Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?

Looking at the date of the last post on this blog, it has been almost a year. It has been a year of frustration and disappointment as our life has turned upside down. Now, we are at the end of our chances for things to turn around. The bank account is less than empty and there is NO money to pay next months rent. 

¹⁸ Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
¹⁹ Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. Proverbs 16:18-19

We are at the end of our rope and the end of our hope. The idea of pride, has long since stopped being part of this equation. 

The question is, can we do this:

Convert Small Utility Trailer into Small Camper

or did we already miss our window of opportunity?

And yes, moving a family of four into a 6 x 12 utility trailer is the good option, because the other doesn't have any roof or doors, at all.

 

I have spent the past few days trying to scan more of my old photos onto my computer so I don't lose them, but I just can't do it. I can't look back at all those memories, smiles and happy times, knowing where they are leading. Yet, I know that if I don't get them scanned in, I will lose them forever, because we will have no room to store them.

Much like what do I do with the furniture, knick knacks and possessions of a lifetime? Do I just leave them here, when we get forced out, or do I try to save them? 

Do we rent a locker, spending money we can't afford, hoping things may turn around? 

Hope has failed us, again and again and again.

And praying, yes, I have prayed and prayed and prayed. BUT...I have a very hard time with that. 

 The Blessing of St. Francis of Assisi to Brother Leo
The Lord bless you and keep you.
May He show His face to you and have mercy.
May He turn His countenance to you and give you peace.
The Lord bless you!

No matter how difficult things become for us, there are always stories like this: 

O.C. Family Committed To Finding Beauty In Each Day After Sons Are Diagnosed With Rare, Fatal Disease

This story struck a particularly poignant chord because I am keenly aware of the devastating affects of Battens Disease. For many years, I was the Leader of a Girl Scout troop. Two, actually. One of the girls in the older troop had Battens Disease.  She was also the daughter of people who grew up 2 houses away from me, each direction.  

So, I know that while I think things are terrible for us, they could be so much worse. I have lost a couple of friends in just the past few months and have another who has been fighting cancer for the past few years. Those are struggles that make mine look ridiculously petty.

For now, we will look for answers and plan for the worst, because hoping for the best has not worked out so well.  When (if) this is ever over, I plan to get a tattoo; something I never thought I would do. Project Semicolon Connects The Broken Path Of The Depressed

 

Choices

Timing is everything. At a time when we need to keep our bills as low as possible, our rent payments are going up by $150 a month. With no clue as to what the future will bring, signing a new year's lease is not wise anyway. Not signing and just waiting it out, doubles our rent to almost $3600 a month to stay here with out a year long lease. 

So, we are moving.

As we look to move again, the question of where is almost impossible to answer. Knowing that unemployment will not cover ANY monthly rent payments in this area, we are in a conundrum. With two girls in school and one working, moving to a random anywhere doesn't make much sense, either. 

So, the question is do we take the small severance check and bank it for 'what ifs'? Or, should we look into buying a cheap, and I do mean CHEAP, camping trailer to park in the local RV park?

Staying there is only $535 a month, leaving a bit of money for food and gas.

It seems to be a better option than four people living in a pickup truck.

There are some pretty nice trailers out there. 

This one comes with a washer and dryer, bedrooms and even a garage. 

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb/rvs/4589713784.html

Another one has two separate bedrooms. Ah, the luxury.

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/rvs/4601331288.html

But, what we can afford is not so great...

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/rvs/4601986487.html

Still, when the choice is walls and beds or homelessness, we should consider ourselves lucky we still have choices we can make. 

Not everyone is as fortunate as us.

Sunshine and Clouds

April survey of about 60,000 households indicated that 73,000 Americans lost work last month, versus the gain of 288,000 in the establishment survey.

Report Shows Resurgence of Hiring but Has Downbeat Notes

I know that the Jobs Report is #GoodNews. Still, it is always hard to be excited about goods news for other people when those numbers emphasis a  prophetic future.

