Abundant Blessings

As teachers, both Mike and I will forever more have to pay for continuing education classes to keep our certification current (which totally bites-but what can you do?). However, to make matters "even better"- lol-almost 2 years ago Mike decided he wanted to further his education and better his career path by earning his Principal/School Administration credentials. To Mike that means classes-to me, that means another bill. Errrr....So we have pinched our pennies, worked extra jobs, etc. in order to pay thousands of dollars every 3 months for this tuition. It has been quite challenging at times, but we've found a way to make things work every month. Most of all-we will be glad to not have a gigantic debt to pay at the end of the program. But....things are strapped pretty tight-and basically our savings account gets depleated every 3 months in order to pay this tuition-not a huge deal, it's a means to an end. That is- until something BIG and unexpected comes along. Which in these situations is pretty much ALWAYS inevitable right? lol
The big thing in this particular circumstance is my recent dental work. I sat down one day and worked out all different figures of how we could continue to pay our typical bills (mortgage, utilities, etc.), pay cash for the tuition, AND the new payments to the dentist.....cutting back on our cable options, lowering our cell phone plans, etc. we were able to come up with a comfortable monthly payment....until....this particular dentist required UPFRONT payment. Of all the dentists we've ever gone to-I've always been able to make monthly payments (like you can with hospital bills) without interest, until it was paid off and it's never been a problem. Go figure. So we stressed and stressed and the only option that we were left with was to open a "Dental Credit" account, with no interest for 6 months. I panic about these things because I HATE credit cards, etc. but-this was our only way to make it all work after insurance covered their portion. 6 months to pay it all off was our new plan-I didn't know HOW we were going to make that work, but if I had to get another job after Mike got home at night-that's what I was going to do. I had made calls to Gymboree in Yakima & was hoping something would present itself. If not-the worst of it was that we were going to have yucky interest to pay. (NOT that I am complaining, because I realize there are people who have it much worse than we do.)
On the day of my appointment, my in-laws took the day off work and came over to watch the kids while Mike & I were gone-keeping in mind Mike's mom was still recovering from a recent surgery herself-for that alone, I felt very blessed. Afterwards, I came home and didn't really know much of what was going on, let alone how I GOT home-lol. I woke up in bed a few hours later with Brinkley snuggled on my shoulder. I could hear my kids laughing and happy to be playing with Grandma & Papa-and once again I felt blessed. I had no concept of time at this point, but apparently Mike had gone to work an after-school sporting event, so his parents stayed longer to watch the kids in his absence since I was still loopy. I came out to join everyone in the living room and all I remember was Mike's mom giving me Gatorade and then it felt like in the blink of an eye-Mike was back and my in-laws headed home. Honest moment: I totally cried when they left and I remember telling Mike that we were very blessed and how sad I was that we weren't able to spend more time together. Still-I was thankful.
Which brings me to this afternoon-when I received this in the mail:

Words can't express my gratitude, and tears seem to be all that I can find. I am very blessed and so grateful for the love & support of my family. Our blessings are truly abundant.