Erin finally called me after almost two weeks. I was really starting to get worried about him, especially since he had just gotten out of the hospital that time. He’s still in New Orleans, but his friend Trevor from high school met him down there & they’re traveling together now. I feel a little better knowing he isn’t alone anymore, because I do believe in safety in numbers and all of that. He was telling about these orange beach alabama hotels he & Dani stayed in one night on their way to Florida, and they sounded really nice. It made me wish I was 21 again and adventuresome like he is. I would have never hitch-hiked the country back then, and in a way, I admire him for doing it. It was something he always wanted to do.

He said he’s probably leaving tonight, but didn’t say where he was headed next, so I’m hoping he’s starting his journey West and back to Utah for the holidays. I sure do miss that kid and I know Rhi & Troy do, too.

Another year has turned on the Great Wheel, and a lot of things have changed for me & mine in it’s turning. We (Troy & I) have learned to let go of our kids and just let them be. We realize we have no control over what they do, and shouldn’t stress out over it, whatever will happen, will & we can’t stop it. We have taken better control of our own lives in the process, watching what we eat, being more active, paying attention to what our bodies are telling us instead of blowing off signals.

We have reined in our finances & have a semblance of control over them, or at any rate, we have a plan, no matter what the coming months bring us, we are prepared, which is more than we could have said in the past, and probably more than many people we know could. I have noticed that the older I get, the more I start thinking that maybe I need to get some sort of life insurance (if you know me in real life, that will shock you, as you know how down I’ve been on it in the past), but haven’t gone so far as to start checking out term life insurance rates yet, but I’m sure that will be coming. I just don’t want my passing to be a burden on anyone, you know?

Tonight we are getting together with friends & eating, doing ritual and just hanging out enjoying each other’s company as we mark the end of another year. I’m making some cute cupcakes & bringing a couple of rotisserie chickens and French bread (along with the last of the homebrew & mead). It should be a fun night.

Who’s the chick on the Loreal Color Riche lipstick ads, anyway? She looks like she belongs in a Robert Palmer video. Well, that and her lips seem to take up a lot of real estate on her face, and that doesn’t look good to me. I guess she doesn’t have to impress me, but I’m not buying lipstick that makes my mouth look like that, either!

I can tell I’m sick & somewhat bored, because I’m actually paying attention to the commercials on TV for once, and I’m starting o Google random terms, like “Ft Myers custom doors” just to see what comes up. I hate being bored, almost as much as I hate being sick. There are so many things that really need to get done in my home in the next few days, but I don’t really see that happening now. Hopefully I’ll feel much better by the weekend & Troy will help me get the house cleaned up & back in shape, because I see it getting out of control again & that’s the last thing I want to happen.

By the time I was ready for bed last night, I knew I was sick with something or another. In the middle of the night my throat was so scratchy & my nose so stuffed up that I woke up at around 3-4 & couldn’t really get back into a sound sleep. I should have gotten up and taken some cold medication, but I didn’t want to get out of bed and try to stumble around finding it. I got up at 6 with Troy and came out here to take some. I didn’t stay out here for very long before I went back to bed, and then I slept until 10:30. I had my breakfast and now I’m vegging out in front of “Snapped!” on Oxygen and trying to not look at how dusty and cluttered the tv stand is, so that I don’t get up and start cleaning, instead of trying to feel better.

I’m going to be really upset if I’m not feel well enough to do anything on Halloween. We’re already getting our rituals ready for that night and we were planning to have a party, too. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ever been sick on Halloween and missed out on the fun, but I’m really hoping I don’t have to. I’ll take it easy the next couple of days and see how I feel Saturday. If I’m still feeling terrible, we’ll just stay home and relax, I don’t want to get anyone else sick.

I had been hoping for a nice long Fall, but we have over 5 inches of snow right now & it’s still falling, so I guess the warm weather is gone, at least this week. I knew it was coming, we almost never have a Halloween when it isn’t raining, snowing or bitter cold & last year was beautiful, so we were due, I guess.

It was so cold yesterday that we went out to the store & bought one of those double draft guard things that slide under the door & it blocks the wind & cold air on both sides of the door. I had read some not-so-great reviews about them, but we were desperate & decided to give it a try. So far, we’re pretty pleased with it & it’s quite a lot warmer in here now. I’m hoping it will save us a bit of money this winter, too.

While we were there we wandered around & looked at cookware & office furniture, because we weren’t really in a hurry to get home and enjoy being out together. I still really want a home office one day & have my furniture picked out already. I just need my kids to stop moving back in & get situated in their lives. We’re here for them & aren’t angry that they need us, but I do have plans for the future of my home, if & when it’s just the two of us again.

I can’t believe that October is coming to an end already, this month has really flown for me, but it some ways, it seems like it’s been long, too. I’m not really looking forward to the holidays, Troy will be working through them all, but I’m not completely dreading them, either. I’m just kind of neutral at this point. I do hope Erin comes home, I miss him & I’m tired of being worried all the time.

