Lockdown!

 From Jan. 7, 2009

It has happened.

Though I have never seen it happen in this town, regardless of what the national economy is doing, it has finally arrived, and arrived with a bang. This town is in a recession. The construction industry, which we rely so heavily on for our livelihood, has nearly come to a grinding halt. Because we are often considered a resort town, we have escaped most of the troubles that fall upon the average American town, but this time it seems nobody is immune.

In 13 years of living here, we have never had work completely stop during the winter. Had I seen it coming, I would have prepared for it. I would have never purchased a new $30K vehicle this summer, nor gone on vacation, or taken that Labor Day weekend trip. Why didn't I see it coming? Because in spite of how bad the rest of country has been doing, there was never any construction slowdown locally... until now.

This is not good... not good at all. Because things have been so tight, I have had to rely on credit cards to make payments on some bills, and they are all nearly full, and I found out this morning one of them went slightly over the limit. This is bad. I have worked so hard to establish credit, and now I am down to the nitty gritty. Why didn't I see it coming? And why did it take so long to get to this town?

In order for us to stay alive, we may have to sell some things: the second car, the treadmill I purchased last year; the 120-gallon fish tank-- anything that will bring in a little extra money. As it is, it will take me two years to pay off my credit cards if I don't put anything else on them. That is my current goal. The problem is: how will we survive if work remains sparse? I am a full-time student, with another year to go before I get my degree.  Every time I mention to my husband that he should consider  work elsewhere (even part-time), he gets very offended and rants and raves about how he won't be able to do that once he gets busy painting again.

So we suffer through the hard times, he may go a week or more without working, but never lifting a finger to find any work elsewhere, because he is just "waiting" for work to come to him. I have a nagging suspicion that this year, work isn't going to fall into his lap like it has in the past. He is going to have to seek it out, or get another job somewhere else.