Hey guys,

This is Chris (AKA farmergirl; now 1914sierra). I took a few months sabbatical from PC just to get some balance in my life and recover from all the upheaval of the past few months. I really thought I was departing here permanently simply as a change in my life, but I decided to return.

I didn't leave because of any problem here or even because I was particularly doing poorly personally. I just felt the need to make some changes.

I hope you are all doing well. It will take some time to catch up with how you are doing and what has been going on in your lives, but I'll get there soon enough.

My son is managing along fairly well. No major problems since coming home from the hospital. I'm just praying we get him through high school alive and with a diploma. He's found a niche at school working as a teacher's student aide for the severely/profoundly handicapped classrooms. (I had his schedule changed when he returned to school, and requested this particular aide position for him having a gut instinct it would be really good for him.) He's loves it and he's good at it. He's become active in the organization of students that work with and support that population, and he's going to be an escort to a special needs young lady at the Grand Ball which is a "prom" that is held for special needs students at each of the high schools in our district. He's really pretty proud of himself on that front and seems to see a future for himself in working with special needs students. So, as they say, sometimes profound good comes out of our biggest struggles.

Our oldest son and his fiance just moved into their own apartment this past weekend. I'm happy for them; they've worked hard to finally get to this point. We worked our tails off moving and cleaning so that his brothers now finally have their own rooms, but now is all pretty settled at quite a bit quieter around here. It's an adjustment, but he isn't far away and finds us for supper a few nights a week when his fiance is working an evening shift, and of course he has to come visit his dog.

I've been pretty stable these last couple of months. Work is keeping me extraordinarily busy as we've brought in new technology that makes planning every lesson take about three times as much work at this point. It will get better (I hope) as we get the kinks out of the system, but right now it is A LOT of work.

Therapy is in a lull right now as all of our budget for medical spending is pretty much exhausted until September when our benefit year starts up again. I knew that would happen as a result of our son's hospitalization; expensive, that is. That sucks a bit, but at least I'm in a place where I can live without at this point. Our T is quite willing to work with us if we need him in the meantime and we can work out the financial end later, but at this point we're doing okay.

Glad to be back and looking forward to catching up.