Hi all, I had to close the first Kitchen Table thread as it was getting pretty long to scroll at 129 posts.
You can still read it here:
The Kitchen Table- ordinary talk thread!
http://tinyurl.com/4r3m44
For reference and ease of reply, I'm going to try to copy Marie's last post from the old thread over here (wish me luck)
Group History Friday, 2:46 PM
Harmony, thanks so much for your prayers and concern, and Mrs C, thanks for holding me up to the light in your Quaker meetings. Both of you, this means so much to me. We don't yet know what is going to happen. Have not had an answer back on the appeal, however my husband contacted the loan modification person at Chase, our lender bank and she said when they get the appeal they can put off the auction again immediately.
Last time when we asked to make the appeal they put it off for 3 months. However, we did not send the appeal until recently because we did not have an adequate income to negotiate with until recently. (You can't just say "Can we stay here for free?")
My 2nd son had a client last year who never paid what he worked for. This month he has a client that has paid on time all month, and has paying within 5 days of invoice in the contract, and the pay is good. If it continues as it has so far, we would be able to pay the full payment which was doubled since our original loan. However, in case the money doesn't stay quite this high we hope to be able to negotiate a lower payment.
But right now we really don't know what is going to happen. We do still feel great peace, and that helps. Our car isn't fixed yet. The mechanic asked for some money up front, then waited 2 weeks to fix it.
He fixed it recently but left the fan belt jerry-rigged, which is not acceptable in this hot weather where if the fan belt went out we could lose the engine again. So we refused to pay the remaining amount until it is property fixed.
Even though we've gone a year without a car, we feel like we need it so badly and this is very frustrating.
My youngest son loves to bicycle to the nearest full size grocery store 2 miles away, and doesn't even mind carrying a heavy backpack home. But I worry about the longer distances needed to go to the Post Office or to get medecines. It can take hours and involves some highway (not freeway, but major street) traffic. And my current medical state requires that my husband not be gone that long.
So we have that issue to worry about also. Plus controlling the diabetes is tricky as is keeping the circulation up and the pain down in my feet. So I appreciate all your prayers.
I am refusing to go under the powers of anxiety, however, and continue working on the orchard and vegetable garden and creating my home school curriculum. We just got chosen as one of just 3 curriculum businesses to be Earth Day sponsors!
There are hundreds of businesses and were only 3 slots and we got one. The criteria was you have to have books or products relevant to earth day. We have 3 different animals penmanship books and a backpacking penmanship book, and have just added "Have a Wonderful Walk" last week.
I am excited about selling "Have a Wonderful Walk" because it is about our park times and is full of color photographs of our family over an 11 year period having home school P.E. at the park, including a wilderness park. W
So keep praying and holding us up to the light. If we can stay here, we will have a lot of fruit to share already this year with hungry and homeless people. And we may also end up being able to give tours to the disabled (since I designed the orchard to be wheelchair compatible) and to fairs which teach earth day concepts to inspire others to work with the earth and grow food for themselves, the hungry, and the earth as well.
And congratulations on being one of the 3 curriculum businesses
to be Earth Day sponsors! That sounds like a very exciting event- I wish I could attend.
I hope and pray the bank/mortgage people will do all in their power to see to it that you have your home that you and your family have put so much time and love into!
And my good wishes, too, for getting your car back and in good repair. Safety is important. I had mine towed away in California because, after an accident and loss of a job, I could no longer afford the car insurance payments.
The car is still not finished, although we can take it very short distances that will not overheat it if the jerryrigged fan belt wire connection slips off on these incredibly bumpy roads. Sigh! We may take it to another mechanic. My husband says it is fine, but it leaks oil, and sounds terrible when he starts it up. I am so tired of this!
I forgot to mention (and stupidly didn't remember when I posted last) that the book we publish that is most likely to have won us one of 3 spots as Earth Day sponsor is the homesteading book by my 13 year old son, Jonathan about how to live off the land in a self-sufficient, earth friendly way. He did a lot of research for the book at ages 11-13. Yay Jonathan!
Am discouraged today because my oldest son is rushing headlong into marriage with a 17 year old girl we hardly know. She is a nice girl, but he is racing too fast! He is a type that makes sudden decisions, and loses his head over a girl very fast. Waited for him to come down to have my birthday, but he can't come so my daughter, Rose, is planning a birthday partyfor me today. She is such a sweetheart!
