NEVER! GIVE! UP! Pt. 5: "Sorrow Endures for the Night, but Joy Comes in the Morning"

Well, I had another really stressful adventure and it lasted only about 36 hours.
The temp service I was working for when I got laid off called me and asked me to do a one day thing on October 11th, and to come for the orientation on September 25th. A little while later, I went outside to go to the store and found THIS

We tried to air it up, but it was not holding any air at all. Even after a long time, there was no change whatsoever. I was actually very depressed that night, and did not want to see anybody. I waited until the sun came up the next day before pursuing the problem further.

The next morning, my roommate beat me outside and got the tire off. I came out and he showed me why it was not taking any air in. It was completely off the rim in the back. Completely!

Obviously, that is why it would not hold any air...

I thought I was doomed. I had no money to speak of, fixing and replacing tires is expensive. Unemployment was not coming until the day AFTER I was supposed to go to Champaign. I was thinking if I did not make it, and had to say I could not do it, that might count as refusing work. If it did, I would lose my unemployment and have ABSOLUTELY NO INCOME! Which was scary.

Fortunately, my roommate's dad knew how to put a tire on a rim. He had helped Matt put part of a tire back on a rim once. It turns out, all you have to do is have a strong enough air compressor. Matt's dad was not sure if he had a strong enough compressor or not.

He did!

Matt's mom picked us up on her way to somewhere and we took the tire to his parents house, ate some marvelous soup, and turned the air compressor up to max capacity of 100 psi. We put the nozzle to the tire... it popped right back out and, mostly, back onto the rim! Matt adjusted it so something would line up better and put the nozzle on it again. It popped the rest of the way out, fully on the rim after just a few seconds.

He left it on too long and overfilled it, but fortunately it did not explode. I stood there flabbergasted, looking at my nice, round, plump tire and my first reaction was to do this (ok, I know it seems hysterical, but that was the key to my nearly lost livelihood I was dealing with, ok?)...

I got to the orientation today and they told me that the lady I was to meet had a family emergency and had to reschedule. So I drove an hour and borrowed about half the pay I will get tomorrow for a wild goose chase that I would have to do again. The job was a one-day assignment for six hours in Champaign, an hour away just like the orientation and my last job were,so initially I was breaking even or slightly better on the pay, now it appears it will be in negative numbers... I got disgusted but chose to let it slide, tried to just be thankful that I would be able to keep my unemployment and the graphic art study that I am hoping to get going tomorrow.

I have to report training and education to the unemployment office too. Depending on how they classify that graphic art program, I may not be able to do it. Receiving training can cancel your benefits in some circumstances. If that is the case here, my only current wherewithal to pay for it would be taken away BECAUSE of my starting it! Of course, that would mean I couldn't do it. I have been, I think understandably, very stressed out over all this and so has Matt. I will know tomorrow, I presume, whether I can sign up or not.

Today, both my roommate and myself were nearing the end of how much more crap, and one "uh, oh" after another, we could stand. Though every situation has somehow been resolved, having one serious/potentially catastrophic difficulty after another get quite old after a while. Today I also got a call for a full time, non-temp job right here in Decatur. I found the message this evening, when I got home from writing in the cemetery and visiting the library. It is not unusual for an "attack" to happen right before an important breakthrough. "All is darkest before the dawn," as the saying goes.

I will return the call tomorrow, and hopefully resume working again very soon. The job is to be a machine operator in a custom embroidery  and silk-screening factory, it is here in town, but starts at minimum wage. That would at least pay the bills and not keep me from writing or studying graphic art.We'll see how it goes... I am hopeful. :)

How Romance - Even the Potential of Romance - Can Change One's Life

Ok, this one may seem a bit personal, and unusual, but still it is a very big deal for me.

I have never been on a date. Seriously.
At 32 I have never dated even once.

I have never done a huge amount of thinking about birth control. I have never made any big life decisions that take into account whether I might have kids or whether my leaving an area might or not might affect a relationship.
I have not thought a huge amount about if I am comfortable with a joint account or two people having their own accounts in a marriage relationship.

The other day, I watched an advertisement video about a cervical cap called Femcap. A pro-life Wiccan was posting on her page about how hard it was for her to find this device, and I got curious about it. As I watched the informational video, I was amazed at how much there was to think about than I had ever taken into account.

