Ho Ho...Oh, No...

Now the anxiety and dread sets in.  We made it through Christmas, but the guilt grinding at me for not making all the "Merry Christmas" phone calls I should have just adds to the overwhelming sting of everything.

The three little ones seem satisfied with their Christmas haul, although there were one or two complaints that Santa forgot a couple "essentials," (i.e., Lego Dimensions for the WiiU, etc.)  I don't even know what that game is, nor did we have the money for it, that's for sure...

And now the bills will be coming due.  Oh, not the bills for Christmas gifts and festivities.  (We carefully managed getting those somehow with cash.)  We're talking the basics: The rent, the electric bill, the phone/internet bill, etc. are coming up, and we haven't got a clue where we're going to get the clams to cover them.  Talk about the art of fingernail-clinging.

I have one weeks' worth of unemployment left...about $272 coming next week, and then...that's it.  We're hosed.  No car, no job, no money.  Thank God for food stamps.  That's about all we've got.  And kind friends and family...and, of course, my never-ending hustling for some kind of work.  Counting the minutes until tax time, when there's the possibility we may see a return.  But even that's no guarantee.  We've learned not to count on anything being "guaranteed."  I guess that's kind of a good thing.

When I lived in Europe, parents received a monthly stipend for taking care of their children, whether or not they worked.  I wish we had something similar here in the States.  Some might argue that the combined Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credits could be considered the same thing.  But here it only comes once a year, and--again--there's no guarantee.

If a return does come in, we wind up getting caught up on utilities and buying all the desperately-needed things the kids need: shoes, clothes, haircuts, etc.  And then there are the car repairs...that is, when we have a car.  I guess, right now, car expenses are something that aren't weighing on us--but I have to tell you--living in Texas without a car is torturous...especially during the relentlessly hot summer.  Have you ever balanced a cart-load of groceries, Third World-style, on your back, on a bike?  Yeah, humiliating and excruciatingly painful doesn't begin to describe it.

Anyway, there's a lot more for me to uselessly complain about, so stay tuned, folks!  If nothing else, I'm enjoying--so far--my online pity/complaint/anger-blowing-off.  Maybe I'll bore myself with some politically-related bloviating in my next post.  Feel free to comment, judge, counter-complain, tell me to count my blessings, etc.

Thank you for checking in... Happy (almost) New Year!