CARD CONTRIBUTIONS

Status: Writing on Chapter 146 of Starchild Duel.

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: CSI: New York; KIRO 7 NEWS

Listening to: "A Brass Band In African Chimes" by Simple Minds (On Chicane's Visions of Ibiza--Disc 1; Electronica and Dance--2001); "Strings for Yasmin" by Tin Tin Out

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 252.

TOPIC: WARM, FUZZY, THOUGHTS

Some more cards came in today.

I couldn't get to this weekend's batch because I was out with the flu.

With the extra contributions in hand, I'm going to put a little bit aside for extra food stamp money (I'm down to $12 on my card--this is always common before the 20th of the month. April and I tend to get what we can to last us a couple weeks at a time. This month? I spent more on flats of strawberries and grapes than I have in the last 2 years. Oranges too.

Sometimes, we have a severe fruit craving and others? Meat.

Chicken breasts are a popular favorite in this household. You should see what my wife can do with the right seasonings and chicken breasts! lol) so that we can get anything in terms of emergency supplies. ($30 books--bucks--may not buy much, but you'd be surprised at what we can do with limited amounts of money. :0) )

The rest--? I spent yesterday and today determining which is more of a top priority: My now $52 internet bill, or knock off the rest of my phone bill--leaving only $17 of the original amount behind.

I chose the phone bill--which will be paid almost in full tomorrow. Not counting next month's balance--but that's okay. We needed this done more often than naught.

I wasn't successful in getting a new keyboard or the money for my Neros 8 Ultimate program on download. (Or my comics for this month either.)

But you know...?

It really doesn't matter. For the most part, our PRIORITY needs were met first. And that is all that counts. Anything secondary is always getting the backburner treatment.

But the cards were cute. Those we like the most. My wife loved the kitten walking on the piano card. I liked the papyrus card--though it feels like recycled material. It has a picture of some billowy mangroves; and this one I am very familiar with. To some extent.

I spent some time in the Florida Everglades some 20 years ago while vacationing down there while at a private school.

So the mangroves were a familiar sight to me.

I've taken the liberty yesterday to contact a few artists (from deviant art.com) for a special thank you banner for everyone who helped my wife and I out. I hope to get some collaboration going on in a few days.

The pic won't be ready till the first week of May--at the least.

The idea is to do a chibi theme with a bunch of anime characters throwing a celebratory party, with lots of confetti and some cats lounging around. :0)But this is the only thing I can think of to return the generosity shown these past couple of weeks.

When I mentioned something about 'paying it forward', one of my contacts sent me two additional digital convertor cards, and since we used our Wal-Mart card getting the converters for the two TVs that we had--as we couldn't find the cards the government already sent us in time (d'oh on that angle? I later found them packed away in one of my storage containers--three days after I bought the converters. At that point, I gave them to two people whom were in need of a couple of converters; explaining the situation we were in and no longer had any use for them--not realizing we needed one for the third boob tube replacement! Double d'oh!)--(we're planning on getting a third to replace the one that died out in the living room sometime this year--but it's most likely going to need a third box anyways), we held onto just one for the third TV and when we heard that one of our own friends needed a converter for her analog TV...?

I gave it a thought for a moment and said to myself: "You know? I don't think that she would mind if I gave my friend a card for her--since she's also in the same limited income bracket as I am." (She only gets $435 a month on Social Security. I only subsist on $537. So it's not much of a difference.)

Plus, the cards have a very short shelf life, so I told her to get the box ASAP.

Let's just say that Julie is very happy with the gift. As am I. Because of someone else's thoughtfulness helping us out, I was able to go one step forward and do the same in return.

That's my good deed for the day--even if I am poor as the proverbial church mouse. :0)

And that's what I find a bit ironic. Even poor, I can still find some way to contribute. And those who helped me, it turns out that I am a lot more independent than I thought.

When most people heard that my wife and I were in need, there were skeptics abound. But after using the money sent for the purposes required, I found myself looking into myself today (I had a real-life zen moment) and discovered that I had changed a lot in the last 11 years.

I never knew personal responsibility up until my first job in 1999. But I think things started to really sink in when my wife and I first met as roomies in April of 2001.

It suddenly dawned on me that this was the woman I most wanted to be with--and when she and I had two separate brushes with death; I started doing everything I could to make sure that we had our needs taken care of. That meant basic bills and rent. Food on the table.

Y'know? I was busting my butt while April was in surgery during the week of 9/11/01--getting that 16-pound ovarian tumor removed. (As a bonus? The docs also removed her appendix! No charge!)

The recovery was pretty rocky--to say the least. (wink)

For the next 8 years after we both lost our jobs to 9-11 and I turned my attention to writing full-time--without pay of course (hehehehe)--I still managed to keep things on an even keel.

And even in the light of Kiva's recent accident with his mattes (his stitches are out and he's healing quite nicely), I still haven't lost that independent streak of responsibility. I think being married to April finally sunk in what people have been trying to tell me these last 20 years.

When I wasn't being a stubborn teenager with a rebellious streak a mile wide. (Remind me to regale to everyone at some point of what I did to the conference room of Vermont's SRS office in Newport around Christmas of 1985. It's a real horror story! lol)

I'm just glad that it's finally something I can take to heart.