrounding area after the wedding. And that means Daisy and I need to do some budgeting and financing to see just what the hell we are going to do to be able to survive.
I've been in this scenario before, of course, several times. It is not a pleasant one. It is not a fun one. I know how this game is played, and more often than not, I lose at it.
Being unemployed is not "fun." It is not "good," it is not "a passable existence." No, me being unemployed for any length of time is a bad, bad thing when I have bills to pay and no safety net of savings because I'm not paid enough to have anything to save. And my employment with the university -- whether I like it or not, or have another job or not -- ends on May 16. That's the last day of finals week and the end of the semester. I believe I'll receive my last paycheck a week later, and it'll be done. Whatever money I have left after May 16 is all I'll have until I get another job somewhere -- but I can assure you it's not going to be enough to live on, move out of this place with, and survive on until that next job comes around...unless I start that next job on May 17.
As ungodly, terrible stressful as it is to realize that, I can't exactly focus on it right now. Again, like it or not, until that last day, I still have a job to do that requires my attention and energy, I still have a wedding coming up, and I can only help devise strategies for survival in the meantime and in my downtime. Also, again, I'm not in Omaha, so I can do little to help Daisy out in her own planning of things both for and after the wedding.
Planning of what, you may ask?
I mentioned before that Daisy wants to have a place for us, ready to go and move into, by the time the semester ends -- if not shortly beforehand -- so that we can use it as a base of operations leading up to the end of the semester, leading up to the wedding, and after the wedding we can take the time necessary to pack up my house here, clean it, and make the big move north. Yes, it will be a slow process, as I have a lot of stuff to pack, a lot of stuff to trash and/or donate to charity, and I have to disconnect and close down all of the utilities and the like which are in my name here -- as I've lived here for five years. I also can't up-and-leave just like that anyhow -- I have to give 30 days' notice to my landlord when I'm ready to move. All of this is a lot of work, and it's not going to be done overnight -- it will likely take several weeks, during which we'll both have to split our time between both residences in order to get it all accomplished and taken care of.
Finding a place is not as easy as it sounds -- most places Daisy and I have looked at online in our searches aren't anywhere near as inexpensive as my house here is now, and she's looking at apartments and the like -- this is a house, and the apartments she's found are easily $200-300 more a month just for the rent, not to mention utilities and other necessities we'll need for survival. And, sadly, that's not even in the nice parts of Omaha. It's about the same in the suburbs around the city as well. We can't afford that when I'm going to be unemployed for at least a little while after the semester ends.
Even more frustrating is the pet policy on some places -- no matter what, I'm not getting rid of the cats. Ever. The cats are my/our children; wherever I/we go or end up, they go too. There are some things I can sacrifice or live without in whatever place we move into, especially if said place is going to be temporary anyway until we can get a house. The cats are not one of those things. They will always be with me until they get old and die.
Finding jobs that will sustain us is just as difficult as finding a place to live. While yes, I have a lot of experience in a very specified, very competitive field (teaching English at the college level), that doesn't mean much. I would, of course, like to stay in academia -- especially if said academic job actually paid me a living wage and gave me some sort of benefits -- the chances of that actually happening and giving us enough money to actually live on is very slim...especially in the summer, when most colleges and universities aren't in session and/or are in very limited sessions. While I doubt I'd have any problems finding a teaching position at a college or university up there for the fall, if I could and wanted to continue doing that (which I would, if possible) that doesn't help me/us from May to August. I have applied for administrative/advising positions at different colleges up there before, however, and if the situation is looking particularly dire, I will contact the chairs of those colleges/universities' English Departments directly and will ask them for adjunct/lecturer positions -- which, of course, they won't advertise most of the time on job boards or their own websites.
