5 Year Journal Day 208

     Today's prompt is " Are you working hard or hardly working?" I am working hard.

     It is now 2:41 a.m. here. Yesterday was a busy and productive day. We went to the post office to mail a letter to Pastor Rick, as well as to Granny Pepere.

     The letter to Pastor Rick:

" 

Ocean View United Methodist Church                                                                       December 19, 2020

C/O Pastor Rick Russell

 

Dear Pastor Rick,

                I wanted to thank the you for the generous gift. It truly was a blessing. I want to share with you what I was able to do with it. I was able to pay for a new medication chest of drawers that I bought from Lowe’s Home Improvement with my store credit card. (I paid the credit card back.) The old medication chest of drawers is made of plastic and now warped and falling apart. I take a lot of medication daily, and so it is essential to have a way to manage them properly.

 I was able to pay for needed ladies under garments that I bought from Lane Bryant with my credit card. (I paid the credit card back.) It is hard to find comfortable under garments for my size. I bought them on sale, but it raised my monthly payment on my store credit card.

I was able to pay for the new car battery charger that I bought from Auto Zone with my credit card. Caleb recently left the trunk ajar one night, and the light stayed on all night fully draining the battery. I have been having to jump start the van ever since. (I paid the credit card back.) The car battery needs charging as well, as there is a faulty connection that drains the battery frequently. I am trying to maintain the car as best I can so that when Caleb is old enough, he will have a safe vehicle to drive.

I was able to put a little into the high debts we created on 2 other credit cards to lower my monthly payments so that I could pay them in the future without so much stress. They are emergency credit cards that often get used when I don’t have cash in my account to put gas in the cars or buy groceries.

                I will be able to buy groceries for the rest of the month of December, which I would not have been able to do otherwise.

                I will be able to pay to someone to move the old furniture off my property that is cluttering and creating fire hazards on my porch and my living room. I have been stressing that the Town of Oak Island would fine me for the mess on my porch ever since we had to move the old furniture out of the house.

                Thank you so much for thinking of us, and keeping us in your prayers. We appreciate it more than you know.

                Our lives have been greatly impacted by the generosity of the church and its donors. We are very grateful.

 

Thank you and God Bless,

Jennifer, Caleb, and Bella de Mello "

     So yeah, I bought a few other things that I did not think I would buy any time soon too, mostly books. 

     My Aunt Lisa gifted us money on Friday, to cover our grocery expenses. It will be used for just that, as well as one load of furniture removal from the porch and living room. I thought I would be able to pay that with the money from the church, but I am not able to. 

     Yesterday we also went to Walmart. I had to buy more water, and some other staples. I like to keep canned beans in the house at all times. Caleb got hungry one night and demolished my new supply I just bought. Apparently he really likes the black eyed peas.

     I am moving away from drinking Diet Mountain Dew to drinking caffeine water and also alkaline water. I feel better and it has only been a few days. I bought an alkaline water filtration countertop container that should be here soon. It will save me the cost of having to go to Walmart so frequently and buying plastic bottles. I also bought caffeine water tablets and electrolyte water tablets. That will save me too. 

     I was able to buy Caleb some stocking stuffers I thought he might like for Christmas, today. He doesn't need much, so I just bought 3 small pieces of candy. 

     I fully loaded the dishwasher and ran it. I washed some dishes by hand, and soaked others. I cleaned out the pantry floor, and rearranged some things. I cleaned up the around the dining table and my workspace. I cleaned out some of the junk from the Volvo, and alot of the recycling and trash from the Mazda. 

    Other than the vehicles, it doesn't look like I made any progress today, but I know I did. 

     I separated the chicken breasts and chicken thighs to be frozen. I made a healthy, low carb dinner. 

     I got the Mazda battery fully charged. I drove the Volvo today, and it started without a jump start! 

     We went to Publix to buy our favorite bread. 

     I was active most of the day. Caleb was active too. He walked to the park twice. I had him take out the trash and the recycling from the kitchen. He took out the trash bag he left in the hallway from the day before. He moved some trees he cut down around the house to the front yard, but he needs to pile them together by the road for the town to pick them up. 

     At the end of the day I started feeling like maybe I'm the problem, regarding the Violet and Shannon losses. With Shannon, I was trying to protect Caleb from getting hurt by his "friends" on Christmas and his birthday. If she only knew how hard it is to be him right now. He has no social life, no friends to call or play with, and that is no different from when he was attending school. Not having interactions with "friends" means being forgotten. It was never about the presents. If it was about presents, I would not have asked for a homemade card and some candies for Caleb. I mean, really, think about that.  

     With Violet, well, I feel like she was right, since she was not going to listen to me. We cannot be friends if I can not express myself freely. We can not be friends if she is going to choose to be angry over something I had no knowledge of. We can not be friends if I then do what was asked, and she is still angry. We can not be friends if I care more than she does. 

     With Shannon, I felt the need to protect myself during our communication. She made me feel like my thoughts didn't matter. She was angry, and that's all that mattered to her. She did not even have it in her to hear me. Not read the words I texted, but actually hear what I was trying to say, instead she chose to be offended. The thing about that is, if she found herself in my position, with a child with special needs who is being left out constantly, she might have done what I did, and that wasn't even much. I post on facebook all the time. It's nothing for me to say something there. It's not like I did something vastly unusual and uncalled for. 

