Baa Baa Knit Stitch

Yeah.  I kind of disappeared for the better part of a year.  It’d be fair to say that 2013 wasn’t the best for a lot of people I know.

So what happened??

Did I mention the lawsuit?  Where partner #2 didn’t pay partner #1 and I got collected as collateral damage and had to pay a ton of legal fees to save my business?  That got the year off to a fan-freakin-tastic start. I was seriously considering shutting down my practice before paying either of them another penny. I’m blessed to have found two very sharp legal-eagles who handled everything for me. It’s all settled now (well, my part is anyway, and I’m shed of them both – they can work it out amongst themselves as long as both of them leave me alone), but it left me incredibly angry and bitter for quite awhile.   There’s still some serious snark that comes out about it… there probably will be for awhile.  We’ll just say I’m still doing some free work to clean up some messes that were left and leave it at that.

Came to the realization that a group of people that I interacted regularly with in an internet group and I did not share a similar value set.  They kicked me out just as I decided to leave. Stung for a bit, but given everything else, I came to the conclusion that I needed positive attitudes and positive influences.  I wish them all the best.  I just needed to be somewhere else… and I’ve found that several other folks had the same idea.  We formed another group and created our own little support system, and we’re just fine.

Mom’s dementia continues to take a relentless toll on her.  She does pretty well during the day, but when evening comes, the confusion overwhelms her. We appear to have a stable group of caregivers now; there was a theft during the summer which caused us to have a shakeup eliminating one of the younger caregivers… but the ladies now with her 24/7 are caring and seem to treat her well. And I check on her.  A lot.   She’s also having trouble with the emphysema that was the end product of all those years of cigarettes that wouldn’t hurt her… but so far the breathing treatments seem to help.   I still go to Rome at least once a week, if not more, to grocery shop and handle business.

I lost a couple of very good friends this year… Big Jim Streeter passed suddenly in July.  How I miss that big teddy bear of a man!  And shortly before that, my pastor’s husband, Bill Lamberson, lost his battle with some chronic illnesses he’d been fighting.  I didn’t know Bill for long, but he was such a blessing to me with his big bear hugs and his listening ear.   In all, our church lost 5 members this year.  It was a big blow to our relatively small congregation.

In good news, after being laid off from Oracle last year, Richard is now a full time employee of AutoTrader.  He seems to really like it.  I really don’t like their health insurance.

Penny continues to be completely rotten (as if you’d expect something different).  Princess Chunky Butt is up to about 20 pounds now and she has us trained perfectly.

So, I’m hoping for a calmer 2014… one that has everyone healthy and happy… and one where I feel like writing obnoxious blog posts.