a family update

Hello, Beth is back at work. Hurray. All I heard for 2 weeks was how she wanted to go back to work.. now I can hear "why did I want to go back". Love it. She was a bit stressed about what all the fellows would tease her about, being out for almost 3 weeks. But it turned out to be almost all good. She's on a weight lifting limit of 25 pounds. So, even the couple of men who don't think a "woman" should be doing that sort of work, are willing to pitch in and do the heavy lifting for her. I think that, by now, she's proved her ability to do that job, and then some. Wouldn't you know. Just a few days before she had the emergancy surgery, she had just gotten her first Perfect Attendance award. Did I mention, she's the only female on that shift? Believe me, she can give as good as she gets.. sometimes to the discomfort of the males she's working with. what they don't realize, most of the time, is she has an older brother and sister. Add to that, her father has worked construction for more than all of her life, and can tell the tales of the shinagians that go on. She does try to remind the fellows, often, she's a Christian, and they respect that. The stories will still be told, but they do get cleaned up a bit, I'm sure. All in all, it's great that she's back at work.

Jerry is still job hunting. Late Fall, early Winter is a tough time to be job hunting when you work construction in any ecomony. This is just harder right now. He has been told by a few larger companies that they plan on adding to the work force, after the first of the year. That's a long time off, when all you have is every other week, un-employment coming in and bills to pay, and try to keep back enough to be able to drive to the job, and rent a motel room for 2 weeks (before the first pay check can come in) We are holding our own, for now. The man we are buying the van and car from, is understanding, but he has to have money comeing is. We have to finish payong off the camper, before we can move it. Which I would love to do, since renting a campground spot is much cheaper than a motel. We are still holding out hope on some money coming in to cover that and putting a hitch on the van as well.

I have the house cleaned up, beans in a pot, It's a cold day here so a pot of beans and some corn bread sound good. I'll be browning up some hamburger with some taco seasonings to put in, soon. Add a can of tomato paste and some finely chopped onion (shh,, don't tell Jerry or Beth) and we have a pot of "Almost chili".

I'm going through our stuff, repacking what I can, and making a list of things I need to replace while I'm at it. Since I have to carry all my clothes with us, with no storage, I have to figure out how many of my sweat pants I want to turn into shorts next late spring and get rid of the shorts that I no longer want to wear. I have two dresses, to keep. I want/need to make a dress to see if I really like the pattern. As much as I like how it looks on the enevelope, I never know for sure until after it gets made and I wear it a bit.

I have no gifts for my family, right now. They all understand that. They do know that I give to them throughout the year so not having a Christma Gift isn't a big deal, except to me. I also know that they are each having to deal with hard times as well. Our oldest daughter hasn't worked in over a year now. She's planing on going back to Colleg early in 2010. I hope she can find a way to do it. There are no factory jobs left near enough to her home to get to and still pay all the bills. The whole town is really feeling the bite of the one major indrustry closing it's doors last year.Still, She's doing well. She still has plenty of hope. that once she finishes school she can find a different job to do that will do more than just make the ends meet.