out of the blue

this year has been hard financially for me. from the beginning of the year to now, i have been spending money on things that were needed around my house. gutters, water heater, a new shed, mower, car fixed. this weekend was the first time in a long time where i took a list to the grocery store and wrote down the price of the product so i could keep up with how much i was spending. my last post was about taking my car in to be fixed. granted poor viviene needed it so i’m not bitching about it. but i have started to feel the strain of not having money available. i live alone and i am the soul provider of my household. there isn't another person who can help pull the load. but i manage. all of my bills are paid. i don’t have creditors hounding me. even though i am living month to month and sometimes week to week i still feel fortunate to have a roof over my head and all my bills paid. i have never made it a habit to "really" complain about not having money. it's always a good day if you have a roof over your head and food on the table.

but lately a numb depression has been surrounding me. “how am i going to afford christmas?” it’s a month away and i am so cash poor that i can’t even use my credit card to ease the tension. but at the same time that the numbness was taking over, i also felt a calmness about it also. maybe the numb feeling was the calm. don’t know. that’s a new feeling for me. and then today in the mail a blessing happened.

i have never in my life received an anonymous gift in the mail. but today, at work no less, i received mail that was addressed to me care of my work. it was a typed letter with a MERRY CHRISTMAS sticker on the front and a NO PEEKING sticker on the back. i was thinking that one of the sites had mailed their invoices to me with the christmas stickers stuck on the outside. however, when i opened it up there was a white piece of paper with MERRY CHRISTMAS typed on it and cash. yes cash. a lot of cash. for me it was a lot of cash. i was in tears. someone thought enough about me to send me money. and i don’t even know who it is. i haven’t voiced my “really broke” issue with many people. well maybe i do have an idea who it might be but i am not sure. it so came out of the blue but i guess that’s what blessings are. that money will take care of 3 birthday’s and 5 christmas gifts.

now i have to think about should i call the person who i think it is? but if that person wanted me to know who it was they would have put their name on it. either way they have made my day. i have had that good gooing feeling since lunch.

and i also know that even though i am broke as shit, i have friends who love me and care about me. and i could never repay that. i can only pay that forward. so thank you whoever sent me the money and thank you goddess for helping chose good friends. i am blessed.

taking viviene to the doctor

i’m soooo glad the election is over and that my team won. so glad i am, that having to get my car fixed yesterday and just about breaking my bank, i didn’t get over anxious about it. for a while now, and by a while i mean years, my gear shifting has been a little to hard to...well shift. i have broken the gear twice already and had to drive with it zip-tied until i could fix it. but in the last week it got really bad. so bad that i was afraid that i was going to break the shifter thingy again. and i didn't want that to happen because brad said he wouldn't band-aid it again. it involves removing the console and getting down in the floor board to unscrew things. and of course i knew it was sick but i just keep putting it off. so on monday i took it to the mechanic 1 door down from my work. and let me just say how much that rocks to have a mechanic within walking distance from ones work.

anyhoo, i drove over there at lunch and explained my problem, and then left it there for the guy to look at and tell me what’s up. i also wanted him to check on this whine when my car started. the sound was loud and had been loud for....you guessed it....years. so i walked back to work and about 20 minutes later i get the call. the clutch master/slave cylinder needed to be replaced and the whine came from a bad serpentine belt, a idler pulley and the tensioner pulley. don’t i sound like i know what i’m talking about??? i must confess that i wrote that from looking at the bill. i have the general idea but i don’t know the name of things like that. i just takes up too much brain memory. so i went to pick up my car and he told me to bring it back on wednesday cause that’s when all the parts would be there. he also gave me an estimate on how much all of this would cost. i did have the money. barely. and might as well fixed all those problems now. but no worries. like i said, i knew i would be a feel good week.

so wednesday came, the shop called me to tell me that the parts were there, i drove it over and left viviene, that’s what i call my car, and headed back to work. still no worries. usually i would have been in a panic for the entire day over the money and the fact that i couldn’t just get in my car and go. granted i wasn’t planning on leaving spur of the moment from work but for me the access to my car gives me a certain amount of control. i called back around 3:30 cause i just couldn’t stand it anymore and pam the shop’s office manager said that’s it’s ready to go and the amount would be $464 dollars. so i rearranged my money on line and headed down there. but of course all of my rearranging of money didn’t go into effect yet so i had to pay by check and credit card and then come back to work and rearrange money for a second time. oh well. i am really really broke for about a month but now my gears shift like butter. i miss that. muscle memory came back into play and i realized why i enjoyed driving my car. and there is no more whine. my car is quiet. viviene likes being in stealth mode again.

all in all it wasn’t that much money considering that viviene is 12 years old and that’s the first time i have put that much money into her for things other than necessities.

and i found a mechanic that i like. he was nice and i think fair and he took the time to show me what he was going to do. he showed me the belt and then he showed me what he replaced. i appreciate that since i am a visual learner.

YES WE CAN

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Its the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

Its the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

Its the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
Its been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA

i voted for obama because he spoke to me. and by the looks of it he spoke to millions.

this man's a preacher to many.