Happy New Year

Taken as a whole, this year has been a pretty good year. This year marks the fifth year since I met Mrs A., and it is the first year for us that has not been and endless stream of one crisis after the other. Mind you, it has not been completely smooth sailing, but all in all, not bad.

Either that or I have become so accustomed to chaos, that I didn't percieve the chaos as being particularly bad.

I spent a good part of the year not speaking to my daughter R. She had adopted the street life, and was back into drugs. I just don't want that around my house. It's her life, and she can live it her way, but I don't have to be a part of it. It can really tear you apart, trying to control something you have no control over.

But eventually things worked out, and she came over for Thanksgiving and we gave her a ride to the family Christmas Eve get-together. Everyone was happy to see her clean and sober. The story isn't all peaches and cream though. She is expecting. Her due date is May 5th. While I will be glad to welcome a grandchild to the world, it would be better if she had a husband to go along with the child. 'Nuf said.

The other daughter L. broke up with her long time companion, and we took her in for a couple of months. They had parted ways as partners a couple of months before, but he was still trying to run her life. After a couple of months things settled, and she is now living with a different guy. Although I don't approve of the morality of jumping from bed to bed without the sanction of Matrimony, I do like this new guy. He actually is working and isn't into drugs. He has plans for the future. I have worked on cars with him a couple of times. You can tell a lot about a man if you work on a car with him, and we worked smoothly together. I'm crossing my fingers on this one.

We purchase an Airstream 19' mobile home, and took it out camping a couple of times. I will sure never go back to tent camping. Our first outing was to Deception Pass State Park. It was a wonderful trip, and we will definitely be going back there.

Mrs A. has been under a lot of stress at work. She has been asking for help for over three years, and nothing ever happens. When she started not sleeping at night, I told her she needed to go see the doctor. Her blood pressure was 150 over 84. We're talking heart attack territory here. The doctor told her not to go back to work for a couple of weeks. She has to go back on the 3rd, but the doctor has limited her to 4 days a week. So we will have a new journey of some sort through her job adaptations. When we met I told her she could quit any time she wants, but she likes working and has supported herself and her kids her whole life. Although it will put a strainn on our budget, we can live pretty comfortably without her salary. I would really like her to quit and do volunteer work at Church, something she would enjoy very much, and is a heck of a lot more rewarding that her current job.

My Aunt Pat passed away in Mexico this fall. She had health problems for quite some time. She was such a lively, intelligent, fiesty lady, It's hard to think of her as gone. Mrs A. and I spent almost three weeks with her and my Uncle Ben as our honeymoon, and the memories are something I will carry with me the rest of my life. We had been trying to get back to Morelia to visit them, but things just didn't work out. I wish we could have seen her one last time.

V., my adopted grandson is 15 and a typical teenager. You almost have to beat him to get him to clean his room. He knows everything and we are old fogies. He is a good kid, and a rising star on the Debate team, but doesn't pay enough attention to his schoolwork and spends too much time in his "Lair" playing World of Warcraft, but is usually reasonable. Given all the crap he has been through in his life, he's not turning out bad at all.

Well, Happy New Year to everyone out there in the Blogosphere, and here's hoping 2008 is a banner year for you and yours.