Poem for Today

Holding on
tight, tight, tight
knuckles white

Flat tire
late for work
tears want to roll
can't let them start

Payed too much
honest Angela
can't help but come clean

Waiting for
a judge to say
"you must pay"
wrong check won't mislead, I pray

Wednesday group
lots of friends
get together and tell me what I bad writer I am
say it's with love but too hurt to hear
I try to imagine what it used to be like
before I was holding on so tight

Another day
another week
I feel so gray
I feel so weak

Trust He is there
thank Him through the pain
hold tight to my faith
hold tight to His promise of grace

Friends can see it
can't hide it anymore
to tired to care
all that I bare

Praying for peace
praying for relief
will this just cease
these moments of grief

Comfort will come
the good book says
in His right timing
in His perfect grace

And so I will wait
through this difficult storm
to the other side
where I will safe, dry and warm

One Week of Feeling Weak

My mom did not believe in bankruptcy. She always said that she made the debt, she needs to pay the debt. She said it wasn't just the right thing to do but the Christian thing to do. And so I accepted this idea, because it made sense and she was my mom. When a family member declared bankruptcy this idea came back to me. I understood why she did and am all about the fact that I don't know what you are going through so I can't judge your actions. But here I am facing this same decision and it makes me sick. Literally all week long I have been anxious, can't sleep, can't focus, cry for no reason, and ate horrible food all week long. Some moments I don't know how I got here and then the next remember my stupid mistakes. The choices I shouldn't have made.

This week I realized what a lier I am. People always ask "how are you?" "what's going on?" But do I ever say bad, horrible, awful? No, I say I am good. Sometimes I say I am alright and the person doesn't even question it. Because people don't ask because they care, it's just what people say. Last Sunday a pastor at the church asked me how my week was. I responded it was ok. He said "Really? God put you on my heart to pray for you." I pause for a moment, remind myself this is a pastor, a really nice guy, and say "Actually I am being sued because I foreclosed on my house this year so I am being sued for the second mortgage on it. So it has been a pretty tough week dealing with that." His response? "Oh, well remember God loves you." and then walked away.  Really!? That is your advise. Not lets pray or is there anyway the church can help. "God loves you." Golly gee I knew that. If I didn't I would killed myself by now. Dumb.

I have been avoiding calling my dad to talk to him about this. I needed to ask him if it was ok if in my bankruptcy I said I paid rent. I finally called tonight. Turns out dad doesn't think I should file bankruptcy. He thinks I should just wait for them to start taking money out of my check before I make a decision. I explain to him that I am about $100 short every month so i have $0 to pay towards this debt. His response, "I don't know. You should probably still just wait." Great. I will just sit on my hands hoping that they don't take my entire check one week causing all of my bills to go past due. You won't mind when I can't pay the cell phone bill and phone gets shut off when that happens right!

Ok, clearly I am frustrated. There is no right answer. I have mulled this over for a week and I still do not know what to do. I pray and pray and see no clear answer from God. He just asked me to stop taking jobs on the two most popular nights (I already turned down a job for last night.) And now what? What am I supposed to do?

As I said in my last post this self destruction is not helping at all. So today I made some plans. I have an exercise plan for the next 30 days. I added two trackers on the left of the blog one counting down the 30 days and one for my weight loss goal. I also made a plan for this week's school work. I don't want to run behind again and so planning it out makes the most sense. Maybe if I put some control in my life I will feel a little less frustrated by what I can not control. Probably not but it is worth a try. All I really know is that Friday at work I yelled at the kids. Like really yelled at the kids. I can't do that ever again. I still feel guilty about it. Maybe working in some warehouse by myself would be the best idea. I would make more money not yell at innocent kids. It would be my way of curling up in a corner and hiding from the world.

Old Ways = Not Good

I have slipped into my old ways. I have had meat and dairy every day this week. The thoughts of the being sued and bankruptcy is too much and i am feeling overwhelmed. As I mentioned in my last blog I also didn't realize I had two big assignments due this week. Together they are twenty percent of my grade. I bucked down and got one done but the other I just didn't want to. The essay seemed pointless and a waste of time since I know she doesn't even read them she just let's turnitin.com grade the paper for her. I managed to waste six hours doing nothing this afternoon instead of writing. After church, knowing I had a deadline, I went to Denny's. I was slightly distracted as my brother was there but I pushed through and got it done. Now it wasn't as long as it should be. She wanted 4-6 pages and I gave her three and a half. And because of my last minute completion neither assignment was checked by one of the many english teachers or writers in my life.

