A Year Ago...

...not to the date, just a year ago on Todd's first day of 5th grade (probably August 29, if you want to get technical)...

I remember walking around the neighborhood, at least to some extent that morning at some point.  It was probably up Spotted Owl, cutting over to whatever that street is before Timberland ("Phillip The Dream Kid" lives there) and walking around back to the house.  Not much, obviously - but much more than I usually do...I remember just being kind of "lost" at how quiet the house was...Shelly was back at work in the office (training or whatever for the first month @ Genares), Todd was back in school, as was Jolene.

I don't remember exactly, but I'm quite sure I was thinking a lot about getting the upcoming 401(k) money from Sabre and how that would affect us in the future.  I knew it was a risk - but at the time, it was the only sure way I knew that we could save the house.  Little did I know that 4 months down the road we'd get behind again and stop paying on the house (January 2012, I believe), which led me to researching mods like FHA-HAMP, and how we were able to skip house payments for  6 months until we got through the process.  Assuming all things being equal (and perhaps they weren't equal...) not sure how they would have looked at the 401(k) money, but I'm quite sure we couldn't have had it in our bank accounts...so perhaps it wouldn't have worked that early.  I know we wouldn't have just "quit" paying the payment back then when we could pay it, so...

Anyway, I digress.  That's the thing that has helped lead us to where we are today.  Behind on debts other than mortgage - behind a big ol' eight ball.  Facing running out of contacts in 2 months because we can't afford vision coverage, other than for Shelly through work.  Unable to get my bottoms done because of no dental coverage for me.  Paying 77.00/mo for my pills instead of 10 bucks or so.  *Whew*