Future Plans

Ben is really liking Rutherford County. We are hoping that he will start his ride-alongs this week. He will probably have to ride with another paramedic for 5-7 shifts depending on how quickly Ben can "pass off" that he knows how to do his job. After that, Ben and I have a 6 month plan! If Ben is able to pick up 2 (24hr) shifts a week we will be able to be almost totally out of debt in 6 months! How exciting is that??? I won't have him at home much, but he will be working the jobs that he loves and putting us in a better financial opportunity for me to come home whenever the Lord blesses us with children. We are so excited. Based off of how Ruth. Co. does their part time pay, if Ben works those 2 shifts a week, he will basically supplement my pay check. This means that once we have a child, I won't have to work. I would probably quit full time and go PRN so I could keep my skills up and continue to work a job that I do truly love. But I just really feel I would be doing a disservice to our family to keep working and making it a struggle to try to juggle Ben's crazy shifts, my crazy shifts and day care. It doesn't look like a day position is going to be a possiblity in the near future. I'm not sure when that would be a possibility. It just may not be in the cards for us, and I'm ok with that. Once we get rid of the majority of our debt, we won't have so many responsibilities that will require Ben to work so many hours. But the beauty of his schedule is that he would still be off every 3rd day and if I'm not working then I would be home when he's home and that shift wouldn't be so bad...if you don't mind him being gone 48 hrs straight...that will be tough.. We will see. Right now it is only temporary.

Our plan then is that within the next 4-6 months we want to redo the flooring downstairs. We've decided to tile our downstairs. We could refloor the entire downstairs for cheaper by doing this. We went to the liquidator store over in the antioch area just to look at prices for the fun of it and it we found some really nice looking tile for cheap. We are going to talk to some of the guys at the fire dept and try to get an idea of what it will cost us. That way we can start putting money aside and be able to have the cash ready to do the flooring in 4-6 months. I'm so excited. It will be great to have tile with the dogs. They won't scratch it, if they have any accident it will be easy to clean, etc...We'll just put some throw rugs down and whabam...Ben's aunt did this to her house and it looked great! We were frustrated with the wood flooring options because we are on a cement slab. If we hardwood the upstairs then the wood probably wouldn't match because it would be real hardwood versus what we put on a slab that has to be glued down. Anyway thats our plan; tile the downstairs and put real hardwood upstairs a little further down the road.

Ben had his yearly review at the FD. They are no longer giving everyone a cost of living raise. They are now requiring that the guys go above and beyond...no longer will the bare minimum be enough. The guys are required to do 2 hrs of training per day. They dept. now wants them to do more than that and take their own initiative to do it. The great thing is that Ben has been doing this all along. He doesn't like to sit idle so he has been reading the books for the pumper truck and learning what he needs to for the next possible promotion. Well due to the new requirements, most of the guys at the department didn't get their yearly raise. Ben was one of the FEW who did. Yay Ben! I'm just so proud of him for setting these goals and achieving them! Ever since he was little he's wanted to be a Firefighter/Paramedic...Way to go!