This post was modified from its original form on 20 Apr, 16:21
I hope you have a splendid one! 
Surrounded by loved ones! 
Words fail me!I did have a good birthday party with my family.
Rose created a bouquet of flowers from our yard, and we got some lasagne from the freezer to share along with strawberry shortcake, strawberries being cheap, sweet, and juicy this time of year! For the past two years, birthdays have been pretty stringent, in fact last year they were non-existant. But we are finally getting good business, in my husband's and son's work from home and my and the other kids curriculum creations. So there were a lot of presents and my husband took me to a craft store to choose some things. And I am very happy.
Some of the presents will help me in my book creation, especially with the art courses I am working on, which I take great pleasure in.
Rose is out today with Jon, my youngest (they are both teens) handing out fliers for our annual pro-immigrant rally. Last year was the first we have ever organized ourselves. The year before that a lot of cities were doing May 1 protests on behalf of immigrants, which inspired Rose to create her own.
Last year we had 100 people, from babies to grandparents protesting Nazi-like raids and celebrating the hard work immigrants do for America. We live in an immigrant community. I am not an immigrant, but felt like one when I returned to this country from the Pacific Island where I grew up. (My ancestry goes back to Benjamin Franklin's grandfather, 10 years after the Mayflower, but I did not grow up in America and thereby understand the immigrant perspective.)
Thanks so much for your very exuberant birthday wishes, Harmony and Dixie! This post was modified from its original form on 22 Apr, 18:00
Thank God it's been postponed for 60 more days. I sent my appeal and my husband sent a letter about our finances and ability to make payments now. They seem a lot more interested in the finances than my appeal. We now have to send proofs of our financial information. So things are still up in the air, but our house is not being auctioned today, and right now that's what counts!
Public-housing troubles spread statewide
Topic, man - dunno how I messed that post up, but I did! I have tried to delete this - to no avail!
It's your puppy now Harmony!!!
Hello, everyone,
Since I'm usually very active here, and haven't been at all, I wanted to toss a note up and let people know I'm still alive. 
I do apologize, though, for being so quiet. All those years I thought I wanted "access to health care" for my family, I was wrong. I didn't really want "access to health care;" I wanted "health." Some of you know my partner has Behcet's (a chronic autoimmune disorder), which is nothing new for us. She's had a couple recent flare-ups, including one in her mouth that ultimately led to a tooth extraction a few days ago. A few months ago, our daughter (age 15) was diagnosed with MS; tomorrow we're driving to a big medical center a few hours from home to take her to a pediatric neurologist who specializes in demyelinating disorders ... in part because we're not completely convinced the MS diagnosis is accurate. A couple months ago, I managed to get knocked flat with two herniated disks in my neck (C5-6 and C6-7), so that I'm doing physical therapy 3x a week, seeing a pain doctor and a bunch of other specialists, and may still be facing surgery soon ("anterior cervical discectomy with fusion and plating") despite my best efforts to avoid it. I don't like that idea at all, because it's very hard just to give me ordinary medicine--I have a severe dairy allergy and react to the lactose in most pills and many IV solutions--so I don't really trust anyone to put me under anesthesia and mess around with me! There's one member of our household left, our 17-year-old son ... whom we requested be tested for allergies just in case, because of the family history, and whom we subsequently discovered is allergic to ALL the environmental allergens for which they tested and has previously unrecognized food allergies to shrimp and lobster! (OK, so we don't actually serve lobster here on anything like a regular basis ... well, never ... but it's still one more ingredient to check on a label.)
All of this seems a bit ridiculous and unreal! My herniated disks are the main thing keeping me from posting often to Care2, as I can't sit at the computer very long at all, but I am still reading my e-mail, including the group posts. Thank you all for all the great work you do!
We don't really need anything, fortunately. Our home is secure, we have enough food, and we actually have health insurance to cover most of the bills. It's not fun paying the part we do have to pay, which is a strain, but it looks like a strain we can mostly manage for the time being. We're actually very fortunate, all things considered. A local freecycler even gave me some pretty plants for the front yard, which we've been very slowly getting into the ground (with my son doing most of the hard labor) to brighten things up a bit. So really, we haven't any lack of anything significant. I don't like it that I had to cancel a class recently--something I never do!--and so my own activist work is slowed. But, time will bring it back, I'm sure. (Most of you probably know that I teach computer classes, primarily to expand the capacity of nonprofit groups serving human rights causes. I can't do that if I can't sit at the computer long enough to put together a presentation and can't stand long enough to teach a class.)
