Well some of you may know that one year ago my name came up for a spot on the public housing (subsidized) list. I was terrified as to how I was supposed to live on the pittance the government gives me for disability. I knew I couldn’t get an apartment let alone food and other needs. Well public housing was the answer. The big problem with that is the super long waiting list. Regular housing is 5-10 years. More anxiety. Well the first good news is that the waiting list for seniors and disabled is less than 2 years long and as things work out I qualified for that housing just months before my dad had a stroke and I would have had no home.

Second good thing is that the rent is only 30% of your gross adjusted income. I had, by the powers to be, already filed for bankruptcy, and therefore all bills were gone and that was livable. I have been here for a year now. I was super frugal that first year, but have now decided that even with the ton of medical bills I can have cable TV and Wifi. I am in heaven right now. I may have to lower my tv selections in order to continue, but won’t know until I figure out how things go with the bill for that and my insulin pump bill and supplies are added in. I had money left over each month so barring no car problems (car is a 2006 and does have a lot of non-motor issues) I can do this.

Life here in the senior high rise I ended up in, is not bad. I am on the 6th floor so I have a great view out of my windows. It is not a super small apartment. It is ample room, other than needing a little more storage, but that is because I am a packrat. And it is all just mine, no sharing LOL!

They provide us with activities here. My favorite is art class. We are learning how to paint with a real art teacher and it costs me nothing. They pay all the fees for the teacher and supplies. We have 2 classes per month. Cool!

We have BINGO once a week. That is a small fee for the cards and a 50/50 ticket (which actually just gives 2 of us a chance to win, they  don’t keep any of that).

My kids have been encouraging me not to be a shut-in and to join things so now I have 2 writing groups and definitely one book reading club (maybe 2 if the one for the building comes through). So with all the reading and the writing I do, I have a pretty full calendar when you add in the doctor visits. I occasionally go to Overeaters Anonymous. I was going twice a week, but now with the insulin pump and having to keep track of my carbs, that I don’t go on binges like I used to. Plus fitting in those meetings is hard since they are the same time as my other activities.

And I am starting to revamp my other blog, the writing one. I wrote a lot of stuff to fit crazy prompts and therefore it wasn’t something I would normally write so I am deleting a lot of stuff, plus occasionally rewriting some posts that I still like, but need work.

Dad is still the same, but in the long term care part of the building now. They put him in the non-functioning part though and he is not that bad. We don’t like him in that area as we feel he needs stimulation to keep his brain functioning, but we have done all we could at this point. His house still needs to be sold. He has a reverse mortgage and that needs to be paid off very soon so we need a buyer now.

Tessa –

Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses, also a devout Christian

Author – http://www.finallyawriter.com (this blog contains my old work mostly although occasionally I do add something new here), new work is mainly on this blog http://www.tessacandoit.com