day 590

The ringing in my ears, though it never goes away, varies in intensity and volume.

This has been a bad week for the ringing.

It's been loud and obnoxious more often than not, sometimes to the point of distraction.

Usually the intensity is related to how much stress I'm under, how tired I am, or how much pain I'm in. However, the disorder being what it is, nothing is written in stone except it will be there. Variables are...well...variable.

I'm finding it hard to wear the $40 stupid sunglasses I bought that are supposed to fit over my prescription lenses. See, the problem is, my head is shaped weird, and the fitovers end up resting right on top of the frames of the glasses, and it puts pressure on my head, which is not a good thing. I guess what I'm going to have to do is try to save up enough money to get some cheap prescription single vision sunglass lenses in a cheaper frame.

Now to figure out what to sell or pawn to come up with another $100 to pay for them...

I hate listing on ebay because people want rock bottom prices...not even enough to cover the cost of the fabric for the things I make...and then I have to pay for the listings even if the things don't sell. The other sites...well, I'm not sure; they're still relatively new and I'll have to scan them and find a niche not full yet and make up a few things I can put on there quickly that will sell. They are cheaper - one costs $0.20 to list and then they get 3.5% of your sale price, and the other one is free. That's better than ebay.

I just wish people would realize that there's a difference between hand-crafted and homemade. Homemade is good, but it's for cookies and pies and breads and stuff your kids make for Mother's day. Hand crafted means you put thought and a lot of time and consideration and care into the things you're making, and they aren't necessarily cheap to make. Most times when I sell these things I'm just making enough to cover the cost of the fabrics and then make like $1.25 an hour. It's silly. If we lived where there were little boutiques I could take them there, but we don't.

Some day we won't have to choose between the bills and the groceries. I still haven't got the resources for physical therapy. I know I'm going to catch heck for it, but after we paid what we had to pay this week we have no money left until the next paycheck. I have enough for 40% of the mortgage and that's it. Next week we need the other 60%, more gas for the van, and food...and that's gone.

I'm hoping the pain management doc doesn't penalize me for not going yet. I just can't do it when it takes food out of our mouths or puts us at risk of having the utilities shut off. It doesn't work that way. And I'm NOT putting it on the credit card. Hopefully when hubby gets his retirement check from TWA in two weeks, after we pay on the credit card again and get the septic tank pumped, I can pull enough out of the budget to pay the $180 it's going to cost for 4 weeks of P.T. We get an extra check in June so I might be able to do it, barring unforeseen complications. We've had more than enough of those lately for 4 couples.