Happy Belated Birthday blog

I have really neglected you blog! Even missed your first birthday. I've had a bit of writer's block caused by an abundance of stress and unfortunate events. January felt like the dead of winter blahs, so I felt no creativity then. Then, in February, my misfortune happened. I lost my wedding rings and my right hand diamond ring at work. I'm sure you are asking how can one lose three very important rings. Well, I did and it's hard to recap without feelings of angst and pain. I've spend two months working through the grieving process and have accepted this fate and let them go. I'm not sure I want to go into the details and torture myself with reliving it again. I assure you I did everything in my power to recover them but they have not turned up. My only conclusion is it is a case of theft of opportunity. I have kind supports saying someday I may discover them somewhere in my home, but that has yet to happen. Thankfully, my rings were insured, but that only lead me to be subjected to a fraud investigation process that sure does toss salt in my wound. I have finally been cleared honest and will be able to replace my lost jewels. So that was my February and March. Me drowning in my sorrows while the rest of Massachusetts was drowning in record breaking rains and floods. The same time as I submit my jewel loss claim the rest of New England is filing claims for water damage, just great.

So, we enter April (isn't the diamond the birthstone for April?). A time for beginnings and hopefully better times to come. Well, we have been blessed with a lovely April, spring sunshine and warmth. Things are getting better, up until a week ago. My husband, a store manager with consistent annual top performing evaluations, a devout veteran of 19 years with his company (which I will remain nameless) was given the best news he could hear! He was getting transferred to a store that would finally meet his wishes for recognition of his commitment and hard work. Yet in one hour, this assignment was taken away from him and he got re-assigned to a south shore store. As word gets out, his peers, his employees, his customers and family are all shocked and wonder how they can do this to him. In fear of sharing too much here and this getting into the wrong hands, I will not go into this further, but only state that this is the worst outcome I've seen in the 15 years I've shared this journey with him. He has to commute through the city to get to work. Best case scenario, 1.5 hour commute one way. The cost in time and money to make this commute adds up to a demotion in our view. How can this company ask this of him and offer NOTHING for his trouble? Our juggle of two working parents with only one day of daycare help worked when he worked close to home. He was able to be involved in family dinners, attend t-ball practice during the week, pick the kids up after school once/week and I was able to contribute 25 hours of work to help make ends meet. This 'political' decision has pulled the rug out from under our lives and it just doesn't seem to matter to central management. This is a blow to us and had caused immense stress in our household.

So there's the current events and struggles we've had in our household. I haven't had my creative urges for months, but I do have some entries in the works that are not full of whining and complaining. Throughout these hardships, I haven't lost my perspective that we are still among the fortunate and life could certainly be harder. Here's how I figure it; if this is my dose of crap, I'll take it 'cause it could be much more tragic and I still have much to feel blessed about. I didn't lose my kids or have them kidnapped. Everybody in my family is healthy. We have jobs. We have an intact home. We have each other. This is what makes me feel fortunate.