Looking at the calendar and we've been here in California for almost a month now. There have been a crazy rush of emotions hitting me from all sorts of directions lately.
You can definitely say I've had a rough time of it this past week.
Let's start with the fact that we made a decision to sell or give away most EVERYTHING that we owned in Georgia before making the move. We decided it would be cheaper to just start over brand new in California. The initial cost of driving across country and getting into our home here in California still cost well over $3,000. Two weeks after moving in we had to come up with our first month's rent, another $2,000. So just on those two things alone we have had to fork over well over $5,000 in two weeks' time. Now let's add in the fact that we had to buy a new bed shortly after our arrival because sleeping on an air mattress
SUUUCKS!!! Also within our first few days in our new apartment, we had to buy plates, bowls, cups, silverware, food, and a few other little things you just
NEED for general survival. Needless to say, now, like right now, we have NO MONEY!! lol. Okay, well, we have
VERY LITTLE anyway.
Now let's throw in a little bit of some other stuff... shall we? Because, well, that's just not enough yet.
Both of our vehicles did rather well on their cross-country treks. My car really surprised us with it being 12 years old. Unfortunately, though, we did put 2500+ miles on our vehicles. We began each journey (yea, we made this cross-country trip twice!) by giving each vehicle an oil change and all that. Since arriving in California, my car has received another oil change and has been given a clean bill of health. My husband's truck, however, still needs work. It needs new tires, brake work, and an oil change. We don't have the money for any of that right now. So for the time being Ron is using my car whenever he has to go to work as much as possible. Thankfully his job usually allows him to work from home so it's not that big of a deal but there are a few issues... (coming up).
We started attending a church in our area because we both really wanted to meet people. I definitely needed to start meeting some people. Pembroke, GA had me feeling like a hermit. I also desperately wanted to get back into going to church on a regular basis. Not going was sucking the spiritual life right out of me. I absolutely need my time with God and others who believe. Ron's main objective is to meet other people who can give him opportunities for fun things to do. This is causing quite a bit of tension in me right now. We've been going to service for three weeks now. We started attending a small group/study group for the past three weeks also. We got our two children involved with going to their middle-school service on Sundays and mid-week group on Wednesdays. I'm really enjoying everything this church has to offer. And then I have Ron making little comments about what the people of this church are not "handing over to him". I don't
use people. If these people that we are getting to know feel it in their heart to help us in any way or if we get super friendly with them and they offer to take us somewhere or whatever "friends" do, that's wonderful. If they don't, that's totally fine, too. That's not what we're supposed to be going there for. We're supposed to be going there for fellowship and learning about God and the lessons in the Bible. I hate when someone is "
using" someone else. That's aggravating. It's especially aggravating and unsettling to me when that someone is my husband. The worst part is I'm not sure how to vocalize to him what I'm feeling so it just sits on my chest.
Now for the other "little" things. I started working at Target a week after we got here. I like the job but the entrepreneur side of me loves to work on other things on the side. My constant problem with anything I ever want to build up is money. Always. Every time I ever start to get anything feeling or looking successful, I have to let it go because there's not enough money to build it up. And it continues. I'm attempting to build up an Amazon business but I don't have the money to buy merchandise to send in to Amazon FBA. This is especially frustrating since it's the holiday season and it would be an excellent time to get that moving forward. But in the meantime I've been messing around with a few other little things. I signed up for some survey sites (that drive me batty but you do earn a little cash doing them). I signed up for a site that let's you advertise on your car and earn a little cash and I signed up to be a mystery shopper. My problem with both of these has been money and the fact that Ron is needing my car. He doesn't want me to put advertising on my car since he has to use it for his job (which occasionally involves meeting other important people). I can't always count on having the car at my disposal in case he needs it so I can't always commit to a mystery shop. And then most mystery shops require you to buy something first and get reimbursed later. Well, I don't have the money to buy the burger or whatever. I've also been in the need of a printer to print out forms for the mystery shopping and I don't have that either. SIGH!! Yea, so that's what I'm facing.
So I'm in a slump. I'm hoping here in the next couple months everything will work itself out. We'll finally have some extra money. I'm starting to get a lot more hours at Target with the shopping season fast approaching. That'll make for some nice checks in the near future. Yea, it's just going to take a little time.
Hope your week is going better than mine!!!
