After Midnight and It’s Quiet

It’s after midnight here and the living room is quiet, except for re-runs of Shark Tank to keep me company. Every day since being let go of my job, I’ve been searching non-stop but with no reply as of right now. It’s interesting to see how things have changed when giving information to companies. I know that they can’t ask you your age, at least not straight out but now they ask for a drivers license number and of course that has your birth year in it, thus giving them your age.

You might know that I’m not a spring chicken but I’m not exactly dirt either. Having been through a lot of experiences in my life so far, I think I’m qualified for a lot of things. But while making it through all of the life experiences, this took away from what employers are looking for, higher education. I’ve always been one to put others before myself, mainly family and I wouldn’t ever change that. However, this seems to really be biting me in the butt now.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I will do whatever it takes to provide for my family even if that means working in fast food in which I hate doing. I love customer service but have never felt I was very good at serving food outside of my own kitchen. We’ll see where I end up but I’m trying to keep my hopes up.

It’s a bit weird sitting in my living room while there is nothing but silence outside. Not hearing the sound of cars going down the road or someone walking, is something that I’m still getting used to.

I’ve talked about us clearing the land of brush and trees and the hard work is paying off. Before losing my job, I purchased a really good priced security camera   for the outside of the house. This was a bit of my fear of where we used to live and also a bit of people saying that there are bears here (I haven’t seen one yet). My son put them up for me and it’s been a bit amusing watching them. Right now I’m watching the waves of fog start to roll in and it looks weird, a bit like a ghost looking wave of white. Last week, my son was looking back at the footage from the night and we were surprised to see two deer show up in our backyard! That’s a lot because before we started clearing, there’s no way that they would have had access to it. I want so badly for them to come back but I don’t want the bears that people talk about.

I just realized that the front door wasn’t locked and it freaked me out a little. Although I can see the camera, it’s still scary. We don’t get many cars driving by here, if they do we know that they’re either really lost or looking for a place to dump trash. I’ve contacted the county a few times and had them come out and clean up the dumped trash down the street but it always comes back and they really don’t do such a great job cleaning it up. I never knew just how dirty people are when it comes to their trash. The “dump” is truly not even a mile a way, it’s where we take our trash but they want to find a place to dump it instead of driving up to a green container and throwing it in. Am I missing something?

Hopefully all of this hard work will pay off and what I leave for my son and granddaughter will be something worth leaving. It’s scary to have to provide for someone else when you don’t see providing for yourself at this time. Maybe if I had a solid job offer or even responses, I might feel better.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and something good will happen. Maybe I can win the lottery, wouldn’t that be a quick fix (I’m kidding, I know that’s a dream).

Now that I know what the house sounds like at 1 am in the morning, I’m finally getting sleepy. I hope this wasn’t just a ramble and I hope to have better news when I write again. This just makes me feel not so alone while going through it all. I would never burden my son with how much I worry but he does know about the job situation.

Let’s just hope that with it being so quiet, the universe can hear me better tonight. Hope you sleep well, g’nite.

Happy Holidays…..or Not?

The holidays have been hard work this year, hard but enjoyable. It’s been different from the others but in the right direction. Being able to see my sister more and having them actually over for dinner, that is amazing in itself. But being away from my older nephew has been difficult, he’s my dude as I call him. I found out today that I will be able to pick him up and have him for the week after Christmas, I can’t wait to catch up with him.

So most things are going right this holiday season and I’ve enjoyed the changes. It seems as though my employer didn’t think I should have such a nice one and they decided to let me go. I know why they did, we (myself and other employees) had been noticing people disappear while more and more people were hired on to an outsourced company they brought on a while back. They told us not to worry, that this company was just to help with the overflow but they started making them supervisors and bringing them on as normal working hours. So it was clear to see what was happening. People that had been working for them for years were silently disappearing and no one was saying anything about it.

We all know that it’s cheaper for companies to hire outside of the US. It’s even more cost effective when they hire a company that has their own employees, this way they don’t have to provide health insurance or any benefits to those employees. So little by little this company is removing it’s US based employees and using cheaper labor outside. I can only say that you get what you pay for as I would feel embarrassed many times by what the customer told me and by what I would hear on the recorded call from the prior agent, it was horrible, like placing 5 year olds on the phone to help customers.

