18. AH YES, RETAIL

This new retail job is in a pleasant environment with a few cheerful people and others who seem fairly easy to ignore. What cannot be ignored though, is the constant eight hours of standing, with almost no moving about.
When I worked in other retail establishments, I was usually all over the store, working on displays, fixing things, cleaning, helping customers. In this new job, it is constant standing and it is more painful than any prior job.
Feet can scream. Did you know that? It is not audible to others, but to the owner of the screaming feet, there is little else that can be heard once those feet begin to scream their agony.
In a store that sells, among thousands of other very fascinating items, some wonderful rugs and mats that cushion the feet, one would think that such could be provided for the standing clerk, in the two locations where said employee is required to stand.
Location #1 has a thin rubber mat such as one would use to prevent slipping, and location #2 is nothing but hard, hard flooring.
I am told this will go on indefinitely and perhaps permanently. At a maximum of thirty hours a week with no benefits, the good news is, its only thirty hours. The bad news is it takes the rest of the week to heal from the pain and orthopedic distress from the constant standing, it is only thirty hours, and no benefits, so other work is required in order to survive, but the exhaustion from the standing leaves me so drained it is highly difficult to accomplish anything in the off hours.
Nevertheless, I am grateful (very much so) to have found this little job. It will help me to survive, even though it will not allow me to pay off any debts, at least I should be able to pay the storage, cell phone, and car insurance bills and buy some food, dog food and gas. It is time to change the oil and I guess I have to shop around for it rather than going to my favorite dealership for full service.
And so, I add that to my list of things to search for: solutions, auto service, different job, affordable chiropractic and physical care,, new glasses, a dentist, and again, let me stress: SOLUTIONS. They exist. They are not lost, but perhaps I am.
Blessings and solutions to all
Victoria

19. SEEKING MOTIVATION AND PURPOSE

Friends:
I wrote this posting on October 15th and forgot to hit 'post' so I apologize for the delay.

There is nothing in this world more powerful than our Creator. The universe was set to spin and the clockwork of the galaxies put in place to a symphony more majestic than our mortal senses can comprehend.
What does that have to do with being un- or under-employed?
My friends and I often remind ourselves that 'all is in divine and perfect order.'
We look for the silver linings in our difficulties, trials and tribulations. Sometimes we find them, and sometimes they are yet to be discovered. I awoke this morning with a distinct paraphrase of a  familiar Bible passage that has always offered me some encouragement. See Romans 8: 35-39

What shall separate us from the love and care of our blessed Creator? Neither governments, nor bureaucracies, nor corporations, nor banks,  nor politicians, nor collection agencies, nor stupid rules, nor pain, nor loss, nor sorrow,  nor war, nor grumpiness, nor employers, nor police, nor loss, nor gain,  nor marriage, nor divorce, nor economic systems, nor success, nor failure, nor any other thing shall be able to remove us from God's loving care. We are more than conquerors through the love of God.

It's true. And there is a tremendous difference between POWER and FORCE. Power is self-generating. Force requires input of energy or fuel.
Great Spirit is All-Powerful, and is the source of all power.

Am I totally off track here?
What I'm attempting to do is to keep myself going. The temptation to give up is strong. I could apply for disability and receive a subsistence check each month I suppose. The pain I endure in jobs that require me to stand for a full day's shift makes giving up sound more and more appealing.
Motivation is a continuing problem. Based in acedia and fear, lack of motivation holds me back from stepping out and doing anything different.
Age
Lack of modern technological skills and understanding
Disinterest in technology
These are the primary things that force me to remain in retail, and yet health is one of the main factors why I need to find something else. Very poor wages is the other thing.
What I need to be doing is what I was put here for.
What is that?
Not certain, but I know it probably requires another degree or some certification.
I love writing but have no grasp on how to make money writing these days. When I was a newspaper reporter, perhaps I should have stayed in the field. (Maybe Dad was right...shudder...) Maybe Grandma was right and I should have gotten my teaching certification. Being an ordained minister isn't really enough, even with my own ministry (Universal Brotherhood of All Life Ministry) for I should be connected to a church with some structure to it, such as Unity perhaps; one that actually pays the pastor for services rendered.

