Sunday, April 26, 2009

The Highs and Lows

This past week I was on vacation. It was really really good to get away from work, though I had a mountain of chores waiting for me to take care of. Even so, it's always better to be able to choose what you want to work on and do it at your own pace than to go do the same boring thing day after day. The warm weather these last few days have certainly been advantageous to doing all my gardening and yard work, so in that respect it's been a very good week.

As I looked around at what I had to do I had to keep adding to the list I was making in my mind, then adding the cost of doing those things to the overwhelming debt I'm already in and decided that most of my plans would probably not happen. I know I'm luckier than a lot of people who are losing jobs and homes, but it's still depressing to know that my ambitions are for naught, and worse - bills keep piling up for the unexpected twists and turns which have to be dealt with on an increasingly more frequent basis.
My life insurance expires when I reach age 94, and I can cash that in then, so that's one thing to look forward to. Maybe I'll put off getting new tires until then.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Getting There, Slowly

I started getting serious about conquering my driving phobia the last couple of days, and thanks to some slight over medicating I've had a small amount of success. The pre-anxiety before I set out has diminished greatly, and even though I haven't achieved the breakthrough goals I was looking for there is definitely an optimism on my part about finally getting this thing under control which has been missing for some time. I've quadrupled my meds the last few days and I think that might be the key to getting over that initial inhibition. Although the extra meds make me very drowsy when I get home, the benefits while I'm on the road are worth it, and I checked on Internet medical sites and found that what I'm taking is well within the maximum prescribed dosages. The important thing now is to keep attacking the problem and not backslide. For the first time in awhile I'm feeling good about myself.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Trying to Accept

Thursday was my grandson's first birthday. I'd always though that being a grandparent would be a happy, fulfilling time of my life. I found out a year ago that parental love is just as strong when you become a grandparent, and I also found out that a monstrous amount of heartache can go along with it, and none of it is under your control. Jonathan is a beautiful, well-behaved child who is at the stage where he is exploring and getting into things now that he can walk. He's at the age when grandparents want to interact and be involved in their grandchild's life. Unfortunately for us that isn't going to happen as frequently as we'd like. We were invited to his birthday party and spent some time with him there, but the party took place at his mother's home, which just so happens to be her parents home, who are the ones who took offense at Nathan's try to take his girlfriend to court to get visitation rights and who accused my wife and I of trying to take the baby because we paid his lawyer's fee. Needless to say, we weren't made to feel very welcome, and it's doubtful that we'll start seeing Jonathan more frequently than his every-other-month visits. It really breaks our hearts because we don't want to become strangers to him, which is how it seemed when they came on Easter for the first time in almost two months. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if things change, and if not we'll have to accept things the way they are now as being the norm.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Family Time

Easter turned out to be a great day this year. My three kids, my grandson and his mother, and my wife and I all made it to church together - and on time at that. I feasted on too much food and candy and spent some quality time with my grandson, then watched the Cavs game and just laid around the rest of the day. Every holiday should be so good.