It’s okay, not exactly the timing that I was wanting but I had always said that this job was just so that I could move my family. It took longer to move my family but we made it here and I guess this is the Universes way of kicking me in the butt to get a brick and mortar job now. My sister said the same thing when I told her what happened. No it’s not ethical how they did it and are still doing it to other US employees. I know they’re wrong and so do they, they way they want to give me two weeks pay as a severance but in order to get that, I have to sign a document that says I won’t talk about it in any way. That just shows me how right I am in knowing what they’re doing.

I’ve already placed my resume out onto several websites and am on top of the daily search. I haven’t much when it comes to office clothing but I can make it happen with a little bit. It will be nice to have coworkers in a face to face environment. It’s what we had planned on, just not this way I guess.

Funny how you wish for something and picture in your mind how it should go but then it goes in a completely opposite direction before getting you to the outcome that you were looking for in the first place. I can’t say that I’m not nervous but I’m not in a panic either. Maybe that’s a bit of faith stepping in because of everything working out so far.

I am thankful for what we have and for what we have been given in life. The future, I’m not sure what it holds but there has to be something good on the horizon. I’m not a proud person, I’ll do whatever needs to be done in order to support my family, maybe that’s why I haven’t panicked yet.

Do I want karma to happen to this company? Yes in a way for what they’re doing to honest hard-working individuals. These workers have families but one by one as they disappear, it shows just how they don’t care.

I have 21 days to decide if I will sign that paper, the one that gets me two weeks pay and the one that says I can’t talk to anyone about what’s happened. I hope I don’t need to sign it because I don’t want to. I’ve never asked anyone to “hush” about anything that I’ve done and that is due to me being honest and if I’ve messed up then by all means, I fess up to it. So to be told that I have to be quiet about a company doing something that they know is not right, that doesn’t sit well with me.

One day at a time, pretty sure that I’ve said it before in my posts before so that’s exactly what I’m doing . Let’s see where this takes us, hopefully it’s the direction that I’m supposed to be going and hopefully better.

Holiday Seasons Change

The other day it rained, it rained for over 24 hours straight. I can’t remember at the old house it ever raining that long unless it was storm season. This was just non-stop rain, no gusting wind and only a tiny bit of thunder when it first started. Other than that it varied from sprinkle to downpour but it never stopped.

Our road is a dirt road, as we’re out in the woods, and I watched the puddles build while looking out our window. We had gone shopping earlier in the week and I was thankful that we didn’t have to leave the house but I did feel bad for the FedEx driver that had to be out in in.

My son and granddaughter have been fighting a bit of a cold, she’s had the sniffles while he’s had a horrible cough. I was doing everything I could, taking vitamin c and drinking my tea with honey, I thought I was out of the clear when he started to cough less. I was wrong, I feel like crud. Possibly what got me was that last week, my sister invited us to go to the Christmas parade and since we’re new here, I was able to get off of work early enough to go. It was nice, having that time to sit and talk to my sister is always nice but to watch the kids and grandkids interact is so wonderful to me. It got a little chilly towards the end of the parade and I left my jacket in the car so I think this is what pushed my immune system to it’s limit. By the time this past weekend got here, I was full cough and cold mode. This one is a bit different, I get a migraine and then the cough just feels like it’s going to blow my head off! I have to hold my head when I know I’m going to cough but it’s caught me off guard a few times. With work, since I work on the phone, I told my supervisor that I brought my sexy voice to work but I just couldn’t make it through the entire day on Saturday. I told them, and it was true, that my breathing sounded like a purring cat. I left early and took more medicine and laid down. That night when I laid in bed trying to sleep more, my breathing gave way to a squeak  as I exhaled. Nothing will scare you more than waking up to a cat being almost nose to nose with you while they hunt down the source of the squeak. I jumped and I think my heart skipped a beat a few times. I got back up to try and get it to clear but it just didn’t and I ended up falling asleep in the chair in the living room.

I’m still sick today but I can’t leave work, I have to make it through (need the money). My ears have decided to play a part of my day today and have plugged up. So, I’m coughing, wheezing, sniffling, sneezing, sleepy (more-so with the medicine), feverish. I feel like I’m missing a dwarf.

