Just call me Thoreau

People disappoint and make me believe that they are really not out for their own benefit, but in the end, I find that they are. I like being a hermit because I can take or leave people at a whim. I have a few actual friends and they do not seek me out for their own adornment, enhancement or selfishness, but rather because they value me as a person. I can be myself around them and I never feel as though I have to defend myself or my views. I like to take others as they are also, but I lose all interest when someone tries to push their agenda or make broad sweeping statements and generalizations which rely on their narrow point of view. Often I have found those people to also be devoid of kindness and a desire to see others be successful or happy. Different strokes as they say; everyone will find their own happiness but it should at least NOT be at another’s expense.
I value the past for its simplicity. I would love to make a simple living and be allowed to have a small place to live and grow my own vegetables and flowers and attend worship. Clothing, expensive cars, jewelry and the like hold no sway with me. If I had 3-4 nice dresses, 2 sturdy pairs of shoes, some jeans, boots and t-shirts, I am well heeled enough in my estimation.
My goals are to live on my own, grow some food, eat sparingly and cheaply, have time to read and study, and sing. While I would love interpersonal relationships, I do not seem to have them with anyone currently available. I have learned discernment in my 47 years. I find that I value humans more when I have limited contact and that I prefer contact in which I am in their service. Everyone wants to be of value and just maybe, since we seem to devalue most people that don't meet up to our own perceptions, we miss seeing the incredible person that God made them to be, warts and all.

Rainyday Rambling

I am in the middle of my first 8 week accelerated program for my bachelors of gerontology. I enjoy writing, but writing APA style factoid research is tedious and makes my eyes roll in my head. Reading the research makes me think," Can't you even try to make this crap readable"? It's makes even the most interesting subject bland and dull. Perhaps I'm undereducated, but I do know good reading when I read it and brother, this is shite. I'm not sure when this happened or why but YUCK! I hate it!!

I have been pretty much laid up for the last week and in pain for several weeks before that. I have been diagnosed with fairly severe arthritic inflammation of the knee by my orthopedist. This started originally when I lived in my 1920's dream home in Grosse Pointe Park. I had 3 flights of stairs to climb and descend to do laundry and it became nearly impossible to do after 3 years. Yes, I'm fat and need to lose weight, but exercise is nearly out-of-the-question when I can barely walk. I got a big ass shot of cortisone in my knee with a rather large diameter needle and some very viscous fluid and I am feeling a little less inflamed. I walk very strangely because the arthritis has somewhat deformed my knee causing me to walk with my leg projected out at an angle. I am trying to lose the lard and exercise, and my fondest dream at this point is to be able to ride a bike this summer around the lakes in my town. Time and the orthopedist will tell.

While pining for the intellectual stimulation of the city, I find myself much more at ease in the woods. The fact that I have a decent vocabulary, I am working on my college degree, I have several years of retail management and an associates degree
( LOL), have made me a pariah in the retail sector of this community. I am perceived as a threat and can't even get a part time job selling candles and lotions. UGH! I am anxiously awaiting a call from a nursing home in a community 30 miles away about a unit clerk job. They don't have the position defined or posted yet, but I am apparently at the top of their list. Now, if my former employer can live up to their promise of a good reference, I may have a shot, but I trust that person as far as I can throw them so.........

I have been singing a lot lately which is good. I am in a community choir and I do a lot of singing at church. It's a good thing for me to have a diversion other than my studies.

Still hoping to make more human connections that aren't facebook based, but I don't get out much. Also, after some of my facebook experiences, I think I'm better off never seeing actual people anyway LOL!

Happy Days Again?

I have spent the last 3 days looking at abandoned buildings online.
I am especially fascinated by the architecture of Detroit during it's 1920's building boom.In general I am enchanted by everything from the 1920's and 30's; the movies, the clothing, the homes, interior design, the Purple Gang and I collect objects from the era.
It is sickening to me that most of the beautiful buildings of that era are left to fall apart in Detroit. I look at urban exploration videos and photographs with a longing to restore the apartments, hotels and businesses to their former glory.I know Detroit has MAJOR issues with the economy, drugs and overall corruption by it's officials. After living in Grosse Pointe Park for several years, I am surprised that all of the Pointes haven't defected from Wayne County to Macomb long ago.
The 1920's were a time of change for our country. We were leaving an agricultural era and moving into an industrial era and it was the big boom before the Great Depression.
The correlation to today's situation are more than a little uncomfortable. I am one of the 99%. I am under-educated but trying to correct that by getting my Bachelor's Degree in Gerontology. My prospects are so-so for employment even with a degree.
If I weren't living with my parents, I'd be homeless right now. I feel like one of the buildings in Detroit. Abandoned, a shell of my former self, and just waiting for the miracle that will restore me.
I'm doing my part in going to college. I am letting God do His part by letting Him guide me. I am giving myself over to whatever tasks are neeeded in my church and barring finding suitable employment, I will be volunteering in some fashion with the seniors that I love.I want to succeed like the CCC camps did in turning the country around and create a job for myself. I need to write so it must be something else God has a plan for. My typing is horrible so I am thinking on investing in voice command software for my computer. Then I can finish the 4-5 book I've already written in my head.

EVERYBODY SING!!!!

