The good news is...

We won't be living in an RV in the Wal-Mart parking lot!

MM got word from his boss that there will be some re-structuring. Several people were told that they could go back to working on one of the oil rigs or resign. Luckily, MM was not one of them. Not that he would mind going back to a rig - he really did like it for the most part, but it was a dangerous job and the closer he gets to 40 the more ready he is to do something a little less physically demanding. In this economy, a good paying job isn't the easiest thing to find. Right now he'd probably take anything they offered, just to keep working.

But, as I said, luckily he doesn't have to go back to the rig. He was told today that he's going to be working both the area he's at now (about 100 miles from us) and our area. He'll be going back and forth between the two, and working out at the rigs helping out with safety inspections and drug testing as well. He'll also have a company truck to drive when he has to go to the other locations or out to the rigs.

This really, really makes our life a lot easier. For one, even though gas prices have eased quite a bit, he was driving over 1000 miles a week back and forth to work. That's a pretty long commute. It was getting to a point where I was going to have to become a hooker or a thief just to pay for gas. (Just trying to contribute, y'know.) The second problem is we have one vehicle that is really reliable and gets good gas mileage, a big old truck that runs well but gets awful mileage, and a motorcycle that MM only drives in warm weather, and only recreationally, at that. The truck needs to have the passenger seat belt repaired, so I can't drive that around with BW. I don't drive the motorcycle, it's not really my thing. I'm not even sure my husband would let me, since it's his baby. What this all means is that MM has been driving my vehicle each day, and BW and I have been left car less. Which has been fine, temporarily. M2 has been lending me her car or running me around when I need it, thankfully. And it's not like we had to go places often, you can usually plan around not having a car during certain hours. It was inconvenient, but not too terrible.

But with the new situation MM still has a job, he'll be home earlier a few days a week, he'll have to drive less than 10 miles round trip rather than 200 a few days a week, and he can use his motorcycle or the truck when he's here in town. My honor will be saved as I won't have to live a life of crime to pay for gas. (I can safely go back to trading sex for housework, as per our usual arrangement.) And I'll have a car to drive. With seat belts, no less!

Of course, we're pretty much waiting for the other shoe to drop. MM was lucky this time, but who knows what things will be like in a few more months. We're still going to try to sell our house and buy something cheaper, but we'll stay in our same area. Hopefully we'll be able to do that and pay off some debts in the next few months. We're grateful we are where we're at now, but we hope to be in an even better place this time next year. Hopefully without resorting to the seedy underworld of prostitution in the interim.