Only ten more hours to get through and then I can try to sleep again. I might try soaking in a steaming tub! Wow, I can actually say that and it sounds weird. But maybe that will help my breathing and throbbing head? I want to feel better for Christmas, I don’t have to work this year and I’m super excited. I think I’m excited to know how it feels with being in a new place and all. Moving from the old house to here, so far it hasn’t torn me like I thought it would but this is a big holiday so it makes me a bit nervous. With my sister being so close now, I think that’s helped a lot. We’re going to eat Christmas dinner at her house and it’s nice to even think of doing that without having to worry about a long drive afterwards. We’ll have New Years dinner here and they can come over, that sounds nice too.

My other sister that lives exactly next door to this sister, weird enough she has only been over here twice and hardly reaches out to me. I thought it was just because they didn’t want to help with any of the heavy work but even when she knows that we’ve got the house livable and we’re keeping the front part of the yard up while we clear out the back….she still doesn’t reach out. I don’t know what else to do. She knows I’m here and I welcome her in so we’ll just have to go from there.

Oooh, I just found out that I’m making an apple pie for Christmas dinner. I haven’t done one in a long time. I’ll see if I can take a picture of it! If I don’t write anything before Christmas gets here, for those that celebrate it and even if you don’t, I hope you have an amazing holiday season! I’m hoping for one also.

Warm Shower Cold Outside

I’m in the new place working and I so much want to look back on what was happening this time last year. The changes, I know, have been amazing and I am so ever thankful for them. We have had a few very cold nights lately and it’s night and day from the old house.

This time last year, I’m thinking that we were checking the plastic on the windows and the back door to make sure that we kept as much cold out as we could. It was also this time of year that showers were so hard to take. The room would be so cold and the thought of stepping into that water just makes me shiver right now even. I would put a floor heater in the room so that my granddaughter could take a shower but that took forever to heat up enough as the room itself stayed cold (we actually blocked it off too).

So when I can now put my granddaughter in a bath (not just a shower) and feel comfortable knowing that all I would need to do is dry her hair after wards, it just means more than the world to me. It still feels a little chilly here but I actually am able to run around the house in shorts instead of three layers of clothes. It’s weird to open the front door and feel such a difference to the outside weather compared to inside. I’m so thankful.

We’ve put in a lot of work so far, replacing the floor and facilities in one of the bathrooms. Washing the walls (yes the walls) and painting them along with cabinets in the kitchen. We’re clearing out the back yard as it’s overgrown a lot but we’re making progress. My granddaughter can actually go outside with her dad and help him and I don’t worry about either one of them being the victim of a drive by. We actually have no neighbors here. I think our closest neighbor might be a quarter mile away but I haven’t truly measured. We see an occasional four wheeler when school is out and if a car goes by it’s something we stare at. I might see one airplane a week going over if I’m lucky whereas we lived close to the airport at the old house and there were dozens each day.

I do miss all of my different birds but some are starting to come around here, mainly finch, chickadee and titmice. There is a grey bird with a black head but it doesn’t eat from the feeders, oh and a male and female cardinal too. I’m hoping as we get the land cleared that more and more will show up as I really enjoy watching them.

Did I mention that I can have family over? I’ve actually asked my sister and her family to come over Sunday for a game night, how wild is that? I’ve never been able to do that before. We’re going to order pizza (have to drive 10 miles to pick it up) and sit around and talk, I can’t wait!

If there’s a down side to living out in the country, it’s balanced by the good. The nearest Walmart is 27 miles away so when we go to town, we’re learning not to forget anything. But then I don’t have the opportunity to spend on a whim either unless it’s at Family Dollar as they’re the closest at 10 miles.

So today, it’s raining and I mean buckets of rain but I’m okay with it. It’s actually relaxing to hear the rain hit the roof. Yes we have to get a new roof and have to wait for them to come but they put a cover on the weak spots and will be back in February as I’m on the schedule for then. With the house, my son had a leak over his room and it used to break my heart each time I saw it grow bigger and bigger. I remember just praying everyday for a solution and then this came along. It’s been a rough road to get here but we’re making it work.

