Good Morning and Happy new year!
Hello everyone I hope your new year was wonderful! Mine was good. We went to a small family get together where I was the designated driver! Yay me!
I thought I would be the first to post this year on our board! It seems to be die-ing down and I don't want that. There has been so much I learned from each of you and I love the friendships I formed. This journey has been wonderful for me!
So let's do a year in review and say what happened in your/our lives......
For me January started wonderful and I went to Vegs and met lots of new friends, I enjoyed meeting Anna, Angela, Karyn, Ronna, Jaci, Theresa, Amber, and Dana....(I do not think I MISSED anyone but if I did refresh my old memory)
Feb was a quiet month but March my hubby and I went to The Dominican, where I think we fell in love all over again (I am a mushy person) IT was such a beautiful and romantic place! April and May and June was busy with softball and end of school activities with Graduation. My oldest (Elizabeth) decided college was not for her so she began working full time in a job she seems to like.....Johnny had some emotional problems and they are still present but not as bad as in May and hopefully we are strong on the mend there. Brittany graduated and broke up with her boyfriend and then started college where she has a 3.75 average and she works part time and was playing college volleyball and just enjoying life. We had family over from England for a couple of weeks and that was fun. I went and saw 4 Yankees games and spent a lot of time watching them on TV. I love the yankees. I decided to return to school and will be starting college on Jan 24th and hopefully I will do well. I have become extremely close with my brother and that means so much to me. (we started getting closer after my dad died in 1999) He actually told me he loves me the other day and that is so bizaare coming from him but I WILL TAKE IT! John (hubby) is going to be driving tour buses for his company and hopefully things will be fun for him. He loves to drive and is very good at the big buses. He also drives school bus and I think he will miss that. So I have not lost any family members this year but I gained 1 niece and 1 nephew. I went from a Fat chick with curly hair to a small chick with straight hair. I now enjoy doing my hair and making myself presentable, when going out in public. So much going on and life has become fun!
so do you have any resolutions?
Share your year with me!
Hugs and friendship!
Love Chris
Happy New Year Chris
Well my year ended with a thud. We got hit with a snowstorm which cancelled all my plans for last night. Was nothing special but we were suppose to go see Charlie Wilson's War and then go out to dinner. So we stayed home, safe and warm.
2007 did start out with a bang, Vegas was wonderful. And Teresa was there too. It was so good meeting everyone in real life and wish we could do this much more often.
At the end of March I was traveling again and did a family cruise out of Galveston. We had 5 heavenly days of wonderfully warm weather and visited Cancun and Costa Maya. Then spent another week in Texas. Spentd 3 days in San Antonio and then back to Katy where I got to have dinner with Jen Jen and Valerie Smith.
Once I got home it was time to start my job search. It started in earnest in May. I must have sent out close to 1,000 resumes. I had 54 phone interviews and 15 in person interviews. I was busy. But in August it seemed like everything stopped dead in its tracks and I had nothing for two whole months
Then in October all hell broke loose and I was interviewing like crazy.
In November I celebrated my 55th birthday Funny that I feel so much younger now.
December 14th I received and accepted a job offer to be the Human Resource Manager for a home improvement company. I will start my new job tomorrow.
So my OH family, who have been here for me through thick and thin, I love and cherish each of you. I may not be able to be here as much as before but know that you are always in my heart.
I am looking forward to seeing many of you this Summer!
Hey Jersey! Do we have a date yet?
Sending love and hugs and wishes for a wonderful 2008
Ronna
Chris,
I had a very busy hectic year myself!! I was working in the lab at out hospital and then got the opportunity to transfer to the ICU and am now a monitor tech. I had a busy summer with the kids, my middle daughter finished her season of gymnastics competitions and ended up placing fourth in state after being dead last in twelth for most of the season. We clebrated birthdays in June, July, and August for the kids and then mine in November. I finally found a true friend here after living here with no one for almost 3 years. That has been a mental blessing to me. Spent a lot of time fishing with the kiddos. My sister and niece came down from Alaska to visit for 2 weeks. I also inherited my Godson from Alaska in June, which is the biggest reason I have not been on here more often than I have. He has big problems that we are still trying to get worked out, sometimes I think I am crazy for taking on the responsibility, but then again I remember that right now he has no one and I dont want to give up on this teenager. Lord help me!! Anyway, I got together with the family in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, the first time we have all been together in almost 3 years also. Got my hubbys citizenship application mailed out and returned to me cuase they need more money and info from us....hopefully soon this will be our next celebration. Went to Mexico the end of Oct. to my husbands home to be n my brother in laws wedding, and had a great time with all of his family.. Came back to my son having a broken leg while I was away and that was a traumati****urence for everyone. Now he is fine and bouncing off the walls again. Godson will be back on Friday from visiting family in Alaska. I am getting a new membership here at out local Y and going to start swimming again. I think that is all that happened over this past year....hoping that this new year will be the one that sees us through our financial difficulties!!! Take care everyone. Love you all.
