77

I called June and offered to take her to the library, which she accepted. 
I got the OHSI paper delivered to NeighborImpact, and we shopped at the new DollarTree, and had lunch at Reye's Mexican restaurant. She also gave me $20 for gas, which I gratefully accepted.

I mended some clothes and returned them to her, and deposited Elizabeth's paychecks that had arrived in the mail today.

I keep thinking about the cloth/curtain that I saw at Goodwill, and imagining it on a very thin me.
I've eaten so many calories today, it's just awful. 

73 Health and attitude

I've restarted my yoga exercises. They're rather simple, and a very short list and very easy to do, and focused on my back and legs, which is why it's always a shock when I feel the results.  It feels like the cords behind my knees have been cut, as if they had been taut.  My back feels straighter, and I walk forward easier, more like a dancer instead of slightly lunging from side to side.

One of my husband's customer's just called, and though I told him that Doug was at a job site, he went ahead and started giving me a list of what he needed done.  Instead of writing everything down and assuring him that he would call him, back, I cut him off and offered him my husband's cell phone number instead.  Now he's going to call Doug as his job, and distract him.  Or, perhaps Doug was just packing up and the call is at a good time.

52 And another day

 Today I decide to be wealthy.

I woke up in the morning and thought about getting the paperwork all pulled together.  And then thought about how I didn't have a document 1099 from Sister Boyce, about my working for her. I'll have to find the records I have.

I found the last two bank statements I needed.  They were with the other ones, but behind a divider. I'd gotten up early and felt sleepy in mid-morning and dreamed that a couple of people I'd known at Fred Meyer were asking me to return. I know it has far more to do with my own loneliness than anything else.

One of my daughters called. She was excited about her grad school interview. She still doesn't have a job, but she may have a chance at being accepted in a master's program at a quiet university. It would be interesting it she got it--the third generation in that town! My mom got her bachelor's there, and I lived next to campus when I lived there while trying to make it on my own.  (I ended up going back to U. of Oregon. I should have stayed another year for my grandmother's sake and to grow up more.)

In the afternoon, I went to the school and assisted in taking care of a couple of kids that need one-to-one attention. One is a small girl with Down's Syndrome, who doesn't talk.  I thought about my own daughters, and how hard it would have been to take care of her, and wondered about the girl's parents.

I went to the copy shop to copy the papers, and make sure I had everything with our names and our case/loan number on the top, and then I got groceries and came home.

 Today I decide to be wealthy.

50 Sunday is for start-overs

Today I decide to be wealthy.

While cleaning out the sewing room yesterday, I rediscovered a book I'd read over a year ago:  The Job Hunter's Survival Guide, by Dick Bolles.  He puts out an annual job hunting guide, entitled What Color is Your Parachute? which I bought a copy of, and read it, years and years ago. I'll reread it this week. The book is a how-to guide for looking for work in this specific recession where jobs are so scarce and job hunters so plentiful.

Today is Sunday, always a "start over" day, a way to rest and prepare for the next six days.

Shea announced in Fast and Testimony Meeting that she's lost her job.  I almost started crying for her, and I talked to her later.  She's relieved, as the political pressure was so heavy there. When I'd applied last spring, she called to warn me that it was not a healthy place. She seems to be a few years old than I. don't dye my hair, so everyone sees how old I am, but most other people are determined to stay with the color, thank you very much.

On the way home from church, I pointed out the place I'd applied for the housekeeping job, and that I blew it when I admitted to looking for full-time work.  June was with me in the car, and said that she'd be surprised if any jobs were full-time anymore. She told me how she'd talked to a banker some years ago, and he admitted that the jobs were all at 30 hours, so that they wouldn't have to have benefits.  She scolded him, but that's as far as it went.

I got set apart for my calling in the Relief Society, to be a visiting teaching coordinator.  In the blessing I was reminded that the Lord knows my challenges, and that fulfilling my calling would bring spiritual and physical benefits, and there was more. Basically, I'll be made aware of the needs of the sisters in the ward, and reminded that mine are small compared to others.

Decades ago, I had a blessing that told me that I think my sufferings are great, but the Savior's was far greater.   I was reminded of that blessing today.  The one who gave me that one died some time ago, but his spirit still visits me from time to time, sometimes to encourage me, sometime to call me to repentance. I wondered if he was there in the circle.

I had signed up a couple of weeks ago for the missionaries to come for dinner.  My husband was working on a service call, so they couldn't come here. I was very grateful that I had the stuff to make a broccoli and chicken cream soup, which I took over to the West's, where they would be able to pick it up.

Tomorrow I will do more, do better.

Today I decide to be wealthy.

Day 44 What is needed

Today I decide to be wealthy.

I had a hard time getting started today.  I just waste so much time.

At 2:00 Linda and I went visiting teaching to a young wife and mother we've been with for a while.  Linda has been with her for a lot longer time.  We got there as she and her husband were having a fight--he'd been drinking, and, worse, was denying it.  I listened to him for a while, and suggested bringing back a pizza when we returned.

