You've got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice. ~Steven

Well for the last week, getting out of bed has been the highlight of my life. I absolutly love being back at work. I love the fact that I am getting my exercise and starting to feel good again, like I am worthy again. Now if my husband could just find a job, all would be great. He doesn't seem to be bitching anymore about me going back to work, as he knows that by now we would be running out of food and starting to get depressed. I think deep down, he likes the fact that the baby always wants him, which is fine with me. Every boy needs his daddy, he will go through his fazes but mommy will always be here waiting for him. The baby is so much luckier than his big brother. He was born out of love and was eagerly planned for. Where as my eldest was a surprise and a big one at that. His bio-father was a cheap, abusive, lazy man who was only out for number 1. I remember one time he stopped by to give me money for the child, then the next day my mother found him searching the bedroom for the money he had given me, good thing I had already moved it. What a prick. But all that is over, and legally my eldest son is my husbands son, which makes things easier and better on my eldest. Well I have gotten way off topic and need to run off to work now, maybe another day I will plan my entry a little better.

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. ~David Star Jordan

Things are looking a little brighter. On Monday I got a job, its not glamorous, but its something. I went back to doing what I know, and discovered that I truly miss all the hard work. Horses are my therapy, they keep me sane and they keep me calm. The last couple days have been wonderful. My husband was NOT very happy that I went back to work, and I understand that, but things need to get done and I was offered a job which I took immediately. The pay isn't great but its something for the few hours a day that I work, but best of all, I get paid to exercise. I can't think of a better way to help get this dam baby fat off, I think I walk about 4-5 miles a day and boy am I sore. Its hard to believe that I lost so much tone and fitness in a year, I am ashamed of my appearance right now, but I should be able to drop the weight quickly now. At least now we will have a small check coming in every week, so now my hubby just has to get a job and all should be good. This time when we start making good money, a large chunk will be put away as our savings is completely gone. But all in all things are finally looking slightly better.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. ~Mark Twain, 1894

I don't know whats wrong with me, I am just so blue all the time now. The money is gone, and we have nothing coming in. As of right now there is no really future for my family. I don't like this, I have always been a hard working person who put my children and my animals need before my own, and it all worked out. But now, there is no work, I can't find a job and I am scared. I'm scared that we wont have groceries next week, or diapers and the baby is really outgrowing his clothes. There is no money. We are going to have to start paying rent on our little house really soon, my husband job is over the end of the month, and he, as of right now is owed 3 weeks back pay. I'm stressed and tired, I need to get a job, NOW. I understand that my husband doesn't want me to work, but we both need to work and get out of this funk. If we both bust our asses for a few years we could get our own farm and things would be more stable.

Life used to be so simple. I would get up early and go to work, every Saturday I would get a paycheck and go to the grocery store. We used to make so much money, and now we regret not saving enough. How could I let this happen. I feel like a failure, I feel angry all the time, I lose my temper and get agitated really easily. I don't like being home, all I want to do is crawl under a rock and hide, I am sad. I feel like a bad mother and wife, I feel like I cant provide, and worst of all I feel ashamed that I feel this way, I am sad.

We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there. ~Charles F. Kettering

I briefly tried to explain to my husband last night, What I want in our future. It didn't go according to plan, he seems to not want the same things I do, and if he does, he doesn't think he needs to work to get them. He had such a dumb and spaced out look on his face when I told him that I think we both need to go back to work and bust out asses for a couple years to be able to save some money and buy our own land. I guess he likes the idea of our own land, but I get the feeling that he is not willing to work for it. I think over the last couple years that he has gotten lazy. How do I tell him that I am NOT going to live the rest of my life, and raise our children in shit hole after shit hole houses. I am not a materialistic woman but I do require a safe roof over our heads and money in the bank to buy food. I am all for living off the land and living simply, but there is a big difference between living off OUR land and living off someone Else's land. We have put ourselves in a bad spot here, and I don't know what to do other than work. So dammit I am going to work, I can't just sit here and do nothing, I have never had aspirations to be a housewife and stay at home mom, its not for me, I need to work. I don't want to be rich, and I don't need to have a huge showplace farm, but I need security....

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

That is probably the wisest thing I have heard in a while. Looks like this family might be swinging on that little knot for a while, hope I can tie it tight enough to hold this household. I have been giving our situation a lot of thought the last couple days. If all goes to plan, we should be able to stay here on the farm in exchange of taking care of the last couple horses etc. If that is the case I am starting to think that both my husband and I need to go to work. I think we need to bust our asses for a couple years, and take total advantage of the free house, to save every penny. If we work hard and put away almost everything, in a couple years we could buy a chunk of land and then be able to go back to living the way we like to live. Simply and happy. But if we don't do this then we will be living day to day for the rest of our lives, and we have 2 boys to think about. I want both to go to college and be successful someday. I know that my husbands biggest thing is that he doesn't want daycare raising our baby, but his future is important. We need to be able to get a setup in place for the family and our dream is to be homesteaders, well you need land to do that, so that's why I think this is a good idea. I will broach the subject in the next couple days, hopefully he will agree, its time to look in the future now, for our family's future.

I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. ~Author Unknown

Well there is a possibility that we may be able to stay here as caretakers, after most of the horses are gone. Right now, that would be wonderful. I would love to have a steady place to live in exchange for a little care of a couple horses and the grass etc. Not to mention that if this works out, I might be able to open a boarding stable after the old man dies. But that is far enough in the future that I need not to worry about it. The only thing important now is the present, and since we haven't been able to find work or a place to live else where, this is where we need to stay. Hopefully we can move up to the other house, which would be much easier to care for the animals, and a bigger house :-). I don't know what will happen to us if this doesn't work out. Things are still so much up in the air that I worry about it alot. I love this farm, I don't know why, but I want to stay. Its a shit hole, while it used to be such a beautiful place it was let to fall apart and now its a mess. But I still don't want to leave, its peaceful and a perfect set up for the family.

"Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.” Bertolt Brecht

Things are getting bad. Yesterday we went to a food bank, which was pretty embarrassing. But I guess we gotta do what we gotta do. My husband is working on getting food stamps, he has to go for an interview or something. Not quite sure what that is all about. I have been looking and looking for jobs. Nobody is hiring, and the only jobs I can find with a house are pretty far away. We have applied for about 3 , one place the house is too small and to the best of my knowledge the other 2 places haven't replied. I don't get it, people should be beating down our door for our services. But I guess the economy has got everyone a little loopy. There is this one job opening in Indiana that i would of loved to got. I had a big enough house and all the farm work I could do by myself. That what I really want, it to go back to work, to feel like I am my own person again. I wish someone at the track was hiring, I could go back there, yes the hours are long and yes its hard work, but the money is good. I just don't know what to do. Things here are not good, the old man is totally loosing it. He is believed to have Sundowners, granted I haven't seen him in quite a while, but when someone doesn't know what the day is or what happened yesterday, something is really wrong. Its a shame, this farm used to be gorgeous, the horses used to be fast, and the money used to come in. Now the barns and fences are falling down, as well as the trees. The horses are slow and over half are club footed now. His breeding practices of the last 10 years are sooo screwed up and the poor genetics are finally deforming the horses. Its a shame, its not the horses fault but yet, they are the ones that suffer. I don't know when why he started breeding this way, doesn't he realise that all his good horses where by good stallions, not these budget crap stallions that he has been picking for the last decade. I love breeding horses, but I don't just breed a mare to a stallion, I spend sometimes months deciding what stallion to breed to what mare to get the best possible runner. There is a science to it, there are dominate and recessive genes to consider. There are just so many variables in breeding, and so much risk.