It's been a long time since a posting here. Life is good and it goes on. It tends to get too busy but still it's good to hang on for the ride.

I'm still working for the company I have been with for 4 1/2 years. I love the work, hate the low income (pay and time cuts are making it unlivable) and hate the potential danger. I like helping my co-workers and clients. I'm still a teacher at heart. And I guess I'm a people person too.

I'm looking for other work but hanging on to this job for dear life also. What an insecure time this is to be in the workforce. I keep applying at different kinds of places but until a new job is secure there is no way I'll quit this one.

Federal and state cuts to funding are making this work seriously underfunded. The newest round of cuts are taking nearly $16,000 annually away from every DD Waver client.

These are totally dependant, handicapped adults with no choice or ability to help themselves. Their service providers such as doctors and therapists are taking deep pay cuts. Day services are taking about 5% cuts in funding and group homes are taking 8% cuts with more in the works for later. How this service and the workers and clients will survive is a good question. We are paid very little above bare minimum wage. Benefits are dropping off and 401Ks haven't had matching funds in several years. Still, it is better than unemployement.

Almost 4 years ago raises were frozen at our company. We've taken pay cuts and now deep time cuts and staffing cuts in the homes. It's at the point where I worry for both client and staff safety. It's almost impossible to accomplish what is required of one staff when it was once the job of two or three people. Taking clients as a group to public outtings when they misbehave, run off, can turn violent, steal, and more..... is not fair to anyone with just one staff to drive and do it all.

Well life does have some silver linnings. We were married earlier this month with a small group of friends and family present. The wedding cake, punch, decorations, and a meal as well as the use of a clubhouse were all provided by friends and family. What wonderful and practical wedding gifts those were. What lovely memories they helped make for everyone there.

Inspite of, or perhaps because of, the hardships, gifts have been the things really needed, rather than showy junk that we'd have to store or find a new home for. Friends just got together and did it. Now that is real friendship.

We're into February already! My how the time flies. This past year I was injured at work. Way beyond ouch! I couldn't drive for five weeks but needed to keep on working. My fiance came through that life test with flying colors! He drove me to work and came to pick me up again. Three days a week he drove me to my Physical Therapy sessions then took me out for breakfast.

He was cooking, cleaning and doing laundry. No protests. He's stll doing a lot to help around the house. Vaccuming and dishes seem to fall into his realm. We both cook. He makes his lunches for work.

I recently took a new job. It didn't work out. Boy was I glad I had kept some days with the old job. I'm going to work four nights this week. I had just three nights last week. But it is going to work out ok.

I'm looking into some more eucation. EXPENSIVE! Besides all the work that will be involved. I really do want to go ahead with it. Not sure how that will work out but I'm planning to give it a try. So I've been filling out financial aid applications and discuing subjects and course work. Perhaps I can get the masters I want before I turn 70. lol Not so much of a joke as I'd like it to be. It's an estimated 5 years and that will make me 68 for real. Oh well, we all do better with goals to work toward. This is mine.

I's been snowing here off and on for weeks. Last week it was bad enough both cars were stuck in the driveway and the 4x4 truck was stuck for a litle while also. After it was dug out it helped move the cars a bit. We had to use a tractor to clean the long driveway so we could get in and out of here. It's funny what a foot or more of snow does to your mobility if you have small cars.

I've been inundated by college recruiters! Heaven help the teens in such a situation. I just finally stopped answering the phone and let the answering machine do the sorting out. Sometimes I recognise the area codes so I answer those. It felt like an online enquirey had unleashed the hounds of Hells to chase me down. I've sort of choosen one University. They are accredited and are patiently working with me to get all the forms correct and submitted. The really deciding factor will be what happends with financial aid.

I must say the recruiter has a great sense of humor and is infinately patient and very helpful. Some of the others made me feel like prey.

I'm hoping to get finished and have answers soon.

My how life changes! In a little over a year the roommate has had his needed surgery, healed, finished up his classes, found work, lost his father, and moved on. I gave him some furniture, houshold goods, and my old 1988 4x4 F150 Truck.

At the same time he was out of town finishing up his classes the apartment building was reposessed by the finance company(the owner went bankrupt). My brand new fiance's home sold, the water was turned off at the apartment building and we all had to move. The roommate found work and moved that week. My fiance rented us a tiny apartment to do for a short term landing spot and the deal I'd been working on for a new land home package in the mountains out of town started falling into place.

It took 3 months in the short term place..... lol. But we're in the new home now and making plans for a wedding in this new year that is almost on us. I've been working 50+ hours a week and sorting things between "need", "can't part with", "don't want to part with it but have no place for it" and "has to go". I have enough things from my old home, the apartment, my parents last place, and his household of stuff to furnish 5 households with just a few furniture exceptions. Obviously most of it has to go.

Now the sorting has changed to a new list-"to use now", "to store and decide later", "throw away", "give away", and "sell in the flea market next summer". Sometimes the titles get blurred as I really want to keep so many of the beautiful things saved by my pack-rat ancestors and the beautiful Indian pottery peices gathered over 30+ years of reservation ministry and operating a school. I have to draw a line somewhere but not sure how to do it yet.

