We had a very nice, quiet and relaxing two weeks watching Marks parent's place and Kiira. For the first time in four years nothing broke, Kiira didn't need to go to the vet and nothing flooded. We were able to just do our thing, get some stuff done and run out of what little money we had. At least we got to do that in a house with indoor plumbing (Cristen is getting tired of the bucket). This will be the last year we watch the house though, we will not be missing another year in the Outer Banks. If we're left out of other people's plans, we're making our own.
It was nice to come back to the camper and find that our fire pit had been left untouched and there were no puddles in the trailer from the recent storms. Now we're back to daily/nightly fire building, eating once a day and trying to stay balanced.
We were able to get another car, thankfully. It's a decent car but it's been lowered. Couple that with the wide wheels and it performs horribly in the rain, which means it will be awful in Ohio winters. So we've decided to try and sell it and get something else, something we can test better. The sale shouldn't be hard since it's a pretty nice car, so we're hopeful. At the very least our car isn't breaking down on us while we're looking to sell it. Yet.
Job hunting has recommenced after both of us were sick with the Flu for two weeks straight. Cristen even got an interview for today at a stable in town that specializes in therapeutic horseback riding. It's not a lot of hours but as long as it pays over $8/hr and she's offered it, she'll take it. She misses being around and working with horses a great deal and this position would be a mental health saver for her, even if it is hard labor (mixed in with some not-so-hard stuff). Getting a job isn't about moving out anymore, it's about being able to live day-to-day without significant hardship, and this stable assistant position can give that to us. One simple part-time job can change our lives. It's just hard not to get discouraged interview after interview. We are always so close to getting that change before it's ripped away.
Note to hiring managers: Please tell your potential employees whether they'll be called back or not. If you're not planning on calling an applicant back, please don't tell them you will. Let them move on to something more promising instead of making them wait a week or so to never get a call-back. Give your applicants some courtesy.
Ok, enough with the job rant.
Parting thought: Take care of those you love. Listen to them when they try to tell you something. It may very well be something they've been trying to tell you their whole life. Include them in your life, let them know that you think about them too. Don't let them feel abandoned or passed over. Make sure they know how much you appreciate them and let them know that you'll always be there. Don't let them grow up questioning where their growth, or lack-thereof, came from. Don't ever let them feel like you gave up on them.
Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted. ~Paul Pearshall
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born. ~Pearl S. Buck