I fell just bleh. My stomach hurts all the time. I eat too much or bad foods. My living room is a mess and I am totally not sleeping very well. (It is currently 12:47 am.) I did file both my federal and state taxes this week. So in a couple weeks I will have some money. Though it is going to tithe, filing bankruptcy, airline ticket to see nephew graduate, and the rest in savings for summer school. I don't even have it yet and it all already has a plan. Though that is a good thing. You do not want to know how much money I spent on food this week. I forget how expensive restaurants and fast food places are. Lets just say only through God's mercy have I not bounced anything yet.

I want to get a hold of myself. Go back to vegan, I felt better then, less sluggish. Clean my living room so I have a clean environment to live in. I need to make a schedule for my school work on Sunday's so I know what I need to get done during the week. I also want to start exercising again. I have decided to pull out one of my old sets of video's The Firm. I bought their stuff years ago with this "Fanny Lifter" It two steps that together are sixteen inches, so a really fanny lifter. I found one of the old informertials to help get me excited about it again. Of course part of me wants to by their newest system but I know that this old one will work just fine.

So that is what is up with me. I better head to bed because I have church tomorrow. Six hours of sleep is plenty, right?

5 Truths

1. When faced with the choice of vegan or not vegan my body wants vegan and it is my mind wants everything else. Throughout the day I go back and forth in a battle of what is good for me vs. what satisfies right now.

2. Last night I had a diet coke for the first time in forty days. It tasted disgusting and threw it away after the first few sips.

3. I am attempting to file bankruptcy. Which should make life a little easier though I don't know how I will pay for the initial filing fees yet.

4. I have spent two day so focused on bankruptcy information that I didn't realize that I have two big assignments for english due this Saturday. I realized last night at my writing group when everyone was asking me how school was going. (Thanks friends!) I am not too worried though, I will still just do my best on both.

5. Finding my job stressful right now. Again due to co-workers not kids. Hoping it starts getting better and not any worse.

Shifting Sand

As my roller coaster of emotions starts going down hill I try to grab on to my comforts to keep me safe. But my comforts include binge eating and not on vegan foods. A week ago I told you about two financial blows. One was my financial aid, this got taken care of and I now don't owe the money school for the classes I am taking. The other is that I am being sued for the equity loan I took out on my house back in '06. A house that I foreclosed on in August. I contacted the supreme court and they said that I have twenty days to write a written response. I then take it down to the court clerk and pay $223 to have it filed. As if I just had $223 just lying around to file this. The whole thing is so frustrating. When I looked up info on this written response thing the internet agrees that you file a written response if you disagree with what you are being charged. If you do not make a written response then the judge will make ruling with no evidence from me. The problem is the judge can have my wages garnished. I only make $900 a month and I owe $16,000 plus whatever fees for filing the suit. So I want to file a written response so that I can explain that I am not paying because I don't have the money to do so. I want to show them how I don't make enough money to pay the bills I currently have and can not afford a new one. But what if they don't care. What if the judge will say, well you are guilty and just garnishing some random amount from my check. Was it worth the $223 to file the written response? I feel like I am am gambling with $223 and I don't gamble! From what I last heard I can file bankruptcy for around $300 and then I can get rid of some of the other debts I am trying to pay off too. Someone recommend I check into legal aid for free legal advise but looking online I am not sure that a civil suit is actually covered. I will call next week to find out for sure.

So the whole thing is a mess. I feel like there is no right answer. I trust God. I do, I really do. But it is scary because I have no idea what is going to happen. I could probably handle $100 a month but what if they take more? What will I do then? I know that it is my debt. I took out the loan so it is my fault. I didn't mean to loose my house. I didn't mean to promise to pay them back and then not be able to. I really am sorry.

I try to ignore all this. Pretend it isn't there. Knowing that I can't afford to do anything anyways so my only choice is to do nothing. But it weighs heavy. It is so very heavy. And I don't know how to deal with this. How do normal people deal with this? All I know to do is numb myself by eating or zone out watching tv. This evening at church I was crying and felt emotionally drained. On the way home I stopped at a couple stores and just walked the aisles. Sometimes just walking sometime praying.

Knowing that God will get me through and feeling like God will get me through are two different things.