Recently, I finally set up a profile on a dating site that actually had people on it who believe as I do, where my biggest bottom line requirement in a mate is likely to be met.
It is a Catholic dating site, and one of the questions I answer when I make the profile is "Do you accept the church's teaching on contraception?"

I said yes to 4 of the 7 faith questions asked, including that one. Most of the people I have seen that I had any interest in whatsoever said yes either to every question, or to every question EXCEPT the one on contraception.

It made me think about the fact that such a decision has to be agreed upon by two people, and that made me think about how far-reaching a disagreement on that issue would be. I wondered if I would be willing to change my position on that if it would make or break an otherwise promising relationship...
I am not sure. This makes me think I am not that sure about contraception, though I certainly would not be willing to use IUDs or any hormones. I am pretty sure I would not be interested in using Femcap or any other such equipment either, but then again, I am not 100% sure.

The point is, I always thanked heaven I did not have to worry about any of this stuff, and thought how over-complicated people made their lives and our whole society by living promiscuously. I still feel that way, but I realize that marriage still raises some of the same issues. It would seem that, even though I and anyone I would be remotely interested in dating would be waiting for marriage before doing anything, looking for a marriage partner means I need to understand where my and a potential other's bottom lines are.

Being single I can say "This is what I think, I feel such and such way about it, and I am going to proceed accordingly."ALWAYS.
If I am not single, I will have to take another's thoughts and feelings into account on so many things its just crazy. For the first time, that does not completely turn me off on romantic relationships. Part of it is because I do not think of a husband as like a superior officer in the military or something and you must do what he says and talk up to him all the time and ask permission to even give a contradicting opinion. THAT made me want to run like the devil was chasing me from any kind of romantic connection. Changing that also means I have to think more about what I really believe and what is important to me and what I am comfortable with in all sorts of ways. This is a pretty awesome new adventure, leading to so much self-discovery already, and I haven't even said "Hi," to anyone yet!

ISIS - A Rant and a Video

This rant/sermon/whatever I write here isn't in the video AT ALL, but it's been on my heart/mind for a while.
As I look at it, I think the video and the rant balance each other. I do not want to see us getting into more war, but I do have concern for many people in the line of fire both now and in ISIS' dreams of the future.


I've been avoiding talk about ISIS. I believe in prayer for the persecuted and for ISIS, and I've prayed, but I don't like all the fighting, militancy, war-like mindset and the justification for it so many people offer up. Like I said in the description of the video, read Acts 9. What do you think Paul would do, before his conversion, if he had the tools they have at his disposal? Psalm 2, that I read in the video, speaks of God's wrath, not ours. I think it speaks of Judgment Day, and it was definitely not written during the Dispensation of Grace. Don't mistake my reading that passage for a call to physical arms. It is not.

I DO think ISIS is a serious problem, like Saul of Tarsus and Nero were all serious problems, and I think God will take care of it the same as He always has/will. Pray for revival among those people, don't think they are too far gone for God to reach them, and don't wish for their death/damnation. First and foremost, rebuke the demons that control them - imagine if you had a child who went wayward and actually joined them so you can see how God feels, and start binding demons off of people like you would if they were each your own kid. I think prayer like that is likely to bring mind-blowing results. Even one soul among them would be worth Jesus' cross, not just in spite of how bad they've been but BECAUSE of how bad they've been. I pray for their deliverance and that if there really is no other way for some of them to stop, that God will do whatever He must to stop this demonic work - that He will hinder their plans in all sorts of ways, confuse/divide them against each other, etc. If they truly must die, He could strike them down in so many ways... I really do pray that we will be able to stay out of it, physically. I do not believe He needs for our direct involvement in ending all their lives to stop them, even if they mostly don't repent (though I don't COMPLETELY rule out that He might use that to some degree sometime, just people seem way too quick to look to the gun to solve spiritual problems. It won't solve a thing, because the spirits will still be there working and will have even more pain, hate, grief, and offense to work with, perhaps on all sides. I think those demons will rejoice if we intervene violently because in so many people's lives, they will have won forever - some of those people could be U.S. soldiers. The red white and blue doesn't send you to heaven, only Jesus does and many of them are no more ready for eternity than the ISIS guys, and Jesus loves both groups equally, even if we don't). I really think ISIS is not the only ones guilty of a violent or prideful or us-against-them attitude. They might be tons worse, but even a drop of that attitude is sin. Many Christians do it too, even today, and seek scripture or their emotions to justify it. It is never justified, and we have less excuse because we know Jesus and they're basically deceived into worshiping Satan. Please try and remember this when you read the news, especially the really awful news. Don't mistake the puppets for the puppet master; pray against demonic attacks/works, not the people Jesus died for. Godspeed.

