I'm a single mother of 2 teen boys. I live with my best friend of
17 years and her 3 children. We both work, she works for a large
chain store in thier warehouse, I work at home doing child care, making
handmade jewelry and some local computer tech work.
I also care for my mother who has Myasthemia Gravis. The short
explanation for this disease is that none of her muscles are working
right including her lungs and heart and she's very weak. Just
moving around home for day to day things tires her out as much as
running a marathon would a normal healthy person.
We ALMOST make ends meet, but not quite (sometimes the pantry is a bit
bare). I've tried finding a job outside the home locally, but
because I don't drive and there are no jobs available within walking
distance, it's hard. I have a vision problem (from birth) that
doesn't allow me to judge distances and I frequently walk into things
which is a pain, but better than having no sight at all.
We have a decent house, it needs work, but we're fixing it up
slowly. Unfortunately everywhere we go for financing the minimum
they want to lend is $50,000, which is WAY more than we owe. We
don't want to borrow more than we need. The payments, even if we
paid back what we don't need immediately to the loan would increase
enough over our current payments to become a severe problem in a few
short months.
We bought the house based on income and jobs we had 2 years ago.
Within a few months of us getting settled in, the company started
cutting hours for everyone at work every other week until we had to go
out and find new jobs. This county in NY is the most severely
depressed in the state, and jobs are hard to come by, so we took
whatever we can, and this meant less than what we were making
before.
I'm not unwilling to work, and I definately don't want something for
nothing. I just don't know where else to turn at this
point.
