Terrible day today, another one among many.  Got my taxes done and have been praying that I would get enough of a refund to cover my property taxes that are due now.  Nope, not even half as much as I owe and I have no idea what I'm going to do.  Also the electrician, a very sweet guy, brought a plumber out today and more bad news, he thinks the pump ( that I just paid for less than a year ago) is going to go and that I need an expansion tank as well  :(        I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach, I don't know what to do.  I've been trying for months to find a full time job, I have no money for food half the time and now make "too much" to qualify for snap benefits.   I feel so desperate and hopeless and have no one to talk things through with.  I feel like I want to scream and pull my hair out and yet on the outside I am frozen.  I've been sitting here feeling catatonic or something like it.  What am I supposed to do?

Not a good day, been sick with a stomach bug for last twenty four hours and the cramps were awful.  Not sure if it's actually a bug or if it was something I ate but whatever I ended up taking the day off from work.  I hate doing that but there was no point in going in and being married to a toilet.  Still haven't found any good leads on a job and getting more and more discouraged.  My granddaughter is four now and Amanda will be 27 in just days.  Amazing to me how can I have a 27 year old daughter?  I am awful proud of both my kids, willing to work crazy hours to support themselves and Amanda is an amazing mom to her little girl.

I've been writing my life story recently for no other reason but that I have this idea that it might free of all these feelings and emotions I've been carrying around and keeping to myself for so many reasons.  I think I might post it here eventually not sure yet.

Right now I'm listening to my friends on Outlaw Radio like I do most Saturday nights!

I am beyond depressed, that oh so familiar place that I often go. Had some kind of power surge that fried some appliances in my home including my microwave (my primary source of eating these days). More headaches on top of already existing problems like a pump that doesn't work properly so that I can't take a proper shower which I long for in the worst way.  Still no job or any hope of finding anything.  Monday I have to start this stupid TCI training for a job I literally have no interest in and am only doing because I can't find anything else.  I'm in a hole and I have no idea how to get out of the damn thing so sick of living in this den of hopelessness.   What's the freakin' point??

I have to make a correction to my previous post.  I did in fact get a single phone call from my new friend and current co-worker Leslie.  She knew I had been sick and called to see how I was so that was nice.

Last night the drama in life continued.  As I was preparing to go to bed I noticed the lights had dimmed.  I checked the bathroom lights and they too were very dim.  I checked the outlet in my room the lights went from light to dim a few times and then went out completely. So grabbed a flashlight and looked around the room, then noticed smoke coming from an outlet in my room.  It was close to midnight but I was scared so I called the fire dept and they came.  Said there was a problem with the GFI outlet outside the trailer where I plug in my water pipe heat tape.  They advised me to unplug the heat tape but that would only cause my water to freeze, my pipes to burst and so on. So I have spent today trying to call someone to come check it out.  It's Martin Luther King Jr. day and alas I can reach no one.  Don't get me wrong Martin Luther King was a great man and I hate to think his death might have been in vain because we are no closer to peace. But I digress, life sucks I can never know peace in my own life it's constant stress and worry and I'm so tired of it.  Oh and my stupid microwave won't work which is primarily how I eat these days.  I'm so angry and as usual I stuff the anger and try to just focus on getting through the day.  It's freezing and it's hard to complain as up until Christmas it was unseasonably warm but I hate being cold and the constant struggle to stay warm.  I have to be out in it for extended lengths of time so makes it all the more distasteful to me.

So anyway dealing with severe cold and wind, one headache after another and no one here to vent to, to talk to, to help me figure things out.  Oh what it would be like to have someone to share the daily bullshit with.  I long for that voice of reason, that encouragement that everything seems hopeless now but it will be alright.

In light of the day I found this quote which seems appropriate;

If you can't fly then run,if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward

                                      Martin Luther King Jr.

It  has been almost four years since I have posted in this blog!  I lose track of time which is strange because a lot of times, like today, I just sit and do nothing because I feel frozen or maybe it's that I have so much I need and want to do that it becomes overwhelming to even think about. And this house, not even a house, a mobile home; quiet and empty. Yes it's fairly new and now it's mine, the home the land are mine, I paid them off in full which I guess in today's world is quite an accomplishment but in truth it means nothing because I am still, 24 years after Sam's death...alone.  My kids are grown and gone, my baby girl is a mother herself and there is no longer a need for me. Oh yes I babysit, perhaps more than most grandmothers are asked or are willing to do.  I cherish every second I spend with Ella but in the end I'm still alone.

I have been sick with a flu for the last few days and not a single person has called or stopped in to see how I'm doing or if I need anything.  It occurred to me that I could die here and no one would know.  At what point would people realize I haven't been around or would they?  Well yes my mother would because I'm there every day to take care of the animals.  Why do I keep the animals because that too has become overwhelming and the truth is I don't have the time to do anything with the horses I had all these plans for.  By the same token I did  not plan to lose my job anymore then I planned to lose Sam.  So all the plans, all the dreams go out the window and I'm too tired to invest in any more plans so I just keep doing what I've been doing because I don't know what else to do.  Change takes too much energy and I just don't have it.

