So Smart, Yet So Stupid!

My teenage son is so intelligent, sometimes it makes my head spin.  When it comes to maturity though, he is still just a teen.  It is amazing how you can be so proud one minute and then your teen ruins it through some totally stupid action.  It is so frustrating. 

My son is currently paying dearly for violating a rule that I established.  Luckily, he did not cover his tracks very well, so he was caught.  I feel like I constantly have to stay on my toes to stay ahead of him and it is exhausting.  He is good most of the time, but poor judgement takes over and I have to become the HEAVY and punish him.  That is the part I hate about parenting. 

Someone once told me that having teens was like having toddlers again, you have to watch every thing they are doing.  I must say that I agree.  My daughter will turn 13 this winter, and I am not looking forward to having two teens in the house.  I love the kids dearly, but I think I will breathe a sigh of relief when they turn 18 and graduate from high school.   

Is There Anything Out There?

I have been trying to find employment for almost a year now.  Unfortunately, I am in an area where the unemployment rate is over 11%.  I have applied for numerous positions and do not hear back from most of the applications. 

Of the possible employers that I am hearing from, I am finding that I don't have the right kind of experience they are looking for, or I am over qualified.  I wish someone would explain to me why being over qualified is a bad thing.  I could understand, in a good economy, you don't want to hire someone over qualified because you expect them to move on to something else.  But in a bad economy, there is nothing else, so you would get a great employee on the cheap.  What could be better than that? 

I just finished looking at numerous listing that were either 100% commission jobs or were part time and the employee has to be available any time.  Really?  That is all you guys can offer?  No wonder our country is having protests in every major city.

Really?

I took my daughter to soccer practice this evening.  I always notice the local gas prices when I am driving around town.  When we left at 6:00 PM for soccer, the gas at the local Raceway was $3.35 for a gallon of gas.  By the time we returned home (almost 9:00 PM), gas was at $3.49 per gallon.

Really, 14 cents in a matter of hours?  You have got to be kidding.  I must say that I am so lucky I bought my tiny car when I did and that it really does great on gas, because I would be in total panic if I were driving a big SUV. 

I Hate Dealing with Banks!

Ran into trouble with Capital One over the last couple of weeks.  I called to make a payment because I didn't get a check out in time to make the deadline for the payment.  Everything went fine over the phone and I received a confirmation number for the transaction.  Then, a week later I received a notice that the payment did not go through and said my credit union denied payment.

I went online and checked my bank account and they were right, no payment had been disbursed.  My credit union has never denied any payment to anyone on any of my accounts, so I simply sent Capital One a check for the amount that I tried to pay over the phone.  I mailed the check on 10/3.

Fast forward to this past week:  Capital One is claiming they have not received my check and have taken to calling me multiple times a day and have frozen my credit card which I discovered when my son's prepaid cell phone payment did not go through. 

Now, let me explain that I have good credit and do not carry a balance on my credit card and have had this particular credit card account for over 15 years with no problems. John however, had some problems with Capital One regarding his credit card a couple of years ago and cancelled his account and went with another bank because Capital One was so rude and handled things so poorly.  So, I am getting a big "I told you so" from him. 

Yesterday, I went down to my credit union and was approved for a credit card with them.  As soon as Capital One finds my check and I have my account all paid up (waiting for some charges from last month to hit), I will be closing my Capital One account and saying "good riddance". 

I had another credit card with a big bank that I have not used since 2009, but I cancelled that yesterday.  I have decided to not use any "big banks" any more for two reasons.  1)  They do not care about individual people and often try to strong hand people when they are able.  2) I agree with the Occupy Wall Street Protesters that big banks are a major problem and are responsible for many of the problems we have in the economy. 

I will be checking out other local credit unions to get a second credit card.  I think it is just wise to have 2 in case something happens to one of them, you always have a back up.  I did check to see if there are any local banks left in this area, but there are none.  They were all bought by big banks.  So, credit unions it will be for now on. 

And, if you ever have to deal with Capital One, good luck to you, they are a nightmare to deal with. 

