Well, I don't think a part-time job is in order for me right now. I just got out of the new class I entered two weeks late, and I think I'm going to have plenty to keep me busy over the next few weeks without a job.

So... I guess we really do have to figure out how to do more with less. Man, just typing that makes me feel all good-stewardly and environmentally aware and shit. Next thing you know, I'll be puttin' up a clothesline, boiling bones for soup and rolling my own tampons out of bark.

Actually, I wouldn't mind having a clothesline at all, especially on a gorgeous day like today. If it weren't for the angry swarms of yellowjackets and the biting lady-bug-imposters from hell, it would be damn near perfect outside.

Back when the Evil Childe was a mere Evil Infant, I very much wanted to be a stay-at-home mom even though her dad was only making minimum wage. Now THOSE were some poverty days! The dilapidated two-story house we rented came at a bargain price because it was located in an absolutely wretched neighborhood, right next to a crack house, a fact we later found out when the very nice lady who lived there got busted and hauled away to jail. We didn't have a phone at that time to save money, and our one car was a piece of shit that Dick spent a good chunk of every other weekend lying underneath, covered in grease and swearing a blue streak.

We did have a clothesline out in our little yard, and I washed our laundry and the Evil One's cloth diapers in an old wringer washer we picked up at an auction. Breastfeeding kept formula costs at a minimum. We had fixed up the nursery with some paint we got at Odd Lots and some curtains my grandma sewed for me out of a pretty set of flowered sheets I gave her. We covered a big hole in the wall with a full-length mirror, and the floor with nice piece of carpeting that was rescued from a fire clean-up Dick had worked on. The crib came dirt-cheap from a garage sale, but later on we found out it didn't meet current safety standards so we got rid of it and the kid slept on a mattress placed on the floor (so she wouldn't get hurt falling out of the bed, see.)

I know you're picturing a bare mattress on a filthy rug right now, but it wasn't like that at all! Her room was cute, and I kept sheets and blankets on the bed, the nice quilts and pretty blankets I got as shower gifts; and the carpet had cleaned up really nice--it's just that the previous owners (who had the fire) claimed that it smelled like smoke so the insurance company would buy them new carpeting. But I never smelled anything, even when I laid down with my nose right against it and sniffed.

Anyway, out of all the extra work and making do I did back in those days, my most favorite job was hanging clothes outside when the weather was even a little bit nice. (We hung them on a line in the basement in the winter.) It was nice to get out in the fresh air, and the clothes always smelled so nice when I brought them inside, like grass and sunshine. Plus, I'd fold all the clothes as I took them off the line which saved me from having to do it later on, which I never would have. I enjoyed the feeling of being organized about something for a change.

Thinking back about how my life used to be and how far removed from it I am, it's hard to believe that I still feel poor even living in a nice place with cable and phone and cell phone and a decent car and computer... it was just so much EASIER to be poor back then for some reason. I never lived in an air-conditioned place in my life until I moved in up here... never had a dishwasher either. How can I be so spoiled now and yet still feel so strapped financially? Why is it so hard to cut back now when I've lived so very simply in the past?

Oh, I know there are good reasons why we live the way we do and I'm sure I could list them if I cared to take the time. It's just frustrating to be tied down to so many high expenses right now, and discovering that "doing without" is just not as easy as it used to be.

I would hang clothes out back if I could, and I've even thought about stringing a line up in the apartment somewhere... but there IS nowhere that wouldn't be right smack in the way to somewhere or other. I do without air-conditioning as much as I can without making everyone in the apartment absolutely miserable, I'm already doing without a car to save paying another car payment and insurance, and I'd move to a cheaper place in a heartbeat if it weren't for fear of not passing a credit check, and not being able to come up with rent and downpayment on a new place, and what are the chances of finding a place that will allow four cats? I've thought about not using the dishwasher, but I think the little bit of money we'd save would be more than offset by the aggravation of the kitchen being even more of a mess than it is now. (Translation: I've become a princess, at least as far as doing dishes is concerned.)

Anyway, ramble, ramble, ramble. This was supposed to be a quick entry, what the hell happened? I gotta go make me some cheap-ass supper.

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Previous - Next
Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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