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
Let us sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again
Altogether shout it now!
There's no one who can doubt it now
So let's tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again
Your cares and troubles are gone;
There'll be no more from now on
Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let us sing a song of happycheer again
Happy happy happy days are here again

All Apologies

It's interesting the way that people treat you when you're poor.
God forbid you wear nice clothes ( obviously you spent your money unwisely)
Heaven help you if you color your hair, polish your nails, wear makeup or attempt in any way to make yourself look as though you're not a pitiful spectre. After all, aren't you supposed to be pious and be thankful that you're even allowed to breathe the same air as everyone else?
But, I had these clothes, which I bought while working in an office and some of them were kindly given to me by a cousin that lost weight. I color my hair since it's hard enough trying to find a job without having gray hair that leads employers to think you're OLD. I buy $1-2 nail polish and do my own nails so that I'll look professional and polished. I buy all of my clothes and toiletries at discount stores. I can state for a fact that I haven't paid more than $20 for a shirt or blouse in the last 5 years.
I apologize that I haven't taken on the air of beggar, nor have I ripped my clothes and covered myself with ashes. If it makes you feel better, I have gone without heat, food and proper attire within the last 3 years. My car is 17 years old and barely runs.
I'm sorry that I'm trying to survive rather than just slinking off to die somewhere.

The Only Thing To Fear...........

My constant companion for at least 15 years has been fear.
My ex husband was always unemployed in the winter. I would try to juggle making sure my kids had warm clothes, we had staples saved in the pantry and I went to Focus Hope in the winter for food as well as The Goodfellow's for Christmas presents. I feared the cold weather every year and tried my best to prepare.
I felt horrible fear in trying to keep a home for my children. My lack of skills and degree has kept me in precarious jobs and poverty.
My house became a trap when the mortgage amount was more than I could handle and it fell into disrepair. The roof was bad and leaked, causing black mold to grow. I had spent nights in fear of the sound of rain and to this day, rainfall sends me into panic mode. One night, exhausted after a long day at work, my ceiling fan began to leak right onto my bed. I had no choice but to move over to the corner of my bed and place a large storage container next to me to catch the water as I cried myself to sleep.
I moved into an apartment that leaked both in the living room and the bedroom closet. The landlord fixed the living room but not the closet. I kept all of my clothes in storage totes to protect them. The basement also leaked so everything had to be put up off of the floor.
Snowfall was another fear. My tires were often quite bald and being in a district that had no busing, it was the parents responsibility to drive their kids to school, regardless of the weather. I also drove anywhere from 50 to 100 miles round trip to work daily, so having a 1994 car with over 100000 miles on it was always a source of fear.
Having never made more than $24,000 a year the entire time I worked after my divorce, money was always in short supply and keeping the utilities on and food in the house wasn't an easy task. My children and I often had to rely on food stamps to survive and St. Vincent DePaul to keep our heat on. Making certain there is enough to pay the rent or mortgage has been yet another source of fear.
Now, I find myself, again unemployed. I am trying to find anything to do. I apply for jobs daily. If it weren't for my parents, I would be homeless right now and probably at a mission somewhere.
Fear has made me determined to get a degree, but as there is no guarantee of finding a job, I contend with a near obsession on living as cheaply as humanly possible. I fantasize about having a small cabin and living nearly as a survivalist in order to keep myself from being displaced. I entertain thoughts of growing my own food, canning,eating only the bare essentials to survive. I have lived several years without having lights on except when necessary, making due with eggs and potatoes for daily meals to save money,and keeping the heat on 66 and wearing sweaters and slippers or even a coat in the house.
Being poor has made a game of seeing how much fear I can tolerate. I guess I can tolerate quite a bit. It has become part of me now.

Nightmare

When I was married in 1986, I had visions of a long marriage, children, working to have a nice home, maybe a cottage up north, children's weddings, grandchildren and large family dinners around a family table for Christmas.
I see many of my high school friends enjoying this same dream. They've had divorce, death, tragedy and sadness in their lives too, no doubt.
I've lived the last 15 years like a zombie; I sailed through the last 4 years with my ex trying to hang on to a corpse of a marriage because I didn't know what else to do. When it was mutually decided that the ex should leave, I put my energies into working and going to school. My dream then shifted to getting an education and then fixing my home, getting the kids through school and then college. I lost a job, found a new one and continued in college. Then my house became toxic with black mold. I didn't make enough money to fix the roof, and several homes in my neighborhood had black mold, so the spores found their way into my home. Because of the economy, my commissions- based income went south. The house was the next dream to die. It wasn't the nicest place but it was mine. The house was foreclosed on.
The program I finished in college lead to low paying part time jobs. Another dream died.
I moved to a new flat that was nicer and larger than my house. Then after a year, the job was gone. This dream too was short lived due to poverty. I went to college for nursing but my GPA was only 3.6 and not 4.0 so I didn't make the cut for clinical's. Dead dream.
My daughter moved to Colorado to try and escape Michigan's horror.
I was offered a position working in senior assisted living and then moved nearly 50 miles away to avoid the drive and to be available 24 hours a day to the job. I had to leave my son behind to finish high school, which was heart wrenching.
I have lost the job and another dream dies.
I am moving 160 miles north to live with my parents, work part time and get my bachelors degree in Gerontology. I am a dreamer. I pray that this dream will not turn into yet another nightmare.
The idea of a Holiday dinner spent with family seems like an unattainable fantasy. Thoughts of being an old woman living alone in poverty seem like the future to me now. Any nightmare I've had pales in comparison and my waking hours are far more terrifying than any dream. Will everything I dream end in death?

It's official; I've lost my job.
It actually comes as a relief. With time comes perspective. There were signs from the beginning that this was not the place for me. Without details, suffice to say that the management style of intimidation is not one I have ever found to work efficiently.I am the type of employee that will give 100% for someone that appreciates me and gives me positive encouragement.
Ever the optimist, I am moving to live with my parents so that I can finish getting my degree in Gerontology.I can work part time while in college and then I hope start working in the career that fulfills me. My parents are very supportive and I thank God for them.
My blog will now take a new turn. I will be writing a lot more about my observations of nature, God and family. I will most likely never return to the city life.