Witty Title Here

I wish I could tell you that this was going to be an exciting or witty post, but, in all fairness, it's probably not.
Today would have been my kid brother's 41^st birthday, had he made better choices 22 years ago AND survived the military action that was going on at the time, since he was a United States Marine. This fact is not particularly relevant to anything else I have to say today, it's just a little tidbit I thought I'd toss out there. 

In the last couple of weeks since my last post, I've been working on getting paperwork together for a couple of things.

1. SNAP (AKA Food stamps)—I've been approved, pending paperwork processing, which, really, I've turned in already, and am now just waiting to get notified that the money has been put onto my card. I can only purchase non-taxable food items, which is fine with me. Since I have been a responsible person and not had any children that I cannot afford to support, I am limited to 3 months of assistance every 3 years unless I am working at least 30 hours a week, earning minimum wage or more. The problem I have with this plan is that if I had a job, even at minimum wage, I would not so desperately need the assistance! The past twenty-odd years that I have been working and paying taxes which support this very program that will provide seemingly unlimited assistance to women who prefer to keep having children that they cannot feed mean nothing when I am the one needing assistance, apparently.
2. Workforce Investment Act—I have been approved to get into the program, and I had to apply for a Pell Grant, even though there is funding available from the state to pay for my schooling. I was denied the Pell, because, well, I have a Bachelor's Degree, which, after spending $25K of loan money, plus 4 years worth of Pell Grant, is not actually worth the paper upon which it is printed. I've left a couple of messages for the coordinator of the program at the Workforce Center, and expect to hear back from her tomorrow.

I have resigned myself to living with a catbox on a table at the end of the bed, since it will save my mattress, as well as wear and tear on the sheets and mattress protector. My body is adjusting to sleeping on plastic tablecloths between the mattress & mattress pad (yes, I'll take all the defense I can get against cat pee on my 2 year old, $900 mattress!).
I've been working on my faire calendar, and hoping that I'll have managed to come up with some money to spend, at least for admission, at said faires. First up is Middlefaire, which will likely be the first weekend of October. It's sort of become a tradition for some of us who have birthdays that first week to celebrate at Middlefaire that weekend. The following weekend I'm hoping to be able to make it down to TRF for their opening weekend with friends that are planning to go then. It seems that as long as I'm living here at Castle Wford, sharing responsibility for HoBBiTcaTs & WaveorgoNaked,Sphynx either I can be gone, or the roomies can be gone, but we can't all be gone a full weekend at the same time. I'm planning to make Dickens on The Strand again this year, which makes missing the 3 day weekend at TRF easier to bear, cuz I really don't need to be gone two weekends in a row, and the roomies will be in Corpus for Thanksgiving, so I'm staying closer to home. I hear that there are a couple of Pirate invasions planned at a local garden area, but don't have dates on those yet.
I'm also brainstorming ideas to make this space a little more interesting (thus drawing more readers and hopefully ultimately some advertising revenue), as well as helping to give me a goal to meet each week… maybe a photo of the day, recipe, quote, or something, I just haven't figured out what I really want to do, other than aimless rambling. Any ideas would be most appreciated!