The Cyclical Nature of Life

As suspected, my previous route in Ionia was essentially removed. I always thought I was immune to any talk of restructuring the routes because they would always go to the stores. I guess I never thought about them putting the stores on another route.

I wasn't abandoned though. I was offered one of the routes that they made out of all the foot routes in town. It's 4 or 5 of them made into a motor route, 2 of which were the foot routes I did as a teenager. So I'm back where I started, although it pays a lot more so I guess I can't complain.

Still, I feel like I'm on a sinking ship. Can't somebody please throw me a life jacket before I go down with the SS Paper Industry.

Joining the Breadline

The Grand Rapids Press is in the process of restructuring the routes in Ionia. I thought for sure that I would come out of this unscathed as I do all the stores in town and they wouldn't cut those out, but I was told a little while ago that that may not be the case. They are cutting out the foot routes in the town and combing them all into a motor route, meaning I won't be delivering those. Then they are thinking about getting rid of the newspaper boxes as they feel they don't sell well enough, meaning I won't do those and I'll lose all that part of my income. So that leaves me with the stores, which they are thinking about cutting out the stores that don't sell a ton. So I have what left? Which means they are probably going to just stick those stores into the motor routes, and who knows if I'll be able to get one of those.

Sure Ionia didn't pay me nearly as much as my other route, but the boxes paid for my gas, and the rest was a nice addition to my bank account. So that means I'll not only be missing that extra deposit every week, but I'll also be taking a lot out for gas instead of just using the box change. Taking that hit is going to make paying the bills pretty hard.

I'm going to be very pissed if I don't get one of those routes after they restructure. I've been on the phone with my former manager who is in charge of the restructuring many times now, and after all the times I bailed his ass out I have been very vocal about the fact that I get first pick of these new routes. If he screws me over he'll hear an earful. At that point though, I'm just going to have to hope something else comes along. Needless to say, my job applications have increased quite a bit.

Home Sweet Home Pt. 2

So, they didn't accept. First, they never called well past the 7 days they were supposed to call in however and no matter how many people I called there was no way to contact them directly. Then they finally called today and asked if we would go to $35000. Thats quite a steep jump from 20. We weren't going up any though, as we can't really. So they rejected. It's disappointing sure, but I'm sure we'll find another place. For now I'll concentrate on getting another job before the sinking ship that is the newspaper industry capsizes. I was looking forward to having a home to call our own though, and getting started on little Levi.

Home Sweet Home

I don't know a whole lot of this home purchasing stuff. Lots of terms and such that I don't fully understand, but as it stands we're working very hard to secure this house for our own. It went up for auction at the beginning of the week and we were the high bidders with the low low price of 20k. The house is definitely worth that, the problem is that everything we had set up before the auction for getting preapproved for that much money was based on getting an FHA loan. The auctioneer was kind enough to hand Zoe a sheet of paper stating FHA loans aren't accepted after she had already signed on the dotted line. We should be able to get a loan from someplace else and I have confidence it will all work out but needless to say its been a stressful situation. Why aren't homes selling in this terrible economy? Maybe it's because it's so needlessly complicated for first time buyers, people with lower incomes, and those that are self employed. Fix this shit Obama!

Emmy is Gangsta!

You have to start them on good music as early as possible. She was around 8 months here. She actually stops screaming in the car when I turn off the kids music and put on mc chris or They Might Be Giants.