Cowgirl eats everything. Almost literally, everything. Keeping food from her is an impossible task. She can be in the deepest of sleep, dreaming all sorts of kitty dreams, and if the fridge or a cupboard opens, she's there in an instant, as if she'd never been asleep at all. Anytime food is being prepared in the kitchen, she's hovering on the counter waiting for a scrap, or more likely shoving her nose into whatever is available for perusal. If the meal happens to involve the use of the stove, she (fortunately) stays clear of the counter and any danger of being burned, but is usually very near underfoot. Once the meal is served, she is back on the counter sniffing at bowls and plates, licking whatever isn't too hot for her little tongue, and sometimes sneaking away with pieces of meat.
The morning bagel ritual, as I've mentioned in previous entries, is her favorite. She lives to eat off of her Daddy's bagel (particularly blueberry with cream cheese) and though we shouldn't encourage her rude habits, we can't help ourselves. She's too cute and too sneaky sometimes for us to foil her plans. So what do we do? Snap photos and go about our morning business as normal.
Cowgirl never ceases to amaze me. In all of her klutziness in running into things and falling off of things, she somehow manages to display an intense athleticism when she wants to.
She can often be seen racing through the apartment in pursuit of a fly that managed to get in the door. She is also often successful in capturing whatever winged bug she happens to be chasing. Though I have never actually seen her catch a bug, I have seen Cowgirl batting around a now-flightless, half dead insect when just moments before she was jumping at the walls and bounding off all the furniture in pursuit of it while it could still fly.
Every so often Cowgirl likes to hone her athletic abilities by chasing bugs that are still outside. Our apartment has two doors - a wooden door, and a mesh steel door. We like to keep the wooden door open (if it's not too cold outside) so the cats can get some fresh air and enjoy the sights and sounds of the outdoor world. If Cowgirl happens to catch sight of something buzzing around the door from the outside, she leaps onto the door and attaches herself with her claws, climbing as high as she possibly can. She often spends minutes just hanging on the door, her eyes darting back and forth in hopes of finding the bug again in her peripheral.
I've always managed to miss capturing this feat on film, but today I just happened to have my camera handy as I heard the familiar crash of the steel door. Cowgirl had scaled it all the way to the very top and was interested in what looked like a very large fly. The fly hung around long enough to keep her occupied while I snapped some pictures. I could never get bored living with my cats. They constantly keep me entertained.
My cats have a love-hate relationship with one another. Zissou was the "only child" for a good 9 months before we adopted Cowgirl. He gets jealous and irritated with her quickly, but she's just a kitten and doesn't know any better. So when Zeez gets some loving, Cowgirl feels the pressing need to make her presence known, as if by spending 5 minutes away from her means we've forgotten she exists. This, of course, irritates Zeez even more. Gosh, mom, can't I have just one minute of private time without her interrupting?!
When we first brought Cowgirl home, we didn't know what kind of behavior to expect out of Zissou. He'd always been a fairly independent cat. If he wanted attention he'd let you know, but he was over and done with it and would go about his business quite quickly. He has never been a "lap cat." He's very content to just be left alone. Zeez isn't a very social cat. He's leery of new people and it takes him a while to adjust to having a new person around. If a strange new person comes around (the plumber or my dad for instance) he spends a good deal of time under the bed until he feels it's safe to emerge. Zeez has always been more of a scaredy cat than one to stand his ground and protect his territory.
The day we brought Cowgirl home was the first time I had ever heard Zeez hiss or growl. And this continued on for quite some time. In fact, the hissing and growling still presents itself to this day, though it has greatly subsided. I can understand where he's coming from. He was used to having dominion over the entire apartment, used to getting all the attention to himself, used to things just the way they were. But Cowgirl was new. And she was rambunctious, curious, unafraid, and wanted to explore everything there was to explore - including Zissou. She was unrestrained and the boldness of this tiny kitten intimidated my large 14 pound cat. He immediately disliked her.
