Quail_Antwerp: Words from the Barnyard...

[Dace]

Oh no....what happened? You know we are always here for you

 

[MorelCabin]

Lifting you up in prayer my friend

 

[Dace]

ok, now I am up to speed. You and your family are going in my prayers

 

[inchworm]

So sorry to hear about your problems. I'm rooting for you.

Inchy

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

So things this week haven't been, well, what I like them to be.

I've tried to get myself out of my gloomy rut all week. I think my "camp" thread did it for me, because that turned into kind of a fun, brain storming, thinking about happier things thread.

Earlier today I was thinking about how life used to be for us, and I cried a bit, too. Not a deep, purging cry, which is what I think I really could use right now. I've been thinking alot about where we used to be, how we used to live, and how we came to where we are now.

Today, I was thinking about a piece of machinery that I used to own, that was a source of mis-guided pride and gave me a feeling of self-importance....Basically, I was a snob.

It was a 1992 25th Anniversary Edition teal green Camaro Convertible.

Oh how I loved that car! That car was my Valentine's Day present February 2001. We were pregnant (and due) with baby #2. We paid cash for my car. I was thrilled.

It was not a kid friendly/car seat friendly car. But, kids didn't have to ride with me to work, so I drove my beautiful car to work as often as I wanted (we had multiple vehicles. His truck, my car, and the family vehicle).

I remember riding to work in my car, taking the store deposit to the bank in the summer with the top down, and feeling smug. Sure, it wasn't brand new, but it was owned, it was snazzy, it was fancy. I loved it. I loved the feel of the wind through my hair, and I would laugh to myself as I watched the people with their fancy new cars (with their big fat payments) and how they had to ride around with the windows up with their air conditioning on.

I didn't need air conditioning, I had wind conditioning!

We owned that car for 4 years. LOVED my car. In 2005 when Ernie was no longer able to work, my BIL offered to buy the car from us and "hold it" for us. We stupidly trusted him.

Two days later, my beautiful car was put on eBay and sold.

Easy come, easy go. It was a lesson in trust, that's for sure.

I do still miss the car, but I've put things in perspective since then. It was just a car. Selling it did pay the bills, and kept us from having to apply for assistance even if just for a little while.

It was fun, it was snazzy, and it made me feel cool.

It was material, it wasn't needed, and I've survived without it.

 

[hikerchick]

It's not the "stuff" we love so much, it's the way these things make us feel.

I would miss the car, too.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

i think you are still cool, baby

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

hikerchick, i think you're right, it was how I felt driving that car that I miss, not really the car itself, but looking back, I don't like the person that i was then. if that makes sense.

ofg, thanks! I think you're pretty, cool, too, and you picked a good week to come back. I sure could use some of your witty sense of humor this week!

I've more stories. I realize our journals are typically about our SS journey, but our past is a big part of our SS journey, and lately, especially given some of the posts lately that have irked me or got under my skin, i feel it's important to share how or why we got to where we are.

I found the following quote saved into my computer. I cannot remember the thread that I had posted it to, but I remember my feelings having been hurt, and feeling a bit angry, because i do believe it was another discussion in regards to government assistance and welfare that I had posted it in reply to. Only a couple members got to read this before I re-thought my reply and deleted it. Today, I found it while looking for something else and I felt an urge to re-post it here. In fact, some of the things I said in here is what got me thinking about having other people "experience my life" in a camp/workshop type form.

I originally typed the following out back when Ernie and I were struggling to put up fence and get the cows out to pasture. It's been a couple months now, but I still remember my anquish and frustrations I was feeling at the time I wrote this.

Welfare's a sensitive issue for me, I guess. Always said I'd never need it because we grew up on it as kids (single mom). My mom did work. When she worked, we lost all assistance. They wouldn't even help with daycare, and I can't tell you how many times CPS was called because we'd come home off the bus to no babysitter, and mom wouldn't be home for another hour or so.

The CPS worker told my mom to quit her job! My mom felt like she couldn't win. She was ridiculed if she worked, and treated like crap (especially by family) if she didn't. Result? We were dirt poor.

I swore my kids wouldn't ever know what it was like growing up the way I did. I grew up with the false ideals that a two parent home didn't need assistance. I could just cry right now thinking about how our situation is. I won't, but I most certainly could.

It's an embarrassment, having a family, and not being able to provide the way you want. Yes, we're making it, but barely sometimes.

It kills my husband that he's not out there working. He's worked from the day he got out of highschool. He would go in to work sicker than a dog, because his job was always too important to him to miss work. I worked, too, until when we had baby number 3 and the company I worked for closed down. We were great financially, so we agreed that we could make it if I stayed home.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have just found another job and worked my tail off padding our savings more than it was.

Yes, physically, I could go work a job. But, because Ernie is at home and disabled, I do NOT qualify for childcare assistance. They would make Ernie watch the kids, Ernie who is not supposed to do anything at all, no lifting, bending, twisting, etc. Ernie, who's dying a little bit (not physically) every day, who I'm watching struggle to not give in to depression, who's denied for SSI/D everytime only because he can still move his arms and legs. I'm his ONLY support. He has NONE from his family. We do have the support of a few great friends.