So my To-Do list for today looks like this:
1. return 3 food items to grocery store so I can buy some dog food
2. go to bank to see personal banker to see if she can remove overdraft fees
3. take laptop to Office Depot to print a couple of resumes and make a couple of copies of important documents
4. go to storage unit to see if I can find a few things I need which I have not been able to find in there so far
5. shake a couple of dollars out of a piggy bank to get a few ounces of gasoline

Until the next posting,
Be Well,
Victoria

17. OFF TOPIC BUT I THINK ITS IMPORTANT (short)

I have always been fascinated by Nickolai Tesla, and often wonder what the world would be like today if he had been a bit more assertive and had not been so screwed over by Ths. Edison and others who were motivated by greed. He was a man of many miracles and  I think, genuinely nice.
If he were alive today, I would like to work for him as archivist/secretary/assistant.

I like that this amazing cartoonist has taken up this cause. TESLA

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum

And then, Alex Knapp of Forbes, wrote an article trashing The Oatmeal's adulation of the under-rated inventor, and this plus The Oatmeal's rebuttal can be found at this next link.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response

May you be blessed
Victoria

16. BAND-AIDS Versus SOLUTIONS

Losing that university job set me back further than I was before I took the job. It did not last long enough for me to qualify for unemployment insurance, and the few dollars I had set aside for auto maintenance and a couple of upcoming quarterly and annual payments got eaten away in the first couple of weeks what with groceries and gas, dog food and the monthly bills that I actually pay to stay alive.
I am willing to sell a bunch of stuff, but so far the only thing that has sold is my chopper and that, for mere pennies on the dollar. And then, last week, I sold my wedding rings. But apparently, no one is buying diamonds at this time. Let me tell you this: selling gold can be a huge disappointment. Maybe you already know that the price shown in the media only applies to 24k or bullion. 18k and 14k command much, much smaller prices.
Converting possessions to cash in this marketplace is a sad thing to do for the seller. In the current economy, something valued at a hundred dollars would do well to sell for ten. Sure would be great for those with the cash and the desire to shop for bargains.
And so, I have had to revert to borrowing a small amount of money to hopefully 'get me by' until this new job gives me a pay check. Kind of like our government borrowing from China until April 15 when taxes flow in from the serfs, er, I mean citizens. And then, as exorbitant as the taxes are, they do little if anything to counteract the borrowing. Because borrowing money is a downhill spiral.
Borrowing and selling and working at part time jobs are all merely band-aids. So beyond and above plastering band-aids on the problems, I seek solutions. Solutions to the financial crisis for the country are beyond my current comprehension, even if certain ideas occur to me once in a while.
Solutions for myself, once I find them, I would hope could be models for others in similar circumstances.

Curtailing spending: I wish I had had sense enough to cut back on spending years ago. I spent based upon the legal promise of a substantial influx. That has not come to fruition, and is a serious problem that I must overlook for the time being. Even if that had happened in a timely manner, I would not have had sense enough to be conservative with it. When it does eventually manifest, I will hopefully have learned enough to hang on to it. And I wish that a solution to this issue would simply fall into my lap. Well, you know what that means: if wishes were horses, I'd have a horse.
Banking on the future and borrowing money is stupid. And I have really learned that the hard way. Investing is the same as gambling. If you 'do it right' you might 'get lucky.'  The Simple Dollar
I'm beginning to think that boiling life down to the basic necessities and becoming self-sufficient is the most secure way to live. The various 'frugal living' books and web sites offer a great deal of information on ways to go about this. Still, even with spending at a bare minimum, there are costs that require cash outlay: transportation, food (even if you garden) shelter and some form of utilities. And everyone needs to have clothing. Even if you are a nudist, you have to wear something if you go somewhere where clothing is mandatory, which is nearly everywhere.
So, the solutions I seek are still behind the veil, just out of reach, but I will explore them in upcoming postings.