For a week we kept Cowgirl separated from Zeez by locking her in our bathroom while we were at work. I was terrified that, unsupervised, Zeez would destroy her if she got in his path. After monitoring their limited interactions while we were at home, we realized that Cowgirl was pretty tough for a 3 month old kitten and she could hold her own against Zeez. For the most part he just hissed and ran away from her if she approached him anyway. So they were both free to roam the house together.
It took a long time for me to feel fully comfortable leaving them alone together without worrying. Zeez didn't seem to be taking to her at all, though she persisted to make him a friend. Eventually Zeez began to come around to her and we would catch them wrestling every now and then, or tearing through the apartment in pursuit of each other - at first rare occurrences, now commonplace. I can't say that Zeez actually likes Cowgirl, but at least now he tolerates her, and they find enjoyment in terrorizing each other. Sometimes they even share the bed or the couch for a nap. And they can often be found grooming each other before or after a wrestling match.
Just this afternoon, I was sitting in my rocking chair contemplating Christmas gift ideas when I noticed that the blanket covering the couch was moving. Zeez had crawled into the blanket that I keep tucked around the couch and he was trying to make himself a cozy bed for a nap. Cowgirl found this unexpected movement thoroughly entertaining, however, and began an attack. They played and wrestled for quite some time, Zeez nice and snug under the blanket, Cowgirl happily trying to untuck him. It's these moments that I'm grateful for, because there were many times in the beginning where I believed they would never get along. It's these moments that give me hope that maybe they will get to be such good friends that I will come home to find them snuggling together. But for now we just take things one day at a time.
My 6 month old kitten, Cowgirl, is not your typical cat. She is bounce-off-the-wall-zany, has a never-ending source of energy, and she is most definitely - above and beyond all else - a dog trapped in a cat's body. Ever since we first brought her home at 3 months old, she has always seemed to me to be more dog-like in her characteristics.
Cowgirl lacks the dignity, grace, and elegance that I'm prone to seeing in cat behavior. She runs into walls turning a corner too fast, rolls off the bed or the couch in a playful fit, misjudges her jumps, and is constantly underfoot - often leading to accidental kicks and missteps by Alec and I. Her klutziness and her seeming unawareness give her a personality all her own - one that Alec and I find charming.
She makes up for her lack of cat-like attributes by constantly amusing and surprising us with her quirkiness. Whereas your stereotypical cat is aloof of all things human and quite fickle, Cowgirl desires the companionship of either Alec and I over playing with our other cat, Zissou, and over having her own quiet alone time. She is as loyal as can be. Whether we scold her for being a bad kitty, or whether we accidentally kick her in the dark hallway in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom, she never runs away and never expresses irritation or anger with us. Instead, she follows us around, meowing happily at our feet until she gets a scratch on the head. She lives to be loved by us.
Cowgirl also never fails to be waiting at the door with loving meows when we come home from a day out. I've often watched her when I've been home alone and both of us are awaiting Alec's arrival from work. Before I even hear the gate to our apartment complex open, she is up and pacing in front of the door. I don't know how she always knows, but within a few more seconds, the gate opens and closes and the footsteps stop in front of our door, accompanied by jingling keys.
Cowgirl turns practically anything into a toy and finds joy in hours of mindless play. Though she does have a favorite cat toy (a small, round, furry, leopard pouch with pom-pom legs) she also enjoys chasing and batting around gum wrappers, bottle tops, pieces of loose carpet that she's torn off her scratching post, straws, shoelaces, whatever necklace I happen to be wearing, my hair, and probably her most favorite of non-kitty toys, her own tail. Cowgirl has spent many an hour running in circles, grasping and nipping at her tail, somersaulting around until she catches it in her little paws. On more than one occasion we have pulled Cowgirl out of a nap just by taunting her with her own tail, sending her into fits of self-attack.
