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What a difference 7 months makes! Thank you again to everyone for your help last year, you helped my mom and I bridge a huge gap that nobody and nothing else could cover. My mom does everything in her power to cover her bills and live as cheaply as possible but when you're disabled, your options are extremely limited and in Canada, pensions and disability benefits are extremely frugal. It took me 3 months to find full time work and I'm finally in a position to help my mom. I already gave her most of what I've made this month and that's just the start. My tax return, which isn't much, is going to cover some needed home repairs. She's currently dealing with a fractured leg and was recently diagnosed with Lupus so her quality of life is pretty diminished, but my rotten sister finally moved out after 3 years of squatting and contributing nothing, and now my mom and I are more connected and positive than ever. It feels so refreshing to be at home and happy, and she is very grateful I'm doing what I can to help her.

I'm working in an industrial bakery so my hours can be pretty random and I'm not yet adjusted to shift work so I'm sorry I'm hard to reach right now, I am awake at weird hours and sleeping a lot, I have about 3-4 hours of life each day if I'm lucky. The good news is the pay is decent and will get better if I can last long enough to reach milestones related to union requirements. I'm bringing my mom home bread whenever I can and she's happy to have it.

Today I paid off my student loans which I was able to defer temporarily back in November since I was out of work. In fact I was able to pay them off right before the interest would begin accruing again because the deferral would have ended! I'm happy to have that burden off my shoulders forever. My bills are all paid after months of struggling to catch up. I can finally stop getting text messages warning me my phone is going to be disconnected. I finally have my feet on solid ground and the only challenge left is to be there for my mom and learn as much as I can about my job and how to sleep effectively around shift rotations.

As you probably saw I'm even trying to post again, I'm not going to stress about timing, it'll just be one post every day while I'm at home to clear the backlog, regardless of the time of day. I have a bunch of older stuff I paid for a long while ago and more recent stuff that was either made as a gift or purchased as a gift and I am very grateful so many wonderful and kind people made such opportunities possible while I couldn't do anything to participate in art collecting. Thank you all for everything you have done to make me feel so lucky. My life crashed and burned for years and I'm extremely grateful and proud to be making things better at last.

Thank you all again for being such a huge and important part of my life, I couldn't be writing any of this without your kindness and support in the last 2 years, you all have done so much for me that I can never repay and I am truly honoured to have been treated so kindly by both friends and strangers.