Easter

I often wonder if other people's brains work similarly to mine. 

Are other people able to be both sad and happy at the same time. Do others flicker back and forth between feeling good and feeling as though the roof is going to cave in at any moment seemingly all the time? 

I was excited and happy yesterday to celebrate my child's birthday at the coast and on such a gorgeous day, but the news media accounts that I saw before leaving made me feel stressed and anxious and just plain unhappy with the country I live in. Luckily I got side-tracked by the beautiful beach and wonderful company but back in my house again... and today despite another lovely day... I am both happy and stressed, content to relax and yet worried about the work that needs to be done at home and in the world. 

Am I the only one? Does this ever happen to you?

Love & Hate

I love my life as it is,
I hate it too

I love my family so much,
but wish it better as well

I love myself,
but have always hated myself at the same time...

I want to love my country
but really don't at this moment in history

love, hate, up, down,
I find both of these emotions all around.

Ups & down in Summer

We are now mid-Summer and the good news is my husband just started a new job which is more suited to his liking and career ambitions and pays almost exactly what he was making a year and a half ago before all the s**t his the proverbial fan. The start up shutting down, the 5 months of unemployment, over a year of under employment and way too little salary and way too far a commute. 

So despite the fact that I'm very happy to have a regular salary again, a) we won't see a paycheck from the new job until the very end of this month and then only for 1 week's worth of work, b) since he now works regular business hours... we now pay out much of my salary in child care, c) we are so drained after all this and with so many things that HAVE to be dealt with such as our roof... that we shall still be in the hole for what feels like forever. 

Enough griping for today. Now I shall try to see the better side of life!

Spring forecast

Spring has sprung in the great Northwest. You can tell by the daffodils and and other early blooms. 

We have finally had several bouts of snow. Of course there was little to no accumulation here. And now that Spring has arrived, the forecast calls for maybe a bit more snow, but mostly rain. 

That is what the last two years feel like to me. Mostly rain. 

Not sure why I'm not feeling totally down today. I'm actually almost feeling hopeful about the future as if I can make some changes and things will get better. That works unless I start thinking about details because honestly the math doesn't add up. Like so many other people after the effects (which aren't done) of this great recession... what we have now has been battered down to hardly much at all. What we had before wasn't great but it was something. Now it's just week by week, month by month - getting by. Some people do this their whole lives. I've had a goal of getting beyond it but now it will still be some time. 
Ugh.

Feeling a bit caged.

It is almost March 2012. It still feels like 2011 with all the frustration, waiting, hopes dashed repeatedly, scrimping, saving. 


So tired of it. 


It gets harder and harder for me to stave off being depressed. 


Good news PLEASE! Substantial good news. Again however I am not holding my breath. 

Will it be this month...

I am fairly sure I speak for a lot of folks in the US who struggle each day with keeping their hopes up... believing this time will be different... today they will actually get that job, or that call back or a pay raise back to somewhere close to where they were before the recession. Maybe they'll be able to afford medical insurance again. Maybe they can pay their rent or mortgage regularly without difficulty sometime... sooner than later. 

For our family, we are at one of those points where a couple of good things could happen... or they could fall through yet again. They could even happen but not turn out to be all that helpful financially. But for now, I'm still trying. I will send in that writing sample, hope for that position to become permanent at a reasonable (higher than the temp pay) salary. I will try to believe that within 30 days, things just might be incrementally better. And you? 

I was so hopeful that 2012 would start off with a bang! That our troubles would be swept under the carpet with a grand hiring at good pay and things would miraculously get back to pre-recession goodness. But alas that was not to be. January 2012 was a redux of every month in 2011. And now we are at February with new promise and hope. Will it get better this month or will we have to look at March? 

Que sera, sera. Whatever will be will be. The future's not ours to see. Que sera, sera. Living it. Stay tuned. Check back in. I may just write a post on the power of positive thinking... if I can keep it up and if anything comes of it. ;-)

Noni's smile

I feel as though I'm floating... in the middle of my life, in the middle of nowhere. I can't get a grounding. It has been a bad year, followed by a bad month, a bad week, a bad day. At least yesterday was. 

I have no real expectation of things getting better any time soon, which is sad. There were 3 possibilities all of a sudden that could have moved our lives into a more positive financial direction -- which could have loosened up the burdens and allowed for some breathing room. Two of those possibilities are gone now and one that seemed promising is eerily quiet. I suspect it will soon be null and void. 

But a month ago, nothing was happening and then there were three possibilities. In the very dark back corners of my brain I know there will be other opportunities that I cannot see today but my mind isn't ready to look for them, hold on to them, believe in them. 

There is one positive however that presented itself to me last evening. I came home in a foul mood, in a slump, depression setting in and looked at the same old mail. As expected, there was junk mail but then there was one odd envelope addressed to my children. This usually means a letter from Africa. And this time was the same. 

Inside, a letter painstakingly written under the guidance of a house mother. A typed version of the same. A report on the village full of children in Central Africa. That was all fine but what made a difference was the hand drawn picture of a little girl celebrating Christmas and a photo of our girl. Let's call her Noni. There she was looking healthy, well fed, in a lovely dress and with ... that ... smile. Noni's smile made a world of difference in my otherwise drab day/world. 

Remember the little things such as a smile. They do make a difference. Thank you Noni... what you give us through your smile is so amazing.