The house we moved into was actually in the shape of what you might call a hoarder house. We literally came in with shovels to clean up the floor. We got that removed, disinfected and have I learned a lot more about that! Then started with the rehab of what it needed. I still have the bathroom in my room shut off as I think I’m running out of money to do that right now, the roof has to come first. There are a few electrical outlets that do not work but I’ve replaced outlets before and I’m hoping that is all that’s needed but not sure.

No matter what, we’re warm and have food on the table so I am feeling blessed. I think this will be a different Christmas but different in a good way.

Pink Sky and a Throw Blanket

This morning I stood at the kitchen sink, staring at the tall grass that waved in the wind just past the lights reach. We haven’t been able to cut it down yet and I think some kind of animal has its residence in there.

As I looked at this grass, a little bit of light had just started to peek out of the top of the trees, it was beautiful and has now grown into a lovely shade of pink across the sky. I wouldn’t be able to see this from our old home and it’s very calming. How can I live every morning like this?

These past few weeks with work have been extremely stressful and less and less enjoyable. I love people, don’t get me wrong, but its the people that I work with that are making it unbearable. The customers are fine, they are calling for a service and I completely understand so they get me and how I treat all my customers, with respect and caring. As for those that I “work with” I’ve withdrawn a lot from the communication of it all.

Working from home, you don’t have a co-worker sitting beside you that you can joke with. In the virtual world you have a chat room, however when it’s company owned equipment you are careful with how and what you write in that chat room. So having a friend for a co-worker in the virtual world, you’re  not sure how sincere it is. No facial expressions and watching what you type.

This along with the way that the company is going, I think I’m at the true end of my rope. I’ve always been a fan of great customer service and if you’ve read some of my earlier things then you know it irritates me that it’s less and less important to companies now.

The company that I’m working with is doing the same, it is taking away the value of great customer service and in it’s place putting numbers. How many calls can you take in an hour, how much money do you refund, coupon or credit. How many emails are you working while working on the phone. Then and only then do they look at customer reviews.

This is where it doesn’t add up to me and please tell me if I’m wrong or your opinion on it. How can a “customer service agent” get a good review when trying to quicken the call length in order to take another one and keep their number up? How are they supposed to get a good review when they have to coupon as told by a supervisor to do?

Now I’m just the opposite because I take care of the customer and I do get amazing reviews. It’s judged 1-5 with 5 being the highest score you can get. There are times that I do get a lower review but they will normally notate that it wasn’t anything I did but they gave the rating because of the company. So this entire month while moving, I’ve maintained a rating of 5 from my customer reviews. The other agents haven’t done this, but they might be meeting those numbers of calls taken and emails answered. But the customer doesn’t have a good experience!

I will not return to a company that treats me badly, why do some places not understand this. Does the younger generation not care and still return no matter how their treated? Please tell me because I don’t understand it.

I even offered to train some of the other employees on how to treat people, as stupid as that seems given it should be common sense. But it’s all about the numbers to these people.

Waking up even to work in my own home, I’m not happy anymore with them. I’ve tried everything that I can in order to help them with the service but they don’t care. It’s all money driven and to some point I completely understand that, but at what cost?

There is a show where someone is making a podcast, I’ve never gotten into podcasts as I don’t have much alone time to listen to them, but are they popular? There are many opinions that I have and would love to talk about but I have to find something that still pays the bills. Some say that the lottery would be nice, I wouldn’t want the entire amount but I wouldn’t mind trying with a little of it. Maybe enough to get me started and pay my bills while I work on writing here and learning about and creating a podcast.

My window is larder here in my bedroom, I can see the light of the sun just starting to brighten the tops of the trees. It’s truly a beautiful thing to be able to watch, now I would just like to watch it with a warm cup of coffee, a comfy chair and a throw blanket while sitting outside on a porch that I don’t have (but I really want).

Right now, I would take a lawn chair and cup of coffee, with the throw blanket though, just enough money to know that my bills are paid and food is on the table. That would make me happy.

Finally Moved

Today marks a week of work since moving, Tuesday was the actual week since we moved and it’s been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Not that I haven’t moved before, just that I haven’t moved from house to house before. Lat time I moved was from an apartment back into the house during the time that my mother was ill, just before she passed.