Daisy, yes, is looking for jobs for not only her, but for both of us, and has been applying for new jobs herself so that she can possibly get a new, much-higher-paying position before the wedding and we won't have to worry about this as much, but as of right now, we're still planning for the worst case scenario: me being unemployed after May (for a time) and her still working the job she has now if she can't find anything else. Both of us can, theoretically, do a lot of things, but that doesn't help us if we can't get hired anyplace no matter how many applications we send out. So, we're hoping for the best, but we're absolutely planning for and are trying to ready ourselves for the worst.
"Well, what bills will you have?" she asked me as we were driving home on Thursday night. "Personally, I mean. You don't have a cell phone bill, and you won't have rent/utilities in your name to pay every month once you move up here, so what does that leave?"
"Credit cards," I said. "And my car insurance every six months."
"When does your car insurance come due again?"
"At the end of June. It's about $300, give or take. Could be more, could be less. I updated my policy at the beginning of the year, as they asked me to and because my working/driving situations changed. I was listed as a full-time student before, and now I'm not. I was also driving five days a week before, and now I'm not, and they base at least some of the rates on mileage or expected mileage and student/non-student status. It could go up or down now, based on what I'm now eligible or ineligible for."
I believe my last car insurance payment, in December, was $270-something. I always put it on my Citi Card and pay it off that way anyhow. It hasn't changed a whole lot since I got my policy in 2011.
"And the credit cards?"
"I should have the smaller ones paid off or mostly paid off before the wedding and the move," I said. "I've been paying $100 on each of them every month when their minimum payments are $20 and $25. But the Discover card I've been using to live on, basically -- to get groceries and the like so that I have money in my bank account with which to pay my bills -- and that card has about $1500 on it right now."
I pay $100 a month at least on the Discover card as well, even though its minimum payment is $35. It doesn't matter -- even though I pay $100 on it, I use it for about $200 every month (or more) for groceries, so the balance never really lessens by that much, if at all, between payments. It just keeps it at a mostly even keel and slows my slow bleeding of money.
"Look," I said, "if I have to, I have no qualms about applying for a shitty retail job again to kill time and bring in at least some money to help out our financial situation this summer, even if I'd only work that job for like three months. I can work at Walmart or the Dollar Tree or fast food or someplace like that if I have to. I'll fucking hate it, but if it's the difference between us being able to live and us not being able to live, of course I'll do it."
Obviously, we're both hoping that doesn't have to happen, but again -- plan for the worst, folks.
On rough calculations, not even taking into account the cost of food or gas, it's going to be about $2k a month just to survive in Omaha. That includes rent and utilities, and being able to pay the bills we have that aren't going away anytime soon, if ever (Daisy's car payment/insurance, her cell phone bill, our credit cards, etc). Not to mention that we'll have to pay for moving expenses and everything else involved when two people get married and/or move, such as switching over my driver's license (and registration of my car) to Nebraska, her new license/name change/passport and the like, and getting the cats licensed/vet visits for them in Nebraska. Add in food for us and the cats, and gas for our cars, and any other expenses that can and will pop up, and it's looking more like $3k a month for survival expenses only, or close to it. If we don't have a combined household income of $36k a year after taxes -- meaning, take-home pay, it's going to be rough. And that's not only the bare minimum, but a fairly tall order unless we both get decently-paying jobs rather quickly, or unless she keeps the one she has now and I get a comparably-salaried one.
I will remind you folks that even when I worked at a grocery store full time, 40 hours a week, I only cleared $17k a year. That's the most money I've ever made in a year. I am used to living in poverty. I am used to "going without" because I can't afford things, and I am used to not spending money and penny-pinching, fighting tooth-and-nail for everything I have. Anyone who's read this blog for any length of time knows that I barely scrape by most months -- I don't make that a secret, and I am brutally honest and candid about how hard it can be sometimes. Yet, I don't ask for pity, and I don't ask for handouts or sympathy from anyone. I won't ask for help unless it is supremely, absolutely necessary, and those who have helped me in the past when I've been under financial hardship (like my parents), I have paid back as soon as I could. Daisy has helped me when I needed it and when she could, but she was not obligated to and didn't want me to pay her back. I get by, and that's all that matters. But, in the coming months, simply "getting by" is going to become a lot more difficult when it comes to the latter half of this year after the wedding.