Knowing vs. Doing

I feel like God is telling me to do two things. Both of them are difficult and so I keep pushing them away, keep telling myself that I must be hearing wrong and then He tells me again. This week it was so evident that I can not deny the truth that it is from God. I must do something about it even if it is scary. The first is Saturday night service. I tell people that I go. I tell myself that I go. But the truth is that I do not often go. Many times I get offered a babysitting job on Saturday nights and so I choose the money over God. The second is Friday nights. My church has just started advertising several in home bible studies. This has been happening for a couple months and ever since the first time I saw one particular location/study it has been on my mind. It is friday nights at 6:30. It is after work so I can make it but again, it is Friday night which is my other babysitting night.

I keep asking God, "You only mean one, right? You couldn't really mean that I shouldn't babysit either night, right? Right?" But God has made it clear to me that this is what He wants me to do. I mean shy of having someone prophecy it or hearing God's voice audibly. Neither of which should have to happen for me to listen to God.

If you are a regular reader then you are familiar with my cliff analogy. How I feel like I am walking along the edge of cliff. That God has been keeping me right there on the edge, safe but still scary. During my fasting time I feel like God and I have been walking much closer, I am no longer trying to catch up but instead walking with Him, able to hear his voice clearer. But this, not babysitting on Friday's or Saturday's it feels like I am stepping off the cliff. And as that thought came to my mind the only other thought was "Into the hands of Christ." And so I will. I will choose God. I will remember when enticed by money that I LOVE GOD MORE! That God has always taken care of me. That His plan is bigger and better then anything I can imagine and if that means stepping off the cliff then I have to. Because honestly He is the only one I jump off a cliff for. :)

Managing Time

We all know that time is finite. We only have so many hours in the week, minutes in the day. There are things that require our time: sleep, eating, work, showering. But we must choose what to do with the remaining time. And if we misuse our time, spend it on just being lazy or something not important we will never get that time back. It is forever gone.

A month ago, probably the first three weeks of January, I felt like I had so much time. I had given up tv for 25 days which was a huge use of time. I was cooking more but had the time to spend preparing meals. I didn't even mind the hour I spent shopping because I now need to check every ingredient in an item before I buy it. I had the time and it was important and so I freely gave of my time.

Then I started school and it started using a little of my time at first and then more and more of my time. Then my 25 day tv fast was over and I started giving my time to tv again. I picked up babysitting jobs and this Monday I subbed in a class. My time was now all used up. I notice that I have not been giving my time to God like I was just a few weeks ago. Instead my time is filled with other things. Even now as I sit here typing this I should be at my Wednesday morning woman's bible study. Instead I spent extra time in bed being lazy, I spent time cooking a breakfast instead of eating on the go, I am spending time doing laundry, and I need to spend time doing a homework assignment.

As I have introduced tv back into my life I have spent more time up late at time watching tv instead of time sleeping. My mornings are no longer mornings and instead it is me waking up in a rush to get out the door because I was up so late the night before. This is not how I want to spend my time. Even now I think about the time I spend writing this and the time you spend reading this. Is it worth your time? I think it is worth mine as it is a type of personal therapy for me.

I don't know how some women I know do it. I know at least three women who work and have a busy family and yet they have time for school too. I think all three are taking more credits then I am. I only work part time and have no family to take care of when I get home and yet feel like I barely have enough time for my school. So I have a complete respect for those women. I have to remind myself that I am not them. I can only do my best not the best of someone else. But I still admire them.

I don't have an answer for my time management problem but I am working on it. I just need to try different things, try to figure out what works best for me. In the book I my group reads on Wednesday mornings the woman said something that really hit me. (I am paraphrasing as I do not have the book with me right now.) You can not just consider what you want to spend your time on but you have to decide what is not worth your time. What does not fit into what you want out of your life? And that is a very important question. It is like my tv, it is fun to watch the shows but it is not going to make me healthy (in fact I keep finding myself overeating when watching tv,) it is not going to help me get my associates degree. TV is not bad in itself and I am sure I can watch some but I have to figure out moderation so it does not disrupt my life. And yes I know that time management is something I will always have to figure out and right now is just one of those times.

***

On a different note I called the school yesterday about my financial aid dropping. They original amount was assuming that i was going full time. The guy look at the records and they dropped it to half time but I explained that I am taking nine credits so three quarters time. So my grant amount will go up a little, like $500 I think. So that is like one or two classes this summer that I can take. So that is good.

I still have not called the Superior Court yet. I need to do that I just haven't had time. Though I guess if I am skipping church this morning then I do have time.