I feel old, so very old.  Today I woke up and had trouble walking because my knees hurt so badly.  Sometimes it's my back and of late it has been my left shoulder which I found out from PT is called frozen shoulder and my left shoulder is apparently six degrees colder then my right, hmm.  My body aches all the time and I still have the aches from the car accident of 2009 the worse of which might be the vertigo that comes and goes.  I am old and I don't kid myself about that, I'm angry that I have so little time left and angry that I wasted so much of my time grieving for Sam and living only for my children after he died.  I do not regret for one minute the time I invested in my kids, I wish I had done so many things better or right.  But I wish I had devoted even a little time to me so that Mary had not gotten lost to Mom.  With the kids grown and gone I don't know how to define myself anymore. I feel angry sometimes because I don't think I have really had the chance to live for me.  There  is so much I would like to do and I know I never will.  I've been trying since I was let go in 2011 to find another secure job and have failed at every turn.  I get periodic interviews and they don't pan out.  I found what I thought would eventually be a great job and lost that to civil service rules.  I don't get it, why keep trying.  I don't have enough time to rebuild my retirement, there is no hope that I will ever be able to travel again.  I have no idea when if ever I will be able to retire and all around me the world is going to shit.  It's a world I'm uncomfortable in, nothing about it is familiar anymore.  Yes I'm depressed and anxious, just as I have been most of my life.  Everything around me has changed but I have not.

February 14 2012

Valentine's Day, one of the holidays I've come to hate and wish I didn't.  Sam used to do his best to make it special and he wasn't the kind to forget the same went for my birthday. I wish so many times that he was here not just for me but for his children but it's one of those things about my life I have no control over.   I do hope those I love are made to feel special and appreciated today because that's what it's all about.

Feb 10th

Somehow developed a stomach bug after spending the day with my daughter and granddaughter.  Keep hoping the baby doesn't get it or my mom because it was miserable.   I still feel kind of off but the stomach cramps were the worst part of it and they seem to have stopped so that's a relief.  Been feeling down today letting myself worry about the things I can't control so may just go watch some videos on Youtube that I know will make me laugh.

Feb 6th

Today was my daughter's due date to have her baby!  But my beautiful grand daughter is almost two weeks old already.  That's right Mariella Sky arrived on January 26th just shy of midnight!  I don't think she was early or anything like that as she weighed a healthy 7.5.  I think they may just have been off on my daughter's due date and we already went for her first Drs appt and she is doing great.  I love watching Amanda with her I can tell she is head over heels over her baby and I know this because Amanda has fantasized about being a mommy since she was a little girl.   And Ella like her mommy is a good baby who seldom cries and just sleeps and eats or looks around at her new world.  She has a smidgeon of dark hair covering her tiny head and what looks promising as blue eyes but too soon to tell.  I was there when she was born supporting my daughter and I held her when she was minutes old.   I can't wait to share every little bit of her new life now.  My only regret is that Sam is not here to see this little miracle and to be called Grampy Stone.  : (

New Years Eve Dec 31st

Tonight is just another night for me although I have often dreamed of doing something exciting for the New Year I never have.  It like most holidays these days is usually spent alone in the empty trailer.  Ricky is home from college but with his sister.  She mentioned bringing him home today because she had to work tomorrow but haven't seen him yet so who knows.  I'm thinking of making up a wish list although I would rather call it a dream list.  Some call it a bucket list and I have to admit I have done some things already that I couldn't have imagined some twenty thirty years ago.  They are things that would never have happened had it not been for the  people that have wandered into my life.   My faith has been damaged over and over and like a silly child for some strange reason I continue to dream and fantasize about what may be and what could be even though the odds are stacked up against it.   I should tell my grand daughter that someday and all my future grand children that yes even at fifty you continue to dream and to believe in them.

Thursday Dec 29th

I was thinking about this last night when I couldn't sleep yet again.  But maybe God does hear me, maybe too well.  I mean just a couple weeks ago I was at work and wishing for the millionth time that I could get off third shift because even after like two years I still could not adjust to it and was getting by on an average of four hours of sleep sometimes less.  And there was also the impending arrival of my granddaughter and my desire to be available to help my daughter out once she is born.  And to be honest I was very, very unhappy working there the last few years so who knows maybe it was destiny.  I mean I wasn't  the first to be let go and certainly won't be the last.  Three times in the last few years I saw them let people go who'd been with the company for some thirty years or so, it's a corporation they don't care about people they only care about numbers.  They eliminated my job but I'm still here.   So maybe I'm meant to move onto to something better and I have to keep that frame of mind.   It's hard for I ever the pessimist but I shall try

Year End

Just went down to mom's fed the horses and took a shower.  Yeah see the thing is my trailer is over thirty years old and like falling apart.  Can't take a shower here because when I do the water comes out under the toilet so been taking my showers at Mom's.   Couldn't afford to hire someone to fix the problem before I lost my job so yeah I'm in a great place now.  I make the mistake of saying to myself how much worse can it get but homeless is always a possibility.  One thing I'm thankful for, my kids are on their own, Amanda lives with her boyfriend and Ricky is up at campus so at least this crap wasn't happening when they were living here.

Year End

Since my life is about to take a nose dive and change drastically I've decided to become a blogger and perhaps see if it helps me with my coping.   So here goes; as of the end of the month, my job that I've had for fifteen years is being eliminated.  Not sure if that's the new fancy way of saying you're fired but it is what it is.   And in just a little over a month I'll become a grandma, still sounds weird.  But my beautiful daughter will bless me with a grand daughter.  Not sure I'm ready for this but who is.   Okay that's enough for now!