Anyway, I did feel like I ought to post a bit of explanation here, because it's the discussion group I think of as my "home group," if there is such a thing, and I haven't posted a word in ages now.
Keep up the good work, everyone. I'll be back ASAP.
Ms. C.
This post was modified from its original form on 02 Jun, 13:46
I too am popping in to tell ~~~ I had all me teeth extracted today, oh yea, it's is like so fun...
I will be down for a couple days ~~ I hope all the homeless kick bureacratic red tape ass, all will be housed then feed when I get back here!!!
no ~ no funny, but geesch I gotta laugh
Guess I will try some of that "No Teeth BBQ"
Wow, Ms.C... I had NO IDEA you were contending with all that. I don't even know where to begin! That is, I injured my neck about 10 years ago and am STILL feeling the pain in it, so you certainly have my understanding and empathy. And also my empathy for your partner's problems, too.
I'm glad you're keeping up with the posts- you always are part of this family, you know that- lately it's been wonderful Dixie doing the lion's share, as I got pretty burned out with school and an ex having a nervous breakdown, thinking of committing suicide.
DIXIE!! May you have some cool, soft nutritious food to eat and some effective pain medication. It can be a challenge with just one pulled tooth, never mind a whole lot of pulled teeth.
Norway's teachers are out on strike, so I wound up not having to take my year-end exams. This gives me a chance to catch up a bit on posting here (and maybe in Hippies, who knows, miracles can happen, lol!!)
At any rate, take good care of yourself and get lots of healing.
I am asking for prayers, positive energy and lifting up today and tomorow as our foreclosure case goes to the vice president of Chase Manhattan (I assume that means their Loss Mitigation Department, not necessarily THE VP of Chase Manhattan Bank).
To fill you in, my husband, who is a computer programmer, and my son's employer, the president of a computer software company, talked to someone in the Loss Mitigation Department about 2 or 3 weeks ago, and he said we had a good case, and that if left to him he would decide in our favor to sell us back our house so it is no longer bank respossesed, but he had to talk to those over him in the chain of command.
Tomorow it goes to the vice president who will either grant our appeal or reject it. So this is the big moment, and I want to ask your prayers, uplifting, positive energy, whatever powers you beleive in calling on.
I know not everyone believes in dreams, but since I was a teenager, I have had dream after dream after dream (the kind you have at night while asleep) happen, just as I dreamed it. Those dreams have included things in my personal life, and world events, including dreams predicting 9-11 (a jet liner crashing into a giant building which swallowed it up, plus dreams about a tower falling, plus the night before it happened everyone in my family dreamed of falling a long way down.
I have dreamed ahead (in night dreams) about the Oklahoma City bombing, just before it happened, the 1993 fires (southern California) and floods (US midwest), about the USSR opening up and rejecting communism, and many other world events. So over the course of over 30 years of this kind of thing I have come to trust my dreams.
I told Harmony on another topic thread about my dream that on this property (one acre, flat, rectangular- dreamed it before we moved here) a house sized truck drove onto our property and commanded me to move. I said no, so he said "Move or I'll run you over." In the dream I instead put my head against the giant truck.
In the dream it felt like just doing the right thing no matter what the consequences. But then an impossible thing started to happen. The truck began to back up. Then it backed further and further, not from my strength, and ended up backing off the property, up a steep hill, and away down the road forever, never to return.
I am trusting now in this dream because of the dreams always happening for big world events and smaller personal events. If ever I needed the dreams to happen it is now. I cannot move because of heat issues, because my diabetes is in a very dangerous state- hard to manage and often at dangerous levels, and because last time we moved my husband lost half his clients due to the work involved in the move.
Plus if we moved, the 70 fruit trees would all die, whcih we planted ourselves, and which are loaded with fruit we plan to share with the hungry and homeless (who ironcially are hungry and homeless partly because of the foreclosure crisis (many due to the actions of Chase Manhattan Banki.) 300 homes in our tiny area are bank repossessed, 300 more in foreclosure, yet this community only has 2,000 people.
So please take this up for us with the Greater Powers than men on earth. (This would be a terrible time to move in 115 degree weather!)
