Why would would you choose to be homeless with a small child?
This post is off the subject of my life. It is about a longtime acquaintance. I don't dare say friend. Although, in some ways she was a friend. Not the kind you ever confide in, or ask a favor of, or count on to show up to work. So really more of an acquaintance that you know way too much about. Her life choices are very different from what my "norm" would be.
In short, if we hadn't been thrown together by work we would never have met. If she hadn't been dead set on having a "friend" in her supervisor it would not have happened. Yes, part of it is my fault, I tend to "rescue" way too soon. That alone needs to go on my "resolutions" list for 2020!
Anyway, She has struggled for the last four years, financially and emotionally and physically. I can help with the financial and so I did. That is not always a good answer. I can help by babysitting so I did. Emotionally, I am not so good at. Maybe it was the years in the Army. Maybe it was the way I grew up. But if you have to survive you don't sit down and cry and give up! You do something about it!
Not to imply that she has done nothing about her situation, she has. She has quit her 8-4 and started her own business. It isn't going that great yet, but it has the potential to get there and not take all that long. She has mountains of bills, but rent and electric are the most pressing followed by her phone, car and insurance. When encouraged to keep the 8-4 even if only part-time, she balked and quit. Mainly to focus full-time on her new found passion for reselling things.
It was also December and that can be a slow time for sales. What is done is done. Or is it? The most desperate thing she needs to date is her rent paid. But my problem is this... I told her how I felt and now she won't speak to me. I could pay her rent as long as no one knows I did it. That would buy her some time. However, she has decided that she and her daughter would be better off in a homeless shelter.
This just drives the control freak in me nuts! Why? Why would you put yourself in that position when you have probably 4,000 pounds of personal belongings that have to be disposed of or taken to storage? That is an estimate based on the amount of stuff I had to ship to Germany. She has about as much if not more.
Her proclamation is that social services in this town only help the homeless. That she has tried calling but they won't call her back. I am not sure how things work here but that cannot be wholly true! Can it?
Sometimes it means asking for help, other times it means accepting help you didn't ask for. But mostly, it means protecting your child from being homeless or hungry or unsafe at just about any cost! You cannot really say, it will fix itself! Because every action has an equal and opposite reaction... to include doing nothing! Doing nothing will cause things to happen that become out of your control. Oh wait all this ranting, maybe it boils down to me being a control freak?!
Last night the outlaws got together and we were short quite a few of us. It is towards the end of hunting season in Nebraska so two of our group are out there hunting deer. Some are currently sick and then there is our "friend". She was not present either. Even with the missing persons we had a good get together!
You can tell most of us do not go out on Friday night just from the shock on our faces at the lack of parking at Applebee's. With a long wait for a table large enough to accommodate all of us we ended up at the "Black Bear Diner". My first time there. It was very nice, nothing like I imagined it all the times that I passed by it. But even so, we missed our fellow outlaws.
There is still one working at the facility and she has fun telling us the crazy stories. Of course, we have more fun listening in total and utter shock. None of it should surprise us though. The evening out with the girls topped off a ridiculously busy day for me and was much appreciated.
The morning started with rushing the kiddos off to school, making breakfast for myself, my daughter and granddaughter and then diving into a craft of homemade Vaseline.
The golden liquid cooled to a pretty yellow and left us feeling like the only rooster in a hen house! Next is labels and packing them into the little pink bags and adding a candy. Deciding on a label was the hardest part I think. Today we will add those finish up. We ran out of time because there was still a memorial service to go to for a former resident. And of course the fun night out with friends!
Of course when you leave the kiddos you always come back to a bit of extra work cleaning up whatever mess is made while you are away and it is no different for me. So I will close so that I can get busy on my messy house.
In short, if we hadn't been thrown together by work we would never have met. If she hadn't been dead set on having a "friend" in her supervisor it would not have happened. Yes, part of it is my fault, I tend to "rescue" way too soon. That alone needs to go on my "resolutions" list for 2020!
Anyway, She has struggled for the last four years, financially and emotionally and physically. I can help with the financial and so I did. That is not always a good answer. I can help by babysitting so I did. Emotionally, I am not so good at. Maybe it was the years in the Army. Maybe it was the way I grew up. But if you have to survive you don't sit down and cry and give up! You do something about it!
Not to imply that she has done nothing about her situation, she has. She has quit her 8-4 and started her own business. It isn't going that great yet, but it has the potential to get there and not take all that long. She has mountains of bills, but rent and electric are the most pressing followed by her phone, car and insurance. When encouraged to keep the 8-4 even if only part-time, she balked and quit. Mainly to focus full-time on her new found passion for reselling things.
It was also December and that can be a slow time for sales. What is done is done. Or is it? The most desperate thing she needs to date is her rent paid. But my problem is this... I told her how I felt and now she won't speak to me. I could pay her rent as long as no one knows I did it. That would buy her some time. However, she has decided that she and her daughter would be better off in a homeless shelter.
This just drives the control freak in me nuts! Why? Why would you put yourself in that position when you have probably 4,000 pounds of personal belongings that have to be disposed of or taken to storage? That is an estimate based on the amount of stuff I had to ship to Germany. She has about as much if not more.
Her proclamation is that social services in this town only help the homeless. That she has tried calling but they won't call her back. I am not sure how things work here but that cannot be wholly true! Can it?
Sometimes it means asking for help, other times it means accepting help you didn't ask for. But mostly, it means protecting your child from being homeless or hungry or unsafe at just about any cost! You cannot really say, it will fix itself! Because every action has an equal and opposite reaction... to include doing nothing! Doing nothing will cause things to happen that become out of your control. Oh wait all this ranting, maybe it boils down to me being a control freak?!
Last night the outlaws got together and we were short quite a few of us. It is towards the end of hunting season in Nebraska so two of our group are out there hunting deer. Some are currently sick and then there is our "friend". She was not present either. Even with the missing persons we had a good get together!
You can tell most of us do not go out on Friday night just from the shock on our faces at the lack of parking at Applebee's. With a long wait for a table large enough to accommodate all of us we ended up at the "Black Bear Diner". My first time there. It was very nice, nothing like I imagined it all the times that I passed by it. But even so, we missed our fellow outlaws.
There is still one working at the facility and she has fun telling us the crazy stories. Of course, we have more fun listening in total and utter shock. None of it should surprise us though. The evening out with the girls topped off a ridiculously busy day for me and was much appreciated.
The morning started with rushing the kiddos off to school, making breakfast for myself, my daughter and granddaughter and then diving into a craft of homemade Vaseline.
The golden liquid cooled to a pretty yellow and left us feeling like the only rooster in a hen house! Next is labels and packing them into the little pink bags and adding a candy. Deciding on a label was the hardest part I think. Today we will add those finish up. We ran out of time because there was still a memorial service to go to for a former resident. And of course the fun night out with friends!
Of course when you leave the kiddos you always come back to a bit of extra work cleaning up whatever mess is made while you are away and it is no different for me. So I will close so that I can get busy on my messy house.
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