Financial to Personal, The past and what is to come

So I have decided to compromise on the Satellite issue. We down graded our service to the fewest channels because my husband enjoys watching TV and for $21 a month we are still saving over $40 by down grading. We are moving the tv out of the living room however. I don't believe in Fenshui (or however you spell it) but I don't like having the energy taken up by that tv and what it represents. Usually the news and that is depressing. So we are going to move it and its cabinet into the bedroom. We can watch movies from there or whatever, but I spend so little time in there and it won't be staring me in the face every day. In place of the armoir in the living room we are putting the chair that actually MATCHES the rest of our furniture, a huge stuffed chair and ottoman. That will give us light from one more window and a great place to read! One more way of taking charge of our lives. We're in charge of our money, now to be in charge of the rest of our home.

Our home is very comfortable I think. It isn't too big, it serves its purpose and it has a sun room that is a perfect observatory for watching wildlife. I go out there even in the winter (with a jacket) and take pictures of the birds or watch the deer and foxes and squirrels. We spend money on birdseed and cracked corn (for the deer) but it is a worthy thing and it is beautiful to watch all of the different kinds of birds we get. I want to make some bird houses. Maybe I will do some of that in the spring.

I love that we have a plate glass window in front. I was hoping we would find a place with a window like that, like my grandma Canaga's window in Oregon, but nothing as huge as that. Our cat Missy likes it. She sits there everyday when she isn't helping me throughout the rest of the house. We make a good team, Missy and I. She helps me type, wash dishes, do the laundry, read... but not so much on the reading she lays in whatever I am looking at because it isn't HER! So she remedies that.

I found the envelopes! I hadn't "put" them anywhere, I didn't have a chance, Bob saw the envelopes and thought they were empty and put them back with the rest of the other ones. Whew, that was close, I was going out of my mind about it. So now we both know where the envelopes are and today I will go shopping for the first time. I'm going to Aldis to see how many of our regular foods I can buy at a discount and stock up in things that maybe we don't have. What a blessing to have the money to buy food. Thank God for that.

When our power went out we spent two days with emergency water, a propane indoor heater and kerosene lanterns. We enjoyed that so much that we are going to try to have a night each week when all the lights are off and we spend the evening with just the lamps and the fireplace going. I was able to get some illustrations done during the day that I had put off for ... years. Man! thank goodness the power went out!

Missy is here in the guest/sewing/computer room with me and just asked me to open the curtain so she could look out the window. I mean there she was sitting on the chair staring at the closed curtain! Hint hint.

Today I will be working on my resume to take to Macon Resources tomorrow to see about trying to get a job. With being on disability they can help me get a foot in the door. I can work for 9 months without losing benefits to see if I can keep a job. During that time, if I CAN keep a job, that money will go toward our debt. As I have said, I have had a good run, nearly a year of not having to go into the hospital, but this is extraordinary. It is tough to keep a job when you are incapacitated and hospitalized 4-5 times a year.

I have three references for my resume of people I have worked with. I had to go back a few years to find the people who knew me when I was at my very best, and they each were happy to provide a reference, one even told me he would mention the two ties I custom painted for him. :) But I don't think I'll include that in my skills.

I've been asked to list EVERYTHING I can that I think are my strong points and skills. Since I have lived long enough to see type go from ditto machines to the first copiers, paste up to page maker, negatives to computer graphics and rolling and processing film, to photoshop I think I have had quite a history of the printed page. And here I am typing on virtual paper. At least I'm not killing any trees. But I will NOT even go there right now.

In my spare time I have been a telemarketer, teacher's aid in music, weigher for Weight Watchers while at the same time Dairy Queen drive through person..that was always fun to see the weight watchers I had weighed in the night before come through the drive through for a sundae the next day!, A reporter, candle sticker designer, production artist, photographer, nurses aid, layout artist, button and bumpersticker designer (and worked on superbowl and world series projects) typographer typing 70 wpm., muralist, portrait artist, political cartoonist, columnist and art director. Those were just the paying jobs. I've also been a set designer, (one paying job there), stage manager, lighting tech, actress, props person, special effects, speaker, teacher, taught seminars, Sunday school teacher, chorister, singer with my guitar, (had a paying job there too) and "celebrity judge" for a talent contest! This one was when I was a columnist! Tried out for the Gong show, recorded in Hollywood many times, Sang on tv in Nashville...but now I'm just getting into personal experiences and not exactly vocations. I got to sing the National Anthem at Lee County Speedway in Iowa! Christina A. should have studied a little better before the super bowl.

Anyway, I don't know what I will put on my resume but it is kind of uplifting to look back and see the things that I HAVE done, as opposed to the things I haven't been able to do over the past 10 years. During the past ten years I wrote a novel which I have never finished correcting, rearranging and publishing!! my bad. Went to school and got my associates degree in art, graduated with honors. I was the council trainer for the Mississippi Council in Firebuilding, attended Woodbadge and have taken girls to girls camp for over 20 years. My favorite thing of all has been being a wife and mom. I am so blessed to have the husband that I do, the daughter that I love so much she will never begin to grasp how much...not that she doesn't KNOW that I love her.. It is a mom thing. When she gets to be a mom...she will totally understand! So I guess never say never. I have wonderful friends who love me for me and care for my welfare and spiritual wellbeing. I have friends that are so much more than family, and family who are friends. And family that has been broken apart but hopefully can come back together at some point. i had a great mom and dad who "did the best they could with what they knew at the time" as my dad always said. When I look back at being a parent, I KNOW that there are some issues that my daughter is going to have to face that I laid on her when I was in severe depression, her "not knowing if she was going to have a mom when she got home" her words. I can never make up for that. But that is what severe depression is. It affects everyone around you. I wish I could take back those years and hand them back to her clean and pure and full of love and laughter.

That is all in the past and I can't undo it, for good or bad. it is what it is. But I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the terrible times i put my family through. as my husband reminds me, It is the illness. But when you have the "illness" you don't think clearly and say things that are horrible. I don't know how my family survived intact through my deep depressions, and I don't know that they are over. But I thank God for the fact that they stayed with me. I honestly don't know If I would still be here today had my family fallen apart. Now my daughter is married to a wonderful guy who loves her and takes care of her. He is fun, intelligent and makes her life happy. I love to see her happy. It is indescribable. What she will have to further face in her life, atop all other things she has faced, I don't know. But I will do my best to be the best mom she could have, cause she gave me the chance and didn't bail on me like a lot of children would have. It put a dent in our lives, no doubt, but I could not be prouder of the woman who is my daughter.

So...that was random...not really too much about finances, but another thing about my daughter and son-in-law... they are doing the same total money makeover as we are and they are succeeding on basically one income. I am so proud of them. It is a wonderful thing to be best friends with your family.

And that, my friends, is priceless!