Everything at once...

"When it rains, it pours"

Well I guess it's all a matter of perspective, meaning it could be a whole lot worse, I realise.  But lately, it seems like everything is NOT coming up roses for me:

1. My car is in the shop for the 3rd time in a matter of a couple months.  They were willing to patch the exhaust again, but they said not to bring it back next time, take it to a muffler shop.  My car is 20 years old, and since I only do the occasional errand, I use it very little.  But I have NO resources to replace it, so would like to keep it puttering along.

2.  The plumbing in the house is having issues, which I can't afford.  I have someone who's looked at the situation and will give me an estimate soon.  But the long and short of it, is the house was plumbed in the 40's and there are some problems.  Which lately amounts to a nasty nasty smell when it rains, which brings me to number 3:

3. I've been pretty badly crashed since Sunday, and at least one day of this included laying on the couch smelling skanky nastiness the whole day, with no option for escape (yes, all the windows were open), because I was too ill to go out, and it was raining.  I kept a pot of cinnamon, cloves and allspice simmering all day to try to cover the smell - it didn't work. I keep meaning to set up my tent when I'm feeling a bit better, so if we have another stinky rain-day, I could at least go out and lay there.  Hopefully this guy gives me a reasonable estimate so I can get this resolved soon…..still waiting.

4. I'm feeling sick of being poor and overwhelmed by the costs of living.

5. Did I mentioned I'm crashed? Today this includes a fever, body aches, hurts to breath like influenza, sore throat, and weakness (again).

On the positive, I now have a "rough" draft of my dissertation, however, I need to go back and re-write the first three chapters.

Nonetheless, feeling so poor and helpless had me online looking for job options, but despite my massive amounts of education, this stupid illness makes it so hard.  Starting maybe around January, I'd like a part time job (approx 10 hours a week or less) that I can do mostly from home (and bed), and on a flexible schedule…loose deadlines, because I can't predict when I'll be flared. I didn't see a single job that would fit that, although I do think there is some online teaching or writing out there for me somewhere.  Best, I guess to cross that bridge…..

P.S. since writing this I did set up my tent, which makes me feel better about the next rainy day, as I now have somewhere to escape to (reading a book in my tent will be a lot better than smelling nasty grossness all day), it will be like camping :) .