This farm, it's Ernie's dream. I work my tail off to help him realize that. It's hard, it's humiliating, being where we are. My kids have no idea we're poor. None at all.

I realize this is OT and I've gone on a rambling rampage here, but I can't tell ya'll how long I've held stuff in.

I can make a choice, I can choose to go find a job, and either leave the kiddos here with Daddy who can't even put his own socks on, and hope to God he doesn't fall or hurt himself, or I can stay here and do the best I can with this just started farm and continue reporting every egg I sell, which does affect our assistance.

I can't find the baby's birth certificate, or his hospital record of birth. They've seen his HRB, but because someone didn't write on the paper that they, "physically viewed the original before they made a copy" I'm going to loose all medical on the baby until I get his BC or find that HRB.

Folks, I am sooooooooo tired. Giving up at this point would be sooooo easy. I can't tell you how easy.

And it really hurts when I come on here and I see people wanting to give the goverment more control. We're all entitled to our opinions, yes, but I'm working so hard to get off any help and to be self sustaining.

Someone told me the other day that they don't think they've ever heard me whine about things. Well, folks, here I am whining, I've just about reached my breaking point. It only took 5 years.

Ernie and I are just tired. We've so much we need to do before winter, very little money, and we're just tired.

We have a neighbor and my stepdad, both are constantly calling wanting Ernie to come do their work for them...yard work, house remodeling, etc. We were trying to finish our pasture so our two cows could get out there and eat, so they wouldn't be starving to death, because their small pasture had been ate to nothing by that stupid pony. I am tired of people wanting Ernie to go do and do and do for them. I was so tired of it, that last week, the following very snappy and snotty message was the outgoing message on my machine, "We're outside working on fence. If you'd like to come and help, you're more than welcome to come and help! Other wise, leave a message and when our farm work is done, if we have time, we'll get back to you."

I had very vew messages on my machine last week.

Ya'll can keep arguing about healthcare, or what ever else the goverment should do, I just want to survive, and without the goverment telling me which way is the best way to survive.

Since I wrote this, and deleted it and apparantly saved it to my computer, we've lost medical insurance on the baby because we couldn't find his hospital record of birth and I didn't have the $ to buy a copy of his birth certificate.

Regardless of how I felt then, I had managed to pick myself up somehow and carried on.

This week I was knocked back down and I'm struggling to get back up.

When we got to the point that I realized I had no choice to go file for assistance because we needed it for the kids, I was so embarrassed and humilated. I felt like I was grovelling. It's the worst experience ever to go into that office and ask for help.

I started back to school. I knew if I furthered my education I could take better care of my family. I never got to finish school.

One year in, they (Human Services, Government Social Program) told me that my year to go back to school was up, and that I'd have to start putting in 40 hours a week at their office to continue to collect assistance for my family. I was putting 35 hours a week into school. That's 35 hours of actual class time, not counting homework, studying, and my clinicals (I was taking medical assisting). I told my case worker I couldn't fit their 40 hours in around my school schedule plus have time to complete assignments and study. She said, "Well, you can only go to school for 1 year and collect assistance. After that, your schooling doesn't count as your time." When I asked what would happen if I didn't put in the hours she said, "I'll take your money away."

So, I quit school that day. I called my college advisor, and in hysterical tears told her I had to withdraw from my classes and why. This was 2006.

I worked 1 day in the Welfare office. Their idea of "working" for your assistance is spending 8 hours in their office (an hour at noon for lunch) clipping job ads out, gluing them on a poster board to be hung up in the lobby, and meanwhile you choose 10 jobs to send your resume to.

I spent the morning of that first day crying, because I was hurt, angry, and humiliated. I loved my classes, and I was only 3 quarters from graduating. That hurt soooo much.

At the time, I also knew of a telemarketing place that was hiring, and I knew I could get hired that day. Now my main wardrobe is jeans, t-shirts and sweatshirts. Not fancy, some stained, but mostly clean. My jeans that day were faded and I was wearing a t-shirt. I asked to speak with the supervisor about allowing me to just leave and go get the job I knew I could have that day.

The supervisor was the rudest person I've ever met in my life. She basically told me to stop crying, that I wasn't helping anything by crying, and that there was no way they could let me go "get a job on my own in my dirty clothes."

I went back upstairs to finish my "work". My case worker then comes up and tells me (this is right before we leave for lunch), "You're husband missed a time limit appointment, so I'm taking your money."

WHAT?! I had just quit school because they wanted me to put in hours so we could keep our money, and now they were taking the money away from us anyway?!

I left. Soon as they released me for lunch I walked to my car and drove myself home. In tears I told my husband what had transpired that morning. I then drove myself into town, in my "dirty farm clothes" to the telemarketing place and got myself that job. I started the next day. I worked there until I wrecked my car in an ice storm.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Oh and yes, E had missed that appointment, but it was because the mail got mixed up somehow, and we got the appointment letter the day after she said she was taking our money. I called and told her when we got the letter, they called us liars, because her records showed when she mailed it.

 

[PamsPride]

I am so sorry! I will keep you and your family in my prayers!!