I believe I’ve written about how much that house meant and still means to me, I thought it held the memories and I would lose them. To be honest, I don’t know if it’s because we were having to do so much or what but the physical move from the house didn’t hurt me as much as I thought it would. Maybe I had cried myself out before hand and that was my mourning or maybe it just hasn’t hit me yet, I don’t know.

When we got down to the end of the day and the house was just a shell, I was okay with it. Mind you I still had a two hour drive ahead of me in a 26′ UHaul that I was driving so maybe being tired and having that in my head helped. Adrenal did surely play a big part of that night, along with a lot of caffeine, but we made it.

Sadness only seemed to play a part when we visited the neighbors. This couple has grown up with us because they were a young family when they moved in next door. They are grandparents now and didn’t want us to move, they’re honestly the only reason I think that we truly were there for so long, along with not being able to get several other places that we looked at. He came to the door to say goodbye but she made an excuse that she was in the shower. I don’t hold it against her because I know it was hard, she left a voicemail on the phone so I know that’s the best she could do.

We arrived here at about 10 pm that night and were so tired that we just couldn’t unload. We had a freezer chest in the back, we ran an extension cord to plug it in and locked up the truck. We’re so far in the woods that we actually left the truck in the “road” overnight and it was okay. I have not seen another car yet drive past the house but my son said he’s seen two so far. This is a far cry from the thumping music of cars at all hours at the other place. However, we’ve been met by a LOT of hard work, mosquitos, snakes and frogs.

With me having to work, my son has been doing a lot during the day while also keeping up with his daughters school lessons too. My sister has been great with taking her over to her house and tutoring her (starting to). Once we get through all of this, it will be okay, it’s just a lot to deal with. I’ve been through worse is what I keep telling myself, but I’ve never had to renovate bathrooms and that’s what we’re having to do. It’s the only way we could move, a fixer upper and that’s just what it is. So one bathroom has new facilities shall we say, but the floor is only partially done. I don’t care so long as I can take a shower and use the facilities. The second bathroom (attached to my room) is a bit worse when needing repairs so we’ve closed it off for right now and will hopefully get to it next month or earlier. We have to strip the floors and take out the facilities and sink in order to replace them.

I’ve never had to hire a junk removal service before but that’s what I have scheduled for next week. We have so many garbage bags and old broken furniture and appliances in the front yard that we look like a dump…oh and the toilet that we took out is out there too! So I’m learning how to do these things and trying to keep my sanity while doing it.

We’ve been without a refrigerator now (counting the old house) about two weeks now and I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t know they were delivering it on Saturday. They’re bringing out a stove and a washer and dryer also, the previous owner had dogs and I think the washer and dryer were clogged with hair but I just couldn’t bring myself to put any of our clothes in it and I’m truly not prude or anything, you should have seen it.  The stove, I thought it was yellow until it was taken out into the light, it was actually white! We were told not to open the fridge so I don’t even want to think of what was in there. Freezer living is what we’ve been doing and I don’t like it one bit. I want vegetables!

I have to work and so I have my desk (broken in the move) set up and able to work. Thank goodness the internet is up although getting it changed into my name seems to be taking an act of congress to get done. The electric company had me hooked up at another address until I physically went in there and they figured it out. I’ve had to get a PO box because the mailbox for here is not in front of the house as you would think. It’s about 5 “blocks” away in a row with about four other mail boxes. So I can’t see them and know who’s getting into the mail and I don’t like that, so PO box it is. But I will say, if I order anything from Amazon, the mail shows up in a pick up truck and will put it in a trash bag before leaving it on the other side of your fence, yes that’s the truth. So I’m glad that I can get at least that….some sense of normalcy.

Well, I should stop writing because I know I could keep going with all the things that have happened so far, this would turn into a book. Let’s see what happens today that can be added to my story.

Praying So Hard

Oh my goodness! I am in shock today and I don’t know how long it takes to wear off. We are buying a house. It turns out that my older brother is selling his house and moving closer to work so we are going to buy his house and land from him. It never dawned on me that he wanted to move and it just came up in conversation.

The school zone is right where we were looking to be albeit a bit more in the woods than I was hoping but it’s growing up out there so I don’t think it will be so alone for that much longer. It’s a huge difference in the convenience of shopping and entertainment but we really don’t do movie theaters or sit down dinners outside of the house anyway. We do eat some drive throughs to bring home but that will stop and I don’t mind that either, nor will my waistline.