Cowgirl also likes human food. All of it. Whereas Zissou turns up his nose at practically all of our food (except for yogurt), Cowgirl literally has her face buried in our plates to try any and everything. She also has a thing for yogurt, but we've also discovered she has a passion for plain turkey, very spicy chicken, Panda Express, and chili. Her favorite food, as far as we can tell, is a bagel with cream cheese. Her morning ritual is to perch on the counter and hover over Alec's breakfast plate, licking the cream cheese right off his bagel, and even tearing off some of the bagel itself. The only thing she hasn't taken to is lentil soup. Go figure. Cowgirl also prides herself on beating me to the fridge every time I step foot in the kitchen, and as soon as the door opens, she eagerly jumps in to explore the contents of each shelf.
Cowgirl's most dog-like qualities, however, are her keen ability in, and her deep love of the games of fetch and catch. When she is in play mode, Cowgirl will often pick up her favorite kitty toy (the leopard thing I mentioned earlier) and drop it in front of one of us, often right in our lap in the middle of whatever we're currently doing. The toy is then thrown to a distant corner of a room and Cowgirl charges after it, retrieves and delivers it directly back to Alec or me. This is her favorite thing to do. I was surprised the first time she brought the toy back, thinking it must be a fluke. Who had ever heard of a cat that played fetch? But it was no fluke. The game often continues for at least 10 minutes, or until Cowgirl exhausts herself with running all over the apartment and finally flops in a heap on the floor. She is equally adept at catch. One lazy evening Alec and I were playing fetch with her in our room. Alec began tossing the toy just barely beyond her reach and to our surprise she began diving after it. We started tossing it just a little bit higher and Cowgirl would snatch it out of the air, catching it between her front paws. We kept throwing the toy higher and higher and every time Cowgirl performed amazing leaps and flips but always came away with the toy tucked in her paws, or in her mouth. This is a game that she has become quite fond of. She often makes amazing jumps off the edge of the bed to catch a toy that is about to land just out of reach. She rarely misses unless we wear her out and she gives up.
I've always been highly entertained by Cowgirl's antics, but today came a new surprise. I was writing an email when I noticed Cowgirl on her back tearing at something under the front door. After a few minutes of desperate effort, she finally came away with something in her mouth. Thinking she was about to eat a bug, I rushed over to see what it was she had. It was a stick. I returned to my email, only to be interrupted by Cowgirl dropping the stick in my lap, stepping away, sitting on the ground, and looking up at me expectantly. She was waiting for me to throw the stick. Not only does my cat play fetch, but now she was playing fetch with a stick that she went out of her way to uncover.
I wish I had all her crazy capers caught on tape, but for now I just sit back and enjoy watching all the nonsense - how she's learned to scale the dresser drawers by pulling herself up by her front paws from drawer to drawer until she reaches the top, when she could very easily just jump up from the bed (which she also does, but climbing is just so much more exciting), how she's learned to actually open the dresser drawers and climbs inside to explore the area behind the drawers, how she enjoys eating pieces off of our Christmas tree, how sometimes she just stares for minutes upon minutes at her litter box, how she loves to lay across my shoulders like a giant live scarf, how she spoons Alec's arm while he works and eventually falls asleep splayed across his body, how she immediately runs into my closet whenever she hears the door slide open, how she squeezes herself behind our desktop computer when we are using it just to be close to us, and the hundreds of other things she does daily. Anyone who says that cats have no personality have obviously never met Cowgirl.
Zissou went the the vet last night and we returned home almost as in the dark as when we arrived there. The coughing can be a number of different things, but the vet seemed to think that my cat is showing signs of asthma. I don't know how I feel about this decision, seeing as how I've had him for about a year now, and he's NEVER coughed in the past. His symptoms seemed to come out of nowhere, so it's hard for me to go along with the diagnosis of asthma. So Alec and I prodded her more questions to see what else could be possibly going on. This is what we came away with:
- Asthma
- Possible food allergy (the only change in his diet recently had been a little piece of turkey that I gave him last weekend which seems to be when the coughing began)
- Possible bacterial infection
- Possible heart problems, though unlikely
She basically told us there's nothing we can do about the asthma aside from adding a nutritional supplement to his food to help strengthen his immune system and to possibly invest in an air filter for our home. Our only other option was to pay about $300.00 for a chest scan and blood-work which would either confirm the asthma or not. It seemed pretty pointless to take that route, since there's nothing we can do for him if it IS asthma. So we bought the supplement and she wrote us a prescription for an antibiotic which we can pick up if his coughing gets worse (and we won't be charged for another office visit, thank God).
