Hi, Its Monday, Memorial Day!!!!! May 26

********** OHHHHHH BY THE WAY ***** I was wondering what type work you all do. You mention your work and the jobs but I don't have the imagination (and be thankful) to figure out what you are talking about. Would you be willing to share the info? Thank You Millie

Hi Millie: I'm a copy editor at a newspaper in West Michigan. I lay out and edit stories for the business section.

Sure Millie...I'm a speech therapist in an elementary school.... I started in 1978 so I've been doing this for 30 years. I'm sliding towards retirement in the next 5-10 years. Julia

Hi Millie, I'm the Credentialing Coordinator for the VA Long Beach Healthcare System.  That means I'm responsible for the proper documentation for the practitioners to provide health care to our Veterans.  Very appropriate day for me this Memorial Day!  My office staff take care of 539 providers and we assure everything is legal for them to be able to care for patients. Kathi

Hi Carla and everybody: I'm at work too or you wouldn't hear from me. Still no computer and I'm getting really ticked off at computer geek. I sent him a very perturbed e-mail. He has made so many promises to me and broken them all.  Well, the week from hell continued on Saturday. Early last year, I was getting threatening letters from the condo association about my fees being in arrears. I told them to go through the bankruptcy attorney because that was supposed to be filed. When I talked to the attorney back then, he said, "Do you want us to take care of these fees through the trustee?" and I said yes, I thought he meant the regular monthly fees too. Then I didn't get a statement from the condo association so I thought that was taken care of. Well, in April when I got my trustee statement (they only send one a year), I saw they took care of the arrears but nothing else. Oh-oh, I thought, and brought this up when I refigured my budget. The paralegal said, well, now that you have a little extra money, maybe you catch up. Well, it's all caught up with me. The condo association sent me a nasty letter threatening to take me to court on it. I'm nearly $3,000 in arrears for last year dating back to March 2007; why do I always get these letters on a weekend? Now I've had three days before I can do anything about them. I don't have the money, of course; I have nowhere I can get the money; I'm not going to be able to get a loan from anywhere with the bankruptcy still in place. I'm barely making ends meet now and even with the extra money from the reworked budget in the Chap. 13 bankruptcy, I'm still going to come up short every month. I don't know what to do. The only thing I can think of is to call the person in the letter, tell her what happened, tell her I'll start by paying the June fees and something extra every month. That's all I can do. I don't have the money and I can't pay anything else. They can take me to court, but I don't have anything else to pay. I'll also call the bankruptcy attorney about this, but I don't think they can help me on this. I think I'm on my own. So it was a trying weekend. I tried to tell my mom about my bad week; she immediately said goodbye and hung up the phone. I think she's tired of hearing about my financial woes. I told her I'm probably not coming down for her birthday in June because of the price of gas; she's all right with that but I feel bad because she's in her 80s and I don't know how much longer she's going to be around.  Oh well, I guess I should get to work. I do get triple time and it will help me catch up with some bills. I wish I could figure out a way to make some extra money. I'm going to go back to donating plasma; I just have to figure out how not to get my legs to bloat up so much like they did the last time. 

Eileen, Your legs bloat up from donating Plasma? I'm an apheresis nurse and I have never heard of that. Do they give you Saline while you are donating? If it is saline, you may be retaining fluids from that otherwise that one stumps me. I don't work with  the company that pays you for donating so I'm not sure of their procedure. If your sure about doing that, make sure you drink lots of water before, during and after. Sorry to hear about your situation..I'll keep you in my prayers. Alice

Well, they did the last time I did it, very badly. I retained so much water, I gained 17 pounds. My doctor started lecturing me about my weight. Yes, they give saline, and yes, I drink lots of water; I even smuggle in a bottle of water to drink during donation (they don't like you to have anything in there, but I bring in a water bottle anyway because I get thirsty). The last time, I had to get diuretics to get rid of the excess fluid; never did figure out why I bloated up, but it was all in my legs. I'm going to try to do it again because it's $60 extra a week and I really need the money; really can't get an extra job because almost every thing's in retail and I can't stand for more than a half hour at a time with my bad knees and back.  Thanks for your kind thoughts.

Eileen I worry so about you heading down that road again with your leg trouble from before. Couldn't you get a job as a part-tyime receptionist or soemthing, just answering the phone.....I know my real estate office uses 5 parat-time receptionist for evenings and weekends....think about it. Love, Marti

Wish I could find something, but the job market is horrible here and people aren't hiring. Only ones hiring are in retail. And with my schedule, it doesn't make it easy, either.