Wordful Wednesday

This was my last pack of cigarettes.

I've decided to quit smoking. I've done it before and I think this time it's going to stick. I started smoking around 4 years ago and I quit after getting sick last February. I was laid up in bed with a horrible virus and by the time I stopped puking, it had been 3 days since I had a cigarette, so I figured I quit. It was not hard for me to get over the initial quitting, but it was hard for me to stay quit. My husband smoked around me all the time and eventually, I caved. First it was one or two a week, then day, then I was back. I didn't start up again until July, so it's only been 8 months. Hopefully that helps. What I think is going to help the most is that this time, my husband is quitting. He decided to quit on his own, which is a positive thing because I know you can't quit til you're ready. We need the money. It costs between $400-$500 a month for a couple to smoke. That's fucking stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVED smoking. I truly enjoyed it. I just like money more. So, it's been 9 hours and thirty two minutes since my last cigarette, and I feel fine. Mr. Fight and I decided we are going to treat ourselves with gifts equal to the amount of money we would have spent on cigarettes to keep us motivated at first. I'd say, "Wish me luck", but luck has nothing to do with it. I'm a tough cookie and I refuse to let something like cigarettes be the boss of me. I know I'm stronger than that.

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Wordful Wednesday

As a person with limited financial resources, it can be a challenge to come up with fun things to do on the weekends, etc. One weekend activity that Mr. Fight and I like best is go to yard sales and antique stores. We can look around for a while, see all the cool or weird stuff and find something small and inexpensive to bring home. We collect salt and pepper shakers, cigarette snuffers, thimbles, Wade figurines from Red Rose tea packages and any other chachka we can put on a shelf for the cats to break. Oh yeah, we like to look for shelves too!

We went to a garage sale recently, which was fun because it was actually in the person's garage, not out in the driveway.

I found quite a treasure!

It's such a cute recipe box! I am in no way Pennsylvania Dutch, but I live in "Dutch Country" and I love the PA Dutch Hex Signs with their folksy decorations. I have a couple of hex signs in my kitchen and this box obviously has that same appeal.

But wait there's more! The box was full of family recipes, along with funny old ones torn out of magazines or off very dated looking packages:

Now I can make you anything you want if you give me a box of cornflakes.

I can say with confidence that this box is from the late 1960's or early 1970's, since I found this torn out sheet from a calendar inside the box:

And you guessed it, there was a recipe written on the back! It sounds like it would not be my favorite snack, but I like keeping old recipes alive, so here it is. It's called "Rocks", sounds delicious, right? If you like dates, I guess it could be good.

"Rocks"

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar (brown or white)
3 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in water
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup black walnuts (chopped)
1 pound dates (cut up)

That's where the recipe ends, so I would assume that you just mush all that stuff together and eat it. I don't know what to tell you about those 3 raw eggs. Bon Appétit!

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Good news!

I usually hate opening my mail because I know it's mostly bills I can't pay and threatening letters from credit card people. However, yesterday I got a little gift in the mail! It was from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and they told me that my husband's unemployment is getting extended again! Yippee! I can still live in my apartment! For 20 more weeks at least! Freaking awesome. I am really happy that I know that we're going to be okay for a little while longer, but I am eagerly awaiting the day that we can have a little financial stability. I don't care if we're still broke, but I just want to know what I'm working with. I can't wait to get all the credit card people off my ass, but I don't want to start cleaning up those aspects of my life until I can properly budget for them. Right now, it's rent, gas and electric (okay, and TV, my cell phone and the Internet, I'm not a monk). Thanks for listening.

Now for some not so good news. But it is for the best. I will be taking a break from roller derby, possibly for now, possibly for ever. I really need to focus on my life at home and what's best for my husband. Being a part of roller derby has changed me forever and I will be forever grateful that I was able to be a part of something so amazing. Thank you for everything derby sisters! On the bright side, the women all over the world who are involved in roller derby are so amazing that I know it will be around if and when I am ready to return.

A year in review.

I suppose it's time for the "new year's post". Yes, it's a little late. I am looking forward to having a good year. 2008 was not my year. I can't say it was all bad, many wonderful things happened in the past year, but it definitely had it's downside...

