Just Rambling on
Thursday, January 29, 2004

---

The theme of the day from is:

Repeating Patterns

Suggested by Will Burnham


Hop...repeat...hop...repeat...hop...

---

Here's a little picture of the suspected pattern maker from July. Since the dog people moved in, I haven't seen the rabbits, or much of the other wild life that used to be prevalent around our country home. Apparently, the rabbits are coming around when no one is looking.

Updates on other things: I am still employed by New York State to find a job. (In other words, I haven't found a real job yet.) My hopes of finding gainful employment by the end of January are all but diminished. I am seeing an increase in opportunities being posted for manufacturing companies, which is a slight indicator that the local economy is starting to improve despite the larger companies (like Kodak) doing massive layoffs. My buying experience has been with retail and resale, never with manufacturing, so I believe that is part of what is hindering me in being chosen as a qualified applicant.

John is done with his unemployment, although he did his best to stretch it out with temp and contract jobs, and we're financially overwhelmed. He had another interview yesterday, and a second interview to a previous one lined up, and a possibility of a 6 hour a week contract working on computers, so we haven't totally given up yet. He's been applying for just about anything lately, but there are too many unemployed people in the area. I don't rememeber if I previously mentioned that my career counselor said that posted job openings were getting 300 applications? My unemployment checks don't cover rent and utilities, so what do we do about car payments, car insurance, student loans, gas, food, etc.?

Speaking of food, we lost a lot of food when the refrigerator died. I tried to keep everything preserved in a cooler once it finally kicked on Monday, but it didn't cut it. Frozen items that had been slowly defrosting since Friday, smelled funky by then. (Reminds me of the theme thursday from a couple of weeks ago.) Fortunately, the landlord had a new refrigerator delivered today. It's a brand new Frigidaire, but it's practically empty.

I've lost two more pounds since the weekend! I generally would only check once a week, due to weight fluctuations, so I'll check again over the weekend. Maybe I'll make it my goal to lose 20 pounds by spring and get back into a size 8. (Now that I've just donated most of my size 6 and 8 clothing to charity!) But, I don't know if I want to focus on that in addition to focusing on finding a job and just surviving...

I hate sounding so pessimistic, but it's hard to remain optimistic when the only things to be thankful for are that things aren't worse than they are. I really need a sign that things are going to look up...

Thanks for reading!
©-ann marie-




ONE YEAR AGO