This post was modified from its original form on 10 Jun, 15:54
This post was modified from its original form on 10 Jun, 15:58
{{{HUGS}}} You and your family are absolutely in my thoughts, and I'm focusing all my old-school Pagan "energy" to hold you in my somewhat more recently-found Quaker "Light", in the odd combination that works for me now. Just for good measure I'll update my dear fundamentalist Christian friend, who's been praying for you all along ... it can't hurt! This may all sound kind of muddled, but I really believe that Truth is what It is, rather difficult for us to comprehend without somewhat artifical frameworks, and that we use a wide variety of individual imagery to approach what is, ultimately, all the same Source. I'll save the theology for some other discussion, though. Right now, know you have every kind of support I can muster on your behalf, and that I truly believe you'll be in your house to distribute yet more food next harvest time ... and the next ... and the one after that ... Hang in there. You're not alone. Lots of friends are thinking of you, and lots of hungry people are praying for a miracle without even realizing they're actually praying for you and your orchard. Ms. C.
Mrs C. I agree with you, that there is one Truth and one Source and that we all have our own understandings and imagery by which we limitedly understand and reach the Source.
I grew up in a "only Christians are right and all others are wrong" kind of background and have since, after meeting so many different kinds of people who care and want Truth, I have changed my mind and now realize that the Truth is so far beyond our weak powers to fully comprehend that each of us relates to and expresses the Light in our own different ways. I have grown very comfortable with that in my adult years, despite the strict evangelical teaching of my childhood.
I have my own doubts, and my own strong beliefs and faith, and my own understanding of the Light but I really appreciate all the different ways of expressing and approaching the LIght. I think there are ways we can make bad situations change for each other through these energies, and I so appreciate your faith with me that we will be here for the harvest to share with the hungry, year after year.
Thank you for helping my faith. Whatever small faith we have is always helped and strengthened by another who shares it.
This post was modified from its original form on 11 Jun, 10:05
Right now I'm just appreciating the heck out of you three wonderful, caring women.
And, of course, count me as part of the extending prayers and good wishes. Sometimes I wonder if "Truth" isn't one gigantic jigsaw puzzle, and each one of the pieces is a different concept, philosphy, religion, way of being... yet they're all part of the picture...
yeppers! all parts of the grand scheme of ANYTHING!!
I am meditating on positive attraction...
If you could see 
what I look like wiff no teeff you would die of laughter ~~ I should think we would all want to die of laughter than anything else!
I mean.. has the pain gone away? (with having your teeth removed)- and how on earth are you eating stuff? Cutting it up into itsy bitsy pieces?
All of a sudden your situation reminds me of a friend I had a while back.. he wore dentures, but the only way he could afford to get them fixed or replaced was to cross the border into Mexico. There was a small town there (over the border from AZ?) called something like Los (or Las) Algodones, and it had a number of dentists there.
At any rate, he got dentures there for a whole lot less than it would've cost in the US.
And I still owe you that postcard! But I AM SO BROKE!
Hopefully I'll be able to send it next week!
Love you!
Hugs!
There are some drawbacks, such as that they try to use as little anesthetic as possible, which I found difficult and had to ask for more. They also did not have music or air conditioning in the one I went to, but there are literally hundreds of dentists in that little town, squeezed between the little tourist craft stores. Algodones is where California, Arizona, and Mexico all meet.
I really think its a travesty that ER's don't cover root canals. Do you remember the story of the homeless boy who needed a root canal and couldn't get one and the infection went to his brain and killed him? Yet you can get help for a little scratch on the skin surface at the ER, but not for an excruciating and dagerous abcess tooth.
I had a similar situation. When we were still making good money, I got two teeth prepped for caps, and then couldn't pay for them. At that time, we barely had money for food. (This was not so long ago.) So I had to just let it go until the pain was so bad, I knew we had to get it done, and we made plans to go to Algodones.
But first I decided to drop by the ER for some antibiotics. Since I am diabetic, I fight infection very poorly, and that causes terrible pain after root canals as they always infect.
Well, the way it ended up, the ER admitted me to the hospital with dangerously high blood sugar level (my blood sugar soars if I get an infection), severe dehydration (that's how they put it) and dangerously low potassium (mostly because I'd stopped eating due to the pain- and when I don't eat, I can't drink either, plus infections make me nauseous.)
Because I have low white cell counts even with a serious infection, doctors often don't catch even a kidney infection. They don't catch internal infections without an X-ray and this doctor got off on the diabetes angle (a student out to save the world) and refused to believe I had an abcess infection.
