She apologized, kind of.

Yesterday I got the mail and there was an envelope from Diane addressed to us as a family. It felt like a card and I thought she sent us a card to apologize. I was super tired at that moment and decided to wait until Billy got home to open it in case I was wrong and it wasn't an apology. He opened it and he just looked confused. I asked him what was up. He handed it to me and instead of a true card she had taken the front of a card that said "Thank you" and stuck a very small post-it that simply said "I'm sorry about what happened at the party, Diane".

I'm trying to be gracious and realize that she did apologize. But a freaking Post-It. That was a MAJOR insult, in my home, where you were invited, you brought a party to a screeching halt and I think I deserve more than a post-it.

Still I don't see her often, I can be polite to when I do see her and just let it go. Billy and Scott and still really good friends and I won't interfere with that. Billy did say he was going to try to have a conversation with Scott to see if we/I might of done something to upset/offend her. I'm not saying if we did I deserved what she said but at least then we would have an explanation of some sorts.

Billy is now officially hired at the company he is working at. He's been there awhile but it was a very loose agreement with not so great pay while the company could see what he could do. They have been in salary talks for the last couple of weeks. It didn't go as well as I had hoped. He will be making considerably less than he had at either of his last two jobs for doing basically the same thing. The big difference is this time he will have a bit more authority and it has a fancy title to go with it.

There is a bonus plan in place that if all the stars align right and they do a ton of business Billy could get a 2K bonus every quarter. According to the other managers(this is a standard agreement in the company for department heads) they've never had that much. Realistically it's more like $500 or so. Better then nothing but it only comes every 4 quarter and I'm not sure a creditor is going to wait to get paid. Not to mention so much is dependent on how business they do and printing does have busy seasons and slow times. It also depends on how well he can manage the department. One person is easy, she gets along with Billy and has been really receptive to the changes he has made. The other guy is not cooperating and it's frustrating to think our financial fate is up to him.

According to Billy he was slightly overpaid at both places and what they are offering is within what places are paying for that job. It's just frustrating to go backwards and I don't know how we will even catch up(keep in mind Billy has been pulling an even lower wage for quite awhile), let alone ever get ahead. I just have to trust that Billy made the best deal he could(and I know he is still sending out resumes here and there.)

On the bright side he is working. In the last couple of months a few print shops have gone out of business and there is the rumor that the company that laid him off in June will be out of business by years end. Last month 1/2 of the company's payroll checks bounced and I'm thankful he left when he did and isn't out there with 50 other people competing for the same jobs. He also got vacation time starting at the beginning of the year so he can take some time off next summer to spend with the kids.

And an even brighter side is he's happy. He likes it there, he likes the pace, he likes the owners, feels it's well managed and has shown growth every year they have been in business. He said he sees a lot of oppurtunities for the future. He also mentioned he found a pay stub from his old job. He said it was for a huge check with 14 hours of overtime on it. He said instead of thinking about how much money they paid him all he could remember was the stress, the chest pains/shortness of breath, and the dread he felt in the pit of his stomach every night before he went to sleep knowing that the next morning he had to go back there. He said all that pales in comparison to a few creditors calling and a bruised credit rating. And he's right. In the 18 years we've been together we've been through tough times before but we've never not had what we really needed, we may not had what we always wanted, but we've done Ok.

On the stitching front I'm sooo close to being ready to bead my CF. I had hoped to be at that point yesterday but I was just too tired. I didn't sleep well Sunday night after G's party and I didn't sleep well Monday night either after talking over money with Billy. I took a nap after I dropped G at school.