Unemployment

Well, I'm entering my second week of unemployment.  My apartment has never been cleaner.  My dogs have never been walked so many times.  I swear last time I went to grab the leashes, Mickey looked at me as if he was begging me to let him just stay inside this hour.  On the bright side, I think they're enjoying being out of their cages.  So....yay, unemployment.

Seriously though.  I'm looking for health insurance, and it's either pay over $600 a month to keep the coverage I had through work or $250 to get it though another carrier.  Neither is an appealing option considering I have no paycheck coming in, but I can't afford my prescriptions without it.  Aaaah, America.  You can say what you want about whoever you want whenever you want, but you'll go bankrupt paying for health care.  Oh well, better than living elsewhere. 

I still have no computer at home because people decided they wanted to help themselves to my stuff on vacation so, I'm here at the library.  I don't really even have much to say in this post.  I don't think writing about how I scrubbed my toilets last week is going to help.  On the plus side, I did qualify for unemployment.  So, at least that will help out while I'm job hunting.  Hopefully those background checks for teaching come back fast so I can get back in the game before I lose my mind and start believing my dogs are actually carrying on a conversation with me.

Oh, those background checks.  Being a good girl doesn't pay off in today's society.  Idiots out there have to be horrible, horrible people that make it necessary for schools to do background checks on applicants no matter how squeaky clean they appear.  It's not fair to me that I have to wait a month to find out I'm not a criminal when I already know that.  Oh well, life's not fair I guess.  I'm just bitter because if it wasn't for those background checks getting messed up the first time, I'd already be a bonifide substitute teacher instead of sitting here writing about it.

I get to go to Walmart in a few minutes.  We need soda at home.  Well, not need, but I want it and we're out so I'm getting it.  When will the fun end?????

I've decided I can work on a few things while I'm unemployed.....

First, I will work out every day, beginning today.  I swear.
Second, I will get Dave to teach me how to drive a stick shift.
Third, I will finish the crochet projects I've got hanging out there unfinished.
Fourth, I will write more in the blog.

See, I've got goals.  I've got dreams.  I've got to get off this computer.  Seriously, the girl across from me keeps giggling uncontrollably, and I'm not completely sure I want to stick around to find out why.  Anyhoo.....I'll try to be more fascinating next time.  I'm going to go try to figure out my next step with claiming the unemployment they say I'm eligible for.  Wish me luck.

Lucky Charm

Well, hello!!!!  It's been a while I know.  Let's see, what has happened in all the time that has passed since I've written?  Well, I've moved.  Yep, you heard that right, I moved.  I'm no longer an attic dweller.  Does that mean I have to change the name of this blog?  I mean, technically, I'm an apartment dweller now, but I digress.  That is a musing for a different post.  Today I'm catching you up on all the goings on in my life.  It's a whirlwind that will leave you saying, um, seriously, is it really possible to have that much bad luck all at once.  I assure you my friends, I'm not making any of this up.  Let's carry on, shall we?

Where do I begin?  Well, I moved out of the attic.  That's great news!  I'm living Boyfriend, and we couldn't be happier.  Well, I assume he couldn't be happier.  He tells me he's happy.  Anyhoo, I was temporarily in Lexington until the lease was up on his apartment there.  Now we're in beautiful Georgetown.  We have been since June.  Things were going so well, that it seemed like we were hogging up all the good luck.  Well, it seemed that way for like two weeks anyway.  Those were a great two weeks. 

The first bout of bad luck was the washer/dryer incident.  We bought a new High Efficiency Washer and dryer.  These things are great.  They've got so many options, it's like playing a game every time I do the laundry.  Things are good with them now, but our relationship started out a bit rocky.  Boyfriend took off one day to supervise the delivery and installation.  Everything was done in a decent amount of time, and we did laundry that night.  A lot of laundry.  We'd been without a washer/dryer for like two weeks, there was plenty of laundry to do.  The next day, Boyfriend got a call from our property manager explaining that she had authorized maintenance to enter our apartment because there was water leaking into the apartment below.  Turns out, those super special delivery men didn't hook up the washer correctly.  Good thing the apartment below was vacant.  Oh, and the maintenance man informed us that he watched the delivery men drop our dryer.  That's great.  Hope it's not broken.  Well, I demanded (and got) a brand new dryer.  After all, I paid for a brand new dryer, not a might be broken, but we don't know dryer.  They offered to send someone out to check the dryer, but, that wasn't good enough for me.  I didn't want to play the game where someone says it's fine but three weeks from then I'm stuck with a washer full of wet clothes because the dryer doesn't work.  So, they delivered my new dryer a week later....I had to take off work at that point.  They were supposed to fix the washer too because let's face it, nobody wants me to try and fix that washer myself.  Well, with all the screwing around this company was doing, we ended up getting Boyfriend's dad to fix the washer.  It works great!

