It is indeed depressing to watch the second Great Depression unfold before our eyes. No wonder they call it a depression. Everyone I know is depressed. Whether it is the economy, or the impending election, or the fact that everything in our world right now seems on the brink of collapse, we are all just flat in a bad mood.
If I run the numbers just for our household it is indeed depressing. Because of the cost of printing and paper, the magazine that I worked for as a freelance designer for 18 years went out of business. They are still publishing online, but my employment with them is cut back to about 10 percent of what I was doing before. The loss of income accounts for about 15 percent of our household income. Add to that the fact that our costs for fuel for our cars has increased by $1500 in the first ten months of this year over the same time last year. Groceries too, in spite of more careful shopping, have increased by $200 in the same time period this year. And our retirement and college funds have tanked by about 25 percent.
And then yesterday, our television that we've had for just 18 months (and that we spent a LOT of money on) developed a "glass half empty" attitude, and is now showing us only the top half of the screen. T1 described it quite accurately as "trying to watch tv over a wall."
So, what is a person to do? Other than take stupid pictures of my cat and posting them here, I am choosing to TRY to be optimistic. I am choosing to see the whole broken television thing as a sign that our family is probably wasting a lot of time watching the damn thing. If we can get it fixed we will. If not, we'll replace it with the cheapest tv we can find. But meanwhile, maybe we'll just read books, play games, and color. Yes, color.
Our numbers aren't great right now, but we do have a lot to be thankful for. And I am.
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2 comments:
What brand TV did you buy, JL wants to know--so we won't buy that brand--ha! AuntieA
A Samsung LCD flat screen! We are NOT impressed! We did our research before we bought it and it was rated highly. We're going to find out how much it costs to repair it...I think it is probably some circuit error of some sort...a short or something. It occasionally tries to "create" the full screen, then goes back to half a screen in focus, and the bottom half is just vertical lines of color.
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