January 2015

I am packing the house up.  We are doing a deed-in-lieu with the bank, so they take the house, and we take to the road.  We are waiting for a phone call from the property management company that will be responsible for the 90 days lease, so we will be here a few more months, but I will be going back to work at Parks and Rec. in April, if all goes well.  I now have over $7000 of medical bills, thanks to my breast cancer scare, and $5000 of it is still the gall bladder surgery.  But a scare is still cheaper than the real thing, so it's just sand in the shoe, not a foot amputation that I'm whining about.

I'm going through decades of stuff, hindered by my own acts of wasting time on the internet, stress eating, and general procrastination.  I have some shelves done, but nowhere where I wanted to be at this time.  And I still haven't arranged for the cats' shots and microchips, so that if they disappear, there's a chance they'll be identified if someone finds them somewhere else after we move.

While packing framed pictures, I found a snapshot from 1978, of me cooking in my college apartment. I am so thin, so very thin!  My hair is brown and thick and long, and is tied back while I beat something in a bowl.  I have my blue workshirt and my blue jeans.  On the door of the pantry is a Smokey Bear bumper sticker:  "Prevent range fires."   The cupboard doors and drawers are all ajar instead of being neatly shut, and I am reminded of people who have pointed out what I slob I am in the kitchen.

I'm getting my mind wrapped around the idea of leaving here, and finding a new place, where the place is clean and bright, and it's just Doug and me, and the junk is gone.  The cats wander in and out of my imagination--sometimes they're with Rachel, sometimes they're with someone else, sometimes with us.  At the new place, I'll be closer to things in town, and I'll be better able to go to events and maybe bike to work, walk on sidewalks and maybe the place will have a gym, but whom am I kidding?  I have free weights here by the computer I haven't touched in months, and a road that I've walked on for miles outside the door that I only look at now from my kitchen window.

The girl in the photo would be puzzled at what I've done to myself. I think I'll end this post with an upnote:  I did my yoga this morning! 

Day 60 The challenge is met

Today I decide to be wealthy.

In the book, Evans' niece and her husband get their lives in order in 60 days, using the mantra, and are very pleased with themselves at this point.

Me?

Well, today I'm not panicking. He didn't make any promises of financial gain or such, just hope.

I don't know if the hope has more to do with the sunlight increasing each day, or if the national financial mess shows glimmers of hope, or that the election is coming up, and people are realizing that President Obama has been keeping his promises, and that the Republican contenders are imploding. I don't know if it's because there are more places to try, or knowing that there is the possibility of having a full-time job for six months coming up in April. Maybe hope has to do with my husband going to work almost every day, and that almost every week, I've had something that has earned us some money, and I still have unemployment, at $99 a week.

Maybe it has to do with that I didn't quit this blog before the 60 days were up.

While I was at Freddy's today, I talked to a long time employee, who said that the woman who was fired the same day I was, for the same thing, has reapplied a number of times, and has not been hired back either, even though she was non-union and would have started out at ground zero on the pay scale.  She said that things are bad at the Bend store, real bad. (I can reapply 60 days after I put in an application.)

So when this sixty days are past, I'll head up to Redmond, talk to a former supervisor there, and see about how successful my application may be there. It's nonunion, which means my retirement package will probably be completely dead, as Bend refuses to take non-management transfers from Redmond in the CCK department, and I haven't been picked up by the union Safeways here.

This afternoon, I stopped at Goodwill, and went to the linens in the back of the store, and imagined what clothes I could make from them.  I like to touch the textures and dream.  I thought about buying some clothes to practice alterations, and found a funny velour shirt, rich with dark colors and possibilities.  There was also a black umbrella, crying for art.  I looked at the yarns, and remembered a woman who wore beautiful sweaters, who told me she buys her yarns at Goodwill.

Maybe I should be creating stuff.  Learn to photograph and sell them in craft places, like Saturday market and on the internet. that would be lesson #3, Make money in the margins.  

Learn to use the internet.

Get the books done and sell them.

And quit hiding in my fears.

Today I decided to be wealthy.

Day 33

Today I decide to be wealthy.

I got my letter from the unemployment office, and found out that they don't have an account of the two months I worked at Parks and Rec, so I have to call them in the morning.  I found my pay stubs, so that's very, very good.

I went through job listings on the internet.  Did laundry. Made a dinner for two and took it to a couple; the husband is getting chemo or something for his cancer on Thursdays, so they need dinners that night.  I made a baked mozzarella ratatouille, a couple of Italian seasoned baked chicken breasts, and some garlic bread, and added a couple of pears, a bag of chocolates and some celery sticks to round it out.

I'm going to bed early tonight.  I got to bed after midnight last night, woke up at 6, and kept falling back asleep into short dreams, that all had dead-end themes to them:  A road I'm on is closed because of a rock slide.  I can't find my hotel room, and then the hotel staff tells me that they can't find any record of my being there. Fun stuff like that.  And then I didn't get out of bed until late in the morning, as I couldn't find my thoughts.

I did do my yoga in the afternoon, and felt much better for having done it, and could feel the energy while I was shopping at the store for dinner stuff.  I've also noticed that my leg and heel pains no longer happen at night.

I need to get up early for the unemployment office phone call.  At night, I have such great plans for the mornings, such as work on sewing room, clean the house. get out ten job applications, walk a mile, exercise, write thank you letters, create art.  And then my head is full of cotton where my brains should be when I wake up.

Today I decide to be wealthy.