How I'm try to cope in a bad situations.

Hi I know I've not been on my blog for quite awhile but I've been busy trying to cope with my life situation.

I have gotten one very sweet response to my blog. and I hope these people can help me out,, (as they have offered) on some personal things I'm going though.

Since the last time I wrote I got so depressed. I'm not sure people know what that means, but you shoot down anyone's help. Once my friend Fran returned from Hawaii a while back, my focus was to get  my depression and stuff under control . Thanks to Fran, I was able to get on new anti-depressant which has helped a lot with my depression. We're hoping these changes also stop the weight gain that has been making my back pain worse. But I'm still going though pain. I'm trying to cope with my situation and trying to get motivated to do things I want to do daily. It's nowhere near as bad as it was before. Same life, different attitude.

  Because of  Gov. of Ca. (we nicknamed him the Terminator) trying to cut so many people who were on In Home Support Services, the local news was advertising reasons for cutting hours. What they said on the TV didn't help my situation.  My worker at the time got weird from listening to the TV. She started repeating to me what the TV people were saying. She was sided with the TV news and the Terminator on trying to cut out services for people that need them no matter what situation they are in.  Because she was stressing me out because she thought I wasn't deserving of the services if I wasn't in a wheelchair! I had to let her go and be without a worker for awhile. Fran helped me write a new advertisement to find someone else.

I was very grateful and immensely relieved for the the Federal Goverment Ruling that none of these services should be cut off. It did not matter what level of disability or help that people needed in their situation. They realized that,  without services, people like me (who need some help,) we are only going to get worse and will become more costly as that happens.

But, here we are in 2010.  The word on the news grapevine is there will be another attempt on the Gov. Terminator's part to try to cut out the whole program all together. So here we might go again for round two!

Since then my need of help is still the same. But at least I have a nice wonderfull new worker that helps me out now until the IHSS bomb drops from the CA state capitol.  I'm very happy with my current worker. I hope she stays with working for me forever! She is so much fun to be around.

I'm  now going to go to physical thearpy for my tendinitis and chronic athritis soon, after months of waiting on the proper paper work to go though.  I hope it helps. It is hard being on the computer for long periods of time and that's my main entertainment.

But I'm trying to do as much of my e-mails that I can. Since I can't work to make money, I do a lot of surveys. Sometimes I get rewards or a few cents of cash for doing them. So that has helped out some just to start a saving account.  If  I can get more friends or other people I can refer them also and get rewards for that too.  But so far not many people are willing to do it. If you intersted let me know.  I have gotten many free coffees on my Star Bucks card and so on for my efforts.

Yes I'm still in debt but I'm trying to get out but it is hard since the goverment cut my health benefits. No more dentist filling cavities in teeth, or replacing front teeth that get knocked out by accident or breaking off.  And the state still hasn't raised SSI income in awhile for a cost of living increase. Instead, they cut it. So it is hard to stay afloat  at times, In fact, I'll have to be a liitle more thifty to get by. Trying not to get more in debt.

People say that I should get out and walk around more. It's difficult to not walk into the Dollar Store and buy something every time I leave home. It also costs me to get on the bus to go anywhere, and riding the bus hurts my back. So, it's cheaper for me to just stay home to avoid spending money.

I call 800 numbers from the products I buy and  tell them how much I like them. Sometimes they send me free coupons for the next time I buy the item,  That  helps me out a lot. I also enter contests on line, and have won some. But mostly I just win products. But that is fun to do.

 I also take my old books to a used book store for selling.  Also, I found a place online to that pays for shipping and cash for your used books to,  I can get extra cash for referring people to site also. So if you like to buy used books, let me know!

Then on Fri. I watch the 5pm news on channel 7 and they have a segment call Micheal Finney's Fri. free stuff.  I just started doing that. I have gotten stuff like free pizza and burgers and what not. Just by watching and sending a SASE to the place to get my free stuff.  

Well I think this is it for now if you are interested in the things I've to offer let me know and I'll get back to you when I can.  

Thanks for listening and following my blog.

Tammy

Getting the Groceries Home

I've been working on what I'm going to do when I don't have someone to drive me to go buy groceries. Many people come up with suggestions because they imagine there must be another way to work out getting what I need.

The past week the social worker at In Home Support Services gave me a suggestion.  He told me to pay for my groceries to get delivered. So I called the two stores I shop at up on the phone and asked about how much this would cost.

Guess what Grocery Outlet said, which is over 4 miles away? They won't deliver at all because they are a discount store. They suggested that I shop there and call a cabbie to get my groceries home. So I checked that out and it's about twenty dollars. Plus, the cab driver has to wait while I unload the groceries and might charge me more.

When I moved here, there was a Safeway grocery store around the corner. That store closed, but a brand new Safeway is now the closest store to me. The only problem is that it's over a mile away from where I live - a two and a half mile round trip. I can't walk that far. Someone told me there's a new store (called Paradise) moving into the old place. Too bad it's going to be even more expensive than the price increases at the new Safeway. It's going to take some time before it's open too.

Safeway does have a way to deliver groceries. I will have to buy e-food at Safeway on-line with my credit card.

There are two serious problems with this. First is that I can't use coupons online that save me money as I have been doing when I buy in person. The savings are from $20. to $30. bucks each shopping that I do twice a month.  If I buy everything on-line, I would be spending that extra money without the coupons. Then there is the $15.00 delivery charge on top of that.

There is another problem: I must use my credit card to get groceries delivered.  The credit companies frown on buying food with a credit card. They think it is a bad sign that I do not have enough money. They will lower my credit limit if I buy food online, because they see charging the costs of groceries to be a red flag. They have recently lowered my credit limit even lower, and started charging additional fees.

Then there is how to get my medication from the pharmacy to me. There's a pharmacy at Safeway in another town will deliver my medication but that costs $3. bucks a pop.

I wish I could get my groceries delivered for $3. It's looks as if grocery delivery will cost an extra $75. a month. You must buy at least $50. before they deliver your groceries. Given my credit card limit, how long will it be before I can't buy food because I've maxed my credit limit?

So I see no way of doing this. I just don't have the money to get food delivered.

If I take a bus to all these places, I would have to take multiple trips to get all my shopping done. I will be shopping every day. That will cost more; the bus is a dollar each way; that is an extra sixty dollars a month to shop daily.

Then there is carrying everything upstairs to my apartment, (especially in the rain,) to and from the bus stop. It's not hard to imagine that I would be so tired and in even more back pain than I'm in now. My doctor has now diagnosed me with tendinitis wrist pain.

That's how I got hurt in the first place - by slipping on ice on my deck.

If I accidentally  fall and hurt myself or get sick there is nobody to ask for help. My neighbors can't help me, because they all don't speak English. Besides, they are busy with there own lives. They don't even visit or talk to me anyway, mostly because we don't speak each other's language.

It's the same with my friends who do speak my language. I'm already driving people away thinking about all this stuff.


So I'm stuck. This is why disabled people kill themselves.

If you have any other suggestions, please put them in the comments section. Other people who are reading this blog will also benefit.