Paul R. Potts
Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned… it has been well over a month since my last weblog entry.
Life has become busier. To begin with, I’m now working again, finally. My employer is a company in Canton, MI, called MicroMax. My title is Senior Software Engineer. It is a relatively short commute: only about 30 minutes, on relatively uncrowded streets. The work is challenging, and different. I’m doing primarily documentation at the moment. The project is a little more tense than I’d like, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and wondering how our team is going to get everything done that needs to be done, but I’m maintaing some degree of optimism. A regular paycheck certainly helps with that.
Our bank account is still kind of stunned from months of unemployment, and it is taking a while for things to normalize, but in a month or two, if things go well, we will have built up some reserves. We’re very fortunate in that we did not have to either declare bankruptcy or stop paying our consolidated monthly debt payment, thanks in part to help from family and friends. The unemployment system kept us housed (it was enough to pay rent), but it didn’t keep us fed or keep us from going into bankruptcy; it took selling off a lot of posessions, as well as a support system, to do that. It drove home how badly we need to have savings, and how badly we need to be out of debt. It made me even more resolved that if our creditors do not honor the agreements we have set up with them, they will not get paid. I can’t pay Citibank whatever they want, when they’ve failed to honor the payment agreement that we made with our debt consolidation organization. We can’t allow them to keep pushing our debt-free horizon further back; we need to be in the black. Especially since I doubt this is the last time I will find myself without a job.
The bigger life change on the horizon is that Grace is due to have a baby in six days; her due date is the 16th. Of course, babies don’t necessarily pay attention to due dates, but it seems likely that something will happen pretty close to that date. The baby’s dropped into a good position for delivery. It all looks pretty much ready to go. Grace has left her job, in preparation for at least a few months as a stay-at-home mom, and has been focusing on getting our apartment fixed up and ready. She’s made a lot of progress; a little something every day. So I’m encouraged. We are tackling messes we haven’t dealt with since moving in over three years ago. It is also enabling me to do more deep cleaning, when the clutter is taken care of.
It is a scary prospect, becoming the father of a newborn at the age of 37. I’m very sensitive to noise; my concentraton is easily broken, I tend to need time to myself every day to keep from becoming very irritable, even if it is only a short time. My work requires great concentration, and I am quite critical to the project. If I’m dozing at my desk I won’t be much use.
Everyone tells me how difficult a new baby’s sleep patterns can be for the parents. Grace tells me, though, that Isaac was very easy… not fussy, not a big crier, and slept well quite early on. But I can’t count on that. We might get lucky, and we might not. I’ll have to count on Grace’s help, family and outside help, and my basically patient nature. It will have to do!
I expect that the next weblog entry will tell the world whether our baby is a boy, Samuel Ambrose Potts, or a girl, Veronica Ruth Potts. Wish us a speedy and safe delivery!