To those ends, I have been proactive as much as I can be given the timeframe. Tonight I applied for several positions, including teaching positions, in Omaha. I can do all of them well, and all of them (with, maybe, the exception of the teaching position) pay much more than I'm making right now. This is going to be a continuing trend over the course of the next several weeks and/or months, in hopes that I can find something to help sustain and stabilize us after the wedding.
As of right now, the costs of the wedding and everything for the wedding are nowhere near as high as I feared they would be -- we have been extremely budget-conscious and creative in our methods, and have spent much less than I was expecting us to spend -- and that includes the venue, upcoming catering expenses, my jacket, and most (if not all) of the decorations. Because of that, if we wanted to or could, our entire wedding expenses including everything, could be paid off/paid for by nothing but our combined tax refunds alone and we'd still have some left over. Obviously, we can't do that (Daisy got her tax refunds a long time ago and applied most of them to the wedding costs anyway, and mine haven't arrived yet -- but they'll need to go to living expenses), but use that as a frame of reference, if you will. As 95% of the wedding planning and structure has been done by Daisy herself, I am incredibly proud of her for her financial and budgeting skills.
I got the stack of invitations to hand-deliver to my friends and colleagues in the department when I get back to campus on Tuesday, and sent out messages to the group of people I know are coming about hotel/flight/other travel info this afternoon. I have at least four or five people who will be flying in, and at least two of them are in the wedding (April and my brother; Rae's in the wedding too, but I don't know if she'll fly or drive), so this is rather pertinent info for them to have. I'm not in charge of their travel plans, flights, or hotel rooms -- that's all on them. All I can do is tell them when stuff is happening and how, and let them sort it out. I sent an email to my parents as well, giving them the rough schedule so that they can plan for their trip a few months in advance, since they're driving from West Virginia.
The other reason that I'm giving my parents a few months' worth of advance notice is that they not only have three cats to board while they'll be away, but they now have another dog -- they got a golden retriever puppy last month, and they'll have to make plans to board said dog as well (since having the dog at the wedding, or around a lot of the people there, would kill about half of Daisy's family due to pet hair/dander allergies). I've told them this, of course. Daisy may still be allergic to dogs as well -- I doesn't know, because she stays far away from them anyway as most of her family is so allergic.
As for our future living situation, well...
Look, it's a stressful time right now for all of us. I'm going to be really busy from now through at least the first two and a half weeks of May. The wedding is several weeks after that -- I'm not going to say when here on the blog, of course, but suffice it to say, we both have a lot of shit to do before said wedding, and almost none of it has anything to do with the wedding. We need to be able to find jobs to survive the summer, obviously -- me more than her, as she has her decently-paying job now -- and she/we have to find a place to live. Neither of these are easy tasks, and the latter really isn't easy given the timeframes we're working with.
I am put into a really hard, really stressful position here -- I've lived in my home for five years, and have accumulated not only a lot of possessions, but a lot of things that must be cleaned/scrubbed down and other things that need to be simply thrown away or donated to charity. I have utilities that must be disconnected and/or discontinued. I have cats I have to provide for and have to find a safe way to relocate as well. And, more than anything else, I have to give thirty days' notice to my landlord before I can move, and I still have to pay my rent for those thirty days. All of these things take time, and we're operating on a very limited timeframe. Also, unlike Daisy, I live alone -- it really is just me and the cats. I don't have family around me (or in the same house with me, like she does), and I don't have friends here in Newton who would be a five-minute drive away, friends who could help me move or clean when I need that help. Most of my friends will vacate town before the wedding, as the semester will be over, and the ones who won't aren't exactly close by or relative next-door-neighbors -- they're at least a half-hour away. Most, if not all of my packing, cleaning, and readying the house to move out is going to be done all by me, myself, and I.