Once things from that had settled down, we were in clean laundry heaven.  Things were going great.  Until.....my little dog broke her leg.  Did I tell you I have two dogs now?  My bad, it's been a while since I've written.  Two dogs-Mickey and Minnie.  They were playing together on the couch and fell off.  Mickey (15 lbs) landed on Minnie (6 lbs).  So, I got to take Minnie to the e-vet at 8:00 at night and sit there while they x-ray and give pain meds and I can hear the money flying out of my wallet.  I love this little dog so the money is secondary, but still, I know a bill is coming my way, and it's not small.  Well, about midnight they finally tell me to come on back because Minnie is awake (they had to sedate her to get x-rays).  Both bones in her leg are broken through and there is a hairline fracture on one of her legs.  They can't get them to set right, and she'll be crippled if we don't do surgery (I think that's when my wallet started crying).  So, surgery it was.....three days before we left for Myrtle Beach.  Let me say, Boyfriend's mom is a saint because she didn't back out of watching the dogs even though one needed more attention now.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Minnie's leg got broken the very day Mickey was allowed back to full activity after he hurt his leg jumping around.  Anyway, vacation was still a go.  We dropped the dogs off with Boyfriend's mom and gave her instructions for my little hurt pup.

We needed a vacation at this point.  Moving is stressful, plus, all this with the washer/dryer and dogs.  Besides, who doesn't want to spend a week at the beach?  It was so relaxing.  After the first day I was an interesting shade of red.  I tell ya, no matter how much sunscreen I use......anyway, the burn was the least of my worries.  Boyfriend was sick.  He didn't leave the hotel room for the most part of two days.  Monday and Tuesday were a haze of puking for him.  By Wednesday he was feeling better, and it was great to have him back out having fun with us.  No, I didn't camp out in the hotel room with him the whole time.  I made sure he had what he needed, but he didn't want me hanging around being bored.  So, I went out with my family, it's what he wanted.  Anyway, Wednesday was a great night of dinner and Putt-Putt golfing.  All that fun exhausted us.  We were ready for bed by the time we headed back to the hotel.  Well, we didn't get to go straight to sleep.  Why?  Well, because our room was robbed.  They took our computers, his GPS, and my restless leg medicine.  Awesome.  We got to spend more of the evening with the lovely officers of the Myrtle Beach Police Department.  At least we had our money on us.  Well, the rest of vacation was relatively uneventful.  We did have fun, but I'm still without a computer.  I'm writing this from the Scott county library :)  Hopefully we get results from the renters insurance soon.

So, how could things get much worse?  Well, after vacation I seemed to be able to catch any virus that came my way.  Plus, as of last week, I'm unemployed.  Cuts had to be made.  Of course, over the years I've managed to get myself into credit card debt that is threatening to smother me, so this is the perfect time for unemployment.  I know the debt is my fault, but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. 

I knew about a month ahead of time that I was losing my job, and I was trying to get everything all set up, but of course everything fell apart last minute.  Considering that I got my degree to be an Elementary School teacher, I decided to get on some lists to be a sub in some school systems until a regular teaching job came up.  I got my fingerprints done to complete a background check nearly a full month before I was going to be unemployed.  The lady told me it would take a little over a week to get the results back, then I'd be good to go.  Three weeks later, I found out the FBI rejected my prints and I had to do them all over again.  Awesome again.  So, instead of moving from my job straight to subbing.  I'm sitting in a little halfway point called unemployment.  I'm four days in.  Unemployment is not for me.  I need to be doing something.  Besides, that debt I was talking about loves a person without a paycheck. 

I was starting to get upset and depressed about everything trying to kill my happiness.  You know what they say, laughter is the best medicine.  Well, I get my daily dose from Ellen.  I also picked up her book from the library to read.  She makes some good points in there about being ourselves, and letting that make us happy.  I tell ya what, Ellen, if you're on the Internet and accidentally trip into this blog, let me tell you.  Thank you.  You've allowed me to put all the bad luck on hold for an hour a day.  I honestly don't think you will ever know what you do for people.  Just when I wanted to give up and cry because things seem to go all wrong, you dance.  Or you do something nice for someone.  Or you have on adorable children and funny guests.  Thank you, just for being you.  I've got so much more to say to you, Ellen, but my session on the library computer is about to time out.  Just know you are an inspiration, and an escape for me when things get too tough. 

Now, you want to hear about the hole that Mickey tore in the carpet while I was gone yesterday.  Yep, bye-bye pet deposit.....oh man.....when will good luck find me again?