My head hurt terribly and it got worse and worse, and finally my husband got the doctor miffed on the subject of diabetes, and that doctor handed me over to the head doctor. The head doctor immediately had them give me a head X-ray and they found that I did have an abcess and it was dangerously close to my brain!!!
Oh the vulnerabilities when one doesn't have health insurance, or when one's health insurance puts up all kinds of obstacles so as to pay for as little as possible! I think the ER system, which literally saves lives all the time for people who simply can't afford health care or insurance, should also cover major dental problems such as an abcess tooth!
Dixie, I've had a lot of teeth pulled in my life, only the front ones are left, and the top front are actually a bridge. That must have been very, very painful. Are you all right now? Do you think you might someday be able to do implantation, when they put false teeth inside the jaw bone, or get false teeth?
I do singing and recording and am told you can't sing with a dental plate, so I plan to do implantation some day, when the bridge breaks (inevitable) at least, even though I am very suceptible to infection and don't heal well. Did the dentist recommend tea bags for bleeding and pain? Those are a life saver to me, and I live on milkshakes when teeth are pulled. I hope you are okay now.
This post was modified from its original form on 14 Jun, 11:13
I was trying for the kitchen table, it wouldn't let me click thru... grey boxes too - ya'll know how I hate these "ticks" on care2... KABOOM. Marie ~~~ I actually had twilight sleep... I was tapping my right on the arm of the chair, I could hear the dentist say to the anestia (sp) person "turn it up"....I was tapping because my left arm had gone to sleep and I could not mve a muscle?? Very very weird! So many people in this area go to Mexico, they do great work, it is extremely cheap. I am on day 15 -- my nose is still numb! So that must have been powerful "twilight". The 3rd day was the worse for me and the 4th as the "powerful" twilight was wearing off - ouch! Of late it is the strings that are everywhere in my mouth, because my gums are no longer swollen - having the top front pulled must have been the worst, because I feel palpitations in that area!?!?! I was soooo very very lucky to have found a non-profit group, they have paid for the full extractions, and the dentures (set) - a real blessing... Today I had chunks of mango with cottage cheese in the blender - yummy! I am tiring of blender stuff - I want to eat toast!! Or crunch on something - but no can do. Yesterday, I made breakfast in the blender, cheerios, milk, 1 banana, 1/4 cup of carnation chocolate powder - totally yummy!!! See you guys in the am - I have to see the dentist tomorrow, my first follow-up! Thanks for thinking of me. Hope you are doing well yourself - it's the crappy antibiotics, the heat down here... combo for staying in too much!!
[ send green star] flag for delete
Marie I deleted the other thread...
I have been puppy sitting... since last night, boy he's a handful as he would not accept sleeping on the floor... um, strange but true he is 1/2 pit and 1/2 mastiff - yep, I hope I get to see him as a grown dog!! Lol!
I have been waiting on my house doc., to come today also...
So full of anticipation, then trying to get to post on the computer has been ruled out til maybe later after "mut" is gone, and the docter has come then gone!!!
Love you all ~~
Dixie
We were preparing for the COURT CASE that would kick us out unless we can convince a jury or stall for time with a mistrial. Our bank (the biggest in America, which has foreclosed on millions of American families this year and last) called us and said they want to RECONSIDER OUR CASE, and to explain our hardship and why we are in a position to make our payments again.
This is a ray of hope, a pinprick of light in very dark times. Since we can easily make the payments now, this should work out- EXCEPT THAT we have to come up with a $10,000 downpayment which we don't have. So its still a roller coaster ride, but at least there is some hope!
I don't know why they suddenly changed their mind and decided to reconsider. Was it because we wrote on our court document that they didn't even try to work with us but we tried to work with them? Or was it our letter to our state senator, Barbara Boxer, being passed on to the state loan regulator? Or was it your prayers, energy, and inner light?
Well, we need more of the same, as we continue to fight the battle to keep our home. Heaven knows we will need this place to keep our stuff and grow our food, plus food we are sharing with others who are hungry, as this nation plummets into a severe recession that I suspect is going to turn into a serious depression.
Thank God we have been able to share our peach harvest and have pear and apple harvests still ahead of us. Being able to share them as well will take continued miracles!
This post was modified from its original form on 17 Jul, 23:29
Just a thought, which you may already have done ...
