Hard Choices

"Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices." -- Alfred A. Montapert

There's a 10-year-old girl who goes to the same school as my daughter, and she often walks along the same path as we do, so we've gotten to know her a bit.  Last year she and her mother adopted a female cat who had not been spayed, and the result was eight more kitties in the space of six months.  Just recently they discovered that one of the offspring, long thought to have been female, was actually male, and was beginning to make advances toward the other females.  I said the solution was easy: get the boy neutered.  The girl said, "It costs moolah."  When I pointed out that it costs more to raise yet another litter of kittens than to go to the vet, she shrugged and said that there was nothing she could do except confine the boy to one room away from the other cats.

Over the course of several conversations I learned that the girl's mother has fibromyalgia and is unable to work.  Her stepfather works but his current job is unreliable, doesn't pay what he's worth, and doesn't pay on time.  So they are being forced to save and cut wherever they can, which unfortunately means none of their cats have been vetted or sterilized.  On top of this, the girl is reluctant to give any of them away even though city regulations stipulate that they are only allowed three.  I have offered many times to adopt one, only to be turned down.

But there are times when we must make hard choices.  My husband, wonderful man that he is, often forgets to transfer money to me so that I can pay the bills on his behalf.  But bills must be paid, which results in the draining of my accounts and my bank getting on my case.  So there have been many times that I've not bought myself things that I need/want in order to keep the household running.  I've become an expert at transforming leftovers into a new meal, or making healthy dinners from what I have on hand.  Very little is wasted in our house... until hubby comes home with a new book or DVD that he just bought and I end up wasting my breath trying to tell him to pay more attention to the household finances.

And he wants to make a return trip to DisneyWorld this year. Sure, HE can afford it because he's the one with the job right now.

I have spent the past year searching for some form of part-time job so I can earn some extra money while Missy is in school, preferably something that I can do from home like blogging or article writing, etc.  Out of all the applications I've made (I've lost count of how many) I only had ONE reply, and when I followed up on it, the person never responded.  I'm told it's hard for everyone: my middle nephew is studying to go to medical school, he's very intelligent and motivated, but he has sent out literally hundreds of job applications and only received one response of "thanks but no thanks".

The next big choice we might have to make is to move this summer.  I really don't want to because I like it here and everything is close by, but health is more important.  Just after Christmas I noticed that the seal around our living room window had failed and water had infiltrated the wall.  The management was duly notified, but it has now been a month and nobody has come even to check for potential mould in the walls.  I've been struggling with respiratory ailments for the past three weeks; whether that's being exacerbated by something, I don't know.  If it were our place instead of a rental, I would tear the whole wall out, but we can't.

I don't like big changes, or being forced into making decisions, and I know that many people don't.  But we have to accept our choices and change what we can to make our lives better.