Update

I should really apologize that I've been going so long between posts. It's not just because Facebook sucks up all my computer time, either. (Although I now know a lot of you folks' real names that way.) There's been a whole lotta stuff happening around these parts.

First off, we finally got our house caught up. It's taken near 'bout three years to get to that point. Some of you might recall the financial difficulties we were faced with when our income dropped suddenly. (Many of you contributed, for which I thank you again.) Eventually we got behind by one payment too many and went into foreclosure, at which time the frimpin' [eliminatory orifices] refused to accept any payments at all! We tried to go through one of those relief programs, but the [person of irregular birth] who was handling our case kept deliberately misplacing the files we sent. No, I'm not just being paranoid. We wouid send him our forms and our pay stubs, he would acknowledge receipt verbally, and then a few weeks later we would get a letter that said we were going to be denied because we hadn't sent our paperwork in. This happened four times before we finally got a rejection letter because of the "missing" forms.

Finally God came through in the form of (a) a huge tax refund, more than twice as big as last year's, (b) a withdrawal from my already-battered 401)k) and (c) my Lovely and Brilliant Wife's financial aid for her Master's program. The boost came just as I was laid off from my side job, so the timing was perfect. It'll be tight, but I think we can keep up from here.

And the house has been as crowded as it's ever been. Not only are the grown kids not yet gone to college in distant places (Covarr heads off to Central in the fall), but Wharf Rat and the grandson came to stay with us for a while. (The circumstances were ugly and I probably oughtn't to get into it much.) Again God came through, and within a week and a half she had started a job and had an apartment lined up. We still have the grandson during the day - Drama Queen has been babysitting him to finance her cell phone habit - but as long as the apartment comes through, the job holds out and the restraining orders are kept in place, everything should be fine with them.

I'll have a second post up later on with some fun goings-on. I'll need a whole 'nother post for it as there's a lot of backstory.