I almost didn’t check in this time, but after the post on the ROW80 site that Eden Mabee wrote, I felt like I need to get back to this. This is a community. We are here to help each other. So I’m late, but I’m here.
Since my husband’s hospital stay and the subsequent financial situation, I’ve been nearly paralyzed with fear of the near future. Would he have another incident? Would he be able to go back to work before we started having to choose which bills to pay and which to let go? Would things ever get back to normal? Or would there be a new normal for us? I just couldn’t write during this time. I just didn’t want to. I had no motivation.
So…he went back to work last night. He called me this morning (he wasn’t home yet when I left for work) and said they had a busy night, but everything went fine. He has a fairly physical job, so I was a little concerned. I’m hoping things will be okay, at least for a long time. We have to live with the fact that he’ll always have heart problems. It’s hereditary; it has nothing to do with his habits. I’ll just pray that God will continue to take care of us.
I had just started the Dave Ramsey plan when all this happened. The first baby step is to get $1000 in an emergency fund as soon as possible. I had just saved $130 when hubby went into the hospital. Oddly enough, I didn’t have to touch the $130. We had some unexpected help from a couple of people. Plus, some people made food for us, so we didn’t have to buy many groceries. The strange thing is, we were able to actually make a budget that balanced out. Even with less money coming in, it somehow worked. I’m convinced God’s hand was in this. So I’m going to really work on staying on the budget and doing the baby steps. After we accumulate the $1000 emergency fund, the next step is to start attacking our debt. There will be less eating out, no unnecessary expenditures, and things WILL get sold on eBay.
The good news is that I’ve been writing again. My WIP is called Keeper of His Soul, a sequel to Soul of a Vampire. I’m a little concerned that it’s going to end up a novella instead of a novel, but I’m going to stop trying to force a book to be longer than it wants to be. So we’ll see what happens. It’s going in a totally different direction than I originally had planned. So that’s getting interesting.
lauralynnelliott.com 
Glad to hear things are slowly returning to normal for you and your husband. Take baby steps in everything, and yes, I believe that is God’s hand at work, too 🙂
I think baby steps are always the way to go when we’re feeling overwhelmed. 🙂 Thanks for the encouragement as always, my friend!
I’m slowly catching up with the blog visits I’ve missed over the past month. So sorry to hear about your husband’s ill health, Lauralynn. Glad to hear he’s doing okay now and back at work.
Wishing you lots of luck with writing Keeper of His Soul.
Oh, I’m so far behind on blog posts! Hubby’s back to work, and he seems to be doing okay with it. I just want life back to normal for awhile!
I’m plugging away slowly with Keeper. 🙂
I could have written this post at the beginning of this year. I know exactly how you were feeling. I’m really sorry you had to go through this. 😦 It’s so awful. And I know how slow it can be when you’re bouncing back from something like that.
I have yet to make the budget work. It seems I make it at the beginning of the year and something pops up that I don’t see coming. I guess what I need to do is have a “buffer fund” on the side.
We’re such an odd pair. I keep wanting to downsize my books but can’t seem to while you want to make yours longer but can’t seem to. LOL I guess we have a natural length that works for us, and our minds are wired to create stories at those lengths.
I hope your husband will continue to be on the mend! I’ll keep saying prayers for you both!
I try to have a “miscellaneous” fund in the budget. Well, I did in July. There was no room for it in August. Next, I’ll have to figure out how to budget all the medical bills. I might put part of them in August since hubby got a little money from the short term disability insurance. Then I’ll try to space them out between September and October. I listen to Dave Ramsey every day to get inspiration.
Your books are a good length, so I wouldn’t worry about them. A book will be what it wants to be, and readers rarely complain when a book is too long. They complain when it’s too short. When I get my beta readers reading this one (if I ever finish!), I’ll have them all look for places where I might have rushed. (I hope you’ll have time to beta read it.) I read fast, and I like fast paced books most of the time. I write the way I read, apparently. LOL.
Thanks for all your prayers!
I’d be happy to beta read it! Send it my way when you’re ready. 🙂
Good for you, staying positive and successful through all this. How wonder-full!
Diana @
D.W. Hirsch
Thank you, D.W.!