I'm hoping the coughing will just go away on its own. I'm hoping that I can just attribute it to the random bits of turkey that I fed him. The vet said that if he had an issue with the turkey, it could have caused inflammation in his tummy, which may have led to his dry heaving.
In any case, we will be monitoring him over the next few days to make sure he's not getting worse. If he remains the same or gets worse, then we will pick up the antibiotics and hope that those do the trick. If that doesn't help, then I guess we are living with a cat who has asthma.
Poor Zeez hates being in his carrier. He isn't typically a very talkative kitty, but as soon as he was put in the carrier and taken to the car he wouldn't stop meowing. I worried because this was his first trip to the vet as long as I've had him, but he did surprisingly well. He came out of the carrier immediately and let the nurse and the vet inspect him without trying to escape. He then wandered around the exam room while we talked to the vet. But as soon as he was put back in the carrier and put in the car for the ride home, the sad/terrified meowing began again. Alec decided to experiment and let him out of the carrier to wander the car. He stopped meowing and seemed to actually enjoy the car ride. He wedged himself between Alec's shoulders and the back of his seat and just looked out the window for the ride home. I kind of wish I had thought to take a picture. When we got home, he didn't run and hide, but hung around until I gave him a treat. He was such a good boy.
So my 3 year old cat, Zissou, has had this weird cough for the last couple days. I've never heard anything like it come out of him before, so of course being a worried parent and all, I've been monitoring him like crazy. It's like he's trying to cough up a hairball or something that seems to be stuck inside of him. It's almost like a dry heave. Yesterday there was a tiny hairball on my living room floor, so I was hoping that was the end of it, but a few hours later he started with the coughing again. I called the vet this morning and will be taking him in at 7pm tonight, but I'm still worried. He's been hiding under my bed all afternoon, which is really rare for him to do. Until today, his behavior seemed normal, aside from the coughing, so I'm praying it's not getting worse. Anyone with cats have any ideas/advice for me?
So I'm sitting at home alone again. Another typical weekday. It still feels so foreign to me to not be getting up early to get ready for work. It's been almost 7 weeks since I finished out my time at my last job, packed up my things, and left it behind. 7 weeks plus of searching the internet for any open position that I could possibly make my skill set fit into. And 7 weeks of submitting resumes and cover letters with practically no response whatsoever.
I knew when I quit my job that it was going to be tough to find something else. I had just hoped that my 2 and a half years of experience of working in an office environment for a financial institution plus a college degree would come to my rescue, and that I wouldn't have to spend hours scouring the Earth for a new job. It seems that I didn't quite prepare myself for an extended period of unemployment, which now seems somewhat inescapable. If I had known how difficult it would be, would I have left my job so willingly? I can't imagine having to stick it out there much longer than I had already managed to.
I started working at my job as a temporary associate in July of 2007 - right after my graduation from UC Santa Cruz. I loved the location, I loved my co-workers, I loved my managers, but most importantly I actually loved my job. I worked in a small department of about 6 people doing the supporting tasks to back up the collections department. This entailed mostly paperwork - sending various letters to customers, calculating amounts due on loans, etc, with some customer interaction via phone as well. I was often told that this particular department was generally just a stepping stone for employees - the first step to the rest of an employee's career there. This meant that there were constant changes in the department's structure. Temps came in and out of the department, usually in short stints not lasting more than a few months before the job either proved to be too much and their assignment was "terminated" or until they proved their worth and were moved into the collections department.