     Violet reacted as if I was fighting her, but I wasn't. I was telling her how she made me feel. I guess when she is angry, she can't hear me either. 

      Both of them reacted , what I think, is oddly to my written communication. I can definitely say that about Shannon because others read that same post and reacted much differently. Perhaps they saw that I was asking for so little for my son for Christmas. Two women veterans that I only know from facebook offered to send Caleb some things in the mail. Alisa had her kids put together gift bags, for not only Caleb and me, but also Bella! Donna is making gift bags from each of her kids. My Aunt Lisa sent goodies our way, like chocolate turtles and flavored popcorn! A witch-friend had her kids make homemade cards for Caleb's Christmas and birthday, and are going to be pen pals with him. 

     I just never expected that I would have to block and unfriend Shannon. She was one of my emergency contacts. She was not just a friend, she was a lifeline for us. 

     On the other hand, I never felt good enough around her. It was always a competition with her. If I was hurt, she was hurt worse. If I needed to go to the food pantry, she had to go twice. That sort of thing. It was really childish. It's hard to believe because she is in a better financial situation than we are, and you would think that would be enough. She never just text me out of the blue. She only thought about us when I text her first. We were never invited to do things together as two families. Caleb wasn't invited to her son's birthday party. 

     Violet says she is an empath, but she had no empathy for me whatsoever. I don't know what she thinks makes an empath, but clearly we are not the same kind of empath. 

     Violet has a lot of health issues that keep her from working. She has not found a way to stop her seizures. I worry about her when she does not respond to my text messages. I guess I do not need to worry anymore. 

      I held my ground with both of them. I was not going to let them get away with thinking whatever the hell they were thinking. I attempted to set them both straight on my side of  things. Their reactions tell it all. Maybe I should think about this differently, having come to these conclusions. These women were not the best people to try to be friends with. 

     I was trying to be friends with Shannon for the sake of our boys. I was trying to be friends with Violet because I thought she was interesting and had alot to offer. It did not work with either of them, and that, I don't think, is my fault. 

     Well, today is December 20th. There are only 4 more days until Santa comes! Yay!

     So, I may have mentioned that we were selected to get a wishlist gift from Minority Veterans of America. I followed the instructions, and we will be receiving books from Amazon soon!

     I have a long list of home repairs that I need to do. I need a plan to be able to make progress on them in 2021. First, I need to remove all junk/old furniture off the property. I do not know how long that will take me to accomplish because I do not know how many loads it will take to move everything. It costs $100 per load, so hopefully it won't be more than 2 loads. 

     Once that is done, I will be able to move around more freely and without hurting myself as I walk by in the living room. 

     I want to gut the house of all unnecessary things. Some things are kept for sentimental reasons, but should be stored in the shed. Other things are just junk and clutter. I want to move furniture around so the couch can fit straight against the wall.  I need to get some nails to nail the top window shut, that is over the window unit air conditioner. It is ok right now because it is cold outside, but I do not want to let the heat in when the Summer comes. 

     I need to find someone to replace the knob on the shower water. I need to find someone to replace the wax ring under the toilet in my half-bathroom. I need to find someone to replace the ceiling fan in the bathroom, and remove the mold from the ceiling, and the popcorn ceiling paint because it is coming off. I need to be able to have the kitchen cabinet under the kitchen sink removed because it has mold. I need the kitchen floor replaced. I need the light in the laundry room fixed, something to do with the electrical wiring.

     I have to replace the light switch and electrical socket plates throughout the house that were removed for painting. I need to put a nail to hold up one of the shelves in one of the kitchen cabinets. Eventually, and this is going to cost a fortune, I need to replace all the kitchen cabinets. 

     I actually have a spreadsheet with the list of things I need to do. Some of the things are required to pass VA inspection for re-financing the house, and other things are just because it would make my life easier. Especially since I just had a jar of oats fall on me last night because the top shelf gave out. 

     I have struggled financially this year, and have barely been able to keep up with repairs that were needed immediately. Just from what I can remember right now, I had to replace the tires on the Mazda, my freezer broke multiple times, my central air conditioner broke multiple times, my toilets were running, and the kitchen sink was leaking into the cabinet beneath it. 

     Today, I am going to try to get some laundry done. I need clean compression socks. I want to work on the living room some more, and also tidy up my bedroom. I have baskets of clean laundry that need to be put away. I have a duffel bag of Army uniforms that belongs in the shed. I have all kinds of trash that I need to get out of there. I would like to at least put together the new carpet cleaning machine, and get it ready to be used. I want to tidy up the laundry room. There is stuff all over the floor, and it's not all laundry. So I have a full and busy day today. I have no idea what to do about dinner since I did not thaw out the ham. I am going to take it out of the freezer now, but I do not think it will be ready before noon, when I would usually start to cook in the crockpot. I need to be able to cut it up to fit in the crockpot to cook it with all those greens I bought. 

     I can't forget to take my iron pill and orange juice, so I will that now.