It's Monday. The beginning of week 2 of Al's unemployment. He applied for at least one job last week, but there hasn't been much else. It's a little disheartening when you learn that two friends who work in the same industry are having to look out of state for employment. A very good friend of mine is moving his family to Chicago to go work for a competitor. Unfortunately, a move across country isn't feasible or realistic for us. I guess if we were desperate enough we'd have to do it, but we'd be pretty miserable considering most of our family is within a two hour radius.

Al is working at preschool this morning. A task that typically belongs to me, but one in which I am glad to offer. I think it's a good dose of the sacrifices I make each day. While spending 3.5 hours helping at preschool seems like a simple enough task, I think that it's easily forgotten that I must work an extra 3.5 hour a week to compensate. I'm anxious to see how it went. I know Samantha was very excited and probably didn't stop introducing her daddy to everyone.

Our heater seems to have died yesterday. It is colder inside the house than outside. I made a desperate plea to the HVAC folks asking that they come today. I'm hoping it's a fix that can get us through for now. We're trying to save our pennies and we don't really want to throw $3k at a new heater. Once Al has a job it will be priority #1. It's 18 years old and every time it goes on it sounds like a truck hits the house. The sad part is I knew it was coming. I've been secretly whispering to it every morning, "Please, just make it through winter. Pretty please." I didn't tell Al about it because I was afraid to vocalize it fearing that I would kill it. Turns out I didn't have to say it. It was ready to go.