| 2007 And so, the time has come to recap on 2007, the fastest year of my life. the number 2007 still doesn't seem to have lived its course and yet we are staring 2008 in the face. but time forces me to say goodbye. to hang my 2007 hat and be thankful that i've survived it, and got a few good things out of it. This was my year... As uneventful as it seemed, looking back, i realize that it was actually pretty eventful. some things didn't work out as planned, but others did. i feel like the vibe for this month was materialism. and at first, it came off sort of ostentatiously materialistic, but i realize that it was sort of necessary. we started off the year working terrible jobs. minimum wage jobs. treated somewhat like dirt, overworked, underpaid, constantly leaving with bloodied fingers and pains and sores in unimaginable places. we collecting food stamps while jamey waited as patiently as possible to get things moving along with the LASD, which he had applied a few months before the start of the year. people pulled our leg every month. and for the longest time we believed that jamey's occupational salvation would arrive in march. so march comes, and jamey quits his crappy job, leaving me there by myself, to await this big change. we were also hoping that come april, with jamey's new shiny paycheck, we'd use it to move into a nicer apartment. well, the time came and went and he took a job with his father. it was just as crappy as the one he quit. no word from the LASD. March and April rolled along by painfully and i could feel myself giving up. as much as i hated my job, though, i was in fact moving up. i was being trained to be an assistant manager. which in turn meant i did a hell of a lot more work for still not enough money. and when all things went to shit, all the shit fell on me. so not exactly worth it. but i stuck through it. we needed the money. and there were still specks of faith left within me. and May comes along and within a week we find Miss Penny and Miss Cleo. two wandering strays that chose us for parents. the cat was much more a gift than the dog, however, and we quickly did our best to find a home for the dog. with this failing miserably, we've managed to house this psychotic animal for 8 months, still begging the Lord to help me find a home for her. but by the end of May, the specks of hope i had began to shimmer as the light at the end of the tunnel began to reflect off of them. jamey got the job and he began training in June. by this point, though, we couldn't move. we had three animals. and most apartment buildings that allow animals only allow 2 pets. trapped yet again in this horrid apartment. in this horrid town. but in july my parents came to visit. a nice escape from all that was. i introduced them to california and we went on trips to san diego, hollywood, burbank and the city. i brought them to in-n-out burger, which they died with joy over, and showed them the san diego zoo, our beautiful mountains and scenery... those sorts of things. we had fun. this was also the month i bought a car. well, they bought me a car in which i was supposed to pay them back for but then for jamey's graduation in september, my parents said that for a present, we would not have to pay them back the 2,000 dollars. ROCK HARD. but the two weeks came and went in the blink of an eye. while they were there, though, i quit my crappy job when i found out they'd have me work the 4th of july. at night. as closing manager. two days after my parents arrived in california. i was PISSED. and i said, frig it. my parents are here, i want to spend the time with them. not spend it working a job i technically didn't need anymore. we were off the food stamps and all. it was time to get myself on track. and so i started getting myself back in place. i took a month's worth of driving lessons and signed up for classes at the college. time to get my license and go back to school. and in september i finally got to feel what i've been dying to feel: LIBERATION. even now, when i hop in my car, i still get all giddy inside and giggle like a child. i stare at the road in the distance and think, i could just keep going if i wanted to. hell yes. but before the license thing, jamey and i did get to scrape up some time for ourselves to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary. we did it. we had made it one whole year. the year that is supposed to be the hardest in marriage. and we survived. so we celebrated. we booked a romantic room in this quaint and beautiful bed and breakfast on Santa Catalina Island. we went horseback riding, jet skiing, flipped the jet ski, ate some great food, took a tour around the whole island, saw wild buffalo, talked to nice people, dipped in the ocean, did the baby-making dance in a big beautiful hot tub, watched the sun rise, chased sea gulls... you name it and it was done! and what an awesome two days that was. we could only do it in two days cuz jamey couldn't take any time off the academy! but yes, so after i went to school and all. survived. had a blast, actually. lots of great experiences, great people, great learning tools. and i past all of my classes with A's. all 7 of them. hah! so we never got to move out of our crappy apartment. but that's alright. and although i didn't get to teach belly dance for as long as i would have liked, i still got to teach it and know that i could actually teach. i am in the middle of a couple projects like getting ready to buy a house and finishing my ECC certification so i can work at preschools and day cares. i am currently sponsoring a child in India, and i look forward to receiving all sorts of letters, pictures and art work from her. she is just adorable! and i got to see a tornado in september, talk about firsts! and here comes 2008. i'm actually quite intimidated by it's arrival. it will start off easy enough. a 3 week visit to the east coast where i won't have too many obligations. i'll come back just in time