The actual moving -- as in, loading boxes and furniture onto a rented truck and driving said truck to Omaha -- will be done in the span of a day or two, and won't be pleasant at all. I don't even know how we're going to do it or be able to afford to do it. Moving here from Missouri wasn't cheap, and that was with a massive rented box truck and three people to load it up/drive it here/unpack it and drive it back. Omaha is farther away, and neither of us know how to drive a truck like that effectively, let alone have the money to rent one. I'd much rather hire a moving crew to do it, but that would be even more expensive -- expensive for money we absolutely do not have. But would it be worth it?
A moving crew could be in and out within a day. They could load the shit into the truck, drive said truck to Omaha, and unload it quickly, without the need to spend a day or more exhausting ourselves and moving things on and off the truck, out of this house, driving to Omaha, unloading the stuff again, and moving it all into the new place. I don't know how often you folks have moved in the past, but let me tell you -- over the course of the almost eight years I've lived in the midwest, I've moved five times:
1. West Virginia to Missouri
2. Missouri house 1 to Missouri apartment 1
3. Missouri apartment 1 to Missouri apartment 2
4. Missouri apartment 2 back to Missouri house 1
5. Missouri house to Kansas house here.
Those first four moves were within the span of a little more than three years total, too. Yeah. It wasn't pleasant. It got harder every time. This will be the hardest, most back-breaking move yet: five years' worth of stuff crammed into this house, and the second-longest move/drive of my life, with less help. I'm already packing stuff up and throwing useless shit away. Tonight I packed six boxes full of dishes, coffee mugs, and glassware that I won't use before I move, padding them all really well, and now the only dishes in my cupboard are the ones I will use between now and my move. I'll do the same with my pots and pans when I get bigger boxes for them. I also got a big sack ready for clothing and other items to donate to charity. I need to pare down my clothing by a lot anyway, as I did just get like 30 new pairs of pants/shorts from Daisy's father. What I don't want and/or don't wear will go to charity; I need to create a more minimalist lifestyle for myself, and it starts from the ground up.
Anyway. We're trying to figure out what to do for the move and when. It led to a fairly long-form (though mostly calm) argument between us tonight, and it boiled down to the fact that Daisy wants us to operate on a very fast, very hard-charging timeframe for the wedding and the move, and while I am not opposed to this, I am realistic and experienced in moving when she is not, and I know how long some things take to do when shoved in with all other tasks that must be done (like teaching my classes, grading, finals week, sleeping, the wedding, and anything/everything else). I can't call and disconnect my utilities and change my addresses and the like until everything is set up at our new place, whenever/wherever that will be, because until then I'll still be living here, and I'll still have all of my stuff here. We can discuss all the timeframes, routes of those timeframes, and plans of action within those timeframes until we're both blue in the face, but none of it matters until we get something set in stone -- namely, until we've found a place to move into and have it as our own. Until then, arguing hypotheticals is pointless.
As I haven't heard anything from the department or university, I'm taking that as a sign that "oh well, nothing's going to happen" and am basically moving on. My focus now is for a life with my wife in Omaha and everything that entails. I can't be selfish or live on wishful thinking anymore, obviously, as it's just not me that lifestyle is going to affect after the wedding. I expect Daisy to be with child before the end of the year, and I have to plan for the future, not simply live day-to-day in the present as I always have been living until now.
Anyway.
On Tuesday my world returns to normal, and I return to teaching my classes day-in, day-out for the rest of the semester. I don't necessarily look forward to it, but it does return me to a routine, and does tend to keep me busy enough to where I'm not constantly stressed out about everything else going on in life. My break is coming to an end, and with it, quite possibly the last "spring break" I'll ever have as a professor. It's a sobering thought -- people who work in the real world outside the bubble of academia don't get a random week off in the middle of March. But then again, they're also employed and get paychecks in the summer and over Christmas and New Year's, too.
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