Today is the last day of my 45th year. A good time to reflect upon the last 364 days.
The first thing to be said is that it was in no way as bad as the preceeding year. Shit happened in my 44th year that rank in the top 5 of "worst experiences of my life". So, even if the last one may have had it's share of low points, it could not get a whole lot lower than that year. So, with that in mind, I continue.
It started out very good. In June I received a favorable decision in regards to the appeal I had with the Social Security Disabilities Division. Things were looking up. Our lawyer told us we could expect benefits to begin within the next 60-90 days.
That did not happen. As a result, the rest of the year was tainted with disappointment. Especially in March, when we lost our house to foreclosure. A direct result of Social Security STILL not coming through by that time. We moved into another house, hoping that the checks will start coming before too long. If they don't, you can expect my 46th year on this planet to be even worse than the one that's ending.
Still, there were some good times. For a few months I played in a band with my brother and a couple of friends. We gigged fairly regularly, but more importantly, we did justice to the songs we performed. Audience response was positive from the start, and that's always good. I wound up having to step down and leave. It wasn't that I necessarilly wanted to, but my hearing was suffering and so were my sleep patterns (which I have to keep in check). I was able to stay in touch with the guys, though. We did a bit of recording. I'm sure we'll continue that.
One of my best friends, Mike Hardwick, who had moved to Texas a couple of years ago, came up for a visit. There were scads of people at the party. I got a chance to perform my acoustic songs for several people whose opinions I respect.
I figured out how to circumvent the "New Blogger" and had a blast re-designing this blog. My HTML skills are limited, but I learn more as I edit this page. It's the first time I've been really happy with the look and feel of my blog. As a result, I am inspired to write more. Which is just another way of saying that I had a good time with this hobby in the last few months.
Bryan continued to do well in school, and Stacie worked hard to keep an excellent grade point average. It was good to see them doing so well.
On the negative side, our dog got extremely sick, to the point where we thought he would die. But on the positive...he surprised us all by recovering. Back to the negative...he has something wrong with his vision right now. I'm hoping that things swing back to the positive for him very soon.
I realize I've blogged about much of this, and not so very long ago, either. But, hey, it's reflection time, remember?
SURELY this upcoming 46th year will hold many good things for us. Stacie will be graduating college next month. Her salary will get a good boost. And there's no way that Social Security can put things off for another year...then again, as I think I already said, if they put it off for even 3 more months the "good things" that the year may hold for us could effectively be shut down, or at the very least dumbed down.
That's all I've got to say about my 45th year. As for the remainder of the day, I plan to spend it OFF of the computer. :)
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