6 Down; still counting

1. WIC. I had to make a scene and they made me wait till all other people were served that day, but in the end, they gave me WIC benefits.

2. Food Stamps! They needed Rex's old employer to validate that he no longer worked for them, and THAT was a headache in itself. But now, not only can we buy groceries without skimping, but we can restock our food storage!

And with documentation from food stamps, we won two other battles:

4. Free school lunch. It still boggles my mind that they wouldn't believe us that we had no proof of income because we didn't HAVE income. With the letter from DHHS, they were happy to change that for us.

5. Medicaid. Wow! No more expensive co-pays and we can go to Urgent Care instead of the ER. Now when James breaks/loses his glasses, we can get a replacement! And I wonder if we can now get some recreational therapy for him. I'll have to look into that.

And now 6: my part-time job at Bath and Body Works. I don't know if it will last because I won't work or go to store meetings on Sundays, and I HATE trying to sell a product I would never buy myself. Besides, as little hours as I suspect they will give me, it really won't make much difference, so I may quit. I have a group interview scheduled next week for the Container Store which pays better and sells products I'm excited about. We'll see. I'm also still hoping for a job as an escrow assistant/receptionist or a travel agent, but I'm discouraged because everything is so impersonal. You can't just walk in and hand your resume to a manager; you have to apply online and go through HR. For EVERYTHING. (And travel is highly unlikely due to the decline of the industry and the fact that most agencies now pay commission only.) But I'm still hoping.

The wait on SSI for James is 3 months from the day they approved our income eligibility. So that means 2 more months. But the way things have been moving for everything else, I expect it to take longer.

We are still waiting on the paperwork for Rex's Unemployment Appeal. They told us 6 weeks from the date he submitted the appeal, which would be about Thanksgiving, but again, by the way things have been moving, I expect it to take much, much longer.

The Church and the city police department will help us with Christmas presents for the kids, and we still have some cash on hand since family has been so generous in helping us out.

But lately, it's been catching up to me and depression visits more often. The last couple days, I've been wasting time looking up information about school districts and cost of living for other places in TX and NM. It seems to give me a little more hope. Apparently, NM has the potential to pay teachers even better than TX! They start low, around $30K; but with 3+ years of experience, you can get $40K; with 6+ years and an MA, you can get $50K. (Granted, it sounds like a lot of hoop-jumping and red tape, but it's possible.) And the cost of living is about equivalent to here with a much drier climate. I even considered living in a tiny town (can you believe it?!) except that the limited resources for James ruled out that possibility, among other cons.

The idea of moving is disheartening. We put in a lot of money and hard work fixing this place up and it still probably wouldn't even sell for as much as we bought it for. And even with it's weird design and the improvements it still requires, we've really come to love this house. Despite how Northside ISD has treated to us, we won the battles for James and have so many resources in place now, a battle I don't want to have to fight all over again if we move. (And I fear a huge change would upset everything James worked to overcome, setting him back like the move to TX did two years ago.) And despite our mean neighbors, James finally has a friend and that is probably the most valuable thing we have here, maybe even more valuable than cousins! But I acknowledge that nothing is really permanent, no matter how much I wish we could stay at the same job and same house all our lives.

Rex did mention something today that gave me a little bit of hope. At the teacher fair a couple weeks ago (where no one was hiring), one HR guy said that they often have to hire about 4 more teachers right after the holidays because some will quit at the half-way mark. I know odds are probably 5,000:1 with as many teachers there are looking for a job, but maybe those other teachers won't be looking as hard as we will. Whatever the case, I look forward to a year from now, when I can only imagine we'll be back to normal again.