Being a visual person, I graphed out the job situation at the ol' work place. It did not make me feel any better.

Things are #NOT

 looking sunny in California!

“Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us”Samuel Smiles

“But it is a sort of April-weather life that we lead in this world. A little sunshine is generally the prelude to a storm.” 

William Cowper

“The road of life is filled with sunshine and clouds, black and white, triumphs and tragedies. As we continue down the road, we decide which things we bring with us, and which we leave in the rear-view mirror.”
Julie-Anne

“Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow…” 

Louisa May Alcott

Lost Your Job...Now What? Revisited

Lost Your Job~~Now What?

You've just been thrown out into the wilderness without a map. The most difficult thing is knowing where to begin. With months of research and trial and error behind us, we have experience in forging the trail. Let us be your compass.

The following is a list of websites with useful information for the Job Search/Interview process, itself.

Just follow the links to the appropriate sites.

From the unemployment fairy

(from my other blog)

Get Ready to Get Out There

What Is The Longest Period Of Time That You Have Been Unemployed?

Now that you know what jobs match your skills and interests, it’s time to get out into the job market and make things happen. Our toolkit will help you prepare with proven tips that can help you perfect your resume, sharpen your interviewing skills and prepare for salary negotiations: Link

What You Should Never Put in an Introductory Email

It's never too early to make a bad impression.

A cover letter or introductory email is often the first thing a potential employer sees when reviewing a job applicant. It's the first opportunity to impress recruiters and hiring managers and, therefore, the first opportunity to disappoint them. Everything from copy mistakes to inappropriate jokes in a cover letter could derail an application. Link

Top 5 Tips for Creating Impressive Video Resumes 

In today’s highly competitive job market, creating the right video resume to accompany your traditional CV can make you stand out from the crowd. The wrong one, though, can make you a laughing stock. Link

Interviews

A collection of resources to help you ace interviews. Includes tips for successfully navigating job interviews, sample interview questions and answers, plus interview practice games that provide immediate feedback online. Link

Thank You Note Example - Follow Up With Information 

Thank you note example to use when you want to follow-up with the hiring manager and provide additional information about your candidacy that you wish you had mentioned at the interview. Link

Hope Floats

Today, I am going to edit through some of the old posts that have spelling and other punctuation issues. And then, there are those other things that seem right when I write them, but turn into a incomprehensible mess when I go back and read them later.


A couple helpful blog sites for those looking for employment help:

Help the 99ers

As a result of the continuing crisis in America's job market, some 1.5 million men and women are still actively seeking employment, even after exhausting the maximum of up to 99 weeks of state and Federal unemployment insurance benefits. At least 5.5 million Americans may have joined the ranks of the 99ers to date. These men and women, your family, friends and neighbors, need access to the same lifeline that the rest of the nation's unemployed have.

Unemployed but Organized for the 21st Century

Staying Positive.

A topic on the #99erAid Twitterchat a couple of weeks ago was ways to stay positive.  A positive mental attitude is essential for 99ers to survive. H.R. 589 would go a long way to helping with positive thoughts. A jobs creation bill would also be helpful.  Both items need to pass Congress, so 99ers must advocate for their passage. Political action alone can't maintain positivity, so long term unemployed need to focus on daily/weekly items to stay positive. In the course of preparing for my life beyond H.R. 589 and 99erhood, I have found two sites that will help maintain a daily positive outlook

A thistle grows by the Castle Wall.

Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up.
And it will, too... 

More Lobser Dreams

Today, I got video proof that somewhere in the world, 

I still have #STUFF. 

A locker full of Christmas decorations, baby books and the random nick knacks that define our lives. All piled in the trashed out stacks of chaos by people who could care less about the memories those boxes contain.


Just days ago, we were, finally, planning our trip back across the country to gather up our belonging and bring them our to our #NewHome. 