I did not expect Mr. Fight to still be unemployed. He was let go in March and he still hasn't found anything. To be fair, he did not start looking until, I'd say August. His mother passed away in late 2007 and he took it really hard. He went into a bad funk and by March he got fired for calling out. This did not help his funky funk. I told him to take some time to himself and sort of get it together, reevaluate his medication, etc. THEN start looking for a new job. I've been down this road enough to know that trying to shove him right back out the door and off to a new job wouldn't really be productive. He'd likely end up losing the new job and feeling worse than if he had just waited til he was better able to be a good employee. So since August my dear husband has been looking for a job and there is nothing! There is only a few crappy jobs that pay like $8 an hour. My husband has gone to apply for these crappy jobs, since $8 is more than the couch pays him to sit on it per hour. He never got a call! He was applying to work at a thrift store unloading a truck or something. I bet they are just so inundated with applicants since there is nothing better listed in the papers. Gah. The good news is that they keep extending his unemployment. That has to end sometime, though, and when it does, we are F-U-C-K-E-D. But enough about that.

Honestly, if I had no money woes, things would be all gravy. I bet a lot of people could say that, though, huh? I'd like to add here, though, that I don't totally mind being poor. Well, sometimes. It makes me really appreciate everything I have and it has made me learn what a necessity truly is (sort of...) Of course I still consider thing necessities that really aren't (hello nicotine!), but I've learned to do with out so much that I may have been used to. The biggest thing that has sucked about the last year is how bad I jacked up my credit score. I used to have a good score but when Mr. Fight got canned, I STOPPED PAYING ALL MY CREDIT CARD BILLS! Oh my god right? I am such a freaking low life dead beat. So gross. The truth was, I didn't have the money! Who'd have thought!? After we went down to one (meager) income, it was us and the cats being homeless or paying the credit card bills, so I made my choice. I figured that when he got a job again, I'd do that debt consolidation whatever. Until then, I haven't heard much about debtor's prison lately so hopefully, I'm cool.

On the upside: I love my husband. I love my family. I love my cats. I love my home (so I hope I get to keep it).

Here's looking at you 2009!

On the Homefront

Well, things could be better. I haven't posted anything yet about the shit storm that is my personal life, but here's a little taste. I work for peanuts and my husband has been out of work since March. I've been paying to keep up his health insurance since he has expensive medical issues, specifically crippling anxiety and depression (which is why he's currently out of work). I found out last week that Mr. Fight's health insurance got cancelled because I paid the bill too late. Well, I paid the bill too late because my husband doesn't have a job and I'm trying to keep us not homeless and I just did not have the money. Bummer. The real pisser is that all the stuff I have to pay for now without the insurance costs MORE than the money I didn't have to pay for the insurance. Grrr....

On the bright side, normally it's a chore to hide all the gaps in my husband's employment history when I update his resume, but at least this time the economy being in the toilet sort of helps cover his tracks. He's not like some low-life who doesn't want to work, he just has a hard time keeping jobs. He gets all worked up over something or another going on in his life or at home and he wants to call out of work because he's so overwhelmed with whatever. Then he's all freaked out that everyone at work is talking about what a loser he is for calling out, which makes him afraid to go back, so he calls out for a week or more, ultimately ending in him getting canned. That's pretty much the cycle. It's hard.

Right now he is looking for a job, but there is really nothing in the paper. He's been looking since August or so. After he got fired this last time in March, I told him to take some time, go to the doctor and try to get a little bit of control back in his life. He's been on every anxiety/depression medication I've ever heard of and none of it seems to help him. What happens is, he feels like shit so he goes to the doctor and they say, "Maybe we should try something else".

Then he has to take the new pills for however long it takes for them to kick in and for him to get used to them. Then he doesn't know how he feels because he can't tell if his body is still getting used to the pills, or the dose isn't right or the combination isn't right. All he knows is that he never feels good. It's not that he wants to feel happy all the time, it's just that he wants to feel not overwhelmed by feelings of being a total failure and obsessing over ever tiny thing that is going bad in his life. I can't imagine how hard it must be for him to be so miserable all the time. I mean, I'm certainly not happy with where I am in life and certainly thought I'd have made something better of myself, but I'm not so consumed by these thoughts that I just can't get up and function. I get up and go to work because someone has to.

He has some breakdown along the way where he can't "suck it up" and look at the big picture. The consequences of his actions aren't what's important to him in that moment, it's not doing whatever the next thing is he would have to do-like go to work or to a family party. He just wants to curl up in a little funk and not leave the house, see people, go to the store, anything. He goes on like this for months until someone (him or the doctor) finally says, "Maybe we should try something else."