Lost & Needing Help Badly

Sigh - I never was any good at keeping up with this blog. It amazes me now to look at my last post, life was just fine then, my sweetheart was here, shortly after that post he built me a wonderful lightbox so I could get better photos..... and now he is gone forever.

To make this living hell even worse, today I found out that Social Security froze our bank account, as they were reclaiming the benefit check that had been deposited just a few days after Tim's death. So, on top of this unbearable grief for my darling husband, now I am sitting here with NO income, NO money at all other than $82 on hand, and utility bills that are due.

Read below for more details - but I am desperate here & could use any help that any of my friends could give me. I will gladly consider any donation you can make as a loan & will repay you once I am able to.

If I can squeek through the next 2 to 2 1/2 months, I will receive insurance benefits - but according to OPM, it will take about 3 weeks for the paperwork to get to me, and after I submit everything back to them, it will take about a month before payment is made. (IF the time-table goes as they told me... hopefully it won't take even longer than that.) And at some point after that, I will get a small survivor annuity from my sweetie's retirement plan. So - if I can just make it until I get the insurance, I'll have some breathing room to figure out where to go from there.

I DID already pay my lot rent for this month, and the power bill --- but I still have about $150 in bills due for this month, if I just skip paying the medical insurance. Come Aug. 1st, I'm *hoping* that the park will let me slide on the lot rent for a couple months, until I receive my benefits, but there will still be all the utility bills due again. I'm going to call everyone, but based on past experiences, they don't really cut people much slack, no matter what. I've got some food on hand, and have applied for food stamps, so maybe I'll be OK in that area - it's just trying to get the bills paid for these next 2 months until I get the benefits - they did verify that the benefits are there - it will just take some time to receive them. I HAVE checked to see if there is any 'welfare' type assistance I can get, and food stamps are the only thing I qualify for - most programs are based on having children or other dependents in your care.

Again, I would not be asking for help if I wasn't outright desperate here. I can NOT lose my home & what belongings that Tim & I had. (Nor can I very well sit here w/ power turned off, or water disconnected, etc) I know -- the internet is not a *necessity*, but especially since I can't drive, it is almost a necessity for me -- I've got to be able to have a phone & net access gives me contact with other people, which I really need right now. Again, any donations I get will be considered as loans & I will repay everyone once I have the means to do so.

I just can't believe that they snatched my bank account & took every penny I had left in there (and put it waaaay in the hole, to boot). Just because Tim died a day before the beginning of the month......

On top of all the grief & pain, now I've got to deal with feeling like a moocher too.... this is all getting to be way too much to deal with. Thank you so much for any help you can give.....

IF you do make a donation, the paypal account is one that I've maintained for years now & used periodically when I had any kind of little online venture going, so the name will show up as 'dtrh enterprises' Sheesh, I was just trying to get cranked up to maybe start selling some crafts online again, when all of this happened. I'm going to try to pull myself together enough to maybe get something started as soon as I can, but I'm such an emotional mess right now, I don't know how much I can do in that respect just yet.

thanks for reading.......

New Design! Elegant Beaded Wine Gift Bag

Whew, it's been a while since I posted! I really need to get in the habit of keeping up with a blog!
It reminds me of when I was young - I never was very good at keeping up with a diary or journal either! I really do need to work on that.

I finished a new design today that I'm pretty happy with. It's for a beaded wine bottle cover or gift bag - the pattern is for both variations. I'm working on putting the PDF together & getting it ready, so the pattern will be available soon. I really enjoy working with the beads - they add such a nice touch to even the simplest stitch pattern.

Let me know what you think!

Trying to get back on my hooks, after my stash was stolen...

April 2010 -- I’m just starting to get back into crocheting again after having almost my entire stash stolen during a move. For hubby’s health, and to be close to ‘adopted family’, we made a rather drastic move back to FL last summer - we sold our house in AL, sold/gave up almost everything we owned & bought a small manufactured home in a 55+ community in central FL. We loaded our van full of personal items, and a (SUPPOSED) “friend” was going to bring his large van down a month later, bringing the remainder of our belongings. Well, “friend” disappeared with our stuff - we’re guessing he wanted the TV & electronics that he was bringing -- but unfortunately, 98% of my stash was boxed up to come in his van too. He’s vanished off the face of the earth, from what we can tell - no luck finding him or our stuff. Beh - and this was someone we’d known for quite some time & had gotten rather close with.

I was so depressed about it, I didn’t even pick up a crochet hook for months now -- and I was so terribly ashamed to even admit to what had happened - there were some sweet ladies here who had sent me some yarn gifts in the past, and more than anything else, I was so ashamed that I had lost the yarn they’d sent me. But I do miss stitching, so I’ve been trying to get enthused again. LOL - I’ve got some coned kitchen cotton, a bag of fun fur & another small bag of mixed hodge-podge skeins that were in our van, and that’s the extent of my pathetic stash right now. Living on hubby’s social security doesn’t allow for much spending outside of absolute necessities - and the dollar stores here don’t seem to have yarn, at least I haven’t found any yet.

If anyone has ANY extra yarn at all that they don’t want, I’ll gladly pay postage if you’d be willing to part with it. I mean, anything!! Cheap acrylic, fun fur, novelty weird stuff, kitchen cotton… anything at all, I’ll be thrilled to have it!

And DON’T ever ever let anyone else handle your stash for you when you move, under any circumstances!! I had so much wonderful yarn - I still have to fight the tears when I think about it - so I just have to try NOT to think about it….. losing the other stuff he stole was bad enough - but (if we had enough $$), it was all items that theoretically COULD be replaced. I had lots of discontinued yarns and other yarns that simply cannot be replaced, and I’m fighting tears just writing this again, so enough out of me for now…….