I'm posting this in all 3 of my blogs. I first want to apologize for my long hiatus from the blogosphere. If you have read my past posts I had mentioned that my husband and I were having some problems again. Well, we separated again on May 17. Not to go into TOO much detail but I honestly think he has some attachment issues. I have done a lot of research on it and it all makes so much sense now. What happened this time is the same thing that happened in 2006. The same exact pattern except this time he is trying to get help. The separation was his decision. He wanted to have a "mutual separation" so that we both have some time to ourselves to work on ourselves and then IF/when we get back together get into marriage counseling immediately. ...
The past month and a half has been VERY hard for me. I feel like I am re-living this nightmare all over again. I have so many emotions running through my head. I've been spending most of my time either working as much as possible, spending time with my kids, researching attachment disorder and working on my OWN things that I want to change within myself. Right now I am also looking into taking some online courses for Veterinary Technician. I have no idea what the future holds for me and my family. I'm hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. Funny thing is, that's what my husband told me the first time this happened in 2006! I'm worried about having the time to work and trying to go to school both.. but I think it will help me to occupy my mind and it will make me feel better for doing something GOOD for my kids and myself to help us have a brighter future!
I haven't really been into the mood for blogging until recently. I am going to figure out some kind of schedule so that I can start blogging again on a regular basis! Just be patient with me. I have not forgotten about my blogs.. just am going through a very difficult time in my life right now! xo
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Economic Stimulus Payment
Have been sent out earlier than expected. They were originally supposed to start being deposited into bank accounts on May 2 but they started on April 28th and from what I have read ALL of the direct deposits will be made by the end of this week!
So what does everyone think about this payment. Do you think it's REALLY going to help?? It might for ... a few days. To be honest, my husband and I are considered to be low income and using the calculator on the IRS website we are only getting back $1500 even though they SAY the married couples can get $1200 plus $300 each child, which would equal $2100 for us. I was a little disappointed when I saw the estimate but it's better than nothing RIGHT? We will pay a month of rent, buy the kids some summer clothes, fix a few things on my van..and then be poor again.
So what does everyone think about this payment. Do you think it's REALLY going to help?? It might for ... a few days. To be honest, my husband and I are considered to be low income and using the calculator on the IRS website we are only getting back $1500 even though they SAY the married couples can get $1200 plus $300 each child, which would equal $2100 for us. I was a little disappointed when I saw the estimate but it's better than nothing RIGHT? We will pay a month of rent, buy the kids some summer clothes, fix a few things on my van..and then be poor again.
I also find it VERY ironic that the first day the money starts to be deposited the gas prices SKY ROCKET to almost $4.00 a gallon? Does anyone else think this is a big coincidence?? I think someone is trying to take advantage of the little people who will be getting some of this money! So, whatever is left from bills is going straight into the gas tanks. The little people just keep getting screwed harder and harder by this country! The economy is getting worse and worse. People HAVE to get to get to work to make a paycheck but it is costing half of our paycheck just for gas! That is absolutely ridiculous! How is anyone supposed to be able to survive this way??
Sunday, April 20, 2008
What it's like to be poor...
Imagine growing up as a child having to without things. Not because your parent doesn't want you to be spoiled but because your parent can't afford to buy you things that you want. You have to wear home made or second hand clothing because your mother is a single mother who does not get child support and can not afford to buy you a lot of new clothes. You have never had any sort of name brand clothing. Even the toys you have to play with are "store" brand and not name brand.
Remember when Cabbage Patch Kids were big back in the 1980's and they were around $40.00 a piece (which is a lot NOW in my opinion for a doll!). They were so beautiful and so cute. All of your friends had one. You begged and begged you mother for one but she just could not afford it. She went to a yard goods store and purchased a doll pattern that she sewed together and stuffed with that cottony stuffing stuff (lol, whatever it is called) with what was supposed to be a Cabbage Patch Kids look-a-like face, but it was far from! You were disappointed when you saw the doll but yet you didn't want to hurt your mothers feelings because you knew how much work she put into it so you acted as if you liked it. Deep down inside you were hurt and disappointed but yet felt badly for feeling hurt and disappointed!
As a teenager you wanted the stylish name brand clothing but you knew your mother could not afford it so you went with the store brand as always. You never had name brand shoes. The only kind of shoes you had were the $10.00 Kmart brand shoes that fell apart quickly but you still walked around in those shoes even when the soles were falling off! You saw the other kids your age going on fun vacations with their families or going fun places with their friends but you never got to do those sorts of things because your family was poor. A lot of kids get cars for their 16th birthday and get to drive to school, but you don't. You have to share the family car which was difficult to do since mom was working all of the time!
