Husband's big week

Courtesy of Jennifer Bramley

Husband had a rather significant few days the week before last. On Tuesday night he received an award from his college (Outstanding Apprentice) and the on Thursday night, he graduated!

We're all so incredibly proud of him. For a long time he didn't really see college as something that was in the cards for him. He'd never enjoyed school, and he already had a good, steady job that supported his family. Pursuing a degree was more of a "that'd be cool but it's not going to happen" than a "someday I will do that" in his mind.

In fall of 2008, he applied for an apprenticeship within his company. It was competitive, but ultimately he was their top pick and he got to choose which path he wanted to take. He decided to take the electrical apprenticeship because, and I shit you not, he said it "won't be as dirty as the mechanical position."

He was wrong, but that's another blog post, and it involves laundry.

The catch to the opportunity was a nearly $4-per-hour pay cut off the bat. Yeah, you read that right. He would receive an evaluation and raise every six months for four years until he was making quite a bit more than his current rate of pay, but at the time I was in school, we had debt, and we were pretty much paycheck-to-paycheck already.

So we talked it out and decided that a few years of discomfort and belt-tightening and, frankly, FEAR, would be worth it in the end for him to receive his college education, paid in full. We refinanced our house, I continued working at my part time job and going to school, and we managed to make our schedules work while Bear was in school.

It was really, really hard. There were several semesters where our credit cards and my student loans kept us afloat. We never missed payments or got into trouble or anything, but money was incredibly tight. And we were dumb, so we still did dumb things sometimes with our money. Things I'd never do now, even though we have more. But I digress.

After a few years in the program, Husband's wages surpassed his pre-apprenticeship rate and things started coming together. We decided to have our Bug, I finished school, we double timed on the debt payoff efforts, and we decided to start working toward our goal of building our dream house.

And that's where this blog began, basically.

So now, after five years in school (because he could only go part time and his school hours counted toward his forty-hour work week), Husband is the proud recipient of his associate of applied science degree as an industrial electrician.

Bear and Bug got to attend both of their parents' college graduations, although Bug was still working on the whole "developing" thing when I walked. Our family could not be prouder of our guy, and we're so happy to put another nail in this custom-built life we're building.

Courtesy of Jennifer Bramley