First day at new job

I just finished my first shift as an assembler at Sante Fe Cattle Company. This is the first time I have worked primarily in the kitchen of a restaurant. All my experience has been in the service area.

While it is not my dream-job, Im thankful to have it. Its not the highest paying job I've ever had, there are no benefits - not even direct deposit, but I think it will suit my needs for the time being. Its only few minutes from home and the schedule should be somewhat flexible.

I expect to be working mostly nights and weekends and I am ok with that too. There was a time in my life when working those hours were abhorable. But, I had worked those hours for so long, I was ready for a 'normal' job - working mon - fri, 8 - 5.

However, I dont expect to be there forever. This is not a job I want to retire from. I dont see working in call centers as a retirement option either, and I think I'm too far out to really do anything with a music degree. So, I am considering starting Snead in the fall (maybe this summer) and getting my cosmetology license.

Eventually, I will be my own boss, can work as much or as little as I want and I think it is something I will enjoy.

I watched Ken finish cosmo school, and eventually went to work for a couple of the major product companies and got to do a lot of traveling and also made good money doing it. He was going to salons all over the US and was teaching the latest cut and color techniques to other hair-beaters.

Teaching and traveling is something I would love doing, so I think it will be a good fit, and it is something I think I could do until I retire.

I have one glitch standing in the way - an $800 glitch - that I need to take care of. Belhaven in Jackson says I owe them that much, and wont release my transcripts until it is paid. I am going to go ahead and apply for the summer term and if luck is on my side, it will slip thru the crack and they will send the transcripts anyway. If so, great! If not, that's ok too. I'll just have to pay them off over the summer and start Snead in the fall.

Well, that's all I have for now.

Ciao

Some days are such a bitch

I hate banks. They are soul-less predators. They put on a pretty face with their "We're your best friend" but then they dont think twice about kicking you when you are down.

Yesterday, I was feeling pretty good about our financial situation. All the bills were paid and there was money left over - enough in fact to be able to go out to eat last night. Nothing fancy, just a burger and some fries, but it didn't involve having to cook. I knew there was not enough to last until Patrick gets paid again, but there was enough to give me a little bit of time to find another job and start supplementing our income.

Well, Wachovia fixed that.

I must take responsibility for a large portion of that. We were in a position a couple of weeks ago where we had no money, no groceries and no cigarettes. Ok, I get it. We need to quit for no other reason than financially, but we haven't and it is what it is. I wrote a check for groceries knowing the check was going to bounce. I hate overdraft fees, but sometimes you do what you have to do to eat.

Last night, I go to bed with a couple hundred dollars in the bank, and this morning I wake up and I'm three hundred dollars in the negative. Foodland redeposited the check and it cleared, but everything else that was pending bounced costing me more than $200 in NSF fees. They pay the highest amount first, then post items in descending order.

When I worked for Trustmark, the explanation for that was if one's mortgage pmt was presented, for instance, that would get paid first instead of being returned. But we all know the truth. They make more money in fees to pay the largest first because in my situation, if they paid the smallest amount first, everything else would have been paid and I may have only received one nsf fee and then paid the return check fee at Foodland

I keep telling myself that we have made it thru harder times than this, but now I'm starting to wonder. Im beginning to believe this is probably been the hardest year of our lives financially speaking.

I think we pay twice or three times over for the good times in our lives. One good day eventually works out to two or three bad days.

The end of 2008 was a great time. We actually had a little money to burn. We bought a few things we needed and a couple of things we wanted and didn't have to sweat it. Then BAM! Unum pulled a fast on on Patrick and we have suffered ever since.

For fast cash I am expecting to go back to what I hoped I would never have to do again - waiting tables. I am really hoping I can find a kitchen job because Im not that good at waiting tables and I know the tips will be shit on this ignorant ass mountain. A kitchen job will be a steady paycheck once a week or every other week. Waiting tables will be daily cash which is what we need right now.

Oh well, just another day in paradise.

Weather - Pouring Rain
Mood - Groggy

Last Friday night about 11pm, I carried Patrick to the emergency room in Birmingham at St Vincent's East. He had been running high fevers for a couple of days - as high as 103+. They admitted him with pneumonia and is not expected to come home until tomorrow or Friday.

Going back another week, when I was at work Saturday night, I started noticing a nasty cough,but didn't think too much of it at the time. By the time I got home it was worse and I was running a low grade temp - around 99 and 100. So I didn't go to work Sunday or Monday.

I went back Wednesday, and it was Wednesday night that Patrick started to get sick. So he ran high temps a couple of days until we decided to go to the hospital. After they decided to admit him, I couldn't leave him there by himself, so I decided to not go back to DirecTV.

I have been wondering what can I do about a job? I know I am not going to make the kind of money I was making at DTV, but then after taxes, insurance, and the gas expense it took to get there and back, there wasn't much left over, so even if I found something here making min wage, I would come out better than working for DTV.