Thankfully the fiance is patient and encouraging that it will get done and we will be able to walk through here without boxes everywhere. He's graciously parted with things I know he liked but he figured they didn't hold a candle to something 200 years old from a greatgrandmother. He really couldn't believe it when I had told him about the "stuff' I had packed away. All he had seen was the little apartment in town. I still had 3 acres, 5 mobilhomes, a commercial building, and 2 married sons living out there as well.

Well he's seen it all now and hasn't run. That's a good sign. He's spent our days off on two different occasions helping sort and haul things here to our new home and a 12x24 storage building he graciously bought to help hold things along with his two storage units. Next summer the planting and selling both have to get going with a vengence. I can't live long without a garden and pretty things but winter is here so that will wait for spring.

The home is my peaceful place. Before it was even ready to live in we were coming out to cook or just sit under the trees and enjoy the peaceful feeling of this place. Now that it is home we love it. He'd been retired for a few years but has taken a job to help pay for a new garage/workshop and other improvement he wants to put in here. He's purchased new landscaping trees to make shade and be pretty.

Somehow we lucked out with having the same days off. I get week days off and have usually tried to keep it that way for the last few years. His new job matched those days without even asking for it to be that way. One night a week we actually work the same hours so I ride to work with him and we go out to breakfast that one day. Actually I meet him several days a week at a favorite place as we get off 30minutes apart 2 days and the same time that one day. Saturday and Sunday I do 12 hour shifts and get off a couple of hours later than he does so those days he goes home to get a nap before I come in.

Life is pretty awesome. I'm past 60, looking forward to getting married soon, and enjoying being loved and cared for as never before. He helps with the house cleaning, washes dishes, often takes a turn at cooking, and even does laundry most of the time. He actually likes to go grocery shopping with me. We both like a lot of the same things and places, and both can and do make and repair things around the house. I like power tools! My favorite hammer is a 22 oz framing hammer. I was buying up new tools at the same time he was selling tools knowing he was selling his home and didn't have a place to move to. I was buying tools hoping to have a place wether it was new or used. I was working on buying both...waiting to see which would work out. By doing it together WE HAVE A NEW HOME!

My old computer was almost dead when I moved last summer and just before Christmas he bought me a reconditioned newer one. So I'm up and running and writing again. I've reconnected with several old online friends and hunted up my old blogs. Hope to get something on each of them soon. I do enjoy doing this.

I'll be glad to hear from all of you again so don't hesitate to say hello and leave a comment. I hope each of you have a wonderful new year.

What a year it has been! My roommate moved in with barely healing broken ribs and newly released from the hospital with pneumonia. In the last year he's rebroken the ribs and broken his foot twice and had another bout of pneumonia. He has finally had a much needed surgery and is just about 100% recovered from a nightmare year that included loosing almst everything he owned and loosing his car and license. Last month he got a new drivers license and we're looking for an inexpensive pickup or car for him to use. He's been doing some serious job hunting since weaning off of the oxygen he came home from the hospital with. That was a surprise but at last he's ok now.

My life has been on hold while helping out but I'm moving on again also. I hope to meet a new man this weekend. We've been talking a bit and he'll be in town if all goes well. He sounds like a great guy. He's been alone for a few years also. I'm not too needy as I have good friends, laugh plenty, and enjoy life, but I'd honestly love to have a companion again. It does get lonely.

I have carried over some things from last years garden. The jalepenos and ther hot peppers are blooming again. The herbs are growing and beautiful. A few flowers are blooming. I have seeds and started plants ready to get the garden going again but the weather is still too unsettled. We had a bit of snow in the air a few days ago and the winds are blowing hard and drying things out. I have Spring in my heart so I can hardly wait to get the garden going but like most good things I need a bit of patience.

Hope this finds all of you in good health and enjoying the blessing of a life lived richly.

Since my last post I have acquired a roommate.....just roommate....and yes it's a guy. I'm old enough to be his mother and that is pretty much the relationship. BUT I'm enjoying having someone to cook for and talk to.

I cook, he eats, takes out the trash and washes dishes. He helps with the rent. He also checks the fluids in the car for me and keeps his own room clean. He helped fix up the back yard and we're using his table and chairs outside. It makes a nice place to sit in the early mornings or late evenings. I spaded the garden and he put in the little pond I'd purchased last year. I planted flowers and vegetables and we both water it all. I pull weeds. (He'd pull all the wrong things until, when and if, he learns what each kinds of young plant looks like.) I bought 6 goldfish for the pond. Four fish survived and are growing now. I'd like to get a water Lilly or two also.

The garden is doing well. Beans and tomatoes and some varieties of peppers are blooming. Most of it is still too young to look for blooms yet. The lacy carrot tops are up high enough to identify now and radishes are showing some color in the roots and within weeks will be ready to eat. The climbing beans and flowers are putting out the early tendrils that will grab hold and begin the process of climbing. I have strings already in place for them to climb on. The jalapeño peppers are setting profusely and the strawberries have a few berries and a few new runners started. The herbs are tall enough now to begin using from them and the dill is blooming. The mixed lettuce I planted is just tall enough to begin to identify it as different from the weeds.

I will tell you more later but in the mean time, if anyone’s interested in a helpful 38 year old Hispanic/white male who’s never been married ……