Yes, it's true. After having Jimmy home for almost 9 months, we had to make the very difficult decision for him to go back to driving the Big Ass truck over the road once again. When he came home last May, he was hired to transport live chickens from the farm to the processing plant. This was supposed to be the perfect job, driving locally, home every day, decent money and benefits. Except, no one told him that driving a flatbed filled with cages full of chickens that had been wet down because the temperature is close to 100° and the chickens can't sit in the heat are sprayed down with the water hose to keep them cool enough for transport has a high risk of shifting and causing the truck to roll over. Yep, that's what happened. Fully loaded, hit a dip in an old county road in the middle of nowhere and chickens are everywhere ... and Jimmy is unemployed.So, he finds a job with a really nice man driving a dump truck hauling fill material for the construction of a new landfill from one place to another. He's making OK money, we talk about the pay before he ever accepts the position and I am convinced we can manage ... barely. He goes to work and I forget about the weather here in NC and how all construction work of any kind stops when it rains. And it rained a lot in the past 6 months. Which made our bills all end up with a past due balance and no matter how much Tanya and Mylia helped, we just kept getting further and further behind.
This morning, I take him over to pick up the rental car that the company he's gone to work for paid for so he could get to Shelbyville, TN for orientation tomorrow. Packs his clothes and necessities in the back of the Sportage (the rental car) and off he goes. It wasn't easy ... but he's gone back to work for Big G where he gets amazing benefits, decent pay for the miles he runs and bonuses every 6 months. We together talked about doing things a bit differently this time and instead of him trying to come home every week, he's going to be gone at least 2 weeks at a time, (this first run will be almost 3 weeks, he won't be back home until my birthday on the 2nd) this will give him good miles, a good paycheck, give me the ability to catch up and build the savings account up once again. Not having a cushion, no matter how small is terrifying to me. Did I mention they are also paying for his hotel room for two nights and feeding him Monday and Tuesday while in orientation? Yeah, this is a good company.
I'm not going with him ...at least for now. I'm needed here at the homestead to take care of the things a matriarch manages. Our Little Witch is going to be devastated that he's back to driving the Big Ass truck again and won't be here when she gets off the bus every day, however, I'm hoping she will soon become accustomed to his absence and his time at home we'll once again be able to do things. We've got tons to do around here to keep her busy when she's not in school. She's got her heart set on going to Great Wolf Lodge in May for her birthday ... and now that's my goal!
Please keep us in your thoughts and please say a prayer every now and again for Jimmy's safety. I'll be back every so often to give you all updates on how he's doing and how we all are managing here at home. We've done this all before, last time it was 5 years straight and it was a tiny bit easier for us to step back into this life because, this time, we knew what we were going into. I'm going to miss having him home, I pretty quickly got used to him being here every day to help out around the house, to talk to and to snuggle in our big bed every night talking about the things that may have happened over the course of the day before we go to sleep.