Over the course of the many months I worked in that department, I developed a close relationship with my lead and was often interpreted as being second-in-command, though I was still just a temp. I always had the desire to learn more, and soon I was able to perform practically any task in my department, and was able to cover for any of my team-mates if they were out sick. I even learned most of the duties that my lead performed daily, and was put "in charge" of the department when she was out of the office. I often put in 10 hours of overtime a week to keep the department running smoothly and making sure all tasks were getting completed in a timely manner. I wasn't like most temps that were filtered in and out of the department. I quickly became the longest withstanding temp in the department. At one point my supervisor approached me about a position in collections, which I wasn't thrilled about, but began training for anyway. I began spending my overtime hours doing collection calls, while still performing my regular recovery department tasks during my normal hours. Only after a few weeks did it become obvious that the recovery department was suffering and I needed to spend my overtime catching up on the overwhelming amount of work that was beginning to pile up. My time in collections was (thankfully) short-lived, and I was given instructions to devote my time and attention strictly to the recovery department until things slowed down.
Soon I learned that my lead was going to be put on disability while she took some time off to have surgery and recover. I had now been in my department for over a year, and felt confident that I could handle things in her absence. She left me in charge of the department, which meant checking in with my team-mates to make sure that all tasks were being completed, training new temps that came into the department, re-organizing our structure and delegating tasks when other associates left the department, and completing my own tasks as well as my lead's daily tasks. After 3-4 months of proving my worth in the department I was finally offered a permanent position with the company and was hired on as an associate in February of 2009. I had been a temp in the same department for a year and 8 months.
I continued on in my normal routine in the recovery department until August of 2009 when I was again approached about a position in collections. I kindly declined the position as I was very happy with my current department and I was now also in the process of planning my wedding. This new position would require a schedule change, forcing me to work 2-3 days a week from 11-8, rather than my normal 8-5, not to mention a new requirement of mandatory overtime every other Saturday. This was extra time that I was unable to and unwilling to give up. I explained this to my supervisor and we seemed to come to an agreement that now would not be a good time to make that switch. However, the very next day I was approached again and this time I was not asked - I was told that I was being moved (my manager's request) despite my reasons for not wanting to and not being able to. There was nothing I could do and the following week I found myself at a new desk and beginning training for collections.
The collections department had changed drastically since I had last trained for it. Instead of dialing the phone myself to make an outbound call and picking up the line to take an inbound call, all early level collectors were now on an automated dialer system. The dialer connected my phone to my computer. The computer would automatically pull up an account, which in turn made my phone automatically dial the number tied to the account. There was never a period of time in which I had to wait for an answer. As soon as my phone beeped, I was either connected to a live person or an answering machine. There was no time to breathe between calls while I waited to be connected. It was immediate - one right after the next.
I had never, in my entire time working for this company, believed myself to have the right kind of personality to handle working in collections. Apparently neither did anyone else. The department change came as a complete surprise, and an unwelcome one at that, to most of my co-workers. None were hit as hard as my lead in the recovery department. She was losing her second-in-command, her most seasoned employee, the one person she could count on to take on anything that needed to be done.
My mornings now consisted of me forcing myself out of bed and dragging my feet to get myself ready and to work on time. Where I used to look forward to my day at work, I now found myself hating waking up every day. I knew I couldn't continue like this. After just a couple weeks of being in my new department, I approached my supervisor and embarrassingly broke down into tears in her office. This new position was already beginning to take its toll on me. I explained to her my dissatisfaction and how I never wanted to be moved in the first place, but that I was trying my best to deal with the decisions that were made against my will. She seemed to sympathize and even expressed her own knowledge that I didn't want to be moved. She told me she'd check with the other supervisors of each department to see if she could get me moved somewhere else. I now had a ray of hope, which somehow managed to last me through another week of collections. However after that week passed and I still hadn't heard back from her, I began to panic. Not wanting to wait any longer, I approached my supervisor again only to discover that there were supposedly no openings elsewhere and that I would have to stick it out until something opened up. It seemed as if all hope was gone at this point, and my stress level continued to increase day after day. I became overwhelmed with my daily tasks and found it hard to fall asleep at night, unable to stop worrying about what the next day would bring.