In talking with the bank about the $10,000 down payment you don't have, emphasize what you're offering: regular monthly payments that start immediately. What's the average (mean or median, whichever works better) time that the other houses in your area have sat empty? What's your monthly payment? Multiply those two numbers together, and you have a reasonable estimate of what the bank would lose--not any counting other factors--by evicting you. By preventing that loss, you have the same effect as that much of a down payment.
I don't know if I said that very clearly, so let me offer an example. If the other houses have stayed empty for a mean of 8 months and a median of 7 months, choose the mean to make your case. Then, say your monthly payment is $1,000 to make the math easy. That means that, if they evict you, they can expect to lose $8,000 worth of payments they could have made. You could argue that because starting payments immediately means saving them that $8,000, it would be a wash for them if they let you stay and accepted a $2,000 down payment instead. (Obviously, if you get a number bigger than $10,000, you have an even stronger case, especially if you can still offer any down payment at all.)
Anyway, I don't know if you're already presenting this kind of numerical argument to them in detail, but I wanted to toss it out there just in case it helps.
Ms. C.
Thanks, Mrs. C, I did that. We got good news today! Chase sent us a notice that our case has been sent to their Homeowner Assistance Department. This is after they had already foreclosed on us and sold our house to a repossesion bank.
My husband called Chase to better understand what this means. The first lady he called told him, "We never rescind a sale. If you are foreclosed on, you are foreclosed on. That's it." But the next person he got said, "It looks like the sale of your house has been rescinded." (Based on the notice we got.) She is the same woman who told us earlier that Chase was ready to reconsider our case.
The thing is, for our loan to be assigned to Chase's Homeowner Assistance Dept. means they once again class us as "homeowners," which is very good news. They had written us off and sent us a notice to vacate. Now they are calling us "homeowners" again.
We got the notice late in the day, so we will be looking into what is happening tomorow during work hours. But it looks like good news. If it is what we think it is, it is a miracle. (Of course we are remaining on guard until we are sure.)
This post was modified from its original form on 29 Jul, 0:04
Wonderful news, Marie! Please do let us know what comes from all this. I keep picturing you wheeling around your lovely orchard, tending the food for your own family and so many others, and want so much for that to continue. You've been in my thoughts and heart every day since you first posted the beginnings of this situation, and I feel optimistic that there may just be a good outcome to your story!
Your story ... and your home business creating homeschool materials ... have you considered writing a book about your experiences? You actually do have a very good story to tell, and you might just be able to write a book that would sell enough to earn a bit of money for you ... just a thought. If you ever do write it, I'll make sure our local libraries buy copies!
Best wishes,
Ms. C.
Hm. "You cannot currently send a star to Marie because you have done so within the last week. "
OK, fine.
This post was modified from its original form on 29 Jul, 4:20
Sorry ~ I have been booked this whole week, I am off on an important errand this morning... I did get my pearly whites into the last stage for pick up next week - wish I had a camera!!!
I will be back to posting very very soon ~~ yep, I feel terrible when I am to posting!
Dixie
Sadly, I have to report that our house has not, after all, been given back to us yet. We still have that battle to fight. We could still lose our house.
However, there are people at the bank (Loss Mitigation Dept.) fighting for us. She has persuaded her supervisor to fight for us, who is in turn working hard to persuade her supervisor, on up the chain of command.
We also have our senator, Senator Barbara Boxer fighting for us. She is asking for more information, so I will be typing up our story again, as she wants more details. She has specified what else she wants to know, and I am trying to understand it and praying (listening to inner Light) to know exactly what to say this time around.
So I ask for continued prayers, holding up to the LIght, and strong good energy as we continue to fight to keep our house (to get it back from the bank.)
You will definately be in our prayers ~~ it is just horrible what the whole system is doing to this country, but then it is doing it all at once, bam - gas prices - bam food prices, bam housing goes busted, bam banks are closing, not to mention who can afford to buy clothes...?
Friday, I was able to get to a 'pantry food' (free) I made a great skillet dish - then woke up so swollen from high levels of sodium...always something...
I was at a local thrift shop yesterday, bought 2 items of clothing, only because on Saturdays it is all 1/2 price...
Weary, warriors we are ~~~ 
Dixie
{{{hugs}}} to everyone here, especially Marie, Harmony, and Dixie!
I'm holding you all in the light as always, and just thought I'd pop in to say so.
