Agent and auto and assistance

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I just got off a zoom call with my agent and that was good. It was nice to just talk to her and feel like a writer for a little while. She’s having a hard go of it right now with her life, just like me, and we caught each other up a little on that and then discussed my books. She’s going to reread the young adult novel I sent to her, and she’s going to send several of my books out again in January.

When we were done I called our insurance agent because of that accident Belinda was in back in October. I asked for their advice, since I could not afford to help in any way with the other person’s car – and that’s still assuming she was at fault.

So they told me to go ahead and file a claim. The deductible is $500, which is less than what he was wanting, but I also don’t have $500, of course. They said that they will write a check for the amount of the damage minus the $500, and if I can get someone to fix it for the amount they give us, I can do that. So maybe I will get lucky on that. It will be nice to fix the car, since it was in pristine condition before this, since it was my mom’s. Our insurance will go up, they said. But I’ve already paid the insurance for December, so this is future Regina’s problem. And surely he will have a job by then! Or something!

The assistance part of my title is that I went to a food pantry today. I’m a good stockpiler so we have canned food, but we didn’t have much perishable food. They were so nice and it was so hard. When the lady at the church showed me the bread table and told me to take all I wanted, I started to cry. They also gave me a small amount of milk and orange juice, plus two pounds of ground beef and a package of hot dogs, along with some boxed and canned things. I tried not to take very much. I felt guilty, like I was taking from people in more need than me. But it really will help us.

It was a husband and wife team that ran the food pantry, and they knew Belinda because the husband leads our American Legion, and they’re the ones who sent Belinda to Girl’s State. They told me to tell her hi.

Quandry

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So Ben’s former employer is contesting his application for unemployment benefits. He has a reasonable response to every thing they’ve brought up, but it’s all taking so long. We have no savings. Life and Belinda’s medical stuff finished that up. I expect some small checks from the newspaper, and hopefully that will keep the bank account from going under, but I don’t have much hope in that, since it went under last month at the very end. I sure wish the electric didn’t wait until the end of the month to come out!

The quandry is…we need to keep the Soonercare insurance for Belinda if Ben doesn’t have a “real” job that includes benefits. He’s applying all over and has been in conversation with some companies, and he’s trying super hard, but it’s just not happening so far. And still, we can’t really go out and get temporary jobs because that will cause our income to go up and we could lose the insurance. We can’t risk that.

I can’t figure out what people do in this situation. Do we try to find odd jobs or something under the table? That seems wrong, but I know people do what they have to do.

I guess I should try to ascertain exactly how much money we can make and still be able to keep Soonercare. It is SO HARD to try to figure out this stuff though!

I don’t even know if she can stay on it if Ben finally gets unemployment benefits, since that would count as an income increase. Everything is so confusing and I’m tired.

Memory

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So today I was having a small pity party for myself, because although I try to be cheery and positive, some times I feel like I can’t fight that good fight any more, so I get quiet and weird and feel very alone. That was happening this morning, but still I made breakfast, emptied and loaded the dishwasher AGAIN, and helped Mom get ready for church. We got there a little late and they were handing out the wafers for the Lord’s Supper.

As an aside, the wafers are no longer the tiny square crackers of my childhood or the broken saltines of a few years ago. Also not the super-sterile cup and wafer combo we went to in 2020. Now it’s a strange circle that tastes like rice and I suppose it’s gluten free. This time the juice was also white grape, which also got my attention. I thought about how when I was young, we used red grape juice, and then later it seemed like it was always purple grape juice. The white reminded me of how the LDS use water for their communion. I miss the red grape juice. Sometimes I find it at the store and buy it and it’s so decadent to be able to drink as much red grape juice as my blood sugar will allow. I still think of it as “Lord’s Supper Juice.”

Okay, so back to this morning. Mom did not even know what the white circle was when she got one. She looked at it quizzically and I told her to just hang on to it. I assumed since it was a super-light almost see through papery thing, she didn’t know it was a communion wafer, and I couldn’t blame her. She held on to it. Then the grape juice came around, and she seemed confused by that too. Obviously because it was white and not colored like blood, I supposed.

So it came time to eat it, and I got her to look at me and ate it, to let her know it was indeed edible. She got it then and ate the wafer. Then I drank the juice, again motioning to her to do the same. She was not done with the wafer but I rushed her because everyone else was standing up to sing. So she downed the juice. I put both cups in the little holder under the chairs in front of us.

