Thanks, Leanette.  It’s something I’ll keep in mind.  I do count myself as one of the fortunate as I have health insurance through my husband’s company - I have to pay my own premiums, but the coverage is decent and the cost at group rate is still manageable. 

I don’t know how HD hires, but thus far it seems I fall in between the cracks everywhere else.  I have years of experience, but not the education to back up my career.  This is something that didn’t matter as much 25/30 years ago, but now everyone wants that piece of paper, regardless of whether you can show consistent work experience as a substitute (competition is tight, I suppose hiring managers can be as demanding as they want). 

On the other side of the coin, I’ve been told that I’m over-qualified.  I’ve been in management for so long, people don’t want to hire me to do administrative jobs, part-time work, or cashier/retail work.  My guess is that they fear I would not like working under others or that I would not work well for other people - or maybe they just want someone more malleable (which I have to admit, I’m not - I’m not stuck in my ways, but I do like to be given a job and then be left to think for myself to complete it).  I’m open to whatever I find - management or not - I like a team atmosphere so I work well with others and would be happy to work under someone else again. That said, there are one or two things that could get me into trouble - I do not suffer fools or tyrants well, but if those issues arise, it’s probably not someplace I want to be anyway, right? 

Oh well, something will turn up… it always does (she says, optimistically). There are a lot of us in the same boat, we’re bound to catch a fair wind one of these days!