APRIL FOOL'S DAY

I've always disliked April Fool's Day. It's like all the other "made up" days. One is coerced into going along with the customary prank-playing, etc. It is kind of cute, however, to see small children attempt the concept by repeating "look, your shoe is untied" or " your nose is gone" and then jumping way off the deep end into ridiculousness.

My fear this year is that the joke will be on me. I'm still jobless and have been required to attend a State-run job search seminar in two weeks. That should be a hoot! An entity partially responsible for the high unemployment rate giving advice as to how to get employed when jobs are fleeing the state at 10,000 or so per month partially due to the heavy state tax burden. Notice the "Catch-22"-like situation?

Anyway, at least the weather is beautiful right now - near 80 - and Tiz was here again (it's Wednesday) and will be here for Easter weekend and beyond.

I am aware that God has a plan, but I wish he wasn't quite so busy.

ENJOYING LIFE'S SIMPLE PLEASURES

Well, I've received three unemployment checks now. Prospects are dim. I've got a call into a 3rd shift manager at a Walmart in another city, for pity's sake! But, it is Wednesday, and that means Tizu Time! My granddaughter attends my wife's three-year-old preschool class and then my daughter brings her to our house for a few hours. This has gone on since September, but I have been privy to this for only the last month.

Even with inclement weather the visit is filled with busyness - making brownies, mixing water with stuff in a bowl, playing with playdough. But now that the weather is turning, that means chasing outside, walking to playgrounds, chasing outside. I'm all in.

The point, though, is that these visits from Tizu are the height of my week now that I am jobless. Her innocence, vigor and zest for life with her entire future before her is intoxicating and, to be honest, tiring. These simple walks and talks are what I wish life could always be about.

HOW POOR IS POOR?

Just because one's financial life is in the crapper, it doesn't mean one (or two) is poor. I've lost my third job in four years for the companies' financial situations. By the grace of God I found the last two jobs shortly after being "let go". But this time things are different. The unemployment rate is hovering at ten percent, the State and federal governments are talking MORE tax increases after over spending by billions and trillions respectively. And there is no end in site. The only consolation I have is that I am able to receive "unemployment" continuously for over two years. Whoo-whoo. To top this all off, we, as a couple, are not "eligible" for any government assistance other than the aforementioned "unemployment". We are too "rich" to receive it.

After close examination, though, we are richer than a lot of people. We resigned ourselves long ago that we were never going to be financially "well off". We have each other, our family and friends. We are able to adjust our lifestyle - to a point - to match our current "income". We still have God's grace and understand that this earthly life is merely temporary and temporal and that hardship is due to our sinning ways. Our ultimate home is heaven and, thus, we are rich beyond all measure.