Yesterday I talked about the Big Idea. That's me, the Big Idea Girl. I got idealism and opinions coming out my ying yang but the push behind them seems to be lacking. Is there a 12 Step program for just being a screwy person in general?
ME: "Hello. My name is Sara. And I'm a human being."
crowd: "Hiiiiii Saaaraaa."
I've been kicking around what I want to write about today. Part of me wants to be jokey jokey and part of me wants to sob like a Biggest Loser contestant being screamed at by Jillian. I don't know how much rehashing is productive and how much is just propping myself up on emotional crutches. All that I know for sure is that this, this moment, this time, this chair, this body is where I am right now. Nothing will change any of that except the next moment to come. And it will only change if I use that moment to come wisely.
So let's size up the situation, shall we? I talked about making Quantum Leaps in 3 main areas of my life.
Health
Wealth
Education
HEALTH: I am 5'4" and hovering somewhere in the 220lb range as far as I know. I've been using Frank's Hot Wing sauce like it's a whole other food group. Consequently, I'm retaining enough water to hydrate a small 3rd World village. It is, technically, morbidly obese according to those blasted charts and graphs that hold our self-esteem in their little, gridded mitts. It's not even my heaviest. I have been all the way up to 265 at my highest and that is just the highest that I know about. Over the past 1 1/2 to 2 yrs I've actually been fighting my way down down down in that Slow and Steady way we are all told we should embrace. Well, after struggle after struggle after injury after failure, diet after diet after book after attempt I have concluded that all this "trying" must have jacked up my insides. I'm not pulling the thyroid card although that's probably part of the issue as well. I clearly have a hormonal issue (it's not natural to have to shave your face every morning at the age of 35... at least not as a CHICK who still owns her own uterus, is it?) but what to do about it is the issue. I finally have some kind of health insurance so one of my goals is to get my happy ass into the stirrups and get a long overdue once over.
You want another little dose of honesty, with a touch of TMI? I haven't had a pap done since my son was born. I've been to the dr maybe 6 times in 10 yrs and only if I thought I needed an antibiotic for something. My son's father and I never married so I was never on his insurance. It finally took me all this time of being broke enough to qualify for Medicaid that I can finally go in to the dr and tell him to draw some blood and figure this out for me. So let me just say, to all of those whose paychecks pay into the welfare system, THANK YOU and I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart...and soon from the top of my cervix. I understand the stigma of being on welfare and food stamps and I get it. I have worked since I was 16, I put myself through college, it has only been recent years that I have been bad enough off to swallow my pride and apply for benefits. And if it weren't for the Medicaid or the food stamps I would not have enough resources to make the necessary changes in my life. When I worked I couldn't afford a dr visit or fresh fruit. Now that I'm unemployed I get it handed to me. Isn't that some shit.
But that brings me to the main topic of my health goal. Lose weight. Lose it all, lose it fast, be DONE with it. Fix it. Easier said than done? Sure. If it was easy we'd all look like Jillian and Bob. The point is, I want to throw DOWN with the weight, kick its a$$ in short order. I'm too A.D.D. for slow and steady, half pound losses. I get caught up looking at squirrels and shiny things and forget what I was doing in the first place. I lose focus, not weight. I don't want to sound like I'm putting that idea down I'm just saying it isn't for me. And I have a plan. A crazy, hair-brained scheme that is so crazy, by golly, it just might work. But I'm not gonna tell you what it is just yet.
Sorry! But there is a reason for this. You see, in addition to losing weight I also am looking for ways to increase my income without adding more hours to my day. There is this nifty little Biggest Loser weight loss group I've been going to since October 2009. It's a pay-out contest that is sponsored by Herbalife and meets in various places throughout the Susquehanna Valley. In one of the 3-month sessions I won 3rd place and brought home a chunk of cash, $120. In the last session I didn't win diddly squat, but the girl who took home 1st place won $500! I was happy for her but SICK that I hadn't gotten my meat moving enough to win a cash prize again. The next session starts on Sept 16th and I have a plan. I did a 'test run' of said plan and got pleasing results. I don't want to share it just yet because 1) I don't know how practical the long term is so I kinda wanna just lock it down and work it out for now and 2) I don't want anyone else at the challenge to start doing it and kicking my butt! LOL So, for those of you who had privilage to the crazy scheme, PLEASE do me a favor and keep it on the down low....strictly hushity hush. I will post results and then later will spell it all out.