Now, with our vacation planned in amongst the likely probability on #Joblessness by the New Year, the question hangs heavy. Do we move the remainder of our belongs out here? Then, we can sit in quiet desperation with familiar ghosts and goblins, snowmen and Santa statues.


As weeks and months pass, the likelihood of this locker being one of the first things we stop paying for is high.


Perhaps the thought that we can still bring our boxes out, means I have not quite given up. With 12 million people in this area, surely there are other jobs to be had.


In just over four weeks, we'll know for sure what happens to our lives.


That gives us another seven months to find a new amazing #CaliforniaJob. Almost as much time as it took to find this one. Surely not an #ImpossibleTask?

I still have the dream of Christmases with my tree in all it sparkling glory, set up again in my life time. Or smaller dreams of birthdays where my youngest girls get presents. Four years is way too long since they have celebrated with actual gifts.

The fact that they understand no gifts will come, makes me saddest of all. They live with the bits and piece we have left our our middle class life. Reminders that we once did alright, with the hope that we may one day be back there again.

Yes, these are more #LobsterDreams!

So, for now, I will plan to return to Minnesota and pack up my things to move them to my new home. I don't quite yet have to acknowledge I may need that moving money to live on, if fears become reality and reality stretches us to that point where we break.

Keep Trudging On

Last week marked our 2 1/2 year anniversary of moving to California. Thirty months in the Golden State and we still feel like newbies. Today, my husband is attending company meetings to discuss the 'future' of the IT department. Yes, for the third time in 2 1/2 years, they are downsizing IT.


Who downsizes IT in 2014? That would Mitt Romney, of course. Or, at least his old company, Bain Capital.

 So what is Bain Capital?

Glassdoor review:

“Bain Capital brought in to sell company once layoffs complete”

Contract Manager Power Procurement (Current Employee)

sssssssss, CA

I have been working at ssssssssssssssssssssssss full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – descent salary, excellent benefits plan

Cons – Highly political, laying off top performers and keeping dead weight in management levels, don't quit a job to join this company as there is no future here and you might be laid off even if you are a top performer unless you are in the good ole boys club

Advice to Senior Management – all political, useless meetings and powerpoint presentations, Bain Capital is going to sell you off so goodbye!
No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company ~~~

We still struggle to put space between us and that never absent trapdoor that threatens to open and drop us back into a pit we won't recover from. Others our age, at this same company, are looking at retirement as an option, as opposed to being laid off.


That is not even a slight possibly in our case.


Everything we had was lost to the Bush recession. Our home and all the equity that went with it was lost when we were forced to sell or lose it at the very bottom of the housing market crash. The retirement savings we had kept us alive during that same time.


Now, we barely make from paycheck to paycheck, while still trying to pay off bills that keep us going when everything crashed down upon us. If it happens again, there won't be any severance. Although, that was never anything we received anyway, thank to co-signing on student loans.


The government took it all because the kids weren't paying them, we couldn't pay them, and then they took the money we were supposed to live on.


Thoughts filter through my mind like flour through a sifter. Some lumps stay stuck forever in places I can no longer get to. I helplessly watch as my husband considers the harsh possibility of yet another job hunt in his mid fifties. The earthquakes around us seem metaphoric to our lives.

We spent the past few days cleaning, hiking through the desert, practicing Spanish. Last night the girls cooked dinner to a full blown acapella rendition of "Frozen". 

And for the first time in a year and a half, I got a new pair of shoes. So, I may soon be homeless, but at least I won't be left barefooted, as well. 

As we wait and wonder...AGAIN, what the fates have in store for our little family, we keep trudging on the best we can.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on,” Nick Fury


Avengers Nick Fury by JPRart

In the meantime, we take advantage of those things we can, like the perks of family working at Disneyland. Seeing Captain America is definitely one of them.

"In case it's unclear, if you try to escape, if you so much as scratch that glass...30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works? Ant. Boot," Nick Fury