NEVER! GIVE! UP Pt. 4: The Long Road Home - Step one of ???

Well, today I have figured out another piece of the puzzle.
I had a list of a few things I know I need to be doing. One of them was learning graphic art.
I made a few changes today with regard to student loan payments that will most likely allow me to study graphic art through Ashworth College online.
I was looking on Elance.com the other day and there are lots of small jobs to do on there with the Adobe Creative Suite. Going to give it a shot.

Hopefully I will be able to do better than these Windows Paint images after some study time soon.

I have researched the school and the program. I think it is a workable plan for me. It is self-paced and you have a year to get the study done.Some people can do it in as little as six months.
At worst,I have about five and a half months of being laid off in front of me. I can probably get through over half of it in that much time.
Hopefully, I can also successfully bid on and finish a few tasks on Elance.com and thus begin to build a portfolio, get some positive reviews and references.

I like some of what I can do with Windows paint but it really doesn't fully satisfy me creatively (I had a taste of photoshop once and absolutely loved it)  right now and it WILL NOT make me a single penny.
Looking forward to the future, in spite of the momentary setbacks.

Too much good has happened and too many small things are lining up to make a clear picture at last, I cannot find any of this situation discouraging. Too much bad has happened that I got through even without much clear direction of where I was going or what to do. No way I can get depressed now.
All in God's time, all in god's plan, and all arrows continue to point in the same direction - up!

NEVER! GIVE! UP! Pt 3: The Next Steps

Well, I was offered a job in Central IL where I wanted to go to school. In the same city even. I lived in a friend's apartment until we found a bigger pace, which I will elaborate on in a moment.
I worked it for three months. My supervisor wanted to hire me in. I was laid off due to an unexpected drop in business. I was working 12.5 hour shifts and driving an hour each way to get there.
I pulled over and took this picture one day after I got off work.

There are a few things I know I need focus on now, and this was the case both before and after I was laid off:
#1. I need to work on my health. I have gotten a lot stronger physically and my immune system also became stronger.I changed my diet a lot gradually, but I need to improve that more.
#2.I need to work on my German Language and my academic writing skills, and I need to be practicing piano. All these are skills I will need in school and also probably in life in general.
#3 I need to develop marketable/usable video editing and graphic design skills. A lot.
#4 I need to work on organic gardening and get some super healthy and essentially free food into my life.
#5 I need to own my own home.

My roommate and I moved into the house I had fixed up in exchange for the privilege of living there back when I was at Richland Community College in Decatur - where I did graduate by the way, with high honors. This time I pay rent with money, and the landlord does the fixing of things. The landlord might have let me buy it on contract-for-deed if either my job had been closer or my car much newer. The deal he was offering the previous tenants was $10,000 with payments of $350  month. It would be free and clear in under three years. As long as I worked so far way, that was not going to happen, not even if I hired in full time and was no longer a temp.
The long drive to work combined with long hours made it hard to do much of anything and was very hard on my physically. It also made returning to school impossible. Plus it was expensive. I was torn. I wanted the house but i wanted to study in Champaign...
Well, it turns out that part time study is not allowed in most majors at U of I Champaign - including any majors I was interested in. I would have to take at least 12 credits, and probably more because previous study will count against my 10 semester limit. Even if I did go part time, it would cost $13,000 a year; that's only $3000 less per year than going full time, and at least twice as many years. NO GO! This does not mean no way ever, in fact I even know of at least two things to do that could make it possible eventually. It is however, a resounding "Not now."
I still liked my job and the people I worked with, and there weren't a lot of opportunities in Decatur. So I still felt kind of torn and divided. I could see pieces coming together: job, house, relationships, etc. But the locations did not really assemble well.
Then I heard a really high paying factory here in Decatur was hiring a lot of people for a big expansion. My work schedule hindered me from getting to their office and applying, though. Then I got FRUSTRATED. I was so stressed that my hair was coming out in my fingers. I was beginning to feel trapped and miserable. I was also getting exhausted by the long drives and long hours. Iwas nearing a breaking int, quickly.
Then I got laid off. Suddenly.
I got to the plant and the temp service representative was there waiting to tell me I was about to start my last shift. THAT was a shock, but I was told I was at the top of the call-back list.
They probably will not need me again until January. Five months away.
Since then I have found several more local opportunities I did not know about before or that were not hiring before now. If I find a job locally that can pay the bills, I can POSSIBLY buy the house. Maybe. In the meantime, I can now resume the pursuit of my lofty health and fitness goals,and the online business associated with health and fitness that I need to become a poster child for. I also have time to write blogs again now. The afternoon after that final shift ended, I got the Piano I have needed so badly for so long. At last. Here is a picture of it my living room.