But I was just praying not to have to go through another cold and freezing winter in this house again and then it happened. I think we were deterred from the other houses just for this to happen. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, he kind of let it go after the divorce so it’s been him and his three dogs (you have to have a dog out there and I think a gun too). But once we get it all set, there will be plenty of room for my granddaughter to play. I can’t believe we can actually get a swing set! I wonder, is six years old too old for a swing set? Just the thought of her being able to play outside makes me get emotional.

He said that they do get wild animals and that is why you have to have a dog out there. My two sisters live just 15 minutes down the road so I know I would see them way more than I do now. Even though they will visit and we will visit, it’s a huge difference than where we are now. No loud booming cars driving down the road at 2 am. They have gunshots but that’s from people hunting so I’ll have to get used to not hearing deliberate shooting at other people. As it is now, I sit and watch out my bedroom window while working. I watch each and ever person that walks or drives down the street because I just don’t trust anyone. Our house was burglarized during the day so it’s completely believable that it can still happen again. Not being in fear of a drive-by will be something to get used to but then I’ll have to get used to looking for animals too.

I kept saying I wasn’t going to get a dog but I think it’s necessity out there. We would definitely have to start with a puppy so that they grow up my with granddaughter. My brother right now has a German Sheppard who I thought was going to tear through the door when we got there and then he has to “ankle biters” that were super cute. My sister that lives near by there, she has a mix that she adopted from the shelter, part bloodhound and part ridgeback and she’s adorable. I think we’ll end up going to the same shelter that they did.

This sister has truly been amazing to me and my family. She’s been there through my panic attacks and they have dropped what they’re doing (even called into work) when I went into the hospital a few years ago, just to be there. She’s been with me every step of the house hunt and even gone to check out property up there if I asked. They’re now offering to help us with the clean up so that we can move in faster, I just don’t know what I would do without the two of them (she and her husband).

I’m just praying and keeping good thoughts that this is going to work out and is exactly what we need to do. I’m scared to death but I’m excited also. I’m praying so hard that this is what we need.

Image of Strength and Love

She was born to a woman that was in her second marriage. Her mother was a bit older than her father when they married. She was his only daughter but there were many more children already from her first marriage. The youngest of those siblings was already 16 when she came along so there weren’t many playmates her age at the time.

Her father was a lumberjack that had recently immigrated to the United States. He taught her how to work hard for what you have. He supported the family the only way he knew how, hard work. Almost 9 years after her birth, she lost her mother to illness just before her own birthday.

Her father was not prepared to care for children on his own so she went to live with her older siblings but often changing from one house to another and not settling in to call it her own.

When she was 12, her father remarried and they took her back into their home. She was never treated as being good enough by the new wife but was told to call her mother and have respect for her. The wife would often seem jealous of the attention she would get from her father and so she felt pressured to find a way to leave home.

She did want a family and that is what she prayed for. She wanted a lot of children to raise and love as she knew she had a lot of love to give. She learned how to love from her birth mother and what it meant to truly give for your child.

Her sister (16 years older) and her brother-in-law introduced her to someone, he seemed a bit of a loner. She liked him but didn’t think it would turn into much. They ended up getting married a little while later. She left school for him and became a housewife. They had their first two children before leaving the state and traveling thousands of miles away to live.

Before long they added 5 more children to the family and she couldn’t have loved them any less. Yet, her husband soon passed from illness also and so again she was alone. This time, she was alone, 32 years old and the caretaker of seven children. She had left school for marriage so she did not have her diploma. She had only briefly had a waitress position years ago and that wasn’t for long since her husband was the jealous type.

She learned to drive, enrolled back in school and fought to keep her family together. The state had stepped in trying to tell her that she couldn’t take care of all of her children. She fought and she proved them wrong. She and her children were not separated but instead stayed together in the little house that she and her husband had mortgaged a few years earlier.

It was hard but there were times of joy and wonder as she and the children seemed to grow up together at times. She showed them that she was a fighter and a very hard worker that had an unlimited amount of love for her children.

It was that love for her children that she pushed aside her own health needs and she too would pass due to illness at the age of 61. You might not think this is young but as you reach closer to the age yourself, you realize just how young she was.