Need to Get Focused

I reallly need to get focused.  I feel like I am just floating through life right now.  I think not having a job has left me feeling disconnected.  I feel like too much is up in the air and I really don't know what next week will bring. 

Unfortunately with the down time between jobs, I have had way too much exposure to news and there is a lot of doom and gloom out there. If you listen to the economist, they are stating that we may have another economy collapse any time now.  Gee, doesn't that sound fun.  I keep thinking maybe I need to start a garden again so I can at least eat if that happens.

Also, with all the Occupy protests, I feel like anything can happen.  All the protests are peaceful right now, but all you need is a nut or two to go crazy and set off the police, then we are into riots and all kinds of bad stuff.  It is a scary time right now. 

And don't even get me started on the whole political process or the Fast and Furious scandal.  I am wondering who will take the Ollie North fall for that one.....

So, yes, this post is just an example of how I need to get focused.  Any suggestions?

What is Going On?

I have been following the whirlwind that is the stock market lately and cannot make sense of it.  I know that Greece is teetering on a default and the indicators for the U.S. economy are showing that we are returning to a recession, yet the stock market is still increasing. 

Today the job figures were released and that is boosting the stock market.  I am not sure why though.  The unemployment rate did not go down, it just stayed the same.  In fact, the whole job situation confuses me considering the number of baby boomers that are reaching retirement age. 

According to several news sources, they estimate that 10,000 baby boomers will reach the age of 65 everyday for the next 19 years.  Here is one article that I read that states that fact.  If you think about it, not all of those baby boomers are probably working.  The rest are either stay-at-home parents, unemployed, took early retirement, or disabled.  So, for the sake of making this easy, let's say 50% are still working.  So we are down to 5,000 working baby boomers that turn 65 every day.  Of those, let's say half can afford to retire, so we are down to 2,500.  Of those that retire (2,500) let's say that companies only refill half those jobs, so for every 2 that retire, only 1 will be hired, so now we are at 1,250 jobs per day that will have to be filled.  That is 35,000 jobs a month (for a 28 day month) without any business growth. 

So, now I am wondering how many are entering the work force every day.  Wikianswers states that there are between 25 and 28 million teens in the U.S.  If you consider the teen years as being 13-19, that consists of 7 years.   If you divide 25 mil by 7 (years) you get about 3.5 mil teens for each year.  So, if you divide that number by the number of months in any year, and you have approx. 300,0000 kids coming of age every month (looking for jobs).  So, why would the stock market be excited with an increase of just over 100,000 jobs being created in a month if that is not even enough to cover everybody entering the job market?  And, why wouldn't unemployment still be increasing if there is a deficit of jobs every month without even considering layoffs. 

Okay, that is my vent of the day.  I guess there is something else at play here that I just don't see, so if you would like to enlighten me, feel free. 

The Sky is Falling

I am feeling like Chicken Little lately.  Between listening to the economic forecasts while I am unemployed and hearing that my Dad is in the hospital for surgery, I feel like the sky is falling.  I  live 1000 miles away from my parents, so I have to rely on information from my family regarding my Dad, so that is frustrating.

I am asking for everyone's prayers for my Dad and hope that he can get out of the hospital before his birthday on Friday.  He will be turning 72.  I am kinda worried about him even being in the hospital with all the nightmare stories you hear about them.  But add his age, diabetes and high blood pressure on top of that and I am really worried. 

As for me not having a job, I guess it is what it is.  I have been looking diligently, but there is not anything available in this area and I am not in a situation where I can move.  I guess I will have to start a garden so that we can continue to eat well if things get worse. 

Someone please share some good news, I could really use some. 

Gorgeous Weather

The weather here in Florida is gorgeous.  Yesterday it was a high of 81 and today it is supposed to get up to 83.  It is supposed to get warmer the rest of the week though.  I am looking forward to when I can turn off the air conditioning for the winter.  I am thinking that should happen within the next few weeks.  

We did air out the house yesterday though, so that was wonderful.   I am going to use the cool weather today to catch up on some much needed yard work.