Not even a day after I write the post in here that I did about our SNAP case… not even being looked at, it is.

However, to get it to that point I had to write countless complaints, the majority of whom weren’t even read but were responded to with copied and pasted boilerplate that I knew was meant to placate me and put something on record so that the state could say they “responded”. I had to send countless messages to the official Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) page on Facebook, and Mention their official account on Twitter, numerous times even though they ignored me almost every single time I did this. I had to threaten to contact Legal Aid, which would have been the first step in litigating against the state had they not processed our renewal forms in the thirty-day time period that state law required them do — or, worse, if they had continued to ignore our renewal forms that they had been ignoring up until that point and our benefits actually lapsed as a result. This was what began to get their attention, especially as I continued to bring up the fact that I knew exactly when it would have been thirty days since I completed and sent off those renewal forms, and I continued to make it clear to the state that I would contact Legal Aid as soon as the first chance — pardon my pun here — legally presented itself for me to do so. So yesterday afternoon, I got a phone call from someone that turned out to be a state caseworker letting me know that our renewal had been processed, although at the time this post will publish on my blog it remains to be seen whether processed will actually mean “approved without a hitch” because of the whole homeschooling thing that I know I’ve mentioned in here. I mean, it should, because I’ve talked to the Texas Home School Coalition about laws that Texas has on the books versus unenforceable “regulations” that HHSC’s handbook has just now begun to tout, but… I guess we’ll see there now, won’t we? I’ll check the website in a bit and see what it says.

Also, another thing which is absolutely hilarious in hindsight: the state is desperate, and I mean desperate, to make sure I know that both of my kids’ child support orders are in non-enforcement as they legally have to be due to the good cause waivers that were sought out and approved for both of them. I guess the squeaky wheel really got the grease in that the complaints that I filed each day they were “accidentally” opened, and the fact that I made Attorney General Ken Paxton and corrupt child support “chief ombudsman” Stephanie Neely as searchable as I did added onto the fact that I also filed complaints with the National Child Support Agency every time this “accidentally” happened, plus every day these cases “accidentally” remained open, attracted all the wrong sets of eyes to the Austin child support office… and by that I mean the wrong sets of eyes for the state, not the wrong sets of eyes for me. Quite frankly, they need more eyes on them. And I’ve made it clear from the start that my end goal, and my job, is not to be friends with these people. It is apparently to protect my children from these people. I seem to do a great job at it, which I will continue…

So that thing that I wrote about where our SNAP benefit renewal continues not to have been looked at? Still.

I had to file another complaint, and in this one I referenced the fact that it has nearly actually been thirty days since I put my family’s SNAP renewal in and… nothing. No action has been taken on it, and this is now our last benefit month. After doing a bit of research I found out from a state congressman that this is a statewide issue, that this has been a statewide issue for going on a year, and that the department of Health and Human Services has been plagued with people quitting for… wait for it, the entire year. Nothing has been said about this, though, and I would never have learned about this myself had it not been for research that I took it upon myself to do on the Internet wondering why HHSC was exceptionally slow refusing to touch my family’s benefit renewal. To make matters worse, people on Facebook were begging HHSC to work their cases, pleading with them to restore their benefits in cases where their benefits had actually lapsed because they had refused to get to them in time. In my most recent complaint, I made it clear to HHSC that I knew what state laws were on the determination of benefit cases and that I would contact Legal Aid if our benefits continued to be ignored or if they actually lapsed due to agency inaction. This surprisingly resulted in someone from the HHSC’s Office of the Ombudsman contacting them themselves rather than passively aggressively sending me the same copied and pasted drivel that they had grown accustomed to firing off, telling me that “someone would be looking into my family’s benefit renewal” and that it could take up to five days. Needless to say, I’m going to be watching the calendar. But why does it always have to be Texas?

I am now in love with sodium lauryl sulfate-free (and paraben-free, and plastic-free) shampoo and conditioner bars. They last so much longer than bottled shampoo and conditioner when you remember to dry them off after use, they’re so much better for your hair — you also need to use it less than bottled shampoo and conditioner once your hair “gets used” to it, which surprisingly didn’t take long at all with mine!

There’s also the fact that the majority of them smell really nice, too… a lot better than the bottled stuff does!

I love these bars and I intend on continuing to use them into the new year — actually, well past that point!