Mom still looked confused. I leaned in. “You know that was the Lord’s Supper, right?” She said what? and I repeated myself, just a little louder but still under the singing.

Mom shook her head. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

And then I was fighting back tears. Mom has gone to church since she was a little kid. I’ve sat with her through dozens of repetitions of the Lord’s Supper. My memory is very strong of this happening in my childhood, sitting next to her, emulating her. And she doesn’t remember it at all. The weight of her memory loss weighed down on me SO VERY HARD in that moment and all I could do was wipe the tears away so she wouldn’t see and become concerned.

I’m so tired. I’m so, so tired. I came home and did my best to be a good hostess but honestly, we just watched TV and ate the food I put in the slow cooker and the food was good but I felt like I was barely there.

A couple of other things happened today that normally would not be a big deal but this time, I cried again and one time I had to take myself away from the others and just lie down and be alone on the bathroom floor.

I did not mean to get so personal on this blog. This is supposed to be my writing blog. I really should just put this on livejournal and not let my secrets of crazy out in a public place. But I don’t think anyone really reads these unless I post one on facebook with an update on Belinda, so it should be all right. At least it’s content, ha.

Anyway. Tomorrow will probably be better.

Here’s a link to something that looks like the wafer. These are definitely not as pleasant as the ones form my youth. I know it’s not about that anyway.

30 Days of Gratefulness – An Experience From This Year

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There have been a lot of things this year that I am grateful for. Belinda finally getting the POEM procedure and being able to swallow properly again. The second procedure in DC for the balloon dilation to break up the scar tissue. The people and organizations that helped us pay for all the expenses incurred with Belinda’s health, and all the people who prayed for us.

I’m thankful that Lenora and Ben R got engaged this year, and also married! I’m thankful that Bennett and Mia are engaged and plan to marry in January! I’m thankful that Ben has lost his job but it’s still working out so far. I’m thankful that I’ve been hosting church lunch at my house almost every Sunday and we’ve had a lot of wonderful guests and great meals.

I’m grateful that I have been doing this series of posts, even though I kept forgetting and then doing several in a day and backdating them.

I’m grateful for a lot of other things, but for now, I’m going to leave it at that. This year has been so very hard, but also it has been a blessing. I am grateful for all of it, whether I perceive it as good or bad. To God be the glory.

30 Days of Gratefulness – A Game

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I like games. We are a game family. Not sports games, ha ha. But board game types of things. I remember playing Scrabble with my mom growing up. Playing chess with my dad. Playing Sorry and cards and Life and Hangman and Tri-onimos and Operation and Trouble with my sisters. Playing Phase 10 and Candyland and Bananagrams and Monopoly and Risk with my kids. And playing all of these and more with our extended family.

But the giant game of all games is above them all – the mighty game of Trivial Pursuit. My parents and their best friends (who were also relatives) played canasta for a time, and who knows what else, but the game I remember the most for them is Trivial Pursuit. Our parents played it, and we were allowed to be in the room…sometimes…unless we were noisy. But when we got older, we were allowed to play as well. And when I got married, I got my own Trivial Pursuit boxes. Lots of old versions, picked up a garage sales or on this new thing called eBay. A few new ones went into the collection.

As my children came along, we kept playing it with my sisters and their families. Rules were followed. Two teams only. Guys and girls. Girls always pink, boys always blue (if you tried other combinations someone would invariably forget and move the other team’s token). No phones when it’s your team’s turn. No time limits but could you please hurry up???

We’ve played other games, but Trivial Pursuit is always in the mix. It’s easy to play, it’s fun enough, and if you lose you can always claim that your team got the “hard” box.

It’s given us a lot of good family times over the years, and I’m super grateful for it.

I am thankful for Trivial Pursuit.

30 days of gratefulness – A personality trait of yours

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This one’s extremely hard. Like…how do you even come up with something to fill this prompt?

Matter, of fact, I don’t like this one. I don’t like it because I don’t believe that I have done anything worth being particularly braggy about. I think that everything that seems awesome about me is only here because God has put it here, and it’s the Holy Spirit working in me that allows me to produce anything of value. Most of the things I come up with myself don’t seem super great, if people knew the motivation behind things and my concern that everyone will discover the truth, that I am a fraud and not a great person, when you get right down to it. Even when I do nice stuff, I taint it by thinking that I wish other people would do more stuff for me, or that it would be cool to be noticed, or even the horrid, selfish thought that even though no one is seeing this or will do a bunch of nice things for me, God sees it and I’ll have a reward in heaven AND YOU KNOW THAT IS NOT WHY WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE FOLLOWING THE GOLDEN RULE. Like…I feel like having those thoughts probably negates all the good stuff anyway. I want my brain to just quiet down and my heart to quit being selfish and just everything work together to just do good stuff, period.