So I'm tossing around some ideas in my head about what I can do and what I would like to do. A friend of a friend is the kitchen manager at Applebees here in Guntersville. I think I should be able to walk in there and go right to work. After I get Patrick home, Im going to go talk to him and see about a job there.

Restaurant people are the kind of people I like to be around. It is a humbling job, so you dont have to deal with very many pretentious people, and restaurants are usually good places to make weed connections.

Meanwhile, I am wanting to go back to school for cosmetology. I can finish up in about 9 months, and since I already have my associates degree from Snead, I would be able to get and assoc in cosmetology instead of the certificate. After I finish, I would have to work for a while in a chain salon and get the real world experience, and then I would should be able to go to work in a salon paying rent, being my own boss and make a decent living. That is also a skill I can take with me anywhere I go.

So, I start the ball rolling - doing my taxes and submitting my FAFSA. I spoke to the lady at Snead and she said the pell grant would pay for everything including my kit and books and still have some left over. But there is one problem.

When I withdrew from Belhaven, they claim I owe them over $800 and they will not release my transcripts until that is paid in full. So my options are to pay them off when Patrick starts drawing from UNUM again, and I can start in the fall. Or I can declare bankruptcy and clear all my debts that hang over my head making it impossible to get any kind of credit.

Im not sure how bankruptcy works now since they changed the laws. And I would need to have cash in my pocket before I could even speak to an attorney, and cash is hard to come by these days.

I guess I'll do my research on it and decide which would be the best way to go.

How do you catch up on five years?

I thought I had lost this blog. At one time, I tried everything in hte book to log back in, and couldn't remember any of my log-in info.

Meanwhile, I started a new blog at livejournal, but haven't been very diligent in keeping up with it. Blogging is actually thearaputic but also time consuming. I also see it as essential to document what is going on in my life, and sometimes to just rant privately.

I think the last entry was a arguement wiht Vivian over a picture. that was in 2005. There is no way to go back and detail events that has happened since then, but here ill try and summarize.

Patrick.

three years ago, he went to the dr about his back. It would go out at least once, sometimes twice a year. His Dr at the time, Dr Bonnie Armor, sent him to an orthepedic for tests. Turns out, he had a slipped disk and the Dr wanted to operate. He told Patrick that he would be out of work a few weeks and all his back problems would be over.

After the surgery, the Dr. came out and said there was so much damage to the nerve that there was nothing he could do and Patrick was left permenantly disabled.

He started seeing a pain management specialist, Dr Kenneth Varley. Eventually, he talked Patrick into another surgery. This time, no promises were made to heal his damaged back, but told him that if he did not have the surgery, then his condition would get worse. So they did the surgery and fused metal rods and screws to his lower back. He continues to see Dr. Varley about every three months for steroid injections and other stuff. It helps him to maintain, but wont get any better.

So Patrick starts drawing his long term disability benefit and applied for disability. Of course, SSI denied his first application and Patrick hired an attorney to do the appeal. 19 months later, he finally is awarded disability and got a fat back-payment check.

The LTD insurance guaranteed that he would make 60% of his income until he is 65 years old. Any other income would be deducted from the ltd benefit to add up to the 60%. So when he finaly receied his SSI backpayment, he ended up owing the LTD insurance company the difference. The whole time he was waiting on the SS award, the LTD was telling him that he would not have to pay the entire amount in one lump sum, that they work with people everyday and they would set up a repayment option.

So, we took some of that money and went on vacation, paid off some bills and bought a few things we needed ... and wanted. By that time, not much of it was left. Then the LTD backpeddles and tells him that they are not a bank and he is required to pay the full amount he owed them at once. Because the money was spent, they cut his benefit off until the amount was paid. That was more than a year ago, and if everything goes well, they will be paid off in April and he will start getting his ltd benefit again in June.

That little stunt cut our income in half and the past year has been a very difficult financial year. Im just crossing my fingers that they dont try and wiggle out of resuming his benefit. If they do, we are pretty much screwed to barley scraping by. If they dont weasle out of it and start paying him again, we will be back in a place of some financial security and will be able afford to do some of the things we enjoy doing. I guess we will know in a few months.

December 09, 2009, Patrick had a pretty bad stroke leaving him paralyzed on his right side. He spent three weeks in the hospital, two weeks of that was in a rehab hospital undergoing intense physical therapy. He has been slowly getting better, but both of us wish the recovery would come quicker

Dad

As I said, the last time I made an entry on this blog site, it was after an arguement with Vivian. We knew dad was getting worse, so Patrick and I decided it was time to move back to the mountain so we could be available if anything happened or if he needed anything. In Jan 09, we started finding out some things about the *care* Vivian was giving dad. The big thing was she was not giving him all of his medications - only the ones that kept him sedated.

