On with the New Life Stuff! in A New Beginning

Hello again! :o) !! I am still feelin’ so refreshed and chipper, it is just amazing. I get so much more QUIET time now! And more alone time. True, Guinness is always here and wants to be close to me, but he is not demanding like he once was. Gosh, when ya get right down to it, he has lived here a long time! When he first came with Joey, he was just ten months old....a very BIG puppy. Now he is three, Joey says. I don’t know. I’ll admit, I cannot keep track of time! By a clock and just by having a daily routine, of course, I can easily keep track of smallest-scale time. But once it gets into YEARS....heck, I don’t know! Maybe I should’ve been making marks on a stick or something! ;o) He has a gray chin; Poor ol’ Buddy. Do dogs normally get a gray chin so young??

A big thing is, I get as much computer time as I want now. Of course I am not a computer hog; I made sure to get my fair share when Joey was here, but it’s nice to just be able to be spontaneous with it instead of having a great idea but having to wait to get here and write it down! Since writing (and communication, because I only write to communicate with others) is so integral to my happy existence, I used to always feel rushed! I’d be, like, “arrrggghhh!!!! I need to get this frickin’ load of laundry folded so I can get on the frickin’ computer!” or, “dammit, I need to get this damn salad made so I can get my damn computer time in!!” because soon someone else would get on it and who knows when I’d get a chance, ya know? It IS kinda sad, but true. I am not a tv watcher at all, and Joey doesn’t watch a lot (not here! We don’t have cable or satellite dish, only an antennae and about seven channels!), so we NEEDED the internet! We did talk a lot, but ya can’t just gab all the time! Ya might turn blue in the face!

What it boils down to is, I FEEL SO RELAXED NOW, Having kids is wonderful. It’s good to have them when we’re young, so that when we’re in our fifties, maybe there’ll be, well, FEWER people living in the house! :o) !!

But it also makes me so happy in my heart, how well Joey is doing now. He has a good job (that gives important benefits like HEALTH INSURANCE!), and he ENJOYS IT. He’s a custodian in Joe’s school district. (Joe works in maintenance.) He never wanted to do that before, even though Joe kept emphasizing the good benefits. I’m sure he thought it would be boring....sweeping and mopping and vacuuming and cleaning and mowing.....who wants to do those things??) But he finds amusement and interest in each day, like Joe and I do. Schools are interesting places! Interacting with kids is never dull. And teachers, office workers, custodians, and lunch ladies all tend to be nice people.

Joey’s renting room-and-house-privileges with Natalie, who’s been a teacher in the district for nine years, and one other guy. Even though it is Natalie’s house, she thinks of the guys as her roommates, with whom she shares the house. I feel happy that Joey has a new set of friends now....responsible people who get jobs and make careers of them, and buy homes, etc. That’s the kind of folks we are. But for years, Joey mostly only hung out with Dave, his best friend all through high school, and all Dave wanted to do was smoke pot and barely squeak by. I am so proud of Joey for turning his own life around! :o) !!

Welp, Joe is up from his nap and it’s suppertime! Time to go for now. Who knows, I might be back kinda soon!

hugs and blessings,
Nicky