Now turn it the other way around. You are the adult now. You have these beautiful children in front of you but you hate yourself for not being able to give them the things that you wanted as a child. You and your spouse work all of the time but the cost of living is so high and jobs pay so poorly that you have to struggle from paycheck to paycheck. You are not even sure if you will have enough money for gas to get back and forth to work every day until the next pay day. Buying your children a toy that they want here and there is usually completely out of the question because there is just not enough money in your pocket! They are good kids, well behaved kids and they deserve to have the extras once in awhile but you just can't do it. You look into their eyes and see the same pain that you went through as a child but you don't know how to change it! Kids grow so fast and constantly need bigger clothing or bigger shoes and you struggle just to be able to squeeze that in there some how! You are constantly getting collection letters in the mail that you can't pay. Disconnect notices on utilities that you HAVE to find a way to pay even if it means borrowing it from someone else or asking for help. Your husband works 6 days a week and you work as much as possible but it just never seems to be enough. You try to better yourself. You try to get yourself somewhere in the world but it seems you just constantly get pushed right back down. Every day is a constant struggle. You hope your children will learn from you and better their lives at a young age..but yet your know that your mother wished the same thing for you!
You look at other people who are younger than you and have nice houses and nice vehicles and you envy them. Some of them have just been handed everything for their entire life. Others have worked for what they have and just got a lucky break along the way. You wish you could be like them and you wonder why life has held you back and why you can't get ahead no matter how hard you try to charge ahead. Sometimes you just want to give up trying. You feel embarassed for people to see your tiny little house or your noisy old car. You are a good person but it just seems like being a good person is not good enough to get anywhere in this world.
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I wrote this from my own personal experience. I am one of the countries low income citizens! You probably never would have known it from my blog, but I am. My husband and I work our asses off every day just to GET by. We don't have a savings in the bank to rely on. We don't have credit cards to use in case of emergency. We don't have family that we can call on to help in an emergency. We are just surviving day by day, paycheck to paycheck. It's a hard world to survive in these days...and with the cost of living going up and gas prices costing an arm, a leg and both butt cheeks it is making it even more difficult just to survive. Our kids miss us because we are always working and don't have much time to spend with them. We miss them, too..but we don't have a choice. We have to survive somehow.
Remember when Cabbage Patch Kids were big back in the 1980's and they were around $40.00 a piece (which is a lot NOW in my opinion for a doll!). They were so beautiful and so cute. All of your friends had one. You begged and begged you mother for one but she just could not afford it. She went to a yard goods store and purchased a doll pattern that she sewed together and stuffed with that cottony stuffing stuff (lol, whatever it is called) with what was supposed to be a Cabbage Patch Kids look-a-like face, but it was far from! You were disappointed when you saw the doll but yet you didn't want to hurt your mothers feelings because you knew how much work she put into it so you acted as if you liked it. Deep down inside you were hurt and disappointed but yet felt badly for feeling hurt and disappointed!
As a teenager you wanted the stylish name brand clothing but you knew your mother could not afford it so you went with the store brand as always. You never had name brand shoes. The only kind of shoes you had were the $10.00 Kmart brand shoes that fell apart quickly but you still walked around in those shoes even when the soles were falling off! You saw the other kids your age going on fun vacations with their families or going fun places with their friends but you never got to do those sorts of things because your family was poor. A lot of kids get cars for their 16th birthday and get to drive to school, but you don't. You have to share the family car which was difficult to do since mom was working all of the time!
Now turn it the other way around. You are the adult now. You have these beautiful children in front of you but you hate yourself for not being able to give them the things that you wanted as a child. You and your spouse work all of the time but the cost of living is so high and jobs pay so poorly that you have to struggle from paycheck to paycheck. You are not even sure if you will have enough money for gas to get back and forth to work every day until the next pay day. Buying your children a toy that they want here and there is usually completely out of the question because there is just not enough money in your pocket! They are good kids, well behaved kids and they deserve to have the extras once in awhile but you just can't do it. You look into their eyes and see the same pain that you went through as a child but you don't know how to change it! Kids grow so fast and constantly need bigger clothing or bigger shoes and you struggle just to be able to squeeze that in there some how! You are constantly getting collection letters in the mail that you can't pay. Disconnect notices on utilities that you HAVE to find a way to pay even if it means borrowing it from someone else or asking for help. Your husband works 6 days a week and you work as much as possible but it just never seems to be enough. You try to better yourself. You try to get yourself somewhere in the world but it seems you just constantly get pushed right back down. Every day is a constant struggle. You hope your children will learn from you and better their lives at a young age..but yet your know that your mother wished the same thing for you!
You look at other people who are younger than you and have nice houses and nice vehicles and you envy them. Some of them have just been handed everything for their entire life. Others have worked for what they have and just got a lucky break along the way. You wish you could be like them and you wonder why life has held you back and why you can't get ahead no matter how hard you try to charge ahead. Sometimes you just want to give up trying. You feel embarassed for people to see your tiny little house or your noisy old car. You are a good person but it just seems like being a good person is not good enough to get anywhere in this world.
