Well, well, well..

Well, well, well... It really says a lot without saying anything. It's not clear and direct but it certainly points to something interesting and newsy.

I have been MIA around here for months. A lot has gone on... some really good stuff and some not so much. I had thought, when I posted last, that I was coming out of my funk. I was so wrong. Not that I didn't make some progress but it wasn't what I'd hoped. I was happy to get my car back from the shop with the necessary repairs completed. I was unhappy that the experience took my son down far enough that he has been "afraid" to try his road test again. He really is a good driver! Experience is a cruel teacher sometimes. Another major event was the closing of the store I was working in. It didn't mean I was out of a job so it really shouldn't have affected me as much as it did, perhaps. I found myself quite unhappy at the travelling time to and from work being tripled. I didn't make a huge deal out of it or anything but there was always the dreading of the drive, even though I still enjoyed the work and the atmosphere was better with newer and brighter surroundings. Also work related, working 5 days a week reduced hours was really not that different than the feeling of working full-time and I started to feel tired and funky every day that I had to work and even some of the days that I didn't. Then my hours underwent a forced change. In the long run, the change wasn't the horrible thing it felt like when I first heard about it but it was the negative way it was approached that got to me. Couple these things with the winter, even an extremely mild winter, and I just felt down a lot of the time. I felt like I had NO control over my own life.

Now here I am... almost 4 months later... and longing for spring. Again, this is in spite of the crazy mild winter we have been having. It's not over yet but we're at the point where whatever comes now won't last all that long. A month from now, spring will be arriving and everyone will feel that much more cheerful. How am I doing? I think things are a little better. I've made a "career move" recently and started a new job. It was sad to leave the old one but I did get reassured that if things don't work out where I am now, that I can go back and they will rehire me in short order. Goodbye shoe sales, and hello car repair. Quite the change and I'm sure I'll learn a lot. I know I will enjoy the multiple benefits to working for a large company again. I'm still in the confusion of learning the ropes so it's tough right now but I feel pretty good about it all, mostly. One of the big things... I am again working just 5 minutes from home.

Wonder Schmud has changed jobs as well. He went from part-time grocery clerk to a full-time dairy clerk with a different store. He says it's a little boring but it's full-time with benefits and will allow him to save for getting some schooling in his chosen field of the world of technology. Hopefully he will soon have his driver's license, too. No, he hasn't decided to try again... yet... but I am choosing to have hope.

The other family members? Mr. B. is managing. There have been a lot of changes in our household over the past while. I think he's just trying to go with the flow and cope with the effects on his illness ravaged body. I like to think that some of the changes have been positive and that there will be some great benefits in the long run. Miss Girly-o and her String Bean are not doing a lot different than before. She is working full-time now, back in the food industry, and looking at doing some schooling in the near future. He is plugging along at his job and coping with some health changes but doing about the same as he was.

One BIG plus that happened just yesterday was the last payment on the landscaping work we had done last summer. We expected that it would take a year and we're WAY under that, so this is very much a "happy, happy" thing. Now to plug along on the much larger Line of Credit which holds the costs of two vehicles, siding and some other leftover from the renovations done to the main floor almost 4 years ago now. We're expecting it to take about 3.5-4 years to pay in full. And we're hoping to finish the basement renovations that we started after the main floor renovations as well. I will be VERY happy to get out of living in a constant state of chaos, that's for sure.

Well, that's the update and hopefully I can get back in the swing of things with posting more again. Working full-time now, I might be fooling myself but we'll see. ;)

Dee..