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| I found a place to live!
Now I just have to wait and see if I get it (my chances seem good- I doubt there's much competition, and I asked the realty company guy when it would be ready for move in and he said "when do you want to move in?"- good sign)
I spent the past few days with my cousin in Fresno, interviewing and looking at housing and such. I feel like I have a good chance of getting hired at a new Panera Bread that's opening in December (my interview went SO well, and they're hiring for whole restaurant), but my Dad's advice was to not take it if I do get it- his reasoning being that chances are pretty good that I will be able to find another job at some point, and it's better to get situated and get daycare lined up and all in Fresno before I start working. He and my Mom offered to help me financially, so that makes me feel better about things. Plus my foodstamps should *finally* start this month....
But back to the point- the place I found to live! It's the tinniest dwelling I've ever seen, almost. OK, maybe not, but it is really small. Luckily, I like small places and also luckily, I chose very small furniture that's designed with studios in mind. This place is a cottage that sits behind the backyard of a house. It was built in 1941, so you can imagine the basic style maybe. It has a wooden fence around a smallish/medium sized front yard (big enough for a little kid to ride a trike around and have a little swing set or something), and in front of the front door is a cement porch with an awning. The side of the porch that's away from the front door has hook-ups for a washer and drier (of which I'll probably just buy a washer and string up a clothes-line). You walk into the kitchen which is decent- full size fridge, gas stove, big ceramic sink, some cute built in cabinets. The sink has a big window above it, looking out to the yard- CUTE! The bottom half of the wall is wood paneling panted white, the top is stucco. They said I could paint anything, so I was already having images of painting just above the paneling, some cheerful color like yellow or blue. Anyway, through the kitchen is the living room, which has the back door and two nice sized windows. The living room itself is bright and nicely sized, the only bummer is that is has a Fresno-style heater and swamp cooler on one wall, which could make arranging furniture less than ideal, but still, it's plenty big enough for my table, a bookshelf or two, my loveseat and comfy chair. Then, if you see the cottage as a square divided into uneven four, the bedroom is next to the living room, catty-corner the kitchen. It is TINY. I mean, I've seen closets bigger. But it fits a king size bed, so my hope is that it'll fit my small frame full and Jaime's crib. And it has a nice window. Turning back towards the front from the bedroom is a little area with a walk in closet (yay) and a nice sized bathroom (the bathroom window is high up, but also looks out to the front porch). Then behind the house is a little pathway and an area that the last tenant used to grow tomatoes and peppers. But it's really private, really centrally located, and has a lot of character- it's really cute and would match my furniture SO WELL. I really hope I get it. Sorry I just described it in detail, I just really liked it. other than the world's tiniest bedroom (it used to be a studio and they threw up a wall), it's just really perfect for us. And I guess since it'd be just me and him, I probably wouldn't spend all that much time in the bedroom anyway cause I'd have the rest of the house.
OK, for real, bye.
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| As I think about (i.e. desperately attempt) leaving Reedley, I get really sad about certain things.
1. My relationship with Bettina, our Paraguayan I-VEPer housemate, who I have really grown close to. Last week we spent all night watching PBS specials, looking for evidence of the "most beautiful country" (I've read Brazil and Afghanistan, she claimed Paraguay- which isn't actually self serving because she's technically "Mennonite" as far as ethnicity and thus not Paraguayan), and laughing. We walk together to Mercado La Flor every day where we're clearly known by all employees (probably as the girls who never can figure anything out). We're always asking the same Carniceria clerk for help on meat portions (she doesn't know pounds and I don't know meat). Jaime LOVES her. He's at the age now where he either knows someone or he doesn't, and every time he sees her a huge smile lights up his face. She's said she'll visit us lots if we move to Fresno, but it won't be the same.
2. The kids next door. There are like a million of them under 10, and they are just really really good kids. One little girl is named Zuleidy (pronounced "sulady"- strange to me but common around here). She's super chubby and talkative and four going on forty, I swear. She's like a little tiny middle aged woman. I love her, we made cupcakes together last week. Then there's this family with three kids named Heidi, Fidencio, and Stephanie. Every time Stephanie sees us she runs up and gives a giant hug. We've been keeping our front door open for fresh air, and tonight these kids showed up with their arms FULL of grapes. Back story- when we had our kitchen demolished we asked their dad if they wanted our old stove. He was super excited because the stove in their rental unit had one- that's right one- working burner, and the oven didn't work at all. He was so nice, he held Jaime and said that since he has a son who is only one year older than Jaime who is also very "friendly", they would most likely grow up and travel preaching the gospel together. And ever since then they've been giving us grapes. The kids are 8, 6 and 18 months (Rosita, Barbara and David) and they all had arms full of grapes. Then they came with a second load, and gave me kisses and hugs. So adorable. The funniest part is, EVERYONE gives us grapes (as I mentioned before) , but this was probably, no joke, 20 pounds. Anyway. I just love the kids. When they see me around town they always get excited and say hi. I love it. I'll miss them.
