Still just a rat in a cage...part 2

Now that I've got Collin in bed for the night I can finish my thoughts.
I only have two weeks left at work before I'm a stay at home mom and I'm feeling excited and nervous. I'm very excited to be at home with Collin and yet I've never been without a job since I was about 16yrs old. I do find having a job, ie a place to go everyday, gives me a sense of purpose. I'm a person out there contributing to society. And the validation for that work is in the form of money. I know that staying at home and raising a family is contibuting to society. It really could be the most important contribution that we give since our children go out into the world and become other contributers. It's just hard to see that validation right away. When they are 30 and happy, healthy and successful in life, that is when you know that you did a good job. Raising kids is frightening to me. I know nothing about this "job". I am one of those people that like to read the instructions before I get started on a project. There really are no instructions. This kid is an individual, he is unlike me or my husband in many ways. I know we just have to do our best and hope we're doing all the right things. But that is scarey to me. I just don't want to screw this up.

Dave and I have made real strides lately in reducing our debt. Which is one of the reasons I'm able to even have the option to stay home with Collin. We filed our taxes and we're getting a huge refund this year. And it's ALL going to bills. We're gonna pay off his car that we got for him in Germany, then when we sell it (because we have to sell it before we leave Germany) we are putting that money on our Blazer to pay it off. We'll be going back to Oklahoma with a fully paid off vehicle. And since we got our intrest rate reduced while we were stationed overseas, we're paying it off two years early!!!! How cool is that? Plus we got all our credit cards paid off except for one and we're working on it. After that all we'll have is my car payment (that has a really low intrest rate) and my student loans (groan). I've never been so close to being debt free....I've always had something. It's an exciting feeling to know that when you go to work, you're not working to pay bills. You're working for you!! You can live your life and enjoy it because you have money, free and clear, to do whatever you want to do. Dave and I don't fight over money, but it will still be a load off both of our minds to know we don't have debt hanging over our heads.
Hopefully Dave and I will get good jobs when we get back to Oklahoma. It's even possible that Dave could get a job that pays well enough that I could stay at home with Collin and our future children and go back to school part time. That's my plan eventually anyway. It will just be nice to put down some roots somewhere.....