So . . back to reality! In 2008, I left a position as a Program Director for a Youth Academic and Enrichment Program. I had worked there for almost ten years . . . went above and beyond the call of duty and often put the job before my family. In 2007, we lost my husband’s mother to cancer and watching the disease take over her body, was extremely draining on us and our children. So we decided that since I appeared to have reached the highest level of advancement and salary at my job and we were emotionally and physicallly drained from the death of my mother-in-law . . .maybe a move would rejuvenate us.
We began making plans to relocate to Georgia. Bad move . . it was the beginning of what we now call . . THE RECESSION. So, we moved to Georgia . . . moved into a gorgeous house . . . I thought I had a job, but the organization F-O-L-D-E-D. Instead, we focused on my husband . . who is a dynamic chef. He finally go a job with a catering company as a culinary captain . . . and he continued his catering business on the side. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t paying the bills. The company knew he had a catering business and was pretty cool about days he had scheduled events. But one day he caught his manager on a bad day to let her know ahead of time that he had a catering event . . .she then made him an on-call culinary captain . . . only she never called. To make a long story short . . our lease wasn’t renewed . . and we had to find another place to live . . and we downsized. The house was fine, but the school we had to put our children in was a low-performing school and we had a child who needed to be taught in a higher performing atmosphere . . . and her teacher was the one that fell asleep in class and told everyone they were doing good. It was our goal after our six month lease expired, to move somewhere with a better school . . . .
One of the establishments my husband worked at with the catering company he was ‘on-call’ with was a Greek Church. A woman there was impressed with his skills and he went to her and asked if she had any positions open. He explained the situation to her and she was more than willing to help. We became her ‘mission family’. She wanted to do everything for us . . she brought the kids beds, gifts on holidays . . . and told my husband he could work at the church for what he was making at the catering company. We were blessed . . or so we thought . . .
My husband did everything from painting walls to waxing floors to cooking for the churches community nights and cleaning their commercial kitchen so that it met health standards and then some . . . but he would have to chase his paycheck down. Finally, one pay period in which my husband had worked a ton of overtime . . actually coming home from work and returning to work . . . his ‘supervisor’ actually hid in another building because she didn’t want to pay him. She felt he should have not been paid for the overtime he had done . . . in her own words . . ‘why can’t people just do something for the church . . . ‘
That was his last day at that job . . . . He had already planned and paid for a trip to Florida . . . I told him he should still go . . . Little did I know that he would come back saying . . . .
‘WE ARE MOVING TO FLORIDA!’ . . . . Stay tuned!!!!!
But before I go . . . . . I have a question to ask the ‘reality TV’ stars and producers . . ‘WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WORRYING ABOUT PAYING RENT, BUYING FOOD AND KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON . . . WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR CHILD BEING IN A SCHOOL WHERE THE TEACHERS DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING BUT A PAYCHECK . . WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WEARING HAND-ME-DOWNS FOR ALMOST TEN YEARS AND YOUR CHILDREN GETTING ONE PAIR OF SHOES AT A TIME . . . . THAT’S MY REALITY . .and that’s the reality of many who are watching Reality