She is my mother, her passing does not stop her from being my mother so that is correctly in the present tense. She showed me how to keep the family afloat and although we might not have money, we do have love. I live in that very house and I walk the floors feeling her presence sometimes and smelling cigarette smoke. My father was a smoker so that could be.

She is my hero and if I can be a third of who she was on this earth, then I am blessed. I have never met anyone that has gone through what she did and I don’t believe that I ever will.

I love you mom.

How Do People Do It?

I feel like I’ve dropped off the face of the earth lately. Crawling back into my cave and pulling the covers over my head, welcoming the darkness and the mindless sleep. I don’t know what has brought this on for sure but I know it’s been a bit rough lately.

Being able to move seems like it’s getting to be farther away than I had thought. Every time I think I have it right, there is something else that comes up and the dream is taken away from me again. No one helped at all with the gofundme account and I don’t understand what I did wrong. I would never lie and make an account to say that someone is dying, yes we are in a very dangerous area but I would never say anything that wasn’t true. I guess people just think that we’re boring and not enough to help, but I’ve gotten that for years, just from the government when I’ve asked for help after storms or asked if they had any programs that could help to fix up the house. They’ve always told me no, no matter what the situation has been. I’ve had to patch things or learn how to repair things on my own. We’ve gone without things that we really shouldn’t have had to but have had no other choice.

I’m tired, I’m tired of fighting and not getting anywhere. When do I see the payoff for my hard work? Years and I can probably say decades at this point, I’ve been working hard and taking care of people but nothing good has ever come my way in the sense of making it just a bit easier for a little bit. I would still be okay with working hard if I could get us moved to somewhere safer. If my family is safe, it’s all worth it.

May I just feel like I’m being kicked while I’m already down. Learning how to get out of this feeling is not something that I’ve mastered yet. How do people do it?

That Kind of Feeling

I’m feeling a little sad today and I don’t know why just yet. I don’t think I woke up feeling like this, it just seemed to take over. It could be that I have to work today and I would much rather be in bed under the covers. Or maybe it could be that I would much better like to be having my coffee while watching the birds out on the feeders.

It’s almost a feeling of being defeated but I try not to let that enter my world anymore. Hard as it is, I still can try to stay positive about things that are going on. Could it be part of depression seeping back in? This not knowing sometimes makes it worse because I am a curious person and have times that I won’t let something go until I figure it out. This curiosity gets me into further trouble sometimes especially when I’m feeling like this and want to know why.

My dream last night was about school I believe, so that wouldn’t really make me feel sad because I didn’t have a great school experience and it wouldn’t make me miss it at all.

Maybe it’s just from being tired of the struggle each day. I’ve been racking my mind trying to think of anything that I can sell that would be worth anything. I need to make up the money that I need to move. It just seems like we’re so close and yet it’s still so very much out of reach. I don’t have things of value, never have. Be it because of financial reasons or just the way I as raised, the simple things make me happy. Seeing my family happy and safe with food in the refrigerator, that makes me happy.

I work to provide for my family and I’ve never asked for handouts or charity until I put up my gofundme page, but that hasn’t gotten any real activity either so it just shows me that I am not worthy enough to receive help when I ask. So I shouldn’t ask for help anymore and that’s what that has taught me. Maybe that’s what is making me feel sad this morning? I’m always there to help my family when they need me. I don’t have any in real life friends anymore. I have friends on Facebook that I used to know in real life a long time ago. But when my mother passed and I started raising my nephew as my son, everyone in real life seemed to fade into their own life.

So my family will ask for help and as long as it’s something that I can do then I do it. I’ve moved one sister about three times, taken my other nephew into my own home I don’t know how many times. Used my income tax money to get clothing for my nieces children. I give what I can and do what I can when they need me. They were there for me when I asked for help painting the house. I did provide the paint, tools and food but they showed up and that’s what mattered. That was almost two years ago now and I miss having the family almost all together like that.

There are so many things going on in my head this morning that I’m truly not sure which one is making me feel sad. Maybe it’s a combination of all of it? I’ll keep watching the birds outside my window while working and see if it gets any better. It’s overcast outside, maybe if the sun comes up I’ll feel better. Let’s wait and see.