Oh my, birthday rambles

Today is my 31st birthday. I'm 31. I'm nowhere near where I thought I'd be at this stage in my life. I never dreamed *I'd* be a stay at home mom and I didn't even know what homeschooling was so I'm in foreign territory according to my 17 year old version of myself's dreams. Ha! Did you follow that?

I was going to be a journalist, working to uncover the truth in an unjust world. I wanted to write for newspapers or magazines, I never envisioned myself on television. I like the behind-the-scenes, in fact I even dreamed of being a foreign correspondent. Right out of high school, I attended community college to save money and worked full-time at the local newspaper...in the graphics department.

In the graphics department I learned to create advertisements and how to create a newspaper the old-fashioned way: print, cut and paste with a wax machine. I remember putting 1pt. borders around photos and making sure they were straight. After each page had been photographed to make a plate to print from, I removed all the advertisements that we had wax-pasted onto the page, by cutting them out so they could be reused if they had more than one run or filed away.

Was it my dream job? Nah. I wanted to write but I figured I was starting where I should, at the bottom. Actually the bottom would have been the circulation department. Lol, the secretary had that job. Did I say it was a small newspaper? At 18 with a head full of dreams, I was tricked into leaving the graphics department because when a fellow degreed-coworker quit that left me as seniority. Hmm, 18 years old and running the graphics department. Yeah, the editor didn't like that at all so he tricked me into entering the world of advertisement sales and hired a degreed graphics designer for the graphics department. He said that I would be able to talk to the people and get my feet wet by "being out there." Uh huh.

Let's just say I quit that job after moving into advertising sales, I was railroaded by an editor that didn't want an 18-19 year old on staff but I wasn't down for the count. I moved on to other larger newspapers, magazines and stayed in the graphics design world of publishing for about 8 years.

Now I've been out of the graphic design publishing world for 3-4 years and at 31, I'm a dinosaur. It is fast-paced, new technology each year and new techniques come with the new technology. Let's say my experience is 10 years behind where the technology is now, I'm even working from an old G4 iMac with old graphics software which used to cost $600 for the program but anyone can pick up Photoshop 6.0 for about $75 now.

I never became a journalist. I didn't finish college. Work and life experience was enough for me at the time, by 24 I was making around $35K a year, which is not small potatoes. I have to laugh at myself, I'm now at home and not making any money and contemplating a part-time job after we move. What in the world can I do? I don't have the options I used to have while I was IN the graphics field. Like I said, I'm a dinosaur. So if I want a part-time job, I'll have to look at the same jobs that teenagers and kids right out of high school are working. Sigh.

We'll see. I want to work to pay off debt and get us into a situation where we can purchase our own home. We could keep going the way we are but it would be a long road to get us in a debt-free situation. Especially with dh racking up the medical bills left and right. I haven't been to see a doctor since Danny's birth. I know, my mom has told me and told me! I just can't justify spending the money, esp. without insurance on myself like that. We've also been living in a very small town where I can't trust the medical professionals b/c I've heard of others' dr's visits through the grapevine. Yeah, I'm not going anywhere near any stirrups in THIS town. We're moving though, back to a place where you can be anonymous in a town and see a wide range of doctors if you want. Now, I just need to be able to pay for the doctor's visit.

Okay, enough rambling. I don't even know what to say now.