While it is hard for me to deal with being unemployed again, so many things about this situation tell me that it needed to happen, and that something good is going to come out of it soon.
Stay tuned for more news on how God gets me out of this one. He always does, and I am confident an important victory is just around the corner. Thank you all for reading.
Godspeed.

NEVER! GIVE! UP! Pt 2: "I respect your decisions"

I was in Walmart, making a quick stop on the way to work, grabbing a couple $0.98 bags of veggies because my ground turkey spoiled due to my forgetting it in the car that morning. I have been under enough stress for enough time that I am forgetting things and really spaced a lot of the time. It has affected my performance at work, and that morning at the end of my shift, the supervisor had said I had been there long enough to remember what I needed to be doing better than I was. Since this is a temp-to-hire position, I am easily dismissed and replaced, and am on trial to see if I should be hired in full time, that was a very disturbing thing to hear, but I knew it was coming and I knew it was true. I have been through this "anxiety fog" as I recently learned it is called, before. Anxiety and huge amounts of prolonged stress have had a lot of negative effects on my health over the years. It has often affected things I otherwise and other times excel at -like school and work. I guess what happens is you get enough stress hormone hitting your brain and it starts to slow your brain down. It inhibits the encoding of new memories or the retrieval of already encoded memories you are reaching for, and etc. It makes it very hard to learn anything or get much done.
So here I was, about to face the same workplace again, full of shame, even more stressed because of the effects of the physical effects of all the stress. I had about $3 to my name, a quarter tank of gas and two days to survive until pay day.
I was telling God I was sorry for the waste, as that food was resources he blessed me with and I had not taken care of it right. I felt like I almost always feel these days - like a failure.
I know this is not the life God wants for me, and I have put a lot of effort - prayerful effort - in for a lot of years to try to get better. It has not really worked out so well at this time. I have made progress on things like fear and anxiety. A lot of progress. It seems I have still not made quite enough progress though.
I was in a hurry, realized I was on the wrong side of wal-mart and was heading for the grocery section, trying to remember what I was there for.
Suddenly I hear the Spirit speak to me inside, so clearly. "I respect your decisions."
I thought of someone I knew who had similar struggles in the work place and went on disability. Until that and to some extent after that, she was a prostitute. I have been approached quite a few times when I lived in the ghetto by people wanting to pay me to - well, to surrender my values and my dignity. I never went for it, of course.
I have stepmother who used to be stripper. The enemy has said "You'd only have to do it a couple of times, to get enough to..." I know its a trap, and I know it is something i would live with forever. I want my life to please God. Even if I could cope with it psychologically (which I doubt), I could not cope with it spiritually.
There are a lot of people who have told me to go find a man to take care of me. I've worked with other women at really awful jobs that were unhealthy and dangerous and breaking loads of labor laws. Some of them quit when they found a man to move in with. Even if that kind of decision making didn't place you in a very high risk of abuse - which it does - and also very likely to end up in worse shape when the relationship ends and you have nowhere to go and a gap in your employment - which it does - it would not be morally right. A guy at this job used to sell drugs, and recently he quit and went to work elsewhere. To pull me leg he told me he was going back to selling drugs, though I think he found a job in Elkhart that paid more. I choose to honor God, and I have never seriously considered any of these behaviors to be an option. Seriously, I never have. I guess a lot of people do it though. I also have never shoplifted anything.
A Christian friend of mine who shows me enormous respect has told me if he was in my shoes and faced the obstacles I face or have faced, he would give up and just "prostitute my life away." He said this, not to say I should do that, but to say he believes I am strong, and he sees power in me, and potential and accomplishment, regardless of what my bottom line may look like.
"I respect your decisions" God knows that the things I have done and not done, the "opportunities" be they shady or not, that I have turned down, including dropping out of Saint Louis University, were done to follow the plan I believe He has for me. I knew I had a certain call that could not be followed with massive amounts of debt. At SLU, I would have had to take on MASSIVE student loan debt while neither learning what I needed to learn for the call I was preparing to answer, nor gaining skills that were likely to pay off that debt very soon. I left Saint Louis, MO because I was afraid of being out of work and homeless in a big dangerous city very far from anyone I knew, plus having my credit ruined almost as soon as it was established due student loan defaults. The risk was too great, and the prospects too slim. I had 1.5 months of rent left in the bank and it was from student loans. I had no job, and while getting applications at places, sometimes they would answer more than one call and say, "No we are not hiring right now" while I waited to get the application! It happened multiple times. Maybe I should have stayed and gave it a shot for that one more month, but in any case I did not. Only God knows what would have happened if I had. Only He knows what I lost, if anything. The fact is, just because I have been through some of the same things I feared that caused me to leave there does not mean I would have avoided them if I stayed.
I took a little plastic container of beans i had leftover form the previous day's lunch and those two bags of veggies. Somehow I only got through the beans in the 12 hour shift. I get paid tomorrow, and I still have the veggies now. Unopened. Maybe He multiplied them, I don't know. I just know and am thankful that I am all right. I had a much better night at work, and I even have an understanding with my supervisors and my work partner about the condition I'min right now. "He clothes the the righteous with favor as with a shield," ad I praise Him for it.

