Scraping by. Sept. 18, 2015

It is that time again.  Time to start looking for those ten things to be thankful for. I know there are a couple of things that I can find easily, but why do I feel like they aren’t there?  Why do I feel like I have to look under ever rock and in every nook and cranny for a little scraping of any thing to be thankful for?  How do you find the joy that should just show up just because you have woken up today?  I see people laughing and dancing, and it seems so elusive.

There is progress to report on the part of my son, along with some extra worries.  He has two weeks sober, and that is nothing to sneeze at. I am extremely grateful for that. Because he took two weeks off to get sober, however, he lost the crummy job he did have.  I know he has little money, and is living through the help of friends and a girlfriend. None of them have much money either, so all are scraping by.  Thankfulness number one, is definitely, however, that he is sober today.

Thankfulness number two is that my son was able to get a phone, that was cheap through a government program.  Apparently, because he is so poor, he managed to get a phone that only makes calls and does text.  He needs this to get a job, and he was having trouble without a phone. It will do everything he needs. I don’t know how he scraped up the money for it, but so very grateful he did.

Thankfulness number three.  It is Friday, and tomorrow I will go to my Saturday Farmer’s Market with my friend and we will share crepes.  She will order “the peasant”.  This is a crepe with eggs, potatoes, bacon, avocado, tomato, spinach and special dressing.  I will order the desert crepe.  It will probably be the apple one this time or maybe the lemon zest.  Then we share.  This will be our last Sat. together for awhile, as she will return next week to the city she moved to.  I will miss her, and I doubt I can scrape up someone else as good to take to the market.

Thankfulness number four.  There is another job fair on Monday.  There are days that I don’t want to leave the job I have and days I don’t think I can spend another minute doing it.  Mostly the boredom gets to me.  Hopefully, next week, I can scrape up a new and exciting job.

Thankfulness number five.  My husband is changing the cable system we use.  It is becoming quite obvious that I really don’t care what the system is.  There are numerous problems with setting this up and has meant several calls to the service provider.  I am grateful that he is dealing with it and will have it all working in time for football.  I have no plans to watch football, but I know he will be happy.  All it will take from me is scraping up the money to pay for it !

Thankfulness number six.  The weather changed for a few days.  We actually got some rain this week.  It lent itself to a couple of cooler days and nights.  It made me feel a little better.  We are back this week to hot weather and mugginess.  Guess I will have to scrape up a cool place to hang out for this week.  Hopefully this will be the last of the real heat.

Thankfulness number seven.  Tonight my daughter and her family are camping out at the local park.  It looks really nice.  I am grateful for Facebook, where I get to see all the cute pictures and fun times they are having.  Next weekend they plan to go to Mammoth Mountain for a few days. I am grateful they are doing well.  I know they have lots to figure out about how they are going to scrape up the money to do what they want to do, but they are putting in the effort.

Thankfulness number eight.  I guess this should have come a couple of weeks ago.  My son in Seattle (another son) lives around some very very tall trees.  They had a big storm and one of the trees came toppling down in the yard.  How grateful I am the house was not damaged nor anyone hurt.   He has to figure out how to get the tree cleaned up and scrape up more money to do it ! Well, actually, we have to pay, since we own the house he lives in, but hopefully he will get it paid for and we will work everything else out.

Thankfulness number nine.  I had to take my very ill father to the doctor this week.  He has a Parkinson’s condition. It was difficult to get him there.  I pay an assisted living place to basically take care of him, and I pay a caregiver to help with both him and my mother that has Alzheimers. I really do not know what I would do without her.  She does an amazing job of taking care of them.  It really is an overwhelming job.  I will continue to scrape the money together for as long as I can to pay for her.

Thankfulness number ten.  I am grateful to complete another addition of thankfulness and to scrape together some things to be thankful for.  I think I feel much better.  I am tired tonight, but I do feel I have gotten through the week.