April 11,2007

They say life can turn on a dime and I must step on a lot of dimes because it just keeps changing. Jeremy and I have had  house in North O for a year next month and Jessica and Jessalynn have been living with us most of that time. It is a good size house, four bedrooms and a small whatever room that we use for storage. We have good neighbors and a really nice landlady, but will have to move soon because the neighborhood in general is bad and Jessalynn starts school this fall. Jami got out of jail August first and was supposed to stay with us but that didn't last long before she was back in Council Bluffs with her old friends. August 20th I took her to the ER for four huge spider bites that turned out to be CA MRSA. I have since become and advocate for those suffering from this illness and write on many different websites on the subject as well as keeping a blog through MRSA Resources. Shortly after she was diagnosed, Mikey got out of the Air Force and moved home to Minnesota so we lost our granddaughters, Joey and Michelle, although I'm sure we'll see them from time to time. I still keep in touch with Mikey through email and he calls from time to time to let us talk to the girls. Jess is still working at Romeo's two days a week but has another job in the works to be a Miller Beer Girl. We've seen a few jobs like this fizz out before they got going and I pray this one doesn't! We've been through three vehicles. We first had a Lesabre that the tranny went out in and got towed, then Rob gave us his multicolored Celebrity wagon he couldn't sell for even two hundred dollars and it lasted a couple of weeks and now we are driving a Voyager van that I really like and think might last a little while. I am getting the last of my settlement money next month and hope to move and set us up a little better than we are here. We really can't afford this place but I got it hoping Jami was going to live here and help pay the bills, which are beyond my disability. Jeremy was unable to work most of last year since I was severely ill and laid up with a herniated disc along with the "normal" problems I have but I had surgery on my back last January that has left me more functional with medication so Jeremy is now job hunting, not as easy a thing as it was in Omaha even just five years ago. We have a new room mate named Dave that we get along with pretty well but there is some friction with him and Jessica, mostly because of her refusal to even speak to him, which is uncomfortable for him to say the least. I take up for her as always but it doesn't take a genius to know it isn't just reticence that keeps her silent but often just flat out bad manners and not caring how she makes people around her feel. It drove people nuts all her life but really seems odd now that she is an adult. Jeanette and Rob also moved not long ago into a house a couple of blocks from Patrick's, about a mile from here, but we don't see much of them because they are so afraid of Jami having MRA and us visiting her even though I have explained the illness and how it is contracted many many times. There has been soe distance between us and them all year that I'm not sure what the root of is, maybe a combination of things. Rob was very sweet when he borrowed the two grand for his recording equipment from me but I've been a nothing since then to both of them and jeanette laughed at me when I mentioned getting paid back saying it was the stupidest thing I did with my settlement money and that I would never see it again. They also got upset that the old wagon they gave us broke down so fast even though we put over three hundred dollars of work into it before it went kaput. The kaput might have been Jeremy's fault, spinning the wheels in the snow because he didn't know better, but a good car would have held up to it. I love how close Jami and I are and Jess and me, too. Jami and I have our differences but almost never fight anymore, call each other almost every day when we can, and love to see  each other most of the time. I have worked hard on getting closer to Jessica and find her a delight to be with but still very secretive in her own ways which is fine, I don't want in her business more than she lets me, which is more than I ever dreamed of. I am still trying to get closer to Jeanette but there is a lot of bad blood there and she has let me down a lot in the last year as my payee and as my daughter. My grandchildren are awesome! I see and know Jessalynn the most since I live with her and she is pure delight to me PLUS I get to talk to Lindsey more than ever and have internet connections with her when she isn't grounded from the internet. She just turned twelve!!! and says she will come to me when she is 18 and I am counting the minutes! I also still have my incredible pen pal Beaver who has gone through every good time and shared every tear with me since we started writing almost two years ago and I am quite dependent on him for support. I also have Beverly, a friend from school days who I found at Reunion.com and I cherish her greatly. We support each other in life although I think she does a lot more taking care of me than I take care of her! Oh, and we have two cats now, they were kittens!, and they are Katrina and Alicia, appropriately named after hurricanes.

And that is life here to date, overall a good life that I am happy with but working on always to make better for all of us. I believe in all of mine and me and life is good.           

Wow. Has my life changed since I first started this!!! It is now July, 2005. Jeremy and I left our tepee in Texas and have been in Omaha, Nebraska since last March. Our life was a struggle in Texas, and it has been chaos here. There have been very good things. Seeing all three of my girls, getting to know my granddaughters. There have been terrible things, too. I'll seperate them, the good in the Sunshine and the sad and bad in the Thorns.

UPDATE 07-09-06

Jeremy and I have a house in Omaha and Jessica and Jessalynn are living with us and we are planning for Jami to move in here August second and life is grand. Jeanette and Rob live 1 mile from here so we are all close and cozy. Two regrets, one, my Lindsey lives so far away in California, and two, I don't get to see Jami's girls often enough but that will hopefully change after Jami moves in here. Other than that, like I said, Life is Grand. :-)