I’ve strived to keep this blog light and friendly, not only because I think it’s more fun, but because I’ve a hard time talking, much less writing, about what’s going on in my little piece of the world.

Truth: the last 6-7 months have been tough. My husband is in the trades (an electrical contractor) and starting about that time, there’s been a precipitous decline in work. There’s been a few jobs here and there, but for the most part, since mid-November, I’ve been the breadwinner. Hey, we make the mortgage, the lights and the Internets are on (the latter when Cox complies), there’s food in our and the pups bellies, we make it.

In January or so, we got notice that the City is going through with their plans, and building three low- to mid-income homes behind our house. Two homes we could have dealt with moderately well, but three? When there were only two houses back there previously? That disturbed my husband. A lot. He’d searched for a house like this. And he specifically looked in areas that were fully developed. He searched, and found, what he could finally call home. He was devastated.

Also during the last months, my job has attained a certain level of dissatisfaction. I’m an editor. I was hired to edit, parse, and convert back to English, automotive information – with an occasional stint backing up Customer Service if they get busy. So in January, when we lost one of the Customer Service reps, I hoped it wouldn’t be long before they found a replacement. I couldn’t have been more wrong, because typical of corporate culture, the leaner the better. When I last looked at the numbers, 60% of my job is now spent doing Customer Service.

[quick time out: thank you for reading this far]

There are two talents I lack: the ability to sell, and the ability to suffer fools gladly. I’m not proud of the latter, but it is what it is, and I’ve learned to accept that about myself. I’ve applied for two Marketing Communications positions internally. I continue to look elsewhere, so it’s not as though I’m sitting around on my tush, I am doing the footwork.

This week has provided the last straw. In the mail, we received a letter from the City. Trust me when I say we eye these with extreme trepidation – it’s NEVER good news. The bombshell? In their infinite wisdom, they’re now going to build a 90-unit low-income housing project less than two blocks from my house. This makes the ninth subsidized housing project in a 10-block area – my home being the epicenter. There’s no amount of protesting, petitions, meetings with the Mayor, or voicing opposition at City Council meetings that will have any effect. We’ve been there. We’ve done that.

For myself, when I add the rhetoric coming out of the administration and its lackeys over the immigration bill, I feel a fair amount of guilt for finding the situation no longer tolerable. And for no good reason should I. We’ve reached the last straw. We’re out.

In the next few weeks, maybe sooner, we’ll be traveling to Texas seriously looking for a new home. Thankfully, we know some good people in the state, and have made the acquaintance of a couple more. Trading on their insider info, I trust we’ll be able to find a place that suits us. Bottom line, it’s change and neither I nor my husband handle that with a whole lot of grace.

My HS history teacher believed that every 10 years, you should change your career, your life. Looking at it from her perspective, we’re well past due.

Thanks for sticking through the tale.

Your response: