Riding the Roller Coaster

Life has seemed like a little bit of an emotional and financial roller coaster lately. Something good will happen, followed by something bad, repeat and rinse. It's been interesting, at least.

(An aside: When we say life is a roller coaster, do the big drops represent the bad things or are they the good things in life? And what are the loop-de-loops? I need a new metaphor. The only thing I'm certain of is that the end of the ride, when the train of cars pulls slowly into the station, is not the good part. Oh, and I don't like waiting in line for an hour to get on the roller coaster, either.)

Anyway, allow me to enumerate the last few days of our lives . . .
Friday: It was our 25th anniversary on February 4th and so we were looking for an opportunity to go out together to celebrate. In anticipation of various scheduling conflicts, we decided to go out on January 30. Better early than never. Despite mild concerns about finances in light of my "retirement," I wanted to go out for a nice dinner and so we went to Biaggi's and spent $52.30. We had a very nice time.

Friday Later: We came home to find a check for $50 had come in the mail. I shoulda shortchanged the waiter on the tip and then we coulda stayed within the fifty bucks. Yes, I'm kidding.

Saturday Morning: The mailman came to our door. He had an "Extremely Urgent" USPS Express Mail envelope with a "Noon Delivery" sticker on it that he wanted me to sign for. I was afraid it was a summons for some reason but it was from The Alamo Sweepstakes . . . which meant nothing to me. I opened it up to find that I had won a trip for four to Disneyworld! I have entered "trip to Disney" contests hundreds of times over the last ten years. I don't even remember this particular sweepstakes but I'm glad I entered it!

When we moved to Indiana, I foolishly told the kids that we would try to take them to Disneyworld during Jordan's senior year--this year--to celebrate his graduation, knowing it might be our last family vacation together. While I continued to dream about doing this, the financial realities of our lives were clearly not going to allow such a trip. Now it looks like God has opened the door. Of course, we still have to figure out a lot of logistics--like how to turn a trip for four into a trip for six and pay for that extra expense--and we'll have to pay any taxes on the prize, but you gotta admit that this was a pretty great surprise. We even get four custom mouse ear hats. We're waiting now to hear from the travel agent about how to set things up.

Sunday: My severance from Taylor expired on Saturday, with the end of January. So did our paid health insurance. This left us with several options. [a] Go without insurance. [b] Pay to continue our Cobra coverage, to the tune of $1073 a month. [c] Enroll in a class at Taylor and then buy bare bones student health insurance. We decided we would take a risk, hoping my job search is soon to conclude, and try option "a."

Sunday Later: Jordan began having severe pains in his rib cage and even in his chest and arms. We considered taking him to the Urgent Care Clinic. Being the loving parents we are, we decided to see if he made it through the night before committing to paying for a doctor's visit out of our own pocket. He was so uncomfortable, he didn't even stay for the entire Super Bowl party.

Monday Morning and beyond: Well, Jordan kept getting worse and so we took him to our family doctor. Jeannette was very careful to tell the receptionist that we didn't want our insurance billed. Our doctor didn't know what to think, so he sent them to the hospital for some tests. Eight hours and at least $4000 worth of testing later, they still didn't know what was wrong with him. They gave Jordan some muscle relaxants and pain killers and offered to let him spend the night in the hospital. We decided he (and we) would probably rest better if he was at home, plus we weren't sure what the costs would be to stay overnight there.

Monday Afternoon: I hastily wrote a check for $1073 to Taylor and mailed it to make sure that our insurance coverage would indeed continue. It was painful but better than paying $5000 or more for the day's medical services and, thankfully, we had the money in the bank to back the check up.

Wednesday: The last of our various W-2 and bank statements came last week, so I hopped on TurboTax.com to work on our taxes. First of all, I have to say that I'm a big fan of TurboTax. I've used both it and TaxCut and TurboTax is my clear favorite. It was a lot easier to do our taxes this year than last--something about no moving expenses or living in multiple states helps. I think it took me as long to organize my paperwork from the past twelve months as it did to actually fill out the federal and state forms online. Well, the outcome was very good . . . a refund larger than any we've ever received--in part because we're still receiving some tax credits related to adopting MelodyJoy--and thanks to the miracle of electronic transactions, we might see the money flow into our checking account by the middle of this month. The refund will cover the health insurance premium and probably get us through another month if I continue to be unemployed.

Wednesday Later: Having finished our taxes, I could now work more easily on Jordan's financial aid for college so I got back onto www.fafsa.ed.gov to complete his Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The last couple of years, I had run our info through some estimators to get an idea of what kind of aid he might receive from the government, so I was hopeful as I plugged all of our info into the FAFSA. Again, thanks to the miracle of electronic data transfer, there's little need for deferring your gratification. You hit submit on the form and very quickly get a report back that gives you the results. Well, in my earlier simulations, I'd been kind of excited to see that Jordan would likely qualify for at least a small Federal Pell Grant. Getting a Pell Grant isn't life-n-death, but because it's the neediest students who qualify, usually it's a good sign of things to come when you are awarded Pell. Sadly--and surprisingly only because I'd gotten my hopes up--he did not qualify for the grant. He'll still qualify for aid at the various colleges he's considering, of course, but it felt like the roller coaster took another twist and turn.

Wednesday, Somewhere in the Middle: Wednesday was our anniversary. A card came with a gift inside that allowed us to go out for an early dinner (we thought it was a late lunch, but they were using the dinner menu by the time we got there). MelodyJoy joined us since the boys were still tied up with school activities. It was just kind of an added blessing that after having such a nice pre-anniversary evening out, we still got to go out on our anniversary.

We still don't know what caused Jordan's pain. He seems to be pretty much back to normal now. Jeannette was telling someone yesterday that the uncertainty we feel about his situation this week is almost a picture of what our lives as a whole are like right now. Jordan was in significant discomfort . . . we did everything we could . . . it was kind of costly . . . everything's fine for now . . . but we don't know the "why" of it all and don't know what might happen next. Having said that, I also believe the ebb and flow of our little financial tale is a picture of how God is meeting our needs, providing encouragement when we need it, and I trust He'll continue to do so in the days ahead.