We're going to make it.

[december_solstice]

One of us if finally gonna have somewhat steady/reliable income coming in. Things have been tough. Things have been rough. But, I know we're going to make it.

Right now, I just want to focus on the positive. My husband got a job.
Small victories. We finally made copies of the keys for our new locks.

What am I thankful for today?
I have food in the fridge. I can cook healthy meals tomorrow and for the rest of the week. I have detergent to wash a few of Thomas's shirts in the tub tomorrow. I am able bodied to do the chores that must be done.

Next week I vowed that I'd finally get my ID.

I hate the fact that I put a lot of these things off. In a way, it's kind of pathetic that I justify saving the $20-25 dollars it takes to commute there and purchase an ID, because there are better more useful ways to apply that 25 dollars.

It's why I never go anywhere (on the train), to be frank. It's expensive to leave the neighborhood. Living is expensive. Surviving is too.

Comments

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

I'm also like that, though I know that for me it's a combination of reliance on other people ("I can't go if my wife isn't going") and pure laziness/the vestiges of depression.

Recently my wife and I were talking and she said "I realized that in reality it doesn't matter if I go and spend all my savings in one day, because the social services office will only help you if you don't have any savings. So why am I not just doing that?" But of course it's because we don't know how it will go and while we wait for their help we won't have any money, and her parents don't pay for stuff for us. And it feels a lot worse to really not have any money as opposed to have some small amount of savings that you ration.

I have to get my ID too, we bank-transferred the money to them a couple weeks ago and still haven't gone yet... ugh... I don't know what happens if you wait too long. At least there's three Burger Kings that want workers now, if I apply to all of them I might have a chance lol.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

I feel you. I used to be a lot more independent before I took up online schooling and working from home. For nearly 3 years, from 2011-2014, I would be out all day long! And, I loved it! I worked a normal 9-5 schedule, then I had classes all evening. Today, that's kind of unheard of. I feel like now I just don't have the motivation to go out because I'm not used to it anymore. I am definitely developing a sense of reliance, but I'm trying to break it.

I mentioned briefly that someone tried to break into our apartment earlier this year. I became so paranoid -- not wanting to go anywhere without my husband. As for my Mom, she really reinforced that sense of danger and lack of safety. She prefers I don't go places alone Lol

Slowly I'm starting to develop that sense of independence again. I go out a lot by myself, even if that means simply running errands, buying groceries, going shopping by myself (which I prefer because I hate being rushed and I like taking my time to score deals Lol)

Getting an ID, or doing anything government related is SUCH A DRAG, isn't it? You know you'll be spending all day waiting in line, twiddling your thumbs -- kind of makes sense people avoid it.

But, as you said, it;s good to get out of the house. It's important to be involved. Be a productive member of society.

Good luck w/ Burger King!

I applied for a handful of entry lvl writing/editing gigs. No luck.

Was browsing office assistant/office admin, stuff of that nature, and surprisingly, it's slim picking. You'd think, with all these damn skyscraper office buildings, there would be an abundance of jobs. This is really the only substantial experience I have (about 3 years). I've got job experience in other areas, but nothing that I feel will land me a steady job.

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

Ugh, my wife's family's house has been broken into twice, both 15+ years ago. No one's gotten over it. They hide all their stuff whenever they go out and do everything they can to avoid it being that there's times when no one is in the house. There's bars on the windows in the bathroom and storage room (where people broke in from before) which means that if you were trapped in there due to a fire you wouldn't be able to get out. They actually have all their stuff hidden so well that they can't find it - as in the PS2 was lost for like eight years.

And you can't touch anyone's stuff or move anything because "it's just like coming back to when the house had been broken into and all my stuff was moved around". And they've like, amassed so much crap (they're hoarders, all of them except for my wife and they never want to allow her to throw away HER OWN THINGS), I imagine so that they can hide the truely valuable things in with the crappy things. That or getting their stuff stolen has turned them into the types of people who think even junk is precious because it's "theirs".

Yeah, last time I went to do something at the tax office I waited for like an hour despite that I had an APPOINTMENT! An hour past my appointment time! They're fast when they're doing the work but the office just needs to be open for more hours in the week.

I applied for Starbucks yesterday, some new shop is opening so they have like 30 places open. Starbucks wants you to list your nationality when you apply as well as give them a photo of you, this kind of screams racism at me... (I don't think I've ever had a place ask me for my nationality before).

By the way, a while ago I wondered about it so I looked it up, it seems like when it's a place like McDonald's in Sweden which actually comes from the USA, the higher-ups all have to actually report to the Americans and might always be in Email/phone connection with them, as in even though it's in Sweden the Swedes aren't actually in charge of how it's supposed to go and the Swedes are given instructions for how to manage/decorate the store and stuff from them however ill-fitting it may be.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

It's definitely hard to adjust to after a break in, but at the same time, bugler's aren't often known for being violent. And, I think, for me at least, that's what we're fixated on. The safety factor, not necessarily valuables being stolen. I could be wrong. I don't have much of anything valuable worth stealing. I imagine a bugler would walk in, realize we're poor, and walk his/her ass right back out. What I AM afraid of is someone fucking stabbing me in the neck LOLOL The irony is I was quite a little thief growing up (Lol). Karma much?