I think when I look back on this year on December 31, I will have said that while it may have been tough in some aspects, it has been a very good one & definitely better than last year. By this time last year, my dad had gone through cancer treatments, Rhi had nearly succeeded at killing herself, Erin had been arrested several times and my grandmother had died. Before 2008 was over, Troy would have nearly died and I would be sicker than I think I have ever been.

This year, I started walking every day as soon as I got well enough to consider it seriously, working up to 4 miles pretty easily, we have cut out most all of the fat & bad foods we were eating & Troy lost a bunch of weight just from that. I went on a weight loss diet,(if you want to call it a “diet,” which I don’t, it’s just how I eat now & how I intend to eat from here on out) and have lost over 50 pounds since the first of the year. I’m still walking every week day & now we’re even adding jogging to the mix, something I never thought I’d be doing or enjoying. We have a pretty good grasp on our finances, even though this has been the toughest year for that in a long, long time for us. We had some money emergencies, but we got on top of them immediately & have them under control.

We’ll see what the next couple of months have to offer, but I’m betting it’ll still be a better year than last when it’s all added up!

How has the weather been in your part of the world lately? We have a lot of dark, angry looking clouds everyday now, but nothing seems to come from them. It’s been very cold and damp in the mornings (when I have to go out and walk!) and then gets warm and fairly nice as the day progresses. I’ve even had to open my kitchen window the past couple of days, but I know that soon I’ll be buying plastic and sealing them all up for the cold months and looking up hotels in Destin Florida and dreaming that we can escape and just be warm for awhile. Thankfully, winter has been easier on me since I don’t have to get out in it every morning at 7am to run kids to school, but I’m still not a fan of the cold.

I’m really looking forward to the holidays this year & I have no idea why. Troy works Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve & Christmas and that was really bumming me out, but I think I’ve accepted it and am now very excited and can hardly wait for them. I really hope that Erin will be coming home, although I have no guarantees about that (or any other aspect of his life). I don’t know, I think I’m just at peace in my life right now & I look forward to whatever it has to offer me.

I do have to wonder if any of my kids will ever learn to deal any better with disappointment, you know? Erin became disappointed and disillusioned with society and people so he’s off hitch-hiking around the country and I spend more time worrying about him than I do feeling okay that’s he’s safe. Garrett is regularly disappointed in one thing or another and takes it to extremes, at least every time he talks to me about it. Rhi handles it least well of the all. Everything is the end of the world for her. It becomes a reflection of who she is as a person and makes me worry about her even more. I keep hoping that they’ll start doing better with it as they all get older, but so far, I’m not holding out a lot of hope.

I also keep looking at all of this beautiful modern furniture on TV and wishing we could afford some, even just a little at a time to kind of update what we have, but I know we can’t and even if we could, it would be a bad idea. We’re all too clumsy and have too many fur-kids to even make it a reasonable purchase, you know? It would be thrashed before we finished paying for it, unfortunately.

I can’t believe it’s been over 10 days since I posted in here! This month is just flying by, it’s already about half over. We’re still walking every weekday, although lately, it’s been very cold out there in the mornings, so today, we moved to the indoor track at the university. It’s really nice, it’s elevated about the gym, so you can see down & watch the classes in progress (when they have them, school is out until Tuesday here). You do have to be quiet when they’re having classes, but it’s free & it’s warm, so we aren’t going to complain, for sure.

Troy & I went and got our flu shots over a week ago, so full immunity should be in effect next week. We never really have to worry about there not being enough of them, as his employer buys enough for all of the employees and spouses & we get to have them at no cost, so we aren’t out there competing with 4396710 other people, who all want one, too. We didn’t get one for H1N1, we aren’t in the risk group, and so, even though we lost a friend to it in the late summer, we’ll leave it for those who really do need it.

As most of you know, it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so I’ve gone pink to honor the memory of my cousin Brenda, who found out she had it much too late & died much too young.

A few months ago, we lost a lot of money and had to scramble to try to get bills paid, and in one case, keep my butt out of jail (a word to the wise, don’t trust anything that sounds even remotely too good to be true). After all of that happened, Troy got a new checking account (I’m not on it, but have access to the funds, no worries) and we started a savings account. We’ve been diligently saving up money, so that someday, we’ll be able to afford to go on a nice vacation together, somewhere far away. We’d both really love to go to Ireland one day, so that’s the plan, at least right now. I want to get enough saved up that we can have a really nice time and barring a travel emergency, be able to afford to do whatever we want while we’re there, so it’ll be a few year until we have enough money, but that’s really alright, we’ve already waited our whole lives to go, right?

We aren’t sure whether we want to sign up with a tour or kind of build our own vacation, because traveling in other countries makes me a little nervous, but I know we’ll decide long before it’s time to start paying for things and we have looked into a lot of options already. Have any of you been? If so, what option did you go for & what did you like about your trip? What would you have changed about it?