One Year Ago

If anyone had predicted a year ago what our political state of affairs would be now, no one would have believed it. Everyone (or most, I think) would have laughed it off. But I'm tired of talking -- and writing -- about that. I'm going to pay more attention at the moment to my own state of affairs.

A year ago, my youngest son was a week away from college graduation, and my family was looking forward to what turned out to be a wonderful -- and increasingly rare -- all-in vacation. My oldest son and granddaughters came to visit for two full weeks, and my middle son and his girlfriend took time off so we could all be together. That was a great week!

This year my twelve-year-old granddaughter is coming to visit me for two weeks. She's flying down by herself, something I've been trying to get her parents to let her do for years! As far as I know, I'm teaching two classes in the second half of the summer; I'm not entirely sure about that because a lot of students on base, where I'm scheduled to teach, take the second summer session off. Anyway, this is crazy: I've never been to Savannah! It's only about an hour and a half away, but usually when I'm driving on I-95 I'm making a twelve-hour trip and am not up to an extra stop. So I think I'll take my granddaughter there for an overnight trip. We'll both have fun.

Apart from that and political shitshow, my life hasn't changed a whole lot in the past year. There is both good and bad in that, but overall I'd say it's good. My kids are all healthy and happy, and gainfully employed. I am happy and mostly healthy (certainly I could lose a few pounds and get more exercise, which might ease my joint pain and help with other issues), and mostly gainfully employed. One big change is (and I'm not sure I've mentioned this before) that I took over as the organizer of a volunteer group that I'd been a member of since 2011. A few people dropped off just after I made the group active again, but many more have joined. We went from a group of 923 when I took over to our new high of 1120 now! So I've been spending a lot of time getting us signed up for opportunities with local non-profits. It cuts into my paid work time a little, but it's quite rewarding. We are scheduled through the year with a food bank, and I'm filling in our calendar this-coming week for Habitat for Humanity. We're also doing a one-day event in September to benefit an organization that helps women living with cancer.

Every once in a while I like to look back and compare "now and then", whatever time now and then may apply to. Good or bad, I prefer to focus on the positive changes and not to think too much about the negative. It doesn't mean there isn't any bad, only that I'm looking at the upside while I do the best I can.