Marie ... if it would help, I'm happy to read anything you write for the Senator or others and offer any suggestions I can make. I'm a decent grantwriter, and what you're doing really isn't that different, in a way: convincing a politician to do what you want done. If it wouldn't help, it's OK just to say so, and not worry about finding some nice tactful way to turn down the offer; that's not an extra worry you need right now, even if it's a small one!
Ms. C.
I got my "choppers" yesterday ~~
But, this is the second day ~~ I am hurting!! Big things in my mouth!!
I will be back up n running ASAP!!! ((woo hoo we are getting rain in Central Texas... yep that's
here - now!))Dixie
....gray boxes - I hate them. don't like change on here... yes I know it is inevitable - else women would not have middle age "spread" BBL - hopefully they C2C is working on the kinks - between old computers and new formats - what is a starving person to do??! Love & Peace Dixie
Good to "see" everyone again! I've started school, so have homework, and ALSO have started rehabilitation, so my days and time are both spoken for. Yikes.
Well... hmmm... "the new look of care2"... hmmmm... hmmmm... hmmmmm....
I hope everyone is well- I am feeling as profoundly tired as I have ever felt in my life- sort of not one ounce of energy to spare.
I haven't stopped caring about homeless people- how could I, who have been homeless twice myself... but I need to withdraw for a while and heal in some way I can't even explain.
I will be in here, though, from time to time as I am able.
I am glad you all are here
I don't know what's happening to all those other Americans who are losing their homes, but if you get behind on payments, and your credit is shot, you can't buy another house OR RENT either. So where do they all go? The media never covers their stories!
What I'm finding out is that most houses that are foreclosed are going to banks and landlords. I keep seeing this cartoon in my mind of empty houses rotting away, with people sleeping on the sidewalks beside the empty houses. America must be the laughing stock of the world. They don't know that a house is a home- they think it is only a commodity and should be kept that way at any cost.
So what's been happening with me? Well, Chase Manhattan did not rescind the sale. Our house is right now part of the largest batch of houses in the USA that are foreclosed, bank owned, and aren't selling.
Actually, for us, a rather bizzare miracle has occured, wherein a millionaire is buying our house back for us, and keeping it in trust for two years, by which time we may be able to restore our credit and buy it ourselves. This person has done this before for members of his church (which we are not.) He is a friend of a man my son has worked for.
He was to have bought the house back before today, but the bank our house was sold to is having trouble coming up with the number assigned to our house. They have so many bank respossesions, their having trouble muddling through finding any specific houses. The fact is, out of the hundreds of houses, not one in the batch has sold. They are just sitting there while people are going homeless! Only in the United States of America!!!
Anyway, as soon as they can track the number this guy is going to buy the house for us and keep it in trust for us until we can buy it ourselves, and the way he does things we will not have to move. Still feels a little uncertain, but no longer hopeless. So I am getting back on Care2 again in little bits, now that my emotions are recovering (and I've at least figured out how to get on groups again with the new system I find so confusing!)
Consider yourself hugged,
invited to tea, and given a big red rose, Harmony! Marie
(Written with a 2 week old kitten on my neck who climbs onto me the moment I get into bed and curls up there, every day- his name is Brownie.)
Oh, Marie! I started crying with happiness just reading about that millionaire helping you all out with your home! Oh my, that is such a relief to hear. I am so happy for all of you!
RE the rest of the incredibly insane situation of empty homes and millions of homeless people/families- nodding- you're so right!
Thursday or friday, a cable broke, leaving me without internet access at home, and also no telephone- because it was also via the internet. So now I am writing this at an internet cafe, and hoping that my home access will be restored soon. I feel so cut off from the world!! yikes! Reminds me of what it was like to be homeless and to have to rely on the local libraries...
Hope everyone is doing ok!!
(((( love, and hugs ))))
...we seem to me a samed boat!!?
My puter has been on the fritz... 
I will do my best til it freezes - I feel like it's harming to more to doing 5-10 restarts in a day?!?!?! 
Dixie
Right now, I am preparing to go to the Emergency Room because of a head infection that is spreading instead of healing. It is dangerously close to my temples where it may be able to enter my brain. It sure hurts a lot! I also have an internal infection and a very large infection on my foot. Being diabetic, I find it very hard to heal from infection. Please pray for me. I get so lonely in the hospital. I miss my family so much, their warmth and love, their intelligence and humor, and also my darling cats.
You certainly have my prayers and good wishes and healing hugs! Please do get well from those infections- I 'm so sorry you're in pain.
