Saturday, December 13, 2008

I've been writing a blog now for better than 3 years or so. Owing to a number of reasons, I have never conjured up much of an audience. This blog has virtually no readership. It doesn't much matter. While I have enough of an ego to want to be read, to want people to comment and so forth, I guess the writing itself is really enough. It has it's own therapeutic value. Writing serves as a means to organize one's thinking, to consider how best to present an argument or to tell a tale. It allows for a certain amount of emotional venting.

As I noted in an earlier post, things are not going well for us financially. The problem I find is that for me, it has a paralyzing effect. There are a number of things I could be doing during this extended hiatus from day to day work. Actually, I did a great deal up until the winter weather came whooshing in. We had unseasonably warm weather consistently up to and including Thanksgiving and even a couple of days beyond.

During that time I managed to gather up by various means what amounts to nearly an acre of maple leaves. I cut back rose bushes and some grasses. I weeded and mulched some flower beds, stowed away the patio furniture, etc., etc. I even managed to clean and winterize my mowers and some of my other lawn and garden equipment and tools.

But that's done.

There are obviously things I could be doing in the house. There are a number of things that need attention - a slow running drain in a bathroom lavatory, an accumulation of dust and dirt in my little basement office, probably a number of other things my wife could suggest.

I have made a few half assed attempts to deal with a few "housekeeping" type things, but I find that I spend more and more time sleeping. I read a bit. Watch some TV. But doing much else just doesn't happen. I guess the more I am unconscious, the less time I'll have to be aware of just how precarious our situation is. I don't drink or do drugs. Sleep is my only escape.

I got a little work in on Thursday. Each time that happens, I hope it is the beginning of a trend, that more business will come on its heals. But, nothing more appeared on Friday.

These week-ends have been long. It is rare, even during busy times that I get any new work on Saturday or Sunday. Of late, I have actually gone entire weeks with no work whatsoever. I haven't received more than 2 or 3 assignments in any given week since sometime in September or perhaps early October. When busy, I get 10 or 12, sometimes more.

I was and am very happy that Barack Obama won the election in November. I believe that he will bring about some truly positive change in this country in the coming months and years. However, on a practical level, for us, on a day to day basis, I don't see that his efforts will be particularly helpful to our situation. In time I suppose the economy, and in turn, our business will improve. But there are still some tough times in the offing. Many keep saying that it's still going to get worse before it gets better. Hearing that just makes me want to curl up on the couch and zonk out.

TLS

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read your comment three posts below and do I ever understand wanting to remove certain posts of the more emotional kinds. In fact, twice this past week I though I had put my one blog on private only to find that I had put the other on private. LOL! My brain has not been computing well at all.

For me, I have my blogs set on a setting where the search engines cannot locate them. That keeps my readership quite limited. Check your settings to make sure they are open to search engine traffic.

I'm sorry you and so many people are hurting financially. I don't know what the future holds. As long as you are here though, I'll keep reading. :)

Terry S said...

Frankly, I have no idea how to check any settings.

Yeah, as I said, looking over the last few posts I felt rather pathetic. I decided to leave them up, though, since I consider these posts as a kind of diary or journal. I know they are open to the public, but, so far at least, that "public" has been very limited.

I think I've finally kicked the cold, more or less. It hit pretty hard in that I have been quite lucky over the past 2 or 3 years in not contracting one. I take a yearly flu shot as well, so getting a truly bad cold is something I hadn't experienced for a few years.

As to our financial woes, I guess it just goes with the territory. In the 22+ years I've been doing what I do there have been many ups and downs. It's just that this "down" is the worst I've seen, with no visible end in sight. I suppose also at my age, I'm just tired of fighting that particular fight. I should be languishing away my hours lolling around on some tropical beach. But, alas, no languishing and lolling for me.

My wife is the true hero in all this. She takes care of the bills which includes having to figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul. I know that generally we are in bad shape. She knows the specifics.

What also hurts is that we have had to borrow money from family for the first time since we first started out together. Again, it just seems that we should have gotten beyond that, but no. It's a real blow to the ego, and creates stress for both of us that obviously is not good for our respective constitutions, as it were.

On the upside, we did get a good hit of work yesterday. I just hope it follows through with more through the rest of the week.

I did discover that you had blocked your photo blog. Upon seeing that I was concerned for you that perhaps something had happened up there in the frigid north.

I sincerely hope you are feeling better.

TLS

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry things are so rough right now Terry. :-(

As for those settings:

Go to your Blogger Dashboard.

Across the top of the page, you'll see the following tabs:

Posting Settings Layout ViewBlog

Click on Settings

Scrolldown past Blog Tools, Title, Description to the text that reads:

Add your blog to our listings? [You can choose yes or no.]

Then the next sentence reads:

Let search engines find your blog? [You can choose yes or no.]

Be sure to click on the Orange tab that reads *Save Settings* at the bottom of the page.

*big hugs*

Terry S said...

Zoe,

Once I started reading your instructions, I remembered where all that stuff was. The settings were fine. Thanks.

As to our situation, I have to believe that we will come out of this all right. It's just that things don't seem to be changing as I would hope.

Jo and I went out and bought a christmas tree earlier this evening. It may be the scrawniest thing I've ever seen. But, what the heck, we got it cheap.

My younger son is flying in from NY on Tuesday. It will be good to see him. He is a delight to have around. Unfortunatly, my older son can't come home as he will be performing a couple of days before christmas and a couple of days after.

We did send him a christmas package including some cookies made by yours truly - a batch of Mexican wedding cakes (or Russian tea cakes whichever name you prefer.)

We just got an email from him saying "My god! The cookies are great!" Does my heart good, don't ya know?

I have a big week-end ahead. I've got to set up that poor little tree, and then I've got to make about 4 pies (Mmmm, pie...) for my wife's family christmas bash on Sunday.

All in all, life is good. #:%/} (Sorry, I still need that cosmetic surgery.)

Oh, and thanks for the hugs. I'll keep some of them aside in case things get worse. :-)

TLS

Anonymous said...

Scrawny trees need a home too. ;)

Glad your one son can make it home. I'm sure the cookies for the other son help. Sounds like it.

I happen to be a lover of pie. *big grin* I'm making two pumpkin pies to take to my sisters. Yum!

Now, treat that tree with love now, you here. (((Hugs)))

Terry S said...

I made 3 "chess" pies yesterday. They are so simple and most everybody seems to like them. I used to try to duplicate the sugar cream pie my mother used to make, but whenever I've tried to follow her recipe, I almost always wound up burning them.

I have used my mother's pumpkin pie recipe a number of times. Most pumpkin pies are the color of baby sh.. - well, you know what I mean. My mom's pumpkin pie was always very dark - sometimes almost black in color. Mine don't come out that dark, but they are definitely darker than most. And they are good.

Just to make things cheerier, I seem to have come down with another cold. I wasn't completely over the last one.

It has been really cold here today - temps in the single digits with about a 30mph wind, really brutal.

We are looking forward to seeing our son. I think I'll let him do most of the tree trimming. I set it up in the living room yesterday, and it does look a bit pathetic, but I suppose it'll look better with all the lights and bling on it.

We are concerned about the weather on Tuesday. My son is due in around 11:30 in the morning. They are forecasting freezing rain here about the same time. We'll keep our finger's crossed.

Hey, thanks for the encouragement. I know things have not been easy for you. If you can endure and offer smiles and hugs, I suppose I can manage to waddle through.:-)

I hope you have a good holiday and that you eat some good pie.

Hugs back at you.

TLS