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Things have been going pretty well for us lately at home. Rachel quit the bank (finally) and came to work part time with me at Lund Engineering. It's kind of a funny story, I was getting tired of her having bad, stressful days at the bank, and one day she asked me if she could come to work with me. I told her that I would see what I could do. I thought about it for a few days, and decided that having my wife work with me wouldn't be a bad thing, and that her stress level would definitely go down working where I work, so why not? I went in and spoke with the office manager (the owners wife) and asked if there was anything that my overqualified wife could do. She thought about it for a few minutes and started coming up with things Rachel could do, things that she could stop worrying about and trim her own hours down to a more reasonable 40 per week. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea, and this all happened in the space of about 5 minutes.
From there it was only a matter of checking with the other office staff to see what they thought, and confirming with the Boss that she could hire someone if she wanted. Rachel is sitting out there now, at the front desk right now! And she comes home happy, they offered her pretty good pay, and at three days a week, she has plenty of time to do the other "mom" things she wants to do.
Rachel also just finished up with her online schooling, completing a Bachelors Degree from BYU-Idaho online. That has been a nightmare for our household these last few years especially. Lots of time spent on the computer, not going out with friends, not having time to clean, to play with kids. I stepped in to help as best I could, but I'm not the Mom. I do ok at being a Dad, but I am definitely not a Mom. We are going to have a graduation party here in a few weeks, assuming all goes as planned.

As for me, I am still very happy with my job. I was given a a few months ago and that really helped the income situation stabilize in our home. Things are pretty slow now, and I am having to get creative in order to find enough to keep me occupied. I have spent time in the shop helping with assembly, I have spent time finding and meeting with new potential vendors, I have gone to visit existing vendors to reassure them that we will be busy again soon. I have been doing clerical work here and there, record keeping and such. But I find myself staring out my office window a lot lately. All this sunshine we have had here in the Pacific Northwest is pretty addicting. Not really good for the rhododendrons outside my window though...

One of Rachel's classes was how to start an online business. After looking at the possibilities suggested by the professor, she decided on a consignment type online business. We found out that it is WAY harder to do that previously thought. My hat is off to all those who are able to start, grow and maintain their own  successful online business. We gave it a good try, and still have hopes to be able to do something else in the future, but I think we would have to be way more passionate about the business model/product. You can see our effort at www.Rachae.com