Four Weeks and Counting.....

Fall has always been my favorite time of the year! I normally am working so hard about now that I don't notice it or take the time to enjoy it but this year I have to remind myself not to let it slip by unnoticed for the joy of it is much too important!

Well it has been 4 weeks since both my husband and I have been unemployed. I lost the fight for my contract, that I held for 14 years in April, 2008. My husband lost his retail management job on September 17, 2008. So, we are off on a journey that we never thought we would take. Both in our middle years, we never really thought this would be a problem that we would face. We both have worked long and hard, been honest and traveled the road of integrity......but that is not always enough to save you. In fact, sometimes, that is the very thing that will cost you that job you loved so much. While we now travel very uncertain roads, we are indeed thankful for our wonderful boys - 3 out on their own and one still left at home. It is because of them and the fact that we still have some raising to do - our youngest is only 13 - that we brace ourselves for the wind that howls at our backs and threatens to blow us off track. We get up each morning and do the work of finding my husband a job and I work, and it is work, to try to obtain Social Security Disability - I have been disable for years but continued to try to work. Now I find that makes it harder to get any help when you need it. This blog is not about whining and complaining though - it is about the road that used to be less traveled but is now becoming an epidemic in our country and it is happening to an older generation of us. This blog is about how to survive and what we can learn from the journey. I hope to give some good information here to help those who will reluctantly follow along with us or behind us and possibly make their journey a little easier. It is about who can help you when those you thought you could count on are not there for you.....and hopefully we can share a laugh and maybe a tear or two for what we have lost but then rejoice in what we can gain from the pain. You are invited to walk with us if you like. The lesson for today is that we are all in this together - simple sure but we all need to learn it, write it down, and repeat it. No matter who you are or where you are, we all are connected and if we don't help each other then we are not connecting with what we are all here for in the first place!