Heritage Park to Peck Road

After we got married, things calmed down for a bit. The only arguments we had were still over money but they werent as frequent there for awhile. I think part of the problem is that I was making substantially more than him (but not enough where I could have lived on my own if I had attempted it). He had his masters degree at this point and damned if he could find a teaching job. History teachers, unfortunately, seem to be around forever. When they *finally* retire, the schools look for someone with a proven track record. Although he had paperwork saying he COULD teach, he didnt have much in the lines of field experience. All he had was the student teaching and by the time he finished that, there wasnt any openings. So where was he working? In jobs like the ticket booth and Taco Bell (both were only parttime jobs)....definitely places he didnt want to be because he couldnt utilize his education. Meanwhile where was I? I was working an 8-4 M-F making one third again what he was...and I didnt have to deal with customers (I was at WalMart by the time we moved from Heritage Park). Yes, again with that little jealousy monster because the grass in my job looked greener. The one good thing that came out of his theatre job was that the lady who managed the place owned a trailor on an acre plot of land nextdoor to her own property. Well it was good because we didnt need to worry about neighbors and it had some property that we were told we could do nearly anything to.

The trailor would have been perfect for one person or two with minimal clutter. The key word there is minimal. With all the stuff he had, there was not much room for any of my items. All his books (and many were rare editions) took up the spare bedroom and the backporch. The rest of his junk took up the shed out back. Thank goodness I wasnt really collecting anything at this point.



Other than his clutter...the trailor was quite pretty inside. I loved the fact it was all wood inside (all the rooms had a light colored panelling) because it glowed so nicely when everything was polished. I used the china hutch in the dining area for my wedding showcase (hey, I didnt have any china) and during Christmases I lined under the china cupboard with white lights and used the counter area for my all white nativity. It looked so pretty.



I remember the day we moved in. Unfortunately, we'd picked a day when there was a huge football game on the television and we couldnt get any of his family to come out and help get things at least unloaded. We did manage to get G* out to help us load and unload. Poor guy had forgetten he'd promised to help and got himself quite pickled the night before so he had this wretched hangover while trying to help us. His family showed up around halftime to help unload the truck. The only things left to do were get the furniture into the trailor. Everything else was done (short of unpacking) at that point. Im picky about how things are unpacked so there was nothing else left to do. All I could think was "Gee thanks...if ya showed up earlier we'd have gotten more done faster.... could have been done BEFORE the game and all watched together...". Oh well.

Things went well for several weeks. They always did right after a move as we were trying to get used to a new place. Then the usual started up about finances. The trailor was cheaper so it shouldnt have been so bad right? Wrong. I told him once we moved we'd need to account for trash pickup, water useage (this one was a big fight especially in the summer when he insisted on 2 showers daily), propane for the stove and kerosene costs in the winter for heating. Of course, it became my fault that the money was moving out as fast if not faster than it came in. Do you think he'd get a second job to help out (he was only working a parttime one...20 hrs a week at the time) so we could afford things? Nope. I suggested me getting a second job a few times. I could have easily done it because my hours were the same 7am-4pm, M-F. I was told no as I was already pulling 40 hr weeks that he should be the one to get the second job. That would be the end of the discussion. When I say end, I mean absolute end as he didnt want me pulling the extra work (I think it's because he didnt want to have to drive me anywhere else plus I out earned him as it was) BUT YET he wouldnt look for the extra job to help out either. There were months when we hardly had anything to eat in the house...the cats actually ate better than we did. Peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, toast for breakfast and noodles-butter-salt and pepper for supper. Yes, that same menu for the whole damn month....every.single.day.

His locking himself away never faded either. Many times I'd sit in the livingroom, alone, for hours on end. He'd never go in his room during hours when he knew there was something I'd like to watch on the tv...always when nothing at all was on. Then I'd find something and actually get interested in it and suddenly his "alone time" would change so I couldnt watch that...something more important would be on. *sigh* We fought enough as it was, why bother fighting over something as trivial as the tv programming? My only respite at this location was that he was going back to school 2 nights a week for a degree in Special Education. The reason why he was going back is because he couldnt find a teaching job in history and all he could find even close to it was teaching in a GED type program for the East Syracuse Minoa school district (yet again a parttime job). Besides....his daddy was paying for it. After a couple semesters, he got a certified letter stating he shouldnt bother wasting the time or money coming back as he wasnt cutting the grade. He took this real hard. Somehow this was my fault too. Maybe it was because I had a steady and decent job making a fairly good wage all on just a high school degree and he was getting bubkuss on his master's. Is this really supposed to be my fault that I did well and he didnt? Not my fault he didnt have the drive to really succeed at things. He didnt even cut it as a salesman for a perfume company. Why? Because he didnt want to put the work into it. Well not unless I was doing it too. If I was, then he'd bitch I outsold him or something else and find a way to let me do it all by myself while he sat back and reaped the profits.