Stressful Week

I am having spacing issues that I can't fix...does anyone else ever have this problem with blogger? We had a stressful week last week. I don't want to go in to the boring details, but I do want to record the event for our family history so you can skip most of this and just read the last paragraph if you want. Just over four years ago we were living in Nevada enjoying life as an US Air Force family. Jackson and I both had a strong feeling that we needed to get out of the air force and move to Grand Junction. It didn't seem that this would be possible because we had committed to three more years of service just nine months prior. Jackson looked in to our options and discovered that they just "happened" to be thinning out the ranks in Jackson's graduating Intel class. Jackson's grandparents had also just "happened" to have moved out of their house and it was sitting empty. Everything was perfect...except for a job...we didn't have one of those. As soon as we got here Jackson took a part time night job at the post office. After a few weeks of that he was promoted to a day time custodian. The post office has never been cleaner than when Jackson worked there. He did a fantastic job! We were constantly searching and watching for something more permanant to come up. To make a long story short...Jackson met a man who had owned and operated his own commercial real estate business for 30 years. Jackson began working for him and we hoped to buy the business from him within about three years when he planned to retire. Things happened and it has been over 4 years and his boss isn't able to retire like he had hoped to do. We have learned how hard it is to live on a commission only pay plan. A budget is just about impossible and stress levels are pretty high. We have been applying for many jobs over this four year time period. Even though Jackson seems (to us) to be fully qualified for the jobs we apply for, we have been turned down for all of them. When Waddell and Reed offered him a job, we didn't consider it as a possibility at first because it is also commission based. After a lot of thought, however, we decided to go for it for many different reasons. He started there at the beginning of this year. He had a lot of real estate transactions still pending that took a lot of time. He also still taught cello lessons one full day a week. Because of those things he was only there part time. The company has benchmarks for their employees. We misunderstood and thought those benchmarks were for bonuses and motivation. They weren't and we found that out one month before the benchmark needed to be met. His boss was very supportive and was willing to help him out by sharing some deals that were coming through, but we decided that he wasn't willing to give up cello or real estate completely and that he wouldn't be able to do the kind of job they wanted from him. He is still helping them finish up a few things that he had in the works, but he will not be working there much longer. The day he sat down with his Waddell and Reed boss to discuss leaving, we got a call from an Air National Guard unit in Illinois. They were offering him a traditional guard position. At that moment it sounded so great to be able to get insurance and retirement benefits through the guard, so we agreed to have Jackson fly out there and learn the details. When he got there, they told him about a full time position that was opening up....which would be perfect for us except for the part where we would have to move there. There are so many things we love here. Also, he has started a great cello studio with students who have invested in instruments. They would be without a teacher if we left. We spent almost an entire week in constant turmoil and deliberation. We had lists up on the wall of pros and cons and considerations to each option. This type of job was something we had wanted and hoped for for years and it had just fallen in our laps. Finally, we decided that we were going to go...we were going to pack up and yank our little family out of this place we love and go for it. That morning Jackson emailed the people in Illinois and told them. The rest of that day both Jackson and I were high strung, stressed out, tense, and worried. That night my sister in law Amber sent us an email in response to ours asking for advice on the decision. Her email was an answer to our prayers. We changed our decision and have felt peaceful and calm ever since. There are still cons to our situation here, but they are okay because we know that a loving Heavenly Father has kindly prompted us to stay. We have decided that Jackson is going to focus some energy on getting more cello students. This will help with the steady income stream that is so hard to get from real estate. Here are a few flyers we have been working on. Suggestions?

This is a business card...front...

...and back.