Let the Weekend Begin

I had Tuesday and Wednesday off this week. It's been a while since I've had back to back days off but since the furniture store closing have had more time off in the past two weeks than I have in months. It hasn't helped my pitiful bank account but my mind, body and soul now have a hefty balance and mean a lot more to me than money ever has.  The yards are done, laundry is caught up, my family has had some home cooked meals and I feel refreshed and ready to go again.

It's a good  thing. I worked today at  five, bummed another ride to work and bummed one back home. It was slow (first Falcon's home game) but lucked out and walked out with my buddy, Mr. Franklin. I've already arranged my next bummed ride to work for  tomorrow. Getting there is one thing, getting  home's a piece of cake.

Saturday I am bumming yet another ride to Fayetteville with a co worker from the furniture store to go work the new location. I'll go in at ten, get off at  four and have Tim (or whoever is home with our one car) pick me up and dump me off at  the restaurant by  five. Then I'll work and  bum another ride home. Sunday the car is open so I'll have transportation  to work.

Sheesh!

Massey was all bummed out today and red eyed from crying. We're $5,300 short of  what needs to be in her account by  August 19 for college. We tried her credit union but they won't give her a loan until she is eighteen, which happens to BE August 19.

I sat Massey down and asked her if I've ever let her down before? I went online and made her fill out a request for a Sallie Mae student loan. She plans on going straight through for her PHD and won't have to begin paying it back until she graduates.

It will be 24 to 48 hours before we hear if she gets the loan but have a generous benefactor co signing for her and pretty sure it will happen. If it doesn't, I'll find another way...I always seem to.

She and I sat  together eating leftovers in the living room and watched the Katie Couric show. It was about kids from normal, average and even above average families who stumbled into heroin addiction and ruined not only their own lives but the entire family's as well.

I looked over at Massey  and said "If being poor is  the worst thing that ever happens to us, I'd say we are about the luckiest people on earth."

Four years ago, I felt like Massey did earlier today...lost, embarrassed and humiliated. I simply told Massey, "Our life is what it is and I feel grateful for it."

If you only dwell on the negative, that's all you have... Negativity. If you constantly  strive for something better, something better WILL happen. It may not be the answer to it all but will be a step in the right direction. No person learned to walk in a day. It's one faltering step at a time. It's putting one foot in front of the other, day after day. It's stumbling and falling. It's picking yourself up and trying again.

When our lack of a vehicle debacle started about a month ago, I almost let myself slip back into the abyss of negativity.

I am an avid watcher and reader of  the news, and most of it isn't pretty. After  about twenty four hours into my sulk, I simply looked myself in the mirror and said "Our life is what it is and by all accounts of  the news I'm watching, we're some of  the lucky ones."

It's a good life. It's not the best life or the one I wanted at  this point in my over the 'halfway there' life... but at least we have made it to this point!

When I was standing in  the driveway today waiting for my co worker to pick me  up, my older neighbor came outside, leaning over the back of his big ole diesel truck saying "You  guys just don't have any luck at all with cars." I started to say, well you're retired and I cut your front and back yard for free  for four years so how about YOU taking my unlucky ass to work for free, old man?" I gave him a mental free pass and just chuckled like I  thought he was funny. (while choking back a LOT of sharp comebacks)

All old people get a free pass in my book, sometimes it's just hard to do.

It was getting close to the time when my friend was picking me up so I headed up  the street  to meet her at the top of the  subdivision.

Massey  came outside and said "Don't just walk up  the street like a homeless person." I told her I was walking up  the street FROM my home. I demurred to her obvious embarrassment so we stood together in the front yard,  admiring the free sod  that I worked so hard to lay and God worked so hard to water the past three weeks.

You know what may and WILL sound crazy?

Luckily, obviously I don't want an easy life like I used to.  I don't want things handed to me on a silver platter.  I don't want "Things." I want to be loved, I want to be a hard worker,  I want to be a funny person, I want to be a good mother a good wife, appreciated  and a writer. I  already have seven things checked off MY bucket list...how many people can say that?

Feeling pretty good about our sad old life.

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." (Dr. Seuss)

Til next time...COTTON