Soul Carving

What do you do when your husband is laid off from a job he's given his all to, and you realize that this means you will no longer be able to redeem the airline tickets he won from a work raffle? What options are left when the 2-week Italian getaway you were planning to celebrate your 15th anniversary is no longer a possibility? How do you cope? You get thrifty, of course! Yes, it's true, Richard was one of the unfortunate ones to be let go from the company a month before Christmas. And yes, we had to come to terms with the fact that not only would this deprive us of our source of income, it would mean saying "arrivederci" to our plans to go abroad. We'd been researching places to stay, we'd arranged a caretaker for all seven kids, and we'd been dreaming of a Roman holiday for just the two of us. But regulations stipulated that the recipient of the airline tickets must be employed with the company at the time of travel. Our plans were scheduled for the e...