Well, if anything was going to kick my notions of being a freelancer into high gear, it was the news my husband (whom I shall refer to from here on out as The Other Half on account of his desire to not have an Internet presence) received today that he has been made redundant. For my fellow American readers, that means he has been laid off. And what brilliant bloody timing, huh?
If there is a silver lining to any of this it is that: a) he wasn't fired -- we can easily blame the world's downward-spiralling economy; b) he now has some time to actually finish the mountain of household projects that need to be done before Crumpet arrives; and c) his redundancy (severance) package means that he doesn't need to rush out tomorrow and get some crappy job at Tesco (yet). And, of course, he's lucky to have a wife who is an English major and can write him a snazzy CV.
Fortunately, we live in a country where healthcare is free.* I don't know what I'd do if we were in the U.S. right now and had to worry about making insurance payments. So for everyone who has asked me at some point when we're planning to move back, I think I can safely say that it won't be anytime soon. I think we'll at least wait until we've had our kids before we consider another overseas move. I wouldn't want to have to go into debt before the little darlings even took their first breaths.
So now I'll be writing more and digging deeper into my well of "potentials." Perhaps I'll even be inspired to finish the "great American novel." Either that or we'll finally have to win the lottery. Sadly, I think the former has more of a chance of actually happening.
In the meantime, anyone out there need a writer?
*Of course it's not really free. It comes out of our taxes. But in situations like this, at least we don't have to choose between eating and staying healthy.
1 comment:
Followed you here from "Somewhere over the Pond" blog. Sorry to hear your news - what a shock, and as you say, what timing. I hope something good comes out of it.
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