Counting our Blessings

It's hard to stay positive and keep our spirits up when we feel like we are constantly struggling to get the bills paid and eat halfway healthy and keep the cats fed and buy cat litter. But at least we are hanging in there and have food to eat even if we are down to things like last night's dinner of scrambled eggs. It's another week until payday and we've got just enough money to put a tank of gas in the car so Keith can get to work next week and he'll be taking peanut butter sandwiches for his lunch, but damn, after watching the news last night (the real big network news, not our local home grown news team) I'm feeling pretty lucky that we even have that jar of peanut butter in the cupboard.

Unemployment will run out for a whole lot of people at the end of July unless the bill is passed to once again extend it. The numbers are staggering. By the end of July there will be over 3 million, yes THREE MILLION people whose benefits will run out. Three million people who have been out of work for a long long time with not much hope of finding a job any time soon.

Keith and I kind of looked at each other and once again said that while his job may not pay all that much and the work is back breaking and he has to work outside in the 100 degree heat and there are many many days when he absolutely hates having to get up and drive 30 miles to this job, AT LEAST HE STILL HAS A JOB! And a car to get to that job in.

The news did a story on just two people out of these 3 million, and the stories were heartbreaking. Both were men in their 50's, not good candidates for a job just because they ARE in their 50's, and we know that once you are over a certain age nobody wants to hire you because you are OLD, and both men have been on hundreds of job interviews and search every day for a job, but there is just nothing out there.

It's just sad and I don't think it's going to get better for those 3 million for a long, long time.

So, we'll eat our peanut butter sandwiches and scrambled eggs for dinner and be damn glad that we can actually afford to buy that peanut butter and those eggs in the first place.