I am not sure how I will look back on this summer.  

It has been far from the typical cliché vacation.

We have not traveled at all.  Eagle is just sitting there, looking hum-drum and entertaining the mice.  We never put up a pool because we didn't think we'd still be here.

I am just finishing up a 12-day stint of Summer School teaching.  Not something I ever saw myself doing.  Why am I doing it?  Same reason Steve is working un-Godly hours cleaning beer lines and being a human traffic cone.  No need to beat around the bush...We need the money.

I am officially on leave from my teaching job so, as of June 10, I have not been paid.  We are living off savings at this point.  The dream of being on the road by end-of-summer is slowly being smashed to smithereens.

But... we have not yet found ourselves between a rock and a hard place...

it will all work out, come Hell or high water.  

I just keep reciting this to myself.  It will all work out.  It may not work out in our time-frame or in the way in which we perceived it, but it will work out the way it should. You just have to keep your head above water.

I am seeing reasons why we haven't left yet.   One is the reason why I am teaching Summer School...to help out a friend.  And when the opportunity came to make the money, I had to take it.  Even though I HATE getting out the door 4 days a week at 7am with three kids!  I am looking forward to next week when I can just begin my summer.  Not that I won't keep working...I mean, money doesn't grow on trees.

Steve, too, has been on the clock since the first week of July.  He is also helping a friend with his business cleaning beer taps.  If nothing else, he'll learn a new skill.  There are worse things to know than how to keep your keg lines clean.  It's amazing how absolutely disgusting some bars and restaurants keep their systems.  I won't say where, out of professional courtesy.  But, yeah, look before you draught.

Steve's hours have been many and have made for very long days.  It's been a work summer so far, but we are thankful for the opportunities to work as many people have none, or, at least, no desire to take them.  And, in the long run, maybe this will all work out.  Our Fall 2011 may look different than the vision we had a year ago.  Being flexible is key...you have to bend with the wind; roll with the punches.

Anyway, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.  Where there's a will, there's a way.  Nothing ventured; nothing gained.    And we have everything to gain...so...

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!