Hope you will update us when you can, and we'll all be sending our best!
Much, much love,
Harmony
So good to hear from you again! Let's keep in contact, okay? I am at home, recovering. The head infection is small now, and most of the infection is gone. However, it was a hard fight, and at one point about a third of my scalp was infected. (Icky subject, I guess.) My biggest worry was swelling and stiffness in my neck so it was hard to turn. Amoxycillan finally enabled me to turn the corner. I also had a huge infection on the top of my right foot- the biggest I have ever seen (outside the tropics that is, I treated infections this big in the tropics on other people.) It was 2 inches long by one inch wide. It started as a welt under a fold in my pressure sock. I switched to a stronger pressure due to increased circulation problems. I didn't know that a fold at higher pressure could become a nasty sore.
I know I pushed myself too hard. Rose's immigrant hot line has grown, and we were involved in the community, passing out immigrant's legal rights fliers. They often don't know what their rights are or that they have any rights. After the second day of flyering my foot sore took a turn for the worse, flaring into a nasty infection in one day.
I was going to stay home and rest, but then 2 Spanish TV networks decided to interview Rose and I about the immigrants rights volunteer work we are doing. So I hung in there at the expense of my foot. It is completely free of infection now, just a scab, but it will leave a fairly big scar on top of my foot.
I hate the limitations the diabetes and fibro give me. There is so much that I want to be able to do for the world around us. Immigrant families are being torn apart, and often parents and children don't see each other again. People are becoming homeless at an alarming rate, and no one seems to mind families dumped on the streets over foreclosure, when they could have kept paying, just a little smaller amount, and the lenders aren't getting anything out of this anyway.
These people don't seem to understand that a house is a home. They think it is just an asset. Well, they're the as-sits. That's all they do is sit at their computers, checking in on who to throw out on the streets next. Houses are crumbling apart with no one in them, while people, families even, sleep on the streets!
There's so much to do! But I get stuck sitting with infections that don't heal, and a compromised immune system from the diabetes. Sigh! Well, as to Thanksgiving dinner, we haven't had an oven in a long time. We've been using a toaster oven which is not suited to cooking turkey. So we had an electrician out yesterday, and he said it couldn't be fixed until he orders a $350 switch, so my husband and son put their heads together and fixed it themselves without the expensive switch.
Rose and Jon have been busy making pies. I can't make the kitchen work for me with my wheelchair, the counters are the wrong height, the cupboards get in the way, etc. but I went outside and picked some pretty fall leaves for the table. I made a Thanksgiving copywork book a couple weeks ago, which is selling well, and am working on a Christmas card-making book for home school families. That keeps me busy instead of staring at the ceiling. I have to be in bed so much!@!!
How have you been, Harmony? Busy? Hard times? Exhausted? Pleeeese keep in touch!
We got a lot of honks! My husband's sign (which I wrote) said "If banks don't want the houses, why not let people live in them?" That got a lot of honks. I get really sick of banks talking about "unwanted assets," "failed real estate," and how they desparately then need to get rid of the failed assets. WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LET PEOPLE LIVE IN THEM???????
I truly relate to all you have typed in these last 2 replys, especially this I have quoted "I hate the limitations the diabetes and fibro give me. "
Not only housing then immagration, FOOD!!
I then so many others who are very much homeless are so limited in what they can buy from the market or grocery stores, because of foodstamps - right now the "skippy" is that the US is the largest country on the largest amount of foodstamps... welp, I can't eat properly with 10. in stamps a month - the entire amount of my disability goes to food... (gas went down but we can't drink it!)
the fibro is getting to me so bad, my docs are trying different meds, then the meds react with each other... you know that drill, between fibro & diabetic nureopathy 
well I can't even "hang" properly with all the burning in my neck and shoulders!??
I certainly have to wonder if sitting at this computer is part of pains... then I certainly hope not!
I remember days full of posting on several groups - I don't kow if it is the pains or the dinosaur puter that is slowing me down!!
Love you all ~~~ I am looking forward to a great new year
Dixie
Yeah, $10 in food stamps won't get you much more than a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread these days. I am appalled at how low most people's food stamps are these days. I don't need food stamps now, but needed them many times while raising my kids. We'd run out of food half way through the month- until we started buying bulk food. That worked well with a family of 7.
The way the economy is going is very worrisome. A lot of people are suffering and it won't be over very soon, certainly not as soon as we'd like!