.
This society harbors enormous and unfounded hatred for people in my financial bracket; there are many stereotypes and a lot of ugly statistics, but I have not become any of those statistics or stereotypes. God knows that, and God knows He is the reason why. God honors me for that, and God's opinion is the only one that really counts.
And that is all there is to it. Godspeed.

NEVER! GIVE! UP!

There are times when life throws us curveballs. I have been in one of those times lately.
I went to a fledgling faith-based,artist/environmentalist commune. The woman who owned the house turned out not to be much of an environmentalist and certainly not someone suited to community life. She was paranoid and mistrustful and faultfinding.
It is no longer a community house. Her husband figured out that was a pipe dream after her behavior with just me and their family there, so there is no community house now. Also he said the area was full of thriving businesses and "now hiring"signs. A factory closed the week I moved in, and those signs disappeared very quickly. I went to the IL work one center and the search turned up 216 jobs in a 50 mile radius. The staff at the IL Work One center said that was extremely bad. It was a small enough town almost everybody had something in common and had high likelihood of knowing someone in common with an interviewer. I was an outsider.
I went back to where I came from, and my dad's violently insane wife verbally and mentally abused me, threatened me physically on a regular basis and eventually she declared me her "enemy" and the threats - no promises at that point - of physical violence got to a point I grabbed a few things and fled to a shelter.
I had just started a new job through a temp service,and had expected to leave and go to a hotel as soon as I got my first check, which was about a week and a half. Unfortunately, the job had a lull in business and sent me home early almost every day.
On my second of third check I left the shelter. The motel I planned to check into was full and closed early. I went to one down the street that costed a little more,and then found out about Forler's Motel. It is a weird hotel where there is no housekeeping or room service and You have to clean it from top to bottom yourself when you leave. They do not furnish any cleaning supplies, except a vaccuum.
So on the second week I moved there until the temp job service laid me off.I found out 2 hours before my shift ended that I was not to return until further notice. I arranged to return to IL and stay with a friend while job hunting, and did several job applications online. For some reason, every time I called after filling out an application, I was told they could not find my application.
The day before I left for IL, the job I had called me back. I went to IL anyway and returned for my shift on Monday. I did not have enough for a week in a hotel, but I stayed at the one I had originally wanted to go to that was full before, and that was owned by the same people as Forler's.
My dad stepped in on the one check-less pay day and covered my deposit and a week's rent in Forler's.
I would be fine now,except I will have all my stuff thrown away in Kewanee If I do not get there soon and get it out of where it is.
So I will be returning to IL again for a weekend and, on a shoestring, getting my things moved, but not to where I currently am.
I am applying for 3rd shift jobs in Champaign IL so I can be close to friends, have a social life, access to Amtrak rail and therefore Chicago when I want or need to go, and above all, get back to school to pursue the dreams and goals I have.
WHEW! What a roller-coaster ride, and it is not over yet. I will never give up though, that is for sure. Stay tuned for a happy ending because it IS going to happen.
Godspeed.