I let another week pass, becoming increasingly sleep-deprived and emotional. It got to the point where I would be on a bad call and I would have to log myself out of the system in order to get a hold of myself and my emotions. More than once I ended up in tears at my desk, and I would have to excuse myself to regain my composure in the bathroom. I had been speaking with my former lead almost every day to get advice on what my next steps should be. She recommended talking directly to our branch manager - a man whom I had never spoken to in my life, who didn't even know my name. But I knew that I wasn't going to get anywhere just waiting around for an opening, so I collected myself and went to speak with the manager. I explained to him my situation, my dissatisfaction, my original unwillingness to move, my stress, my new-found loathing for waking up in the morning to come to work - I explained everything. He told me he would call together a meeting with the department managers and supervisors to try and come up with a solution for me and that he would get back to me with an answer.
I played the waiting game again, with a new sense of hope. I figured if I had a chance at all, the branch manager could make something happen. Surely he didn't want to have an unsatisfied employee on his hands. So I waited. The meeting came and went, and I still had no word from anyone as to what could be done for me. I waited out another week before approaching my supervisor again about a decision. This time I heard the news that it just wasn't as simple as plucking someone out of a department and replacing them/switching them with me. But isn't that basically what they had done to me? When I was still in my old department we got a new temp about a week before I was moved. I trained her for that week, only later to discover that I was training my replacement. I had had a replacement lined up for me before I was even initially approached about the open position in collections. So now here I was, stuck in collections, with nothing left to do but cross my fingers and hope that a spot would open up in a different department. I felt as if my 2 years in recovery meant nothing. Hadn't I gone above and beyond the call of duty for that department? Wasn't that the department that I had proven my skills and leadership abilities in? Hadn't it been my job in that department that I was initially hired for? Where was my company's loyalty? Where was the compassion and the desire to satisfy a dedicated employee?
I resigned myself to hold on for as long as possible in the slight chance that another opening might come my way, but I knew even then that I wouldn't be able to perform my required tasks for much longer. I began my search for a new job and posted my resume on multiple career sites, and even began collecting applications to various retail stores, knowing I would have to take a huge paycut. As the days went on, my stress level and anxiety continued to increase to the point where I was getting emotional at my desk almost on a daily basis. I would call my mom and my fiance on my breaks and on my lunch and just cry and cry and ask for advice. Obviously quitting without another job lined up was a poor idea, especially with my wedding less than a year away and with tons of things still needing to be paid for. I continued my search for another job.
Finally it came to the point where my stress began to take a toll not only on my mental health, but now also on my physical well-being. After a nice birthday weekend with my fiance, I tried to mentally prepare myself for work the next morning. When I woke up, I was so nauseated that I couldn't make it out of my bedroom. I called in sick, which, if you know me well, you know this is completely uncharacteristic. I had only called in sick once before that in the 2 years that I worked for the company. I often came into work sick, knowing that there was too much to be done to call in. And yet, here I was, physically unable to get myself out of bed. The next day I still wasn't feeling very well, and I debated with myself about calling in sick again. I decided against it, thinking I could really use that sick time if I happened to get a call about an interview. So I forced myself to go in. Tuesday and Wednesday I was able to keep the nausea at bay as my team lead allowed me to do some skip-tracing work that didn't involve being on the dialer. Thursday I was put back on the dialer and became so ill by the middle of the day that I had to leave work at lunch-time. Friday I barely made it through 2 hours of my day before my body couldn't take it anymore and I had to ask to leave yet again. My stress had finally manifested itself into a physical illness unlike anything I had every experienced before. I knew by the time I managed to drive myself home on Friday that I couldn't handle the situation anymore. I called my mom and had her come over to talk. My fiance and I spent the weekend figuring out a budget to see if it was possible for me to just quit even though I had no job lined up as a replacement. With the help of my mom, her willingness to have my fiance and I move in with her if need be, and her encouragement that my health and happiness were far more important than making myself miserable everyday at work, I made the decision to put in my 2 week's notice when I returned to work on Monday.
