Swim lessons are over!

The last two weeks I have spent my mornings sitting by the pool while my kids take swim lessons. They are now in the level 4 swim lessons at the pool. They did not pass up to the next level, but I didn't expect them too. I'm glad their instructor told them the day before that no one would be moving up. The end of Swim lessons always means the end of July for me. Usually we go to Vermont for a week in August, but this year it is not going to happen. We are going to go up for my reunion weekend but we will only stay a day or two. If August goes by as quickly as July seems to have gone by, we will be having the first day of school very soon. Both children go to new schools this year. My daughter is going to intermediate school and my son is going to middle school. How ever did he become a seventh grader??

Unemployment: Yesterday was not a good day for me. I went for a walk and as I was pondering our situation I realized this scary fact.... right now my husband and I are living at the below poverty level. We both have no income coming in... That for me is such a weird thing. We have always lived on a shoe string, but to have no string is scary. I will be glad when I know that both of us will be getting at least unemployment. But the whole thing is odd for me. I have worked since I was in 7th grade. Once in high school I worked every weekend and all summer for a grocery store. I started as a part time bagger, and worked my way up to part time bookkeeper. I moved from working in the grocery store to working at a bank when I began college. I worked every day but Sunday through all my college summers. In college I had work study programs, and I was also a resident assistant. College was very hard, taking 18 credits a semester and also working, I wish I'd been able to enjoy it a bit more now looking back. But I did make deans list most semesters and I got an award and graduated top 13% of my class. I had 4 graduate schools write to me that wanted me to apply to their schools. Unfortunately my parents did not see the benefit of going to more school, and told me to get out and get a real job.

So I moved to New Jersey and got a job as a part-time temporary teller, with in a week I was working full time and in 3 months I was Manager of a supermarket branch.

My husband has worked for the last 14 years for the same company. We are thankful that I could stay home with the kids, and that we had time together as a family. I enjoyed staying home with the children but once they were in school full time I had to get out of the house. I loved my little job as a library assistant. It is hard to believe it is over. Now I need to decide what I want to do, and how that will fit with everyone else.... I feel as if I'm walking in a mist of darkness and that I'm not sure what to do.

Yesterday my husband went to reemployment services. He has a meeting scheduled for the 4th to enroll in a program to help him get a grant to go back to school and get more career training. There are many colleges listed for him to choose from. He also has an appointment to meet with a career counselor on the 14th of August. That will be very good for him as I think he could use help with his resume and some guidance on how his skills and knowledge could lead to a different career. He also went to a friends shop, and asked if he could work for free so he could learn how to use the new computer diagnostics. The person said that he would help him out.. So that he could get his feet back into the business. One good thing we learned was if my husband goes back to work and he gets paid less than what he would make on unemployment, he would be eligible to get the balance paid to him. This is very nice to know as most places that he has interviewed at tell him that if they hired him they would start him at the bottom of the pay scale.

We are also working on getting health care through the state program our children are on. Since we are at the poverty level we should be able to get in. With budget cuts they changed the amount you could be making to have low income health insurance. I guess with making at this point nothing we should still get in.

The book I'm reading has another great quote: " When you're in transition, structure is key. Put yourself on a schedule and adhere to it. Without a routine, it's a slippery slope. Too much freedom and before you know it you've lost control of your day and turned into a slug." (The wildwater walking club. By Claire Cook.... One thing I do for structure is getting up at 6am and walking, then working on my garden until 7:30 when the child we help watch gets dropped off at our house. Yesterday if I did not have to watch my friends child I think I would have just gone back to bed and stayed there the whole day.

A blessing..remember the computers I told you about. Well both needed a little work and my husbands friend came and he found that one was pretty much finished, but he was able to take the good parts out and make the other computer much better, and then he got another computer and put more of the good parts into that, so we now have two working laptops. And the kids even can go on the Internet with them.

Tomorrow is Saturday and I hope we travel back to Heaven (the beach). I may refuse to leave. I may just stay forever.