I'm back to blogging....

Or did you even realize I was missing? LOL

Sorry I did not announce I was taking a break fro here... it was a bit of step away or risk losing my last bit of sanity.

October was not a good month for my family. You all already know that I lost my aunt, I broke a bone in my foot, and my daughter lost her hamster. What happened after my last post was not good either.

On the morning of October 23rd, I received a phone call from my 19 year old away at college. He was informing me that a very good friend of his, and our neighbor was killed the previous night in a car accident. This news hurt our hearts greatly. This was the closest person my son had ever lost, at least that he is old enough to remember. He came home the following day, even though we offered to come get him right then, but he wanted to let his Professors know where he was going. I took the news very hard, harder even than the news of loosing my aunt. But then again, I had not seen my aunt in years, but our friend used to be at our house often. No parent should have to lose a child, death is a terrible thing to deal with, but someone so young just seems so much more tragic.

Also during this time, our mini van did not pass inspection. I sat for three hours waiting and then get an estimate for over $700 for what needs to be done to get it to pass the state inspection. When it rains, it poors!

I did not get much accomplished with my college classes for almost the next two weeks. The things that did have deadlines were not my best work and things that did not have to be done by a certain date just sat there, untouched.

I have finally gotten things pretty much caught up, and hopefully producing work that is more up to my usual standards.

So far November has been better. Dh worked on the van....and guess what? A few bolts were loose, and when HE took it to get re inspected, it passed! Let's just say that we will never go back to that place again. He did not even touch one of the areas they told me did not pass....so that right there tells you volumes! Anyways... I was just so thankful that we did not have to use our emergency fund for auto repairs.

I also got a wonderful sale price on bottom and top round roasts. I grind these up and pay less per pound than store bought ground meat! Plus, I know what is going into that package of ground beef that I put in the freezer.

I truly do plan to post more...now that school is back on schedule, and my emotions have come back to order. (I still get sad if I think about him, or I run across a picture of him with my kids, but that is just part of living)

I had tried to set a challenge figure to keep my budget at last month....but that did not happen, so I am starting again with November. I will post about that as I get my figures together.