Just frustrated again......today I got another lovely orange note in the mail as a reminder to get Jacob's lead level retested. Last Thursday I ran into the Lead Abatement duo again (head of the program and the man who does the testing/legal enforcing). She just gave me the slip Thursday afternoon, I had the testing done Monday afternoon! I thought that was certainly a reasonable amount of time. After a week they're sending reminder notes (and this for a kid who last tested UNDER the legal limit) for a test already completed. And I was originally told that I wouldn't have to test him anymore. Sheesh!
Unless they got another extension, this week our landlord's court case against the city should have been heard. Not that we'll hear anything about it, the landlords don't contact us unless it benefits them. Or they just show up at the door and expect us to be ready that second. The inspector guy told me that he's never lost a case yet. No matter how this case went it's still bad news for us.......we could have between a week and a few months to find a place to go for the duration of the work/testing. Which has been estimated at 3 weeks for the work and up to 3 more weeks for it to be inspected and get lab results (then possibly re-cleaned and re-tested if needed). The inspector admitted to me that he knows that although he can protect us from being kicked out because of the lead, it's very likely they will find another reason to use to get rid of us as revenge. We're also supposed to move everything out of the basement......and we have no where to go with all that stuff either. Tom outright refuses to do it. Which means the job will take longer and it will cost our landlords more. Which they could try to pass the extra cost onto us (and I can see them winning that case, I personally wouldn't blame them). It's all very nerve-racking and it frustrates me that there's no sympathy or offers to find a solution. They've never had this situation-he said once he had a situation where a family of three had to move for a week, but they just "vacationed" at Grandma's for a week, no big deal. It's completely different with four kids under 8 who have to be out for a month and a half. It sucks that this program which is suppossed to protect Jacob, in actuality will most likely kick him out of his home.
It's really irritating to not know when anything will happen. We don't know when we have to move out temporarily and we don't know for how long. We don't know for sure that we will have to move permanantly. We don't know where we will go. It means our lives are just up in the air and it's very hard to make plans. I'm supposed to call a music school director to talk about what kind of scholarship plans they have, and make arrangements, but if we end up moving out of the city, we won't be able to do that. All our appointments, doctors, classes.....all that would have to change.
On a side note, they thought our phone had been disconnected (it wasn't they had written down the wrong number) and he mentioned that he couldn't protect us if we weren't paying rent with a tone of voice that suggested that he assumes that we're probably doing something wrong (since I'm worried about the landlords kicking us out). I just hate the automatic assumptions....we have a lot of kids and not a lot of money= we must be troublesome tenants who occasionally skip/pay rent late, who don't pay other bills-like the phone bill-as well. Granted, at this point we're not that far away from not being able to pay our bills. I guess it's just the attitude, the idea that because of our financial situation people think they know what we are like (and it's all negative). I've gotten that attitude from so many people the past two years. It really starts to affect you after a while.
(I don't mean to sound rude, but please do not tell me that it's all for the best and what is meant to happen will happen. I know this, and happen to believe it myself. That doesn't make it any easier. There are complicating factors which I won't discuss here, and they make having to move a much more difficult thing than you can imagine.)
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Some Quotes for you:
God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me. ~Author unknown, variation of an excerpt from "The Serenity Prayer" by Reinhold Neibuhr
When written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity. ~John F. Kennedy, address, 12 April 1959
When life gives you lemons, please, just don't squirt them in other people's eyes. ~J. Andrew Helt
If you're going through hell, keep going. ~Winston Churchill
He conquers who endures. ~Persius
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. ~G.B. Shaw, Mrs. Warren's Profession, 1893
What I am looking for is a blessing not in disguise.
-Kitty O'neill Collins
And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.
-Jerry Chin
Just because Fate doesn?t deal you the right cards, it doesn?t mean you should give up. It just means you have to play the cards you get to their maximum potential.
-Les Brown
When walking through the valley of shadows, remember, a shadow is cast by a Light. -H.K. Barclay
I know how you are feeling, because Chuck got his hours cut because the business is slow and they would rather have him working than collecting unemployment. So, I guess 36 hours is better than NO hours. It's just hard to think of less money coming in than all the money that is suppose to go out to pay bills. Somehow, God sees us through these tough times, that we don't know how he does it. He makes lemonade out of our sour lemons.
Ask God to take this burden from you and just sit back and watch what he does for you all. Yes, I know, what you are going to say before you say it. We all tend to worry, it is our human nature, but God doesn't want us to, so I'm trying my hardest to put it all in his hands. He has provided for you and me and hasn't let us down yet.
Well, I know it looks bleak, but I'm hoping for the best for you. I've got your Christmas presents too whenever you want. :)
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