3. Our neighbor Vero and her family. She's the one who lets me use her oven to bake in, and always invites us to visit when I take her a portion of whatever I made. That's one thing I like about my neighbors, they spend time with each other because they live near each other. It's something I dont' see much in a lot of America. They work in the mornings and I guess at night they don't want to travel far, so they sit out on their porches and talk with each other. Life seems slower. Anyway, I really like her. Her kids are 15 and 13, and though I haven't really met her husband much, the family just seems really easy-going and...comfortable. She asked Ruth the other day if I'd ever lived in Mexico (huh?), and then said "Oh, if she doesn't have work she should move with the baby in with my mother. All her kids have grown and left her for the US and she's all alone there." How sweet is that? She was really sad when Ruth told her that we were looking to move. I was surprised, honestly, and it made me sad to think about leaving.
OK, I'll close. Jaime is half a year old. I don't know where the time has gone. Next thing I know he'll be bugging me to get his drivers license or something. Oh, and he likes avocado. More proof that he is my child.
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| sometimes when i'm feeling really stressed out and annoyed and frustrated I just bring up my facebook album of jaime's first few days of life and remember being in the hospital with him (and ignore the memories of stitches and shaky legs and all). and then i just feel really at peace.
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| soooooooo....
I've decided to go back to school. Because being a single mom isn't enough trouble on its own. I don't know why: call it divine intervention, call it a calling, call it insanity...but all of a sudden, after a few years of "I'm never going back to college blah blah blah", I just realized that it's time to move in a direction. My parents put money into an education account for me from the time I was 10, and there's still some money in there. Now that I don't live with them and I have a dependent, I'm more eligible for all kinds of aid. So yeah. Tentative plan is to go to community college for spring semester and then transfer to Fresno Pacific and major in social work. Because that's a specific license, and there are lots of jobs that require that specific license. And while I'm there I can study Spanish. Added benefit- since it's a similar school, it will accept more (all?) of my Bethel units as transfer credits than a state school would.
Now I just really need to find work in Fresno. I've found tons of apartments that I could afford, AND reasonable child care (fresno is full of stay at home moms who get credited to run mini daycares from their houses and charge like $15 a day). If i could just make like $1,100 a month I'd be set. Or less, depending.
On a somewhat related note, the day that I had this sudden back-to-school epiphany was Sunday. It was a strange day. My Paraguayan roommate Bettina and I went to First Menno Church. Well, First Mennonite Church here actually has two churches. One is an English speaking church that meets in the sanctuary and the other is a Spanish church that means simultaneously in a sort of multipurpose room. A few weeks ago I went to the English service (pastor is Steve Penner, father of Joseph and Jordan of Bethel). It was ummm, nice? Average age was probably 45, half of the people in the sanctuary were in the choir. It was very structured and ordered and...nice. I didn't dislike it by any means, but it was kind of...old...stuffy.
So Bettina and I decided to try out the other service because I saw tons of kids and thought it might be more my demographic, at least age wise.
It was not like any other church I've been to. The service started with a woman up at the front (no pulpit) welcoming everyone and asking for someone to open with prayer. A random woman in the congregation prayed. Then worship started. The music was loud, Spanish praise type of stuff. Kids and babies were everywhere, cared for by everyone. ( I saw one little boy, probably about 18 months, with 6 or 8 different women during the service). Some people were dancing and shaking tamborines, others were just standing and singing. About 20 minutes into the music Bettina was holding Jaime and all of a sudden I just started sobbing. Out of nowhere. I didn't feel sad or happy or anything. I was concentrating so hard to understand the lyrics (my Spanish knowledge is more "plato" and "callete" and "no mames" than "mi alma" and "alabarte"). It was kind of amazing actually, because I've grown up in church, I know the Bible so much that I have a hard time actually hearing what it's saying sometimes. And it was like, hearing it in a different language was showing me what it means to hunger to know what it says. It's hard to describe. But then, in the midst of my concentrating: waterfalls! I sat down, crying uncontrollably, and this guy who was playing guitar in the front was suddenly kneeling next to me asking if I spoke Spanish or English, and then he was just praying over me, out loud in broken english, saying things like "I know you've always known God, but you need to remember Him now, and you need to turn back to Him, He loves you. There is always doubt, but it's time to turn to Him". Then he started saying all of this stuff that just...I dunno, it just really applied to where I'm at spiritually. I won't go in to all of it, but I just felt like there was no way he could have known to say all of that stuff...it was just so specific. And then I was just crying even more because that overwhelmed me. And when I looked up there were like twenty people kneeling and standing in the front, all holding each other in prayer. It was so surreal, like some revival service that sprung up out of no where.
After the music ended the same woman went up to front and gave the verses that were to be read, and again, two random people in the congregation just stood up and read them. Then the pastor gave his sermon (and I understood it! mostly.) Then after he finished he asked if anyone wanted to say anything, and a women went up to front and said she had an appointment to find out if a lump she had was cancerous, and the congregation surrounded her and prayed for her. I dunno, the whole service was really...unexpected. It was exhausting for me. I think because there was no printed order, it allowed me to exist in the present instead of thinking "ok, next the sermon, then this, then that, then we leave", but it also tired me out. And it was 3 hours long.
I don't really know what the point of relaying all of that was per se. I just can't get it all out of my head. Not sure how to process it. I need a spiritual mentor or something. But I kind of distrust religious people? I'm so weird, I know. But anyway, then that afternoon I was just all of a sudden like "I need to go back to school and get my social work license." So somehow the two things feel related. But I mean, they're not really. It just all goes together in my mind.
wow. rambling.
The end.
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