It's been an interesting several months with no job. We've been busy with resumes, cover letters, job applications and countless phone calls. It's a full time job looking for a job. Super Hero has had one job interview. It took about a month to finally find out he didn't get the job. It was a really good company and he was disappointed. He's only had one other interview and it was over the phone (on the video phone) and they said he wasn't what they were looking for. He's applied to the top 10 firms in the area, and now is working on smaller firms and branching out farther geographically.
Meanwhile, I've been working hard with homeschooling and keeping the house intact. Which isn't easy with Super Hero home. You'd think having an extra body at home would be helpful, but it actually makes our school schedule more confusing. We'll be in the middle of something and he'll want the kids to empty the dishwasher or help him with yardwork. I tell him to act like the kids are phsyically gone at school. He is also on the computer most of the day looking at job postings, or filling out applications so it also makes our schedule more complicated having to work around that since we use the computer quite a bit throughout the day. Sometimes it seems like school can stretch to 8 hours!
We've also been driving down to retrieve Holland almost every Friday and bring him back home for a weekend visit. They have not gone well for the most part. I have seen improvements in many areas of his behavior - he is not as violent as he used to be. But he still has that potential for rage and the littlest things can set him off. The weekends are stressful and tiring from driving four hours on Friday and again on Sunday and all the fighting and arguing that happens in 2 1/2 days. We spend all weekend trying to keep everything peaceful and then are exhausted at the end of it and enjoy very little, if any, of it.
There have been some amazing things happening though. And I have to include those here. Because although we are stressed, we've also been blessed! We have been able to pick up food boxes from local churches for the past several weeks. I found a listing of local churches that offer food boxes to those in the area, designated certain days and times of the week. Usually you can pick things up every other week, or once a month, depending on the church. We've had some pretty yummy things given to us (and some interesting things, too!), and each time Super Hero comes back with a box, I feel likes it's Christmas and Thanksgiving rolled into one day! There is fruit and veggies, meat, bread, snacks for the kids, canned food, day-old items from local bakeries or Starbucks and sometimes even shampoo and facial soap. One time there was even two rolls of toilet paper, and it was perfect timing, because I was completely out! God provides. It was amazing.
The other wonderful thing that happened was I had emailed my church about getting a Thanksgiving basket this year. In the past, I knew that they had put together food baskets for those in need in the community. So I asked if this year we could be included in that. Unfortunately, they had such a low number of people request them last year, they decided not to do it this year (which is unfortunate). But they said they would be happy to give us a gift card to a grocery store to help us purchase the items we needed. Yesterday the secretary called me and said that she had the gift card and also an envelope that someone had dropped off with some money it in. I said that Super Hero was out running errands and he could come by and pick it up. When he came home with the envelope, there was $200 inside! We all just stared at the money! (Well, Romania wanted to inspect it to see if he could see the clock on Independance Hall on the back of the bill!).
Oh, and one more thing. I called Oregon Health Plan to find out what kind of coverage the kids have for their medical plan, so I know what doctors to choose. I was told that Holland's care had actually started on August 15th. I had to ask that to be repeated. I said, I didn't even apply for it until September and we won't be out of our private insurance until the end of this month. Are you sure? Because I don't want to be paying something back later on!! I had two different people check it. And yes. They back dated his coverage. Guess what this means? This means that his entire stay at the residential facility has had two insurances covering it. Primary insurance paid quite a bit and then we were going to have to pay for the rest. And after Super Hero was laid off, we worried so much about how we were going to pay for his treatment. Then, out of the blue, comes this information that OHP has backdated our insurance and now they can be billed as a secondary insurance to pick up the rest of the bill for his treatment. I was just floored. So I started asking questions about getting him approved to stay longer since the private insurance had terminated his treatment. Still have not heard about that. We picked him up today for an extended home visit. I'm completely expecting him to come home for good. That's been our plan and I didn't even inquire about this until this past Tuesday. There is a lot of information that needs to be passed around and looked into and we probably won't get an answer until after the long weekend. But I'm confident that Holland will end up where he's supposed to be. I felt that every week when we were approved for that additional week of treatment every Friday. Our therapist was completely floored every Friday when he would come into our room and say, "well, they've given him another week. I've never seen anything like this before!" When I called and told him yesterday that OHP was now our secondary insurance and could possibly be paying for additional time at the facility, his first response was to swear under his breath. I don't think he's ever seen the hand of God in anything before and he seriously does not know what to think of it. So glad that we were able to help him see that wonderful work!
Now pray for us for this very long, and probably not very happy weekend together. Pray that Holland will WANT to change. Pray that he will RECOGNIZE his misbehavior before it occurs and want to change it. Pray for enough sleep for me and no migraines.