to spend my birthday with my husband. in which we will hopefully take a 4 hour drive up north to spend in the hot springs near mammoth lakes. and just two weeks later, school will start again. and this shall be more busy than first semester as i will not only be taking 6 classes (one less than last semester) but i will sign up to do volunteering at the on campus preschool on thursdays and fridays. i need 150 hours for my certification. which i should rack up in about 50 days. i might see if i can add another day in there so i can get it all done this semester. this will be a good time for jamey to rack up overtime hours, too. i'm very hesitant about this whole house-buying thing. i feel like it will take another year to collect the money we should have for a down payment on a house. i'm terrified to make the wrong decision and get ourselves stuck in a bad financial situation. i'm such a rookie to all of this and in the end, i can't trust any "professional" whole-heartedly because in the end, whoever i ask to help me, will be getting paid off of me. so, even if some people actually try to not look at me as a dollar sign, in the end, i'm their pay check. and that just doesn't feel kosher. and on top of the house thing, my womb is overwhelming my senses and i honestly don't think i can handle not having a baby much longer. every one around me is pregnant. and when i want to hide from it all in my house, i turn on the TV and every celebrity i know is also pregnant. even 16 year old lynn spears is friggin pregnant! here i am, emotionally ready to be a mother with a year and a half of marriage under my belt and i'm not pregnant. but lynn spears is! what kind of world is this! but then i pannic. i calculate all the financial stuff and realize, OMG, how are we gonna afford a baby?! i mean, it's about 800 bucks a month for a baby. add a 1600 dollar mortgage (if i'm lucky) plus monthly groceries, bills, gas money, car insurance, 500 bucks to throw into savings and a couple hundred bucks on the side for extracurricular and unplanned things and voila... we are already 1,000 dollars over our head. i mean, without taxes we'd actually be doing just fine. but jamey gets about 1,000 dollars or more of taxes taken out each month! i mean, look at what we could do with that money. we could have a baby!!!!! i mean, i know they'll take out less if we own a house and have a baby, but we sure as heck aren't getting 1,000 bucks out of it! poop is what i say. and another thing that just started tickling my interest is possibly getting EMT trained. i want to look into it and see what it would be at my college to get certified. just EMT-1. i mean, if i want to go further later, i would, but if i could atleast get through the first step. i mean, seriously, later in life working with kids and emergency calls? that's all the excitement i need to make life feel worth it!! it's funny, too, because my astrological forecast for this next year talks about all this. the fact that i am going to overshoot my endeavors this year and make my life a lot more complicated than it should be. but all it said was it would be difficult and stressful. nothing about not surviving it. but this is really a lot. too much to handle all at once. i can see that. but some parts of my forecast also encourages me to make a few big decisions and go ahead with it, as though i will have an extra boost of strength to make it through. my conundrum, however, is deciding which of these endeavors should be sacrificed for later time. perhaps "logically" saving the baby for later would be the right choice. but logic has many enemies on that issue. my heart, soul and my gut are all like... screw you, logic, we're strong, determined, and steadfast in our belief and, you, LOGIC, only try to do what's best according to a general census of knowledge blah blah blah. with complete disregard to strength, feelings and emotion. i mean, if not having a baby is going to drive me this insane, wouldn't it only inhibit my strength to deal with other tough trials? i mean, even this semester i couldn't help but fall emotionally and physically victim to being childless. i swear it gets more and more in the way and takes over more and more of my brain. maybe we should sacrifice the house thing? you know? i keep hearing half the time that buying a house now is definitely not a good idea. others say it's a buyers market and we should take advantage of it! it's hard to say. here we see these cheap ass prices for houses but we're also seeing funds and loans and stuff being cut because of the crappy market. so, even if we could "afford" a house, in the long-run, will we actually suffer for it?!? NO IDEA! and i want a house! i want out of palmdale! i don't want to raise my baby in this place! we COULD rent out a nicer apartment, but we most certainly need to get rid of penny, even if it means taking her to the county shelter. i mean, i'm not one of those people to base everyhing on astrology, but this particular source rarely fails me. and by intuitively and logically looking into my future, it seems to coincide with all the things we're facing and i realized, i think i AM putting too much on my plate! so yeah, i just want all this to start making sense. i need signs. i need strength. and for sure i need God. 2008 will be a messy year. stressful no matter what. but no matter what, it needs to be. something needs to change. i can't imagine the next 12 months being anything like what these past 12 months were like. lots of things are going to change. i can feel it. things will be hard. but i we'll get out of it alive, i know it. and in the end, it will be all worth it. i know that too. i just need to not feel so scared. and take it one month, one week and one day at a time. maybe we can make this year last a little longer than the last. maybe not, though, every year seems to out-race the other. when i come back from PA, i need to come back prepared. P-R-E-P-A-R-E-D. |
