Those who don't know me well don't know that I live in a cottage on my mom's property and that I take care of my grandmother during the day so my mom can go to work. It has been this way since mid-2009 when both mom and I were laid off, about a month apart. She got called back to her work about a year later but in the mean time I gave up trying to find a job and went back to school full-time in order to try and change my circumstances so that when the economy got better (yeah right) that I would hopefully be more employable, etc. And since mom only has a few more working years left before she will probably retire, I made the sacrifice to stay home and not pursue outside employment and take care of grandma. And just to be clear, I don't mind taking care of her; I made a promise to grandpa when I moved here that I would help take care of them (her) as long as they needed me too. It was one of the conditions that I agreed to when they allowed me to move here, since I had no other place to go. Back to my history...since the time I was laid off, all this time I have been taking care of grandma, doing her errands, shopping, taking her to her doctor's appointments, etc. I have never been paid for doing this, and while I was getting unemployment and money from school, etc. I would pay rent and help out with stuff. When mom needed to change her finances she wanted to get a different vehicle, her car would get way less on a trade in, so she used mine, then later sold her car at a loss, but got clear of it. Since then I have had no car of my own, if I need to go anywhere I have to borrow grandma's van, or mom's new truck, but that is very rare, as she is very protective and possessive of her truck. When my unemployment ran out I tried to get involved in a home business, but that didn't get me anywhere, and as much as I love the company I may soon have to cut my ties with them because it isn't worth the $10 commission that I get a month, especially when I spend $70 or so to buy the product to stay active. When I moved here, I put all my stuff in a storage container here on the property and lived in a motorhome for almost a year, then we played merry go rooms and mom and I and garret moved into the cottage and my aunt moved from the cottage into the main house with my grandparents. The cottage, as we call it, is actually a creation of my grandfather. He took 3 old camping cottages from the old camp grounds and shoved them all together and then built walls around them, enclosed it all, put a roof on and called it a guest house in order to pass inspection. The walls have little to no insulation, the caulking is falling out all over the place so there are huge gaps in my walls with dirt dropping down, there are two sections in the floor that are sinking, the one in the livingroom is covered by the couch, but the one in the bathroom is getting worse and I'm scared that one day we will fall through the floor. Not to mention the sewer problems and so many other things wrong with this place. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful to have a roof over my head but I don't like the uncertainly of thinking it may fall in on my soon, or the fact that we are almost positive that this house is making us sick; how we are not sure, but when we went away for almost a week we started to feel better and almost as soon as we got back we started feeling sick again. That being said, we are now trapped here. Jon's job doesn't give him enough hours for us to be able to save much, if any, and my child support barely covers, and sometimes doesn't, the monthly expenses. And that's not even counting that we haven't started going to the doctor since we now have insurance which will mean co-pays and medicines, therapy, etc. We desperately need a way to make money to be able to save to get out of here, but we have no options at the moment. We spent all night talking and could not figure any way to get ourselves out of this situation. And on top of that, mom has given away the storage unit that we have all our stuff in and she told us we have to make room and move it all out because the guy is going to come and get it. Supposed to happen next week but thank God for the rain because now they have to wait longer. The huge problem is, we have no where to put all our boxes and stuff that are in the unit. Our little cottage is already crammed full and there are things that just won't fit anywhere, and nothing around here is sealed from the elements, except the storage unit, so if we move stuff out to anywhere else it will potentially get ruined. When Jon moved here, he threw almost everything away that he had because he knew that we didn't have a lot of room, so he's really upset that now all of his stuff may potentially get damaged or destroyed because mom is taking this away from us. She made this promise several years ago then told the guy that she couldn't let it go at the time but then a few weeks ago he called and said he desperately needed it and so, without asking or consulting us, she agreed to get it to him in 2-3 weeks, depending on the weather. Several days later she says, oh...I forgot to tell you that he called and we need to get all the stuff moved out.... What we need and what our situation seems to allow does not seem possible. The only thing I can see that will fix the problem is money...we need at least $5-6K to be able to find a new place, pay all the security deposit and utility hook-up fees, plus money to move our stuff. Finding a place and getting moved is only part of it though, in order for this to work it would require that I drop out of school and find full-time (and of course) exceptionally well-paying employment, since Jon's current job doesn't seem to be getting any better. This would also require that Garret be put in daycare for several hours a day, which would be an added expense. Looking at everything, it seems impossible, that we are trapped, and I'm so overwhelmed it is making me sick and severely depressed. I am asking for any ideas, thoughts, opinions, etc. anything that will help us be more self-sufficient and in the end be able to move out of here and into a place of our own.
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