Sandy went thru the courts and acquired a custodianship and got a court order that allowed us to remove dad from this house and move him in with Sandy. He stayed with her for several weeks and it turned out to be more than she could handle. At that point, Patrick and I started taking Dad home wiht us and would stay two or three days wiht us, then we would take him back to Sandy's for two or three days. This went on for a couple of months until we decided that we were possibly doing more harm than good by trying to care for him ourself. So we made the decision to place him in a nursing home. Within a months time, he caught pneumonia and sadly passed away April 13, 2009.

Work.

After I left the cleaners, I went to work for a company Main Street Checks. They were a check manufacturing company that provided personal checks to small independant community banks. The job was a good fit for me and I was succussfull at it. The dark side to this story, is this was going on when Patrick had hte first back surgery and some sterioid therapy which caused me to miss a lot of work. Long story short, I missed too much and was fired. It's actually not that simple. There were many other dynamics at work, but the end result was the same. That was when we decided to leave Birmingham and move back to Guntersville.

I lived off unemployment for several months before I took a job with FPMI, a governmnt contract job that did application screening for TSA agents. The money was really good, but there was no job security. I left work on thursday evening and had the Friday off. That next day, Friday, I get a msg from a co-worker that they lost the contract and we were all out of a job. So back to unemploymnt I went. I lived off unemploymnt for a year until November 09 when I took a job with DirecTV.

The training was five weeks - three weeks in the classroom, and two week in on the job training. I was in the middle of the first week of ojt when patrick had he stroke. DTV was kind enough to reschedule my training so I could be with him while he was in hte hospital, and give me a couple weeks at home with him before I went back to work. I restarted on Jan 19 2010 and am still with them.

Ken.

Ken was my best friend for more than 10 years. December of 07, Ken called and asked if he could come stay with us. Patrick and I talked about it and he agreed. We had a spare bedroom and he needed a place to stay. So one Saturday, Ken shows up with his Uhaul, two cats and a dog. It didn't take long to realize that it was not going to work out. He could be extremely selfish and inconsiderate and that caused problems. Luckily, a friend of mine works for the housing authority and was able to get him into his own apartment. We helped him move into his apartment but that still wasn't enough. He wanted me there with him more than I could be there. This was about the time Patrick had the second back surgery, so my hands were full taking care of Patrick.

Well, Ken had a friend from out of state to come visit. We invited them both to come visit so we could meet his friend. They declined. While Ken was living with us, he and Patrick got into a huge arguement. In a nut-shell, Ken threatened Hootie because Hootie likes to chase cats. Patrick told him he knew Hootie chased the cats when he moved in and if he laid a hand on Hootie, patrick said he would kill him himself.

Of course, it was a heated arguement but all ken heard was Patrick threaten to kill him. So they were pretty much permenantly over each other after that, and it wasn't long after that Ken moved into his apartment.

Anyway, while Patrick was in he hospital for the surgery, and the weeks after at home recovering, I never heard from Ken. One night, Patrick sent Ken and email blasting him for not showing any support for me. Ken got defensive and blasted back and called both of us names I would not soon forget. I got involved in the email exchange and that was the last we heard from Ken. This was around July of 08. In Feb 09, I get a call from Ken's mother that told us that Ken passed away. I made the trip to Jackson for he funeral.

Zsa Zsa

I started noticing that she was not eating anything. One morning in paricular she was having trouble walking and was basicly circling. If I held on to her, I could put some ham (her favorite) in her mouth and she would eat that way. I took her to the vet and the initial diagnosis was diabetes. He didn't prescribe any insulin at that time, but said he wanted me to bring her back so he could keep her a couple of days and check her glucose on a regular basis to determine how much insulin she would need.

That night is when Patrick had the stroke. Initially, it came across as a dizzy spell and seemed to pass. The next morning, Patrick was going to get up early and take her to the vet to check her glucose. Well, the affects of the stroke were setting in and he was almost totally paralyzed. About 9am, heard Patrick coming down the hall. I assumed that he had already taken her to the vet, but found out that he had not taken her because he wasn't feeling well. I got up and took her in and that is when he told us it was the diabetes. I went on to work against my better judgement, and on my first break I called to check on Patrick and he was in the ambulance on he way to he hospital.

On that Friday, altho Zsa acted like she was feeling better, she was still not eating. I was staying at the Hospital almost full time and was afraid to leave her alone. I feared she would starve herself to death, and I would come home and find her. I called the vet and explained everything that was going on and asked if I could bring her on in and board her over the weekend while we figured out what was going on with Patrick.

On Monday, I get a call from the vet. He said her glucose was all over the place. It would be either really high, or really low. He explained that normally, the cause for this was a tumor on her pancreas. We could force feed her and she would probably live a few more months, or she would not eat and not live but a few days. Knowing I was not going to be home because of everything going on with Patrick, I decided the best thing to do was have her put down.

Patrick is in the hospital, and I had to bring her home and bury my precious little kitty.

Well, there is the major events of the last five years. Lots of jucy details missing, but enough to document the major events.