Steph
2007 in review. Good Lord, I wish I hadn't looked back, but at least it explains why I am so down, blue, bah humbug. 2007 has been a horrible year, one I never want to repeat. I started the year careing for my daughter and granddaughter. My daughter had spent most of the privious four months in and out of hospitals haveing heart surgery and leg surgery and just before the end of the year she had her left leg amputated. I spent my time trying to run my restraunt and care for her and her daughter. Then my ex-husband had a massive stroke and I became responsible for him and his affairs as well as getting my daughter youngest son to raise as well (grandpa had raised him most of his life)(same daughter). Then my daughter had some kind of episode and died in my arms, I was able to bring her back to life, but just by a quirk of fate. She then went back to being in and out of the hospital. I needed a place where I could take care of her and get her in and out easily. The only place that fit that discription was my restraunt. I closed it and started makeing it into a home, well, not a home, but a place to live and take care of my daughter, two of her children and my ailing husband. Then my daughters oldest son came home from foster care. I love him, but he is one of those rebel children that knows no respect or how to behave. My daughter had to be rushed to Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and was there for two weeks. She wanted to come home so I brought her home. In June it got to the point that I couldn't care for her any longer. She wouldn't do what she was suppose to and I had to give her her shots and stand over her while she took her meds or she wouldn't take them. I had to bodily life her and she was 300+ at that point. A lot of water weight, bu****er is still heavy. I made arrangement to send her to the care home. Needless to say there was a lot of unhappy people, and I suffered a lot of verbal and mental abuse. But I couldn't do it any more. Then her oldest son decided that he ruled the roost and I couldn't begin to control him. I called his case worker and had him put back into foster care. I have spent most of the last six months trying to do everything for everyone and being the wicked witch of the west for my efforts. I finally decided that it was time for people to start looking out after themselves and I resigned all poa's and quite being responsible for their affairs. That only made matters worse, but it was something that had to be done. These are just the peaks of the iceburg, so if you can read between the lines, you can imagine how bad a year it really was. Since I have given a totally negative of the year 2007, I will add the one really good thing about the year. I became a grandma again. 2008 will be better. I have started taking the steps and making plans to stop being everyones whipping boy. One thing about reaching the bottom, you can only go up, so UP, here I come.
Hazel
Hazel sometimes the hardest thing to do is to take care of ourselves and let others take care of themselves. You are one remarkable woman and I for one admire you. Emotionally you have had a rough year but like you said 2008 will be better! The one reason I posted a year in review was to let us see where we have been and where we are going. Perhaps this will keep us on the right track to a better us! Happy New year and may things be much better for you!
Hugs, and friendship!
Love, Chris
Wow lets see the year started out after we got back from spending our holidays in Hawaii and then January 23rd I had my lower body lift that kept me down for quite a while and February 28th my daughter was very ill sick in the hospital for 2 weeks we made it through that a major struggle all year and then when I though I was feeling better I had my upper body lift on July 9th and then a complication from that and another surgery three weeks later and very low iron which took me months to feel better from..sad to say my yearly labs came back and my Iron is not better after 5 months I have been feeling better so I was sure it was better. Work was very slow so it was a good year for all of the time I took off (hopefully the housing market will pick up this year) ...oh well all in all it was a good year lots of adjustments lots of new clothes.
hears to a wonderful 2008
Tori
Happy New Year to All!!
I think it is a great idea to look back at 2007 and use that to springboard into a successful 2008.
My life has also taken some major turns. Travel continued to be a major part of my life. In the first 6 months I went to Cozumel, Vegas, Berlin, WDC, NYC, San Francisco, Sonoma, WDC, Los Angeles, Miami, Dublin, NYC, LA, NYC, Newport Beach, NYC, London, and Boston. And at least a dozen nights going downtown Chicago.
Then I quit my job of 16 years, the last 11.5 with the same company. It was a sexy role but not one that was intellectually challenging, I had challenges 'selling' the company I worked for and was just tired of traveling all the time.....I wanted to build my own life, interests and maybe even find a boyfriend. I now have a home office and lots of personal time which has been amazing.
The second half of the year also brought considerable and major changes. On Sept 17th I had a hernia repair with mesh and skin removal. The mesh made by abs hard and super tight. But the whole experience put me down and I was slower for longer than anticipated - 3 months, really. But it completely changed how I look at my body. How men look at my body and how I feel about myself. For 40 years I had a belly and now that is gone, it is the biggest gift that I have ever received and I cherish this change.
In the last 5 months my travel slowed but did not stop.....WDC, Denver, NYC, Phoenix and Vegas.
I also was blessed with time off to relax - also something I'd not done in years. I took off a week in August when my family was in town and then 2 weeks at the year end.
I am excited to start the new year re-focused on my new career path and make it all it can be and a strong learning experience. I also am eager to start my new work out routine. The PS has given me a whole new way of looking at my body and this has sparked an interest in exercise that I'd never knew was in me.
The dating life has definately picked up. I have at least 3 going at any given time but none are yet what I seek - but I am learning a lot about what is important to me in a partner/relationship so no complaints.
While many of these changes were hard and challenging, I am blessed with health - my own and my family. Although my 130 lb black lab blew out his good back knee in April forcing him to rely on his bad, arthritic leg. He's almost 11 and significantly slowed down this year. I think his aging is harder for me to see than him to experience.
I also look back with fondness on all that we have been thru as a group. I am thankful for the love and friendship of those on this board.....you all mean so much to me.
God bless,
~Tiffany