I wonder if hoarding has a real connection to the fear of break ins. An old friend had an ex husband who was a serious hoarder. Like, piles of stuff, and no room to walk. Their house was very dirty :/ Not messy, but DIRTY.

Originally I thought those who live in poverty are most likely to hoard. Similarly to how homeless people hoard stuff -- even trash. But then, you see regular folks, like on the show Hoarders, who hoard crap.

My husband and I have a lot of "crap". Drawers just full of random shit -- not organized or anything. Then again, we also live in a tiny apartment with no storage LOL So screwdrivers go with the pregnancy tests.

Interesting on the nationality and photo thing. That would make sense because that's a thing here -- applications ask for nationality or ethnic background. Employers ask for photos too. I've had applications ask for ethnic background -- thrown in with gender, military affiliation, ect. Did I mention that I apply with my maiden name because I have very little luck getting interviews with my husband's last name. It is a very common Latin American last name. My first name is also VERY latina. Lol. My parents swear I am not Latin American, but almost every person I meet assumes I'm Mexican LOL Which is nice, for here at least, since I live in a Dominican/Rican neighborhood. I don't receive that internalized white hate LMFAO

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

I think you either have to be predisposed to it (my wife's mom NEVER cleaned and liked to hoard, even when she was younger, it just wasn't this bad) or something really serious has to happen, as in extreme depression that goes unchecked for way too long. In this house it's definitely the "stuff" that's more important than the person's safety - they feel as if they ARE their things, even their broken, dirty, moldy, abandoned things they have laying around.... We've tried to tell them "if you like your stuff so much, why don't you take care of them?" and "what do you think's going to happen when you die? none of it will go with you and we aren't going to keep it either" but they don't care...

Yeah, these guys COULD have a lot of money if only they spent it more wisely... they even leave tools out to rust in the rain and all that. They can never buy just one of something, it's always "I went to buy a knife for my experimental project I'm probably only going to do once, and bought three of the same knives without even knowing if they're good". Our house is a combination of being dusty/dirty (I've found boots with dried mud on them shoved into a hiding space for example) and being badly-made (so it gets damp, then we get mold). It would be a lot more dirty if we didn't live here, as we're the only ones who ever vacuum and so on. Even so we can't clean most things, so like there's rotting stuff underneath the sink and we're not allowed to clean there. It's just luck that these guys don't like, eat while walking all around the house.

In Iceland we shared a bedroom and the rest of the apartments were just shared living-spaces so we couldn't exactly store stuff outside of our room. Here we actually have less space than in the places there (which we paid, oh, 600 USD a month for or so), because the bedroom we share is not only smaller to begin with but half of it is filled with her parents' stuff. And they keep trying to put MORE stuff in our room. They already have two toolsheds full of things, and a greenhouse full of tools and stuff (= not plants), and a storage room inside the house, and multiple storage spaces, and their own bedroom is full of crap so they've taken over the room of one sister who's moved out (but still left half her stuff here)...

Here, if you want to get ahead you need to know Swedish, English, and Arabic/Kurdish/etc right now (in my town anyway, in other places it's not like this). It's pretty frustrating. A job that otherwise doesn't need you to have any experience, a job that's literally just you stocking shelves in a warehouse, needs you to speak Arabic... Up north you have to know Finnish/Swedish/English. Sigh. I'm already an immigrant struggling with Swedish, I can't just magically pick up Finnish or Kurdish in a month!

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

(that is to say, people claim that english will get you jobs - instead it's like english is such a basic requirement in the nordic countries that it doesn't count for anything, no one is going to give me a job just because i can speak it, unlike in china or whatever)

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

....And I also feel that even if it costs money to, say, take the bus somewhere, it's really worth it getting out of your dreary life for a while! I went to a club meeting for the first time now and I just feel like I'm actually a member of society!

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

It does cost money to go places. When you're pinching pennies, EVERY penny counts. It was actually the cost of transportation that motivated me to take online classes and attempt to work from home. It cost nearly $150 a month to commute. Between my husband and I, that's like $300 bucks a month just on transportation. And, of course, the money we spend on food while we're out.

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

I can't really afford to commute to school either, it's about $3 per bus trip, but I can walk to/from town in an hour or so and if I'm willing to arrive at school before it even opens then I can get a ride there from my wife's parents. But when I was doing that kind of thing I started skipping school a lot and was feeling bad about how it cost money every day. Now I take online classes but THAT means that I only leave the house to walk to the grocery store, so I don't even go into town once a month anymore....