Losing a job but finding work, part 2

After the shock and humiliation of being fired passed, Mary found benefits.
Unemployment benefits paid 2/3 of her salary.
Arthritis symptoms and migraine headaches disappeared.
Blizzards she did not have to commute through made her happy to be inside in her lovely home.
After posting her resume and completing applications online a hundred times with no result, she took part time employment at a high-end fashion store, a job she always wanted, at 1/4 her former hourly pay.
"I loved helping women find flattering styles and hoped my degree would lead to a higher position," she said of a promotion that never came.
On holidays she drove to Florida, Georgia, and Indiana to visit relatives, becoming active in their lives now that she worked part-time.
Her husband purchased more flower bulbs, saplings, gardening gadgets and tools, making their four acres of land a show place for the gardening business he hoped to start if the unthinkable happened, and he lost his job of 37 years.
He was "let go" a year after Mary, at the age of 60.
"Before we were down-sized out of our jobs, we believed our good judgment and hard work would bring rewards in the form of higher pay," Mary said. "Not unemployment compensation or Social Security from early  retirement." 
She continued: "We couldn't make our $3,500 a month house payment, so we just waited for the mortgage foreclosure, tried to find jobs, and we grieved."
They considered starting a business in doggy daycare or flower and plant sales, discovering costs, regulations and zoning issues they never expected.
They started a business breeding golden retrievers. As a result they own four dogs they purchased to breed, plus the last litter, born a few days after learning two of the sold dogs suffered a potential birth defect. so none of their twelve animals could be sold or bred.
Their credit union let them live in the home for a year without paying on the mortgage, then offered a deed in lieu in return for the property.
"A deed in lieu frees you from your obligation to the mortgage holder, but it ruins your credit and bars you from another mortgage for seven years," Mary said.
Stay tuned for part three later this week