WEALTH: I am one broke a$$ b****. I admit it. Over the past 2 years I have been laid off from 3 jobs, with gaps of unemployment between each. My most recent job 'laid me off' due to financial issues and I will leave it at that. I am very unhappy about it because I liked that job, I like the people and was very disappointed by how it all went down. I still recieve weekly child support but it doesn't go very far, not far enough to support or even feed us, hence the walk o' shame to the welfare office. I have a brilliant line of spa product and fantastic ideas for a business line but working capital has been an issue from day 1. That, and I don't have a damn clue what I'm doing. Like I said, I'm the Big Idea Girl, not the Accounting Girl. I have been leaning heavily on the services of SCORE of Lancaster to get myself to the next step. I know how to make a great product but I don't know how to sell a business.
And quite frankly, I am fed the hell up with being on someone else's payroll. I appreciate other people's money but I have this crazy notion that my income needs to mold around the way I chose to live my life, not straddle my life around my income. Plus, I can't deal with this idea that someone else has the power to pull me into the office and yank my financial security out from under me with little to no warning. This economy makes everything tricky so I've come to realize that there is no basket around that is safe enough to put my eggs in. I want my income to support my job as a mom, to fund my interests and our education, not put the brakes on fun or opportunities because of scheduling conflicts or wage caps. What I want is to make a living in a way that still allows me to be a mother to my son. When we did the paycheck/daycare thing I felt like I was the one babysitting my son until the daycare or school opened up in the morning and I hated that. I hated not knowing what he did that day or if someone picked on him or WHY he got in trouble. There are a slew of gut wrenching, emotional reasons for my feelings and I will go into them as necessary. I guess it's because I've never had a job I loved so much I couldn't see myself doing anything else. I've had jobs that I liked a lot and didn't want to get fired from but ultimately when life dictated that something change, it was usually the job that changed first. Again, easier said than done but that's part of the challenge, isn't it?
EDUCATION: When I was laid off from the post office plant almost 2 years ago I decided to take the opportunity to pull my son (all boy and probably clincally ADHD but I've never had him screened) out of school and homeschool him. Crazy? Absolutely. A single mom with only unemployment checks and a little bit of child support thinking somehow this would all work? Yeah, I totally bit off more than I could chew with that one. I withdrew him from school literally at the last minute, psyched myself up and then, the first week we started homeschooling, had a MASSIVE panic attack. What the hell was I thinking!?!
Oh yes, I remember what I was thinking. I had a funny, little guy who HATED school so much that his self-worth and health were suffering. He missed a whole month of school straight because he couldn't get rid of a nasty case of strep throat. He had an allergic reaction to his meds, got a whole new strain of strep and when he finally did recover and went back to school he told me on the way home, "I hate school, I wish I was still sick." That broke my heart. I remember a time in 2nd grade when I intentionally rubbed poinson ivy all over myself so I wouldn't have to go to school on Monday. I remember how that felt. I started trying to figure out what to do next. For very personal reasons I made ADHD medication a dead last resort. I would do anything else in my power to give him the chance to learn without hating it (and boy did he hate it! It took me 6 months to get him to check books out of the library with me!). I had no idea how I was going to manage it but I jumped. I live with my father so, obviously, that helped a lot but we've all struggle financially the past few years. Returning him to a public school just doesn't FEEL right so this year, to take some of the pressure off of myself, we switched to cyber school. So far so good. But I still need to solve the problem of scaring up some cash to get a handle on things. I've worked part time (until I was let go recently) and did a little bit of my business here and there, but I'm thinking that there is some brillinatly simple way for me to have everything that I want to have, I just haven't come across the right information yet. I don't rule out the idea of a paycheck as a means to an end but in the long run, I want control and I want to be able to provide my son with all the opportunities he should have regardless of the fact he has half as many parents as other kids.
I will be the first to tell you I am very much behind the 8 ball on the money front. No paycheck, no job prospects (a temp agency wouldn't even call me for an interview), no running vehicle (it's been on the carport all sad and asleep almost a year), no credit cards, my credit score is in the low 500s, student loans on hardship forebearance gathering unpaid interest, it's enough to make me physically ill if I think about it too long....so I don't and therein lies the problem. I pushed it aside thinking it will get taken care of eventually and now I need to pull it all out, look at it and figure out what to do about it. And yet I refuse to compromise my ideals of working for myself. I am a stubborn mamma bear.
I think it can work. I think there is a way that I can help more single moms take control of their lives and finances and be more available to their kids and STILL live their OWN dreams. I can feel the answer hanging in the air, just outside my peripheral vision. It's there but I can't quite see it yet.
So I'm gonna end this post here. The clock has pooper over from day 2 to day 3 and my fingers ache. We have cyber school and some grape jam and peach butter to make tomorrow. I grew the grapes in the back yard and I swear one of these times I will finally go ahead with my plan to make my own wine. But not in this house. I will wait until I move out for that. Hopefully that will be in the next 120 days or so! :-D
Sara Smile
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