I have described this feeling before as dying and going to meet Jesus and then go I go show Him all the things I did with my life, and when I open my hands, all I am holding is dirty scraps of rags, and sand that runs through my fingers until I’m holding nothing.

And you know what else? I’m not 100% sure what personality trait even means.

I am a quitter, I’m not truly nice, I’m selfish, I’m greedy, I’m pretty foul in a lot of ways. I’m also cleaned by the blood of the Lamb, but I didn’t do anything to make that happen. Not really.

I am going to choose to be thankful for the person I am, as vile as that is, and for a God who loves me anyway. That’s really all I can do with this one.

30 Days of Gratefulness – A Moment from Today

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This is a funny one when you’re backdating. The 26th was a Sunday. I skipped church and hung around and felt sorry for myself. I was depressed. Sad about Jerry. Sad about money. Sad about Belinda’s illnesses. Sad because of the unmowed yard and the dirty dishes and the holes in the drywall and the broken bricks outside and a dozen other things. I felt very, very sorry for myself.

I don’t know what to be thankful for on that day.

And I’m dumb, and I just looked, and that grid makes it look like it was a Sunday, but the 26th was Tuesday, and that was Jerry’s funeral.

Obviously I am grateful for my stepdad, Jerome “Jerry” Harold Short, and the close to two decades that I was lucky enough to have him in my lift.

A link to Jerry’s obituary.

30 days of gratefulness – Something from Quarantine

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I guess this is how you know the gratefulness calendar you’re using is fairly recent.

I’m grateful that our dog Lucy survived quarantine.

She was hit by a car shortly after the whole covid storyline began. It was bad, and it was going to cost thousands of dollars, and she was sort of old anyway, and we just couldn’t figure out how to do it financially. But then I talked to our hometown vet, and we figured out a plan, and we did have some debt but it wasn’t insurmountable, and Lucy lived. Our family stepped up and took care of her, helped her go potty, babied her with canned food and treats, built a non-slip carpeted ramp for the porch, and gave her physical therapy as she healed.

She passed away on October 14 of this year. We got to have her more than four more years. And we babied her more and were a better family to her after we almost lost her. We’re not big dog people, but we stepped up. She deserved it. She was such a good dog.

Thirty days of gratefulness – A future event

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Wow, the last time I wrote these was 7 days ago. A lot has happened in that time. I am obviously going to continue backdating these just to make myself feel better. But now it’s the last day of November. Belinda and Bennett are still recovering from the wisdom teeth coming out. We had the viewing and funeral for Jerry. I went to the eye doctor and we had Thanksgiving. And today we watched two good friends marry.

I know it’s in the past now, but if I had wrote this then, I would have liked to have been thankful for Jerry’s viewing and funeral. It was a very sad time, and I cried a lot, but it was also so good to see all of the photos of his life, and visit with all his friends and family. People came to talk to Mom and remind her of their pasts together, and many of our friends were there to support us and say their goodbyes.

His daughter did a wonderful job with everything. I wish again that I could have done more in the last few years, but I still feel so overwhelmed and I don’t know how much I could have really done. I do want to make sure that I don’t let go of the relationships I have with Jerry’s family, even though the half of the couple that tied us together is gone. I didn’t do as good as I wanted to before, but I can surely do better now.

As for something I am grateful now that is in my future from today, I am grateful that I went to the store today and got something for my new secret sister at church. I am grateful that I have something to put at church in the morning, and that she is going to find it and feel loved! Secret sister has stressed me out in the past, and I’ve skipped it many times before, because I think I’m not a very good one. I don’t know how our new financial hardships will affect my ability to get things for her and remind her that I’m praying for her. And what if I don’t remember to pray enough? I am just trying not to have those thoughts, and do as good as I can. But it’s difficult to not be the person I am, you get me?

Anyway, this has veered off topic. I am grateful for the two events I’ve named. I am also grateful for the day when Christ returns. I am most grateful for that.

This was a weird blog entry. I feel weird so that’s not super surprising.