And here it comes

I just realized the title of this blog post can apply to two things that are on my mind. The first being the economy and how it's affecting us and also the fall season coming on. :)

The economy - MAN, people are scared, aren't they? It seems that so many are seeing things in a way that they never did - especially in this area. I live in a pretty affluent place and most people drive big cars, live in big houses, have housekeepers and everything they want. Now they're complaining about how they have no money anymore. It's an interesting thing to watch.

We have lost money. Yeah, it's all on paper but even that is enough to make you get a tear in your eye thinking what that money would do if it was actually yours and you had it. LOL But instead, it's just numbers on a piece of paper right now. We can't touch it until years from now so I'm sure that we will be OK. What's tougher was the discussion that Pastor had with the staff this week. All discretionary spending is done at church right now. The next step if we find giving dropping off is that all staff will get a 10% cut in pay. That's gonna hurt us a bit. But I know we'll do OK. My oldest is now doing her work study AND working at the local grocery store so and the second daughter (16) is waiting to hear back about her job there too. So with both girls gainfully employed, they can now cover their own clothing, extras and parties rather than us having to pay for all of that. I'll still give them things here and there but it will be a huge burden to not have to clothe the two of them! LOL God will get us through. Even if we have to sell the house and move to a less expensive house, that's OK. We're willing to sell off the boat (which is completely paid for and we don't pay anything on it since it's my IL's Christmas gift to us each year - to pay for the boat expenses), and whatever else we need to in order to make it. But I have faith that God will provide what we need - and maybe a little of what we want too. We've been through tough times before and we'll do it again.

Then there's the season. It's fall here on Long Island and we just took down our large awning outside and started winterizing things. I'm cleaning out the basement so I can start hanging the clothes down there when we start up the furnace. It's a tiny basement with a big furnace so it runs around 85 degrees down there all winter long. Hanging a load of clothes means it's dry in 6-8 hours down there! Why not utilize the heat we have and dry clothes without the dryer??!! :) I'm going to shop around this week for firewood since we're low and I'm thinking it's going to be a tough winter (horses have their winter coats a full 2 months early this year and we've not seen that in about 12 years) and fires are wonderful when it's cold out. The place where we got fire wood last year is now running $239 a cord plus delivery and that's just sick. I'm not paying that kind of money for wood! So I need to check around and see what else I can find instead. But I think with everything else, we're set. Oh wait! I just realized I should check the kids' boot situation. Hmmm....

So it should prove to be an interesting fall/winter.