Country Mouse Part 2
So after Joel and Mom settled in Gulfport with their run down Class C, Mom started trying to find a job. After much looking she landed at an assisted living facility/memory care facility in Gulfport making minimum wage. It was supposed to be for a receptionist position as the current management was wanting to take that job from the current receptionist. Well, it didn’t turn out that way. Mom ended up working lots of hours helping in memory care, helping with events and everything but the receptionist position to the overall detriment of her knees. She was on her feet A LOT. Finally after 9 months there, Mom got the job she was hired to do, the receptionist, and she loved it, however the current manager wanted to interview her again to see if she was qualified for the job, even though she’d been doing just that for weeks. Well, when interview time came, it wasn’t an interview, it was a let down to say the least. They told Mom that she wasn’t cute enough to continue in that role unless she stepped up her cuteness game and bought more clothes and did something extra with her hair and put on makeup. Well, at $13/hour, Mom couldn’t afford any of that. She was barely paying the groceries and the car and rent payments. It was a rob Peter to pay Paul situation with every bill. Mom continued however to work for another two weeks though her mental health was dragging. She was mad at them every day for saying she wasn’t cute but going in with a smile on her face. The straw that broke the camel’s back however was them chewing her out for leaving on time on the date of her second wedding anniversary. They wanted her to stay late and she refused. When she got told off, she quit!!! Yay, Mama. Then she started exclusively driving Lyft.
Lyft was paying the bills to some extent for a little while. Then at Christmas the car got repossessed. Thinking that maybe it was time to go back to school to get that master’s degree, Mom took out another student loan. That always comes with a payout at the beginning of the semester. She used that money to outright buy another car. She was driving Lyft, going to school, taking care of everything and then came another let down. It seemed that she had exhausted all of her federal funding and the government took the money back from the school and would like to have taken back the over payment, however the car had been bought. So Mom was spending about 10 hours a day driving Lyft and just barely making it by. Then the rent was due for May 2025. Mom and Joel didn’t have it to pay and got evicted. They had enough money at the time to pay for a week in Motel 6. A week turned into six weeks. Mom was desperately trying to find another job and praying for something different. They would love to be able to travel and see the country while working. They found work campers on Facebook. Mom created a cool resume for them and Heidi called and offered Mom and Joel a job as park manager and maintenance assistant at a park in California. So we headed to Cali.
Just the trip to California was an adventure. We got as far as El Paso, TX and the brake boosters gave out on the interstate in the Expedition. We pulled off the side of the road and a Highway Angel came to check on us. We were able to limp it to Walmart and get brake fluid but it drained right back out. A few different people offered to buy the Expedition and they ended up selling it for $400, just enough money to get to Walnut Grove, CA in a Uhaul. We found another Angel in El Paso. We were unloading the car in a Walmart parking lot while waiting for a tow when Erick pulled up and offered to take us to Uhaul. We were unable to rent it with our CashApp card and then he presented his credit card so we could drive away and he even bought us lunch. What a great guy!
It took us a couple more days to get to Walnut Grove but we made it in the Uhaul. It wasn’t what Heidi was expecting. She allowed Mom to work for about 36 hours as the park manager then asked her to fire Joel from his position while demoting her from park manager to office clerk and promoting someone from housekeeper to park manager. Well, Mom is still there working in the capacity of the Park Manager without the title and still no vehicle. We are sooooo far out in the country (hence, I met the way in the country mouse). It is an hour’s drive to civilization (Walmart) and getting deliveries is almost always a pain in the you-know-what but we’re managing and hang in there, just waiting. Maybe we’ll get a new car one day, maybe it will be Van Life. If anyone wants to buy our coloring book, it would be great and be on the lookout for other projects in the works. We’re raising money in any way can.
