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6 weeks, 6 days
wednesday, january 6, 2010



that's how long it's been since i posted an entry. the end of last year was emotional, stressful, and i pretty much checked out for most of it. my focus was on making it through. my writing, except for a little work on my novel, was all pushed aside. i had to move 2 domains as out hostess was changing providers. we're still with her, but on a different server, and that move was a bit of a job. most of it went quite smoothly, but i still have a few things i need to figure out (i have one fan listing that's refusing to cooperate and a few things to tweak). even my posting at my lj became sporadic with most of the updates being done by an auto-updater for my twitter account. there was just too much going on. i even held off doing anything for the holidays because of our situation. i basically became pretty avoidant: lots of sleeping and playing on the play station, which is about to tank (the 2 not the 3, the 3 won't play our ps2 games).

so, the good news is that so far the landlords are working with us. no eviction notice...yet. i've been sending the money we can and keeping them up on what's been going on. i'm trying not to give specific dates since nothing seems to be coming exactly when it says it will. we're still 2 months behind, but we do have concrete plans on how to fix that. the big obstacle, other than the husband not being employed at the moment, is the utilities. we've lost the cable, and the house cell has no money on it, but we can't afford to let anything else go. i've tried to keep the gas bill down by keeping the house colder than we'd like—everyone just has to dress warm. the hardest things to keep up on right now are gas for the car and food, but we're scraping by. not sure much longer we can scrape if saxy remains unemployed, but we're managing, if just barely.

we also got a reversal on the unemployment. i think i mentioned saxy was denied unemployment for not "following the employer's requirements for employment". it was all bogus—saxy had never seen the paperwork the company turned into the unemployment office to prove he had failed to follow their requirements, and the whole thing was over him going to school, not because a client complained as they claimed. for the appeal, saxy did a phone interview again and they also interviewed someone in h.r. about the incident in question. and that was their mistake. see, unless they have a person who actually witnessed the event in question, it's considered hearsay. hearsay is not considered evidence. since the woman in h.r. did not witness the event, her testimony was hearsay, and the denial of unemployment was reversed. he is now supposed to get unemployment for the entire time he's been unemployed. this will be at least one month's rent, utilities, and a few other needs that have to be taken care of.

if it ever shows up. we got the notice christmas eve and have yet to see a check. i suspect the holidays are delaying things. saxy tried to call to find out when anything would be coming in, but no one would pick up the phone. hehas to drop off another one of his cards on friday, so maybe he'll try to talk to someone then, especially if the weekly checks don't start arriving this week.

we did have a small christmas. kitten put up the tree all by herself the first week of december. we didn't do much because both saxy and i were down with the cold from hell (and both of us are still doing some recovery: he's got a bit of a cough still, and i still have the sniffles). the kids did help put up the ornaments, but it was otherwise all her. dinner included a donated turkey and most of the other usuals for the meal—we just couldn't afford $40 in cornish game hens. i did make my first ever cheesecake (you can see it here) and most everyone liked it. saxy wasn't too thrilled with the peppermint. most of the gifts were for baby cat, though there were a few for the rest of us. oldest picked me up a couple of new coffee mugs (i must have 150-200 in my collection now) and a musical puppy for saxy. she picked up a few gifts for everyone else, all under $50. we also managed something small for our 12th anniversary. saxy was a bit determined on that, i think. lol the tree came down a little early this year, but it seemed time.

saxy is still looking for work. he's sent out his resume, and he has one of instructors from last term listed as a reference (and "determined" to help him get a job in the industry), but he doesn't have the 2-3 years of current experience most are requiring. he may actually have a job at a soon to be opening high end sports bar, but while they acted like he had the job, no one actually said he was hired, and we've not heard anything since. if he doesn't hear in the next week, he'll need to contact them. he did have a job offer in december, but the hours would not work with his school schedule, which was unchangeable by that time, so he had to turn it down. as much as we need hime working, i don't want him to have to quit school even with the intention of going back because those intentions more often then not never happen. school will make him more employable in better jobs in the industry, so we're going to keep that as a priority for him. he'll find something, it just may take a bit. i'm hoping not too long since the girls just don't make enough to keep up with the bills.

taz started school on tuesday, but froggy did not. we went in to register monday and were told she needed a different form for her immunizations record. why the previous school didn't say anything, i have no idea. if they had, i would have taken care of it over break. at any rate, we managed to get her in to a doctor yesterday morning, but then arrived too late at the school to register her. now we don't have the gas to try again until either the child support/linnorm's vacation money comes in or, if it comes in early, the unemployment check shows up. child support won't show up until friday, so right now it's looking like she's not starting until monday. if they ask about it, i will make it clear that i told the secretary we didn't have the gas or the money for gas to come back after tuesday and she still wouldn't let us get her registered. she didn't even try.

despite all the crazy last year, losing the house, losing unemployment, losing jobs, there were some good things. i lost 20 pounds and kept it off even when i stopped execising. saxy's in culinary school and so happy. i don't think i've seen him in such a good place since we met. he's doing what he wants to do, what he has a passion for, and it's a joy to see the joy he has in it. and we're talking about his restaraunt, what he wants to do, food he wants to serve. we've been experimenting with different things—a few weeks ago we tried a morrocan dinner. we're still eating healthier than we were at the start of 2009 and still eating smaller portions. and it's opened whole new conversations for us. he's talking with me about food, having me taste test, and we're collaborating quite a bit. i've acutally created a new journal for our "food journey" called the chef's wife. my plan for this year is to try something new each week (as long as we can afford it) and to keep working on things we've previously tried but think need some tweaking. you'd think we would be eating a lot more with all this testing and tasting going on, but not really. most of what we've played with so far has been for our dinners, not extras. i do need to do some extra stuff once we can afford it though: saxy wants me to be his pastry chef, and i'm not going to culinary school to do it! lol so, practicing and teaching myself at home. i've got some ideas, just need to funds to try them.

saxy made all a's in his first term. we're all so proud of him! and his "mentor" chef has had him help with some volunteer things he can put on his resume, and he's managed to make connections through those activities. no job yet, but one guy told him he'd hire him if he was hiring at the time, so he's making a good impression on some of the more known people in the industry (not all of them; don't think he's been seen by collichio, for example). contacts in this industry are important though, so he's getting off to a good start.

we've managed to unpack almost everything we had packed and are 6 boxes and several pieces of furniture lighter. the house is a bit crammed right now, but we're managing. we had good holidays even if less extravagent than our usual lack of extravagence (one of these days i will have a crazy, spoil them all kind of holday). and i got this beautiful image from a friend for whysper. i actually had 3 images to work with, and i couldn't come up with anything for any of them. i contacted her something liek the 27th of last month, and she made this beautiful work for me. saved my butt is what she did. lol

right now, i'm just trying to get back with the old habits and routines. can't settle into them 100% until youngest is registered and in school and saxy's next term starts (next tuesday), but trying to bring things down from the high stress of house not-buying, almost being evicted, and the holidays all at once.

no wonder it's been over 6 weeks since my last entry!
.:.

word of the moment: exurb

a region or settlement that lies outside a city and usually beyond its suburbs and that often is inhabited chiefly by well-to-do families

.:.

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