15. How Politics Affects the Un- and Under- Employed

Nebulous thoughts swirling around the fringes of my mind this evening. They want to come together to form a message. This is something I have been pondering off and on for a while now. Bear with me here, because you will see toward the end that it is significant to the blog's purpose. As someone who has been under-employed with disturbing spurts of unemployment punctuating my calendar, I really have some troubling reassessments to make. I once considered myself to be a Republican. Now I see that Republicans are not at all what I thought they were supposed to be. In fact, I see that our two-party system is not what it is cracked up to be. My staunch GOP contacts (friends and relatives) God Love them one and all, do not share most of my basic beliefs. The Grand Old Party has somehow become full of bigotted fundamentalists who think their way is the only way and demand that their beliefs be embraced by and enforced upon everyone else. How is this different from the Democratic Party? It isn't, except that their issues are different issues. The issues of each party are insignificant to the health and well-being of this nation So here is an excerpt from an email I have received multiple times. There are parts of the thing that make great sense. I have not included them here. This is only that to which I vociferously disagree. And after you read this, I will explain why I disagree. ===============================================

1. You know you live in a country run by idiots if: Hard work and success are rewarded by higher taxes and government intrusion, while slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid and subsidized housing, and free cell phones. ================================================= 2. You know you live in a country run by idiots if: The government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work). ================================================= 3. You know you live in a country run by idiots if: You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor defaults on his mortgage (while buying iphones, TV's and new cars) and the government forgives his debt and reduces his mortgage (with your tax dollars).

******************************************** (1.) Yes, it is true that hard work and success seems to be followed by higher taxes and more and more government regulation. And that is wrong. And yes, it is true that there are thousands of people who play the system and take advantage of government handouts. But what this fails to address is the fact that in this economy, there are thousands of hard-working Americans who have paid into the system for years and years, but now find themselves out of work and unable to find work. These are the people the system was designed to help. But many of us slip through loopholes and get no aid at all. (2.) Again, their are people who play the system, but then there are those of us who do not qualify for unemployment because we moved to a different state and have not worked six months in the new state so do not qualify. We get nothing. (3.) And there are those who set out to get fancy houses filled with fancy stuff and have actually been able to get Uncle Obama to foot the bill. But then there are those of us who, regardless of our good intentions and efforts to make it all work, lost the ability to pay and none of the government programs fit the situation. Some of us lose our homes because we were convinced that it would work into our financial situation easily, when, in fact, the numbers just didn't add up and the bill of goods we were sold with the house was just a house of cards. Bang goes the gavel. FORECLOSED! It does not pay to be naive or well-meaning. It pays to find good financial advice, listen to it, and then fall back and be even more conservative with your funds. A house is NOT an investment. The Bubble was as fragile and nebulous as any bubble of soap. They all pop sooner or later. And if you are not a minority of some kind, do not expect the government to be of any use to you at all, regardless of how many thousands of dollars in taxes you have paid down through the years. So, because the GOP fundamentalists make no allowances for honest people with legitimate financial crises, but lump them all together with the chronic entitlement-minded recipients, I have no truck with the GOP. They also tend to be the ones who want to cram their particular religious beliefs down everyones' throats, much like the Islamic fundamentalists do. They want to legislate their idea of morality, continue interfering in the governments of other countries, fight so-called wars on drugs, tobacco, diseases, behaviors and lifestyles that are not their own. On the other hand, we have the Democrats, whom we can fondly refer to as the BHL, or Bleeding Heart Liberals. They want to give it all away. Usually to those who have done nothing to earn it. To many who have no desire to learn the language, to fit in, or to contribute in some significant way. As a rule, they want everyone to be careful to not offend anyone else. They are the dark-hearted offspring of Madelyn Murray O'Hare set out to remove any mention of God in our culture, simply because she was an atheist. She thought everyone should be so she would not be offended by the Word. The birth of so-called 'political correctness' is founded in this effort, and has become a virulent rust, eating away at the strong girders underpinning the structure of this nation. It's oxymoronic. To remove anything about God because she is an athiest, is the same as to force a particular religion on everyone. She forced non-religion. The Founding documents specified that Congress shall make no law specifyong a particular form of worship. It stipulated a separation of church and state, not a removal of one or the other. Just a separation. That underscores that there shall be no 'State Religion' not that there should be no religion. The United States was founded on the principal that there would be religious FREEDOM... the freedom to worship how, when and where (or even if) one wanted to. And so, I must discard both parties, because each one is doing fundamental damage to this country. I seek a moderate way. Conservative and strong support of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the principles laid out in Thomas Paine's Common Sense. If you have not read them recently, please do so. And while you're at it, read the Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. 'Tis a cautionary tale, if ever there was one. And so, I will continue at this little part time job as long as it lasts and as I continue to find additional sources of income. Blessings of Abundance to all of you Victoria