There but for the grace of God go I.......

I am very determined to get employment by April. I will be applying for jobs daily instead of weekly and trying to get out and apply in my immediate area. I have classes Mon and Wed mornings and Tue and Thur afternoons. I will also be sticking to a regimen of writing so that I can finish my book.
All of the hate filled tea-baggers will be thrilled to note that I no longer get Medicaid and I get $50 a month in food stamps. I will be buying 90% of my food from www.angelfoodministries.com ,and I thank God that they are around. I have worked since my ex left the family and I want to do so again. I am used to being poor and that doesn't frighten me, but homelessness does. I will be homeless if I cannot find at least part-time employment. It's easy for many to be flippant about poverty, but try living that way for a while. I drive a 15 year old car, I have no credit cards, I rent month to month,and can rarely afford to buy clothes and fear is a daily opponent.
I am strong willed, determined to succeed and hard working. I am faithful to God and kind to others, but guess what? That doesn't mean I can't be homeless, hungry or sick. Frighteningly, you can't be that certain either. I guess that's why you like to attack me?

Thanks for kicking me while I'm down

I have taken crap for some time now because I've needed to get my income from unemployment and DHS ( food stamps, medicaid) and it makes me wonder what causes this sort of aggression?
One viewpoint is that people are fearful to succumbing to your fate so they pretend it could never happen to them. They tend to also subscribe to the "click your heels" mentality that states " stay positive and positive things will happen for you". Sounds great in a fairy tale world, but doesn't work so well in this one. I do believe in trying to stay positive, but just like being of a certain religious persuasion doesn't save you from disaster, just feeling positive won't either, sorry.
The other, nastier viewpoint is that I am somehow a loser, and un- American to have lost my job and applied for welfare.These are the same folks that like to go to "tea-bag" parties and bitch about all of the lowlifes, like me, that are trying to ruin their ability to make money and not pay taxes.I guess I shouldn't
have lost my job- well, I'd rather have a job but the company I work for likes to get rid of employees that can take advantage of vestment in the company, so they fired me one week before I could. I only made 20K a year with them,full time.
I paid into welfare for the 9 years I worked full time after my divorce. I went to college to get a better job, but when the economy went to hell, so did my job prospects. I go to college full time now and hope to get a full time job and pay taxes again, because I'm not one of the elite that gets away with not paying them.
I try not to get frustrated but I am fed up with blowhard conservatives flinging their shit on me and wide eyed optimists insisting that if I envision success, I'll be successful. Bullshit..... If I work really hard and think positively, I'll be successful. The difference is, when I get my job, I won't be a friggin jerk to those that are still struggling.

Sick of being sick

First week back to classes after Christmas and I caught the flu. It started with a sore throat, progressed on to a runny nose, headache, cough and fever. This time I was very careful about taking natural meds and tried Mucinex. I have to say that Wellness Formula from Source Naturals is what helped me to get better faster. Since I'm asthmatic, I usually get a secondary infection,most often bronchitis or pneumonia. My glands were swollen and I took 2 WF, 3X a day. My glands went down and I am pretty much better after 4 days. I also took EmergenC 2X a day and drank a lot of liquids, ate chicken soup and the usual home remedies.
Now I need to find a way to boost my immune system so that I don't catch something so often. I had the flu in the Spring and Fall last year and in the Fall it was the
H1N1. I seem to get sick a lot and I worry that my career aspirations as a nurse may be derailed by this repeated illness.

Good News

Finally some GOOD NEWS! I have gotten food stamps, assistance with utilities ( which kept me from being shut off) and an increase in child support. This means I will have enough money to pay my rent on time, pay for my utilities, and have enough money to buy my son shoes and clothing.
We haven't gone hungry, but I have been very creative in stretching the food to last. Food stamps will mean that I can buy fresh fruits and vegetables weekly and stay on an eating plan that will allow me to lose the weight necessary for my health. I can relax and bit and enjoy the holidays too.
The last of the anxiety lies in the stress of needing a job by the end of February, when my unemployment is exhausted. I am praying and accepting the many prayers of others on my behalf. I have never been desirous of wealth but rather just to be able to pay my bills and have a nice place to live and decent food to eat. My car is 15 years old and on it's last legs. I need it to last until God provides a way for me to buy another one. God is in charge but I am doing my part- I am actively seeking a job, going to college and getting A's and B's. The rest is in His hands.

Land of the free?

I spent my morning trying to get things done and ensure my kid and I won't starve or freeze to death. I am behind in my utilities and made payment arrangements to get caught up. Because of bureaucracy, I have to go most of December without any unemployment. I am eligible, but the State of Michigan and the Fed's can't get their acts together so I have to wait. Now I have had to default on my payment agreement. After spending an hour on the phone to DTE Energy, I found out that all I have to do is go to ADC and file paperwork to get in the emergency programs for utilities, and I'll get food stamps too. Gee whiz, I haven't gone to college for business, but it seems to me that everything to do with helping the poor is run so inefficiently, that I'm surprised that there aren't poor dead people lying in the streets. The friggin state knows that my only income is child support and unemployment right now, so aren't all of these programs streamlined for me? Why do I have to inform each friggin branch what the other is doing? I spend so much time sitting at welfare for 3-4 hours ( not kidding) and filling out hard copies of forms, instead of online, and making phone calls (only to find out that my case worker should already be doing this for me),instead of looking for a job or doing my homework to get a degree and a job, that I could SCREAM!!!!!!!
I am trying to stay positive but stupidity reigns, and it makes me crazy. I would much rather have a job but they're rather scarce right now.Why does this country penalize me for the state of the economy? The U.S. is so screwed up that it is tempting to leave- maybe to Canada- where they at least take care of their citizens.

Lean on Me

I started off this month feeling really depressed about college,money, the upcoming holidays. Yesterday, after a night of dreaming about my former life as a housewife and mom, I somehow came to the conclusion that I needed to make peace with my past.
I have had an attitude about sacrificing my young life as a wife and homemaker instead of finishing college. I recoiled from anything smacking of being the mom and wife I was before. I realized that it was because I felt as though the only way I could move on from that state of mind to a working single mom was to reject it entirely. God has chosen to keep some women in the home because their husbands aren't the sort to leave them. That wasn't the case for me. So I am trying another approach to my situation, which is to be thankful for the time I did have. I was a great mom and I was an excellent cook. Before the stroke, I was an excellent housekeeper too.The battle in my mind is to go on into what God has planned for me and not to have regret. I just don't always feel strong enough to fight through all of the adversity I face; poverty, lack of education and marketable skills, brain damage, obesity. Everything is against my getting through nursing school and being fit enough to work and make a living. I don't have the strength at times, so I guess I'll have to rely on God's strength.

My life as an outline

My stress level has skyrocketed in the last couple of months. I am in college full time, trying to find a part time job, but I think my brain injury has decided that it's going to give me grief again.
Immediately following my stroke in 1994, I was deemed well enough to skip cognitive therapy and basically left on my own. My doctor, not being the typical mindless follower, decided that was crap. He told me to start playing games like solitaire and role playing repetitive games on the computer. So my therapy was Kings Quest and Wolfenstein 3D. It worked and along the way I discovered something; if I write things down, my brain works the way it did before, organized and with logic.
I couldn't look at the house and just start doing the housework, I had to write it down, step-by-step, and follow my written instructions.
Now that I am stressed with constant poverty, college, perimenopause and teenagers, I have had to return to my former style. I was feeling really bad about having to revert to it, but now my perspective is at least I have a method to overcome it. I am also writing an essay about this for a scholarship- $1250 isn't much but hey, I'll take it!