My Kodak moment — Zoey the Cool Cat knew that everything would be alright

My Kodak moment

Zoey the Cool Cat knew that everything would be alright

I passed my state real estate exam in May 2005, but it wasn't until August 2005 when I hung my license with
Century 21 Award in Mission Valley.

When I finally made the jump to real estate, I had been working for Borders Group (Borders Books & Music, Waldenbooks, and Brentano's) since I was 18. I had worked my way up to store manager and had worked not only in my hometown of Riverside, but Mission Viejo, and many stores in San Diego.

After 28 years with Borders, I had a lot of vacation and sick leave each year, as well as great health, dental, and vision benefits. My marketing guru convinced me that we could make enough money between the two of us to pay for health, dental, and vision benefits, so off into the wild blue yonder I went.

We took COBRA benefits through Borders since they were so good, but our monthly insurance bill went from a mere $100 a month to over $700 a month. Then COBRA expired 18 months later, and we were left to try to find insurance on our own. It didn't happen. No insurance company would insure either of us, and since we were not legally married, no insurance company would provide spousal benefits if either of us did get insurance. So we started selling everything we had that we weren't using in order to put some extra money into a health savings acccount.

At about the same time, we got Zoey the Cool Cat from the El Cajon Animal Shelter. She was excited about having a forever home, as well as being able to play in all the packing materials that we were using to sell things via amazon.com.

My Kodak moment is a picture of Zoey the Cool Cat:

That picture was taken just a few days after we got her, and she seemed to be saying with her eyes that everything would be alright now that she was part of the family.

Notice that she has plopped herself on a book that we were packaging to mail. Shortly after that picture was taken, I had the opportunity to return to Borders and help open a new store in National City, and we got our Borders health insurance back. I still work at Borders full time and I work as a full-time real estate agent, too. You have to do what you have to do.

This post is written as a submission to the ActiveRain 'Kodak Moments' contest.
I have the chance to win the KODAK EASYSHARE M580 Digital Camera.

To participate in the ActiveRain contest,
visit the blog post announcing the contest from Kodak and ActiveRain.