28 January 2008

It's been...

a very long time. I know. I'm awful. But in my defense, life has been turned upside down & my darling boyfriend is trying to finish the first draft of his novel (160,000 words at the moment!!) and is monopolizing the computer.
So.... here goes a quick summation of life since my last post. Thanksgiving & Christmas celebrations for Brandon's side of the family were at our house this year. I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner all by myself. And the turkey turned out amazingly well!! (Though I did slice a large chunk off the side of my index finger off when trying to break down the leftover bird, ouch...) We also had homemade: stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, gravy, rolls, & whipped vanilla cream. I took a lot of pride in making everything from scratch. Next year, I won't have anything to prove, so I may just buy the rolls :) We put up the Christmas tree on Thankgiving night, as always. Christmas on Bran's side of the family was uneventful. The tree is still up (for shame), but I did manage to get all the decorations off on New Year's day like a good girl. Just never got around to taking down the tree.
On Christmas eve, my "niece" (my aunt's foster daughter that they are currently trying to adopt) was admitted to the hospital with severe bleeding problems, kidney & liver failure. They did not expect her to make it, but like the little 3 year old tropper that she is, she has finally regained consciousness. She is still in the pediatric intensive care unit at UVA, and has more severe brain damage than she had before (she was born to a mother addicted to drugs & has suffered from severe dibilitating seizures her entire life), but my aunt & uncle are ecstatic that she has regained as much of her old self as she has. She will never be able to talk; they don't think she'll be able to walk, but she is here :)
Then in January, my grandfather passed away very, very suddenly. He died of a heart attack in his driveway while my grandmother was in Shawville taking care of her other granddaughter (my 2 year old cousin Charlotte). She beat herself up for not being there with him for quite a while, but now seems to be doing as well as possible, all things considered.
Latest issue has been my mom. She's now doing a little better physically & mentally than she has been, but while she was in the hospital this last time, her credit card was stolen & long story short, she now owes the bank $5,000 in fraudulent charges. My family cannot afford a lawyer to fight this, so we have to eat the debt. And my bank has confiscated my paycheck to pay for my mother's debt. If my phone number hadn't been listed on my account, I never even would have been notified. They left a message on my cell phone for my mother, thinking it was her number, and then cleaned the account. Needless to say, I am up a creek. This is where my paychecks are automatically deposited, my bills are paid automatically from this act & it is the only money I have to buy food, gas, toiletries & all other necessities for getting through life. Thank goodness for Brandon. If not for him, I would be out on the street. I have had this bank account for 24 years (it was started for me by my family when my mother & father found out they were pregnant) & am going to be forced to close the account so as not to have my paychecks stolen to pay someone else's debt (since I should not need to assume her debt unless something happens to both her & my father).
But I have been doing a little something crafty to help calm my nerves. Mostly, I've been eating :) But I did make this little guy tonight. I call him Gus. He's for a woman at work who asked me to make her a turtle. I think he's a charming little fellow :)