we're still in a pretty dire situation financially -- saxy hasn't been working and may not work until next week, so things aren't looking good that way yet, but...somehow i'm just not so worried about it yet. i'm not sure why. it might be because everything always works out for us eventually. even if we are tired of the limping along and the job wash outs that seem to happen every 2 to 4 years, things somehow always work out. and saxy is looking for work -- most places seem to want online apps these days, which really saves on the gas. he's put in for several walmart locations, tgi fridays, applebees, kroger, sam's club, blockbuster, and amc theaters all online. the school district is being it's usual slow self -- he finally talked to someone and ended up having to reapply because he's not supposed to have "gaps" in his job history. and now he's back to square one with them and unable to contact anyone again.
i know he's really worried about all this too. i can see it on his face and feel it radiating from him. i keep reminding him that things always work out, but so far it's not helping much. and i can understand that, i'm just not...of a mind to put all that energy into worrying right now. things will work out as they choose to work out. he's doing what he can to find other work, j.e. is doing what he can to find other jobs for his crew, not much more we can do but what we're doing, right? i mean, even if we could finagle the transportation and whatnot, i'd have trouble working anyway because of physical limitations, so him hunting while i do what i can at home is the best we can manage right now. we just have to trust it will all work out. half the nation seems to be in the same place: struggling to get by and looking for work.
it does occasionally make me wish some of my mother's delusions were true. being able to sell off a french chalet right now would be a wonderful help. ;)
i think my only concern right now is taz and his food. we've upped how much we feed him, changed his snacks to higher calorie and fat foods, added a glass of instant breakfast to his morning routine, and so on. the scary thing is he is sucking it all up. i never expected to have a "normal boy" appetite on this kid, but he's definitely got one now, and it's just weird. but it also means we need to buy more food, higher calorie foods, and a few foods that we wouldn't normally pick up, and that's putting a strain on our already stretched thin food budget. thank god for the farmer's market -- though it doesn't help with him all that much since all we buy there is produce and meats. at least it allows us to pick up fresh fruit and veggies for relatively cheap -- which we used to not be able to do much at all. but $60 at the farmer's market seems to cover us in those two areas for a week or more pretty well, so the major expense is everything else we have to pick up at kroger: diary, grains, nonfood items. they easily cover another $60-$80 or so each week. and we have to make sure we don't skimp on what froggy needs while we're trying to fatten the boy up. it would be a bit of a tough balance for us even if saxy was working every day; now it's a bit of a nightmare to balance. but, you know, it has to be done.
as usual, the one thing that could help is being slow to be approved. right now i pay about $2 - $2.50 for lunches at school, and they don't seem to get as much as they did in middle school (which may be more of the way the lunch lines are set up than anything). we've applied for free/reduced meals, but haven't received an approval yet. we did send it the first day the kids were in school, but they also have to review thousands of applications so we may not hear anything until next week. since these are filled out by hand rather than online, there's no way to shorted the time frame either. it's pretty frustrating.
but, on a positive note, the kids are doing well in school. taz's new teacher is obviously still trying to find her footing a bit, but he's doing well with her so far, and she's been making an effort to accommodate my requests. froggy is being a very responsible girl when it comes it to her homework -- i think the whole almost not making it into high school was just what she needed. and she has been warned that failing a class in high school means paying for summer school, which we can't do. she's showing teenager sign when it comes to chores -- doing them in a half-assed way, "forgetting", not completing the work, and so on, but she's been staying on top of school work, and i'm really proud of her for that.
i'm also starting to see the adult she might become in there, and that's just plain scary.
as for me, i'm pretty much as caught up as i can be on my lilley stuff for now, so i'm enjoying a bit of a lull and working on my own writing. who knows, maybe assassin's will help turn us around eventually. but for that to happen, it has to get finished and i have at least another 6 months before i can start querying it. i suspect that if it gets picked up at all, it'll be a small press rather than an agent/big publishing house, but we'll see. starting with the agents and won't go to small press until i've exhausted the list. i can say i'm pretty happy with the way it's going in this most recent revision, and that's something.
beyond that, the days are settling into something of a routine now: taz is still adjusting to getting up at 5:20 am, but froggy is starting to wake up around 5:30 or so all on her own, and i have my schedule switched enough to get them off to their buses before i crash. saxy being home is a little odd for me, but he lets me sleep in the morning like i need to, and isn't constantly underfoot when i am awake. he uses the mornings to do his job searching online. afternoons, he putters around the house a bit -- not doing a whole lot of clean up or repair right now, but i might set him to work on it eventually, if only to keep him distracted. he makes the kids their afternoon snacks when he's home, and otherwise watches tv. it's quiet, and i can get the things done that i need to. i take time off in the evening and eat dinner with the family, watch a little tv, and then come back on the comp when everyone else goes to bed. it seems to be working for us, even if it puts his and my schedule a little at odds.
you know, you have to enjoy these quiet lulls when they happen regardless of the circumstances around them. they don't happen often enough not to. next week, or maybe sooner, more work for lilley will come in and i'll end up busy again, or saxy will be back at work and i'll have to make bentos every night, or something. we're heading into fall and the wet weather is starting to hang out a bit more, which means more colds and whatnot. so, yea, just going to enjoy this bit of peace while i can and not put my energy into a whole bunch of worries.
it really is better that way.
on another quick note: as i was adding the links for the past whyspers written on previous 19th of augusts, i read this one. vagner has outgrown all of that, except for the occasional belly rubbing (though he doesn't want to be held for that anymore, now he lies next to me on the bed), and i kind of miss it. funny how cats are like people and grow up so much different than their childhood.
~*~
word of the moment: effervescent
giving off bubbles; used of wines and waters; charged naturally or artificially with carbon dioxide; marked by high spirits or excitement