We took her to a restaurant, where Linda bought some appetizers and let her talk.  Linda gently reminded her that he was a good man, and that alcoholism is a hard thing, and that she knew he had the problem when they first got together.  She also suggested that she come back to church, and that he go to  the 12-step meetings.  There were some other family needs--a couch needed to be taken to the dump, stuff to Goodwill, and a stray cat to the Humane Society.

We went to the pizza place.  I didn't have any coupons to save a couple of dollars.  I took out my unemployment card, and thought about how all the money in the world is God's, and that I was given money to help others. And I bought the pizza,and we took her back to her apartment.  Her husband was apparently in one of the bedrooms, watching television.  We got the stuff that needed to go to Goodwill, hugged, made arrangements for Saturday, and left.  So lesson #5 was put into action today

On the way home, I bought some sour cream and after I got home, made some cookies for June, who had invited my husband and I over for dinner.  Doug ended up working in Prineville for a while longer, and missed the dinner.

Doug said that Bank of America had sent us a 1099, for $6,000, and that we were going to have to pay taxes on it, of about $2,000, and that if I had agreed to declare bankruptcy back then, we wouldn't even have had to pay taxes.  I thought about how if we'd declared bankruptcy, we probably wouldn't be in the house right now.  He was going to take money out of our 401(k) again, but I suggested that the government does take payments.  I reminded him that we didn't declare bankruptcy as we had no assets to protect.  I remembered later that if we have cancer or something drastic health-wise, we'd be stuck.

Tonight is Antiques Roadshow.  We'll watch it, as it was done in Eugene, Oregon, and see all the stuff that people have and how valuable it is, and daydream what could have been done if we'd had the money instead.

When I read the Book of Mormon last night, I just opened it at random and saw this:


Behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain.  (Alma 60:11)


So I felt like a slug after I read it, and thought of it this morning while I waited for the phone to ring with an interview or a job offer.  I felt, though, visiting the young woman, that I was supposed to be there today.

Later in the day, a former coworker at Freddy's, who has been having her own employment misadventures, posted this on Facebook:

“One of the most poisonous of all Satan’s whispers is simply, “Things will never change.” That lie kills expectation, trapping our heart forever in the present. To keep desire alive and flourishing, we must renew our vision for what lies ahead. Things will not always be like this. Jesus has promised to “make all things new.” Eye has not seen, ear has not heard all that God has in store for his lovers, which does not mean “we have no clue so don’t even try to imagine,” but rather, you cannot out-dream God. Desire is kept alive by imagination, the antidote to resignation. We will need imagination, which is to say, we will need hope. 

Today I decide to be wealthy.

Day 29

Today I decide to be wealthy.

I had an emotionally sad day, feeling sorry for myself and others.  I had tears during Sacrament Meeting, remembering people who had helped me years ago, who were now dead, and whose spirits I feel from time to time.  I thought too, of how in so many ways, I haven't changed since I was a child, that I still haven't learned my lessons, changed my ways, become more responsible for myself.

The bishop gave a talk about the Book of Mormon, and reminded us that there are answers to whatever challenges we have in our lives.  I thought of the people of Limhi and the people of Alma, how the first group studied night and day how to get out of their slavery (like serfs) and how they finally found a weak spot where some of the guards were stationed, and how they make them drunk and fled while the guards slept.  The people of Alma were too busy being slaves (being treated like beasts of burden), and their conversations were monitored, as they were punished if they were found praying, and the Lord freed them by causing their guards to fall asleep, and so they fled.  Bread or manna, which is it from day to day?

And then there's this:   And now my son, Shiblon, I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day.  Alma 38:5

I think that trials are what attack you, troubles are in your mind (worries, cares, fears, etc.), and afflictions are in your body (physical illnesses, disabilities).

My goal this week is to get out an application or a resume each day.  And to get into a Red Cross class. And pay the current crop of bills and record them on that housing verification sheet. And to get my cousin's address or phone number, while she's still here on the planet.  (Her kidneys have given out, and she's on dialysis.)  And I signed up to take a meal to a couple on Thursday--the husband has been having cancer treatments on Thursdays.  And to spend more time doing and less time whining.

Today I decide to be wealthy.

Day 19

Today I decide to be wealthy.

I saw a posting for a housekeeper at Touchmark, so I went and got a resume and a cover letter and got dressed as for an interview and went up there.

Mistake:  I didn't take a copy of a filled-out job application with me, nor a pen.  The receptionist didn't take the resume, but she did give me an application and told me I could fill it out it the seating are.  So I had to borrow a pen and the phone book, and I couldn't get anything useful from the phone book, and then the receptionist told me that I could fill it out at home and bring it in later.

And I've worked on the newsletter, and went to check on a sewing machine that a friend asked me to look at, and fixed dinner and did an interview, and I still haven't done the thing my youngest daughter asked me to do this morning, to find some car insurance info for her.  I'm so sorry that I've let her down again.  It's past 10, I still don't have the last newsletter article written, either.

I don't know if I've another tier left on my unemployment.  The tier I'm on now made its last payment today.

Today I decide to be wealthy.