I’m all poor and stuff

My poor roommate – he’s been laid off for a month! The blessing is he’s only laid off til March. He works for a small business and things have been really bad for them, so they can only afford to pay one employee right now. They promised that people could come back in March to work, however. It made him really sad, and worried. The local ads in our paper offer almost no job listings right now. There are a very few openings for people in professional environments which he doesn’t have the college degree to get. Without his income, we can’t afford to make all our bills, rent, and this doesn’t even count food or other expenses. He’s going to try his best to find something though, even if it’s just washing dishes or something at a restaurant, to make some income unless this blows over. What’s crazy is that the local strip joints aren’t even hiring right now. You know times are tough when the tittie bars aren’t even hiring!

We both had our various meltdowns about it yesterday, and today is all about moving forward and trying to be solution-oriented. I have no lease at my apartment and honestly I don’t want to because my landlord is a total slum lord and this place has a lot of problems. I don’t want to be stuck here in case something cheaper, better, or both may come along. You have to have a lease w/ your landlord to qualify for food stamps. Getting food isn’t really the problem, though. I already eat on very little money because I eat a lot of healthful staples and I barely ever go out to eat. I keep a good store of spices so I can always make even really simple food taste good. I’m more worried about the utility bills and making rent. With our landlord being a total slum lord, he doesn’t often hassle us if we pay our rent late. It’s just that it’s winter time and the utilities run higher this time of year. Bleh.

I’m trying to be optimistic. I think it’s a major blow to his self-esteem though. Most people don’t like being unemployed. And he can’t collect unemployment because his boss can’t afford it, so he’d rather forego it for now and allow the business to recover so he can eventually get back to working there. So he has to find a temporary job and those aren’t plentiful. This guy is like a brother to me, I respect and love him dearly. He is my best friend, too. I feel awful for him because he’s put a lot of love and energy into this job. 😦

I can at least pick up a few hours at work. Right now I only work about 32 hours a week or so, so I can fit in an extra 8 hours a week if I can get coworkers to leave early on some days and let me come in a couple hours early. They don’t let us do overtime, but adding an extra 8 hours will make it all possible. My boss is really cool and said he’ll try to work on something for me. I like my job enough that taking on extra hours doesn’t make me stressed. I will sign up for sub shifts on the weekends as they come up as well. This may cut down time I can spend at the gym, which bums me out, but hey, I gotta do what I gotta do.

Sorry to post about my poorness on my weight loss blog. I have never used lack of money as an excuse to eat junk food, and I never will. 🙂 I know that we’ll get through this tough spot. It’s also semi-comforting to know we’re not the only ones right now. 11 million people are unemployed. I’m sticking to my job like glue…

I do have something fun to look forward to this weekend. A dear friend of mine is having a small wedding ceremony on Saturday with dinner to follow after. My roomie and I are 2 of 5 people who will be attending, so I feel very special to have been invited. Also, she said to wear pajamas, which will be really fun. Having something fun and positive to look forward to will boost me and my housemate’s morales tenfold. Also he has a date on Sunday with this girl he’s seeming to really hit it off with, so hopefully that will cheer him up. I’m not a fan of making people who are unemployed through no fault of their own feel bad or guilty about it, and I’m also not a fan of said people going through such things feel like they aren’t allowed to have fun.

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a little sickly today…

Well, I woke up with a head full-o-snot and a sore, scratchy throat. So much for not getting sick. I have decided if I have something infectious, I’m not going to be a jerk and go to the gym and spread it around. But that doesn’t mean I get to slack off! I have a bunch of chores I should have done yesterday that I’m going to do this morning. I’ve already got the garbage and recycling out, and I have a kitchen that needs to be gotten into shape, as well as laundry going. And that aerobics tape that’s normally too easy for me? I’m going to do that today. I still want to exercise even though I’ve gotten the yuck, just take it down a notch so my body can still heal. Since I don’t feel any lung congestion, I feel like some cardio will still be safe to do today. I’m still optimistic that I won’t get as sick as others around me since I’ve been taking good care of myself lately, so I shouldn’t be absent from the gym too long. I just don’t want to spread my illness to others.

Yesterday I had a “cheat day” of sorts, but I still ordered one of the healthiest things on the menu where I went to eat w/ my folks. My parents like Jimmy Buffet (I don’t, haha) and recently one of his chain restaurants opened up in my city. They wanted to eat there. Most of the menu consisted of, well, cheeseburgers (“Cheeseburger in Paradise…” is one of his songs and the name of the chain). But they had some healthy stuff on the menu. I ordered the “chicken satay” skewers with terriyaki broccoli on the side. It wasn’t too bad. The chicken was the white meat marinated and grilled on skewers kabob style, and the broccoli was steamed w/ garlic and such. I couldn’t eat all the chicken, there was just too much for one meal (obviously) so I only ate 2 of the skewers and saved the other 4 for later (yep, there were SIX skewers of chicken, probably amounting to about 24 oz. of meat for one entree!). I plan on using the rest of the chicken in some sort of stir fry dish later. Anyway, I was proud that even though I was allowed to “cheat” I went for the healthier option anyway. The real “cheat” was the ice cream I had, which I couldn’t even finish because it was so sweet.

OK, I have 2 hours and 20 minutes til I have to leave for work, so I’m going to finish up the kitchen, do my exercise, prepare food, and get cleaned up for work. I hope everyone has a great, productive day!

In other news….I am a little worried. My housemate works for a small business which is suffering due to the poor state of our economy. He’s one of the upper managers, so I’m hopeful that his job isn’t in jeopardy, but it still worries me. If he’s out of a job, we won’t be able to afford our apartment – I can’t make enough money at my job to float both of us without some kind of assistance. So if everyone out there in blogland could think happy, positive thoughts for his business to stay alive, I’d really, truly appreciate it ever so much. Thanks, all! Peace and love!

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