The purpose of this blog is to strengthen bonds of family and friendship through regular postings about what is happening in my life. I hope to hear from you in response to my blog! This is my first posting since switching e-mail accounts and losing my other blog address.

It has been a very busy and stressful fall. I finally found and special ordered office furniture. They said it would take 4-6 weeks but it arrived in 2! I finished painting the office and shampooing the carpet. The night before it was to be delivered, I got a call that informed me that there was a large scratch across the top of the desk. It had to be reordered. No problem though, it came so quickly the last time......After waiting a month, I called and was told it wouldn't be here until the end of December! Now you have to understand, my house is a mess while waiting-the computer is in the front hall with cords running out to it, the files are in the basement-you get the picture. I scheduled delivery of the file cabinet-thought I could at least get going on putting that back together. In the meantime...my desk came in and was able to be delivered at the same time. Unfortunately, the leg on the desk was stripped out and broken.....so we had to re-order the desk again. At least I had the broken desk that I could use until the new one arrived. My third desk arrived with a broken drawer. I am currently waiting for a new desk. They called the other day and said it won't be in until after the new year.

In the meantime my cat got another urinary tract infection and peed in the basement again. It is so nasty. I can't find all the spots (with the lovely 70's rust carpet) so we decided we are going to rip it up and replace it. She also peed in the furnace room (where we had confined her) and there was lovely 70's stick on tiles in there. The urine seeped under the tiles and it stunk in there, so we had no choice but to peel up the tiles. Jim hauled everything out of there and cleaned up the adhesive just in time for the new furnace to be installed. We knew we needed to do that this fall. We found that our hot water heater is also leaking, so I still need to call and get that replaced. Then the floor will be dry and we can paint/stain it and put everything back in there. After that is done, we can rip up the stinky carpet and replace that.

We also had to order new doors. Those are supposed to be installed on Monday. We have a new front door, storm door and door from the house into the garage coming. We planned on doing that later, but Nathan kicked in our front door in a fit of rage and broke it. Teenagers are loads of fun.......

School started out promising for both boys. Nathan was really trying this year-being very positive and responsible. Then he started falling apart and things have got very ugly again. I am very concerned for him and we are going to begin counseling this week. He refuses to go and unless he changes his mind, it could get really serious, so please be praying for us this week. The stress from this is tremendous. Noah is doing really great though. The plan was that he was going to live at home for a few years and just go to college locally. Afterwards he was going to go to chiropractic college-so I had a few years to prepare. Last month he was honored with an academic achievement at one of those local colleges. The dean that sat at our table talked with Noah and told him that the university was getting ready to sign a 3-3 deal with Palmer Chiropractic College. That means he would go to the university for 3 years and then transfer to Palmer for 3 more years. The first year at Palmer would transfer back to the university and he would earn a Bachelors Degree as well as his Dr. of Chiropractic in one less year, thus saving him $25,000. We had never heard of such agreements, so we started searching. It seems that they are fairly new, but there are more colleges that are participating, so now we are in a mad dash to check out colleges and apply there. Who knows, he may still go local, but maybe one of the other colleges will offer him a good scholarship that will make it about the same price to go there.....He has also been busy with basketball starting up. We have a new coach this year, which made all the difference for Noah. Our old coach would play one big guy at the top of the key. He also had a rule that in order to make the team as a senior, you had to start or be the first one to sub in your position. Noah would not have made the team, because we have so many big guys. The new coach plays a more up tempo game and plays two big guys down at the basket. Noah is the first to sub in that position and is actually a valued player this year. His first game is on Saturday. Noah is also taking an ACT test prep class, hoping to raise his test score a little bit to get more scholarship money. He is retaking the ACT in a couple of weeks.

Jim has been working a lot because of the outage at the plant. They keep switching his schedule, which is very frustrating. He has also worked mostly nights, which is also very frustrating. The overtime sure helps with all the major expenditures though, so I am thankful. He and Noah went hunting this fall, but neither got anything.

The annexation issue has been heard and is sitting in the State Supreme Court. A letter was sent to full time city employees asking them to come down and apply for their job (assuming victory-rather presumptuous). When it was mentioned that part time employees were overlooked, they apologized, but have done nothing to correct the oversight. So it is pretty clear that they have no intentions of hiring part time city employees if they prevail, and I would lose my job. I am trying to get my resume updated and some letters of recommendation on file just in case I am unemployed next year. All of this stress seems to be taking a toll on my health. I went to the endocrinologist for some tests, and I am awaiting the results. I did a women's bible study that was really fantastic. The teacher is woman from my church and she is trying to get this published into a book. It is about how the tabernacle is a blueprint for healing the hurting soul. I've also decided to give my cat up for adoption. In the process of getting that information to the shelter, I found my digital camera was no longer working and wound up buying a new one.

So that is what has been going on in my life. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving and are having fun getting ready for the Christmas season.