When I came into work that Monday, I went directly to my supervisor and told her my decision. I was still holding on to the smallest hope that if they knew I was having so many issues as to actually threaten to quit, that they might arrange a department switch for me. Perhaps they may consider me such a commodity that they would fight to keep me there no matter what. This, however, was not the case. I was given the official paperwork and was advised to write my resignation letter. I was also told that in the interest of my health I could leave at anytime within my 2 week period. I decided to finish out the rest of the week. My symptoms hung around, but were not nearly as troubling as they had previously been. I managed to complete my week of work, with the knowledge that I would never have to make a collections call, or be stuck on an automated dialer again.
It was with mixed feelings that I packed my things to leave on my last day. I had made so many good friends, and had had so many good times during my 2 years and 3 months at my job. My supervisors had always been understanding and supportive and I had always enjoyed my job up until the switch to collections. I left on good terms, even getting the permission from some of my previous supervisors to have them enlisted as references on my resume. Which leads me back to where I am today, where I started this entry...
...Still unemployed, still actively seeking employment. In my 7 weeks of joblessness I've only managed to get myself 2 interviews - one with a temp agency in which I've had no luck whatsoever, and another with a direct company which was a complete disaster. Over a month has passed since I interviewed with the temp agency, and I haven't gotten a single call about a job that may work for me. This is probably because my representative refuses to return my phone calls, which has left me unable to complete their online testing assignments. In addition to completing a number of applications and submitting resume after resume, I also decided to try my luck with filing for unemployment. I waited 4 weeks to even have my phone interview (which was done last week), and now I'm playing the waiting game yet again. Once they speak with my previous employer, they have 10 days to make a decision as to whether or not they feel I'm eligible for benefits. Even if they decline my request, I can still appeal the decision. My fingers are crossed that I can at least get some sort of income until I can find myself another job.
It seems ridiculous that so much time has passed with nothing to show for all my efforts, but I know that I am so lucky and so blessed compared to most people in my situation. I have a wonderful fiance who, despite going to school full time, has taken on extra hours at his regular job to be able to qualify us for health benefits, not to mention that he has also taken on a number of freelance projects to earn us enough money to pay all our bills and have some extra to stash away for our wedding fund. I've also been blessed with amazing parents and amazing in-laws who have been a constant source of encouragement, kindness, and free groceries. All in all I am still learning every day to trust in God because he has never ceased to provide for me in all of the madness and insanity that has played itself out thus far. I know that eventually something will turn up for me. But right now, I think I'm supposed to be learning patience and how to increase my faith. I will pull through this. Maybe not as quickly as I had once hoped, and maybe not in any time-frame that might seem to make sense to me. But I take comfort in knowing that it will be in His perfect time.
Please forward this to anyone who might be interested. I desperately need to sell this thing ASAP. Thanks everyone!
2004 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner Xtra Cab in excellent condition for sale in the Lakewood/Long Beach, CA area - $15,000 negotiable.
Exterior: White
Interior: Gray
Mileage: 62,000
Engine: 4-cylinder, 2.7 liter
Transmission: Automatic
Drivetrain: 2WD
Standard Equipment:
- Power steering
- Tilt wheel
- AM/FM stero
- Cassette
- Dual front air bags
- ABS (4 wheel)
Optional Equipment included:
- Alarm with keyless entry
- Single compact disc
- Premium sound
- Sliding rear window
- Bed liner
- Oversize off-road tires
- Locking gas cap
If interested, please contact me at tanya.m.borg@gmail.com. Thank you!