Quick Update from the Ark, Rant Likely

Maybe...maybe I'll be able to type something here before being knocked offline by the ghost in our home DSL/phone lines.

It has rained nearly non-stop since mid-June of this year.

I must be the most boring homesteading blogger out here, because we planted nothing this year, have no real progress to report on developing the farm, and I was working exhausting shifts some of the time while simply recuperating during much of the other time.  I enjoyed making the money, was frustrated about seldom if ever seeing my husband due to the opposite schedules, and my housework didn't just get behind, it just became overwhelming.

My knee has not healed beyond being able to support general movement, which is a HUGE improvement over this spring, when I was in bed with it elevated a good bit of the time, and struggling with chronic pain throughout.  The pain now is not acute most of the time, unless I overtax the knee's abilities..meaning I have to refrain from the normal things such as bending, kneeling, squatting, or walking on uneven ground.  UGH.

I've had a few pity parties in the last months, but they don't help :)  I feel like I'm not just leg-handicapped sometimes but with the slowdown on every front because of this SLOWNESS of being able to physically do much, I feel it mentally does me in sometimes.  What CAN I do, what CAN I do??  Well, God's been so good to have allowed me a job assignment that I was able to do well during these months.  I worked 12 hour days, and yes the leg hurt badly at the end of them, but most of the time not to the point I couldn't get it elevated overnight and repeat the next day.  Days off work were spent mostly in bed with it elevated.

Welcome to the world of no health insurance, and not being able to afford it.  It's my reality.  I have no doubt it's other people's as well.

I joined a program called Epiphany through my GP's office that allows me to pay in $83/month for a very inclusive full basic health "coverage" through my doctor's practice.  It works in cooperation with local labs and such for the basics.  It's not insurance, but it insures that I have the availability of 25 office visits a year, all the standard lab tests, and basic care with things such as mammograms and so on during that time.  And $83/month is not easy for us to afford.  Anyone who wants to argue that a much higher percentage of income should be spent on health insurance simply has not done the maths for a lot of families such as ours who just don't have it, work hard anyway, and don't rely on government programs...and probably wouldn't qualify anyway.

Back to home, enough healthcare discussion...

I'm going to pursue the avenue of being a home companion since my prior job description included more lifting and ability to bear weight when helping clients.  I think the pay will come down somewhat, but at this point I'm going to have to do what I can do.

I'm giving myself permission to get this house in not just good working order, but back on its feet again.  When my longer term client moved out of state recently, it left me in a lurch job-wise.  It's not an easy assignment to duplicate...God had just worked it out very well for those 19 months with this particular client.  I'm very very grateful for that.

I hate the physical incapacity for the reason it slows everything down, and it puts more work on my husband's shoulders in areas that used to be no problem for me to do myself.  He's been especially patient...he's pretty laid back most times and he knows how to pace himself.  I'm the one who loved to get a To Do list and knock the sucker out, fast;  he always paces himself and goes much more slowly, but sometimes more steadily than I do.  Sometimes it was incomprehensible to me not to just "get 'er done," because I don't like to have too many loose strings hanging, too many halfway-finished chores or projects.  These days, EVERYthing is characterized by mindnumbing SLOWNESS.  I am now the tortoise, not the hare.  I'm not digging Aesop all that much.  But it is what it is.  That's my mantra these days.  There has to be a lesson in here somewhere, surely.

That said, I think I'm in the wrong "outside" job field.  Closer than I was, though, before.  I should be in a counseling or social work field, be paid to listen and perhaps problem-solve, find constructive ways to face the world and engage creativity or to comfort.  I'll stop there.  It's just I shake my head at the incompetence or just sometimes the ignorance of people in caregiving, healthcare, and helping fields.  Up close, it's alarming.

I'm distressed, but mostly angry (can you tell?) at the refusal of the younger generation of caregivers to actually Give A Bleep.  About anything.  I just deleted an entire paragraph detailing some examples, for the sake of fearing professional repercussions.  See?  I'm not the PC type person.  I much more a self-motivated self-employment person.  I've seen lying at every level, at the expense of the actual patient.  I will elaborate no further, and even this mention may come back on me. Hmmm.  People, there is so much incompetence in elder care, please watch out!

I'd so love to shout, "Done!"   I haven't found another outlet yet to bring in money.  I throw myself into work wholeheartedly.  I hate being undone by poor management, young (or even older) workers who have no more sense than most little children, and by the erosion of any moral standard in their minds by which they operate.

Whooo, this turned into a rant, right ?  I'm now officially a confirmed old fart! ha

I need to catch up here on the blog, need to find enough computer access to fulfill state paperwork that's due for my certification (job), finish some mind-numbingly slowwww (thank you, knee) tasks around here that still have yet to be finished, and catch up on correspondence.  And rest this leg in between.

I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE being here at home, doing "Home" work.  I haven't touched my herbal studies in so long I'm homesick for it.  Prioritizing means I have to chop off some of the more pressing To Dos in order to make a space for that.  It waits.  I long for it, so it motivates me to get some of this other knocked out.  As the mess is cleared, things are cleaned, and the pace is slower and more deliberate, I find stretching our weekly food a fun challenge, love actually seeing and being around my husband, love the fact I'm not at the whims and dramas of other workers half my age.  I get to study my scriptures daily, get to turn on good music, and can make time to read a good book, or three :-)

Outdoors, all is still neglected, or at least whatever "neglected" is while we huddle in the Ark of our house during these long rains.  The bindweed threatens to overtake one of our islands of loquat trees in the backyard, yet in the mornings I simply love the exuberance of tiny blue morning glory-ish blooms that embrace it in its death hug.  We'll tear it off and dig it up at the roots when there's enough sunshine.  Our confederate jasmine bush became so vigorous with all this rain that it pulled down the two trellises and there's no re-propping them at the moment, due to fire ant infestation all around the ground.  The rains seem to have spread the fire ant population to any clump of vegetation possible, so we can hardly just walk around in the grass outside without being their free food.  They are all over the roots and vegetation of the jasmine, so it's all currently flopped over waiting to be set free.  And I haven't SEEN the farm in MONTHS.  SOOO anticipating finally being there again, even if just for a short while!

Well, there's my nonsensical rant for now.  More actual subjects afoot soon, maybe, if the computer will stay on that long.  I miss writing here!  Please drop me a line and let me know how you are...as I said, our computer/internet access has been severely limited and inaccessible for weeks and weeks.  Mostly all I miss is knowing how all you are, and reading some emails.

I hope your approaching Fall is wonderful!

Hope to be back soon.  Next update will be the woefully delinquent post with pictures, about Dan, the man who builds awesome raised gardens.

Be well!

Shalom from the Ark,

Robbyn and Jack