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I wrote this from my own personal experience. I am one of the countries low income citizens! You probably never would have known it from my blog, but I am. My husband and I work our asses off every day just to GET by. We don't have a savings in the bank to rely on. We don't have credit cards to use in case of emergency. We don't have family that we can call on to help in an emergency. We are just surviving day by day, paycheck to paycheck. It's a hard world to survive in these days...and with the cost of living going up and gas prices costing an arm, a leg and both butt cheeks it is making it even more difficult just to survive. Our kids miss us because we are always working and don't have much time to spend with them. We miss them, too..but we don't have a choice. We have to survive somehow.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Welfare is not a joke any longer!
Isn't this how MOST people feel? All of the jokes about people getting their welfare checks or using their foodstamps?? It's funny, right?? Do any of you who make jokes about the welfare system even KNOW how it works?? I don't know about other states, but here in Ohio the welfare system is VERY strict. Welfare is to help people who are having a problem finding a job OR people who HAVE jobs but still can't support their families with what they make. If you apply for assistance and you do not have a job you will ONLY receive benefits IF you attend the "job find" program, which is 5 days a week, usually from 8-9 am to 3-4 pm. All day, every day! In this class they teach you how to build a good resume and how to approach employers about possible employment with the company! After they teach you all of that then they make you go through a phone book all day long and call companies asking if they are hiring and if they will give you an interview. If after 30 days you have not found a job you will be forced to do volunteer work for them in exchange for the benefits you receive. IF you get a job and still fall under the poverty level the amount of benefits you receive will go down depending on how much you earn.
Welfare is not for "lazy" people who just want to sit on their ass and get a paycheck every month. In fact, they are VERY strict about cash assistance. They do NOT give cash assistance except for extreme cases!! The main things they help with is food and medical insurance. The only people who are allowed to NOT work are single mothers with children under 5 years of age. (which by the way I feel is really NOT fair considering that there are A LOT of single moms out there who work!..and then a lot of times they make the fathers pay back the welfare system on top of child support because the mom wont work..but that's another post, lol)
Most people who receive assistance these days DO work. Most of them work FULL time but most jobs do not pay enough to support a family. The cost of living is going up but most companies do not pay more! A lot of full time, laborous jobs only start out at minimum wage..which means that a lot of people ARE busting their asses EVERY day doing hard physical labor just to earn a pathetically small paycheck. I'm sure they work a lot harder than you do sitting in your posh little office making $75,000 a year!
I hope some of you will start thinking before making snotty little comments about people who receive government assistance. They do not allow people to "sit on their ass and get welfare" anymore. They are there to help people that are struggling to support their family! Some of you don't truly know what it is like to STRUGGLE and bust your hump every single day for almost NOTHING. Just be thankful for what you have instead of bashing everyone else!!
My next post will be about what it's like to live a poor life and to truly struggle!!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Blogs...the good and the BAD!
I REALLY enjoy reading other blogs! I am a member of a few blog traffic exchanges and I like to skim through each blog as I wait for the ticker to count down. If I like a blog I will add it to my blogmarks and usually end up linking to them on this or one of my other blogs! I like blogs that come from the heart. Blogs that are written about every day run of the mill things that people go through in life! I like blogs that really grab my attention and will keep me reading all the way through the post and wanting to go through the archives!!There are some blogs that just BORE the CRAP out of me!! For instance, political blogs. Ugh. I don't like politics, never have, never will and I certainly don't want to sit and read about the same old garbage that is on the news 10 times a day! *snore* I appreciate that there are alot of people into politics and such but it is not for me and like I said, the crap is on the news all day long, I don't need to read about it, too!!
I also find it extremely annoying when people have blogs that are supposed to be written from another point of view! I am meaning people that have blogs that are supposedly written from their 6 month old baby's point of view! As if an adult REALLY knows what is going on inside an infants mind and as if a 6 month old could actually come up with thoughts like that! Or how about all of the million cat blogs out there that are supposed to be written from the CAT'S point of view? Are you freakin' serious people?? Crap like that really makes me roll my eyes! I mean, really, is your life THAT boring that you have time to sit down and come up with some of this crap?? Sheesh!!
I also don't care too much for music on blogs..the only reason is because when I am surfing the net I normally have my OWN music playing and it's a real P.I.T.A. when some other crap music (or someone talking) starts to play over my own music and then it turns into a monotonous mess!
If anyone is thinking about making a blog, atleast try to make it interesting and half ways thought provoking! Give me something that will make me stick to the screen even when the timer on my traffic exchange thingy is on zero!! lol
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