Can I Start the Year Over?

There is a rule if your New Year starts out crappy the end of it will be fantastic, isn’t there?  If that isn’t true I’d like to start the year over.  It’s been bam, bam, bam, just been one problem after another. My resolution for the New Year was to spend as little money as possible.  Do you think I jinx myself attempting that?

It started out with the truck.  That “check engine” light came on.  OK, so a couple of things needed to be repair, no biggie.  Hold it!  They were having a difficult time finding the radiator hose I needed.  So I was waiting a few days while they got the correct part.  That’s when the window on the driver’s side decided to fall.  I am so glad that it didn’t break!  (God’s Grace!)  I’m told window regulators always seem to go out in winter.  I did manage to duck tape it into place.  The repairs are starting to add up.  I got the truck fixed in time to go to a weekend geocaching event in Paris.  Paris, Arkansas!  On my way home as I was getting into Ozark the truck overheats and dies.  Oh yeah, the weather is nasty.  It’s raining and cold.  Fortunately a friend was following me and saw I was in trouble helped me get it to a garage and drove me home.  (God’s Grace!)  A really great friend!  I had Monday off because I was going with a group of friends to LR for the opening of the Legislative session.  So great to see the candidates we worked hard for on the floor.  Back to truck story.  Another really great friend loaned me her spare car until I got the truck back.  (God’s Grace!)  I didn’t get the truck back until Friday because the garage in Ozark volunteered to drive it up to Fayetteville.  NICE!  Running errands on Sat I noticed a burning smell.  I popped the hood and there was coolant splatter all over the engine.  Arrrgh!  Back to the garage on Monday to find out what happen.  They didn’t find any leak.  I think that the cap wasn’t on tight when the Ozark guy drove up it and they notice it and fix it.  So, no leak but they discover the radiator they had replaced in April was defective.  Apparently it didn’t cool evenly.  It was still under warranty so it was replaced for free and I just paid to have it flushed.  (God’s Grace!)  At this time (knock on wood) I am not having any problems. 

While my truck was doing the first round of garage visits I notice one of my cats (Tigger) wasn’t eating well and looked to be losing weight.  I was going to bring him in the week after my geocaching weekend but the truck’s Ozark vacation delayed the visit.  I got him in the day after my radiator was replaced.  Very bad news.  He has kidney disease and treatment is complicated by his heart murmur.  He spent several days in the hospital where they started to flush his kidneys.  He was sent home with a number of medications and I am giving him saline IVs every other day.  He’s not doing well.  He doesn’t want to eat.  I’ve bought all those fancy cat foods in order to tempt him but no go.  I puréed the food and have been force feeding him.  He’s 12 years old and I don’t know if he’s going to make it.  I don’t want to give up on him because that little bugger has cost me plenty and he’d better say around a few more years.  (Need God’s Grace!)

In between the truck and the cat I was ask to run for Secretary of the Washington Country Republican Committee.  I said I would and running un-opposed I was voted into office.  Now I know why the last Secretary raced up to the podium to 2^nd my nomination.  Boy, I have to do a lot of work.  Hopefully it slacks off in a bit or am I kidding myself?

God has been good.  In every circumstance I’ve had help appear and I just need to keep trusting Him.  I’m praying over Tigger.  Hey, He said His eye is on the sparrow so I know He cares for Tigger.  My resolution to spend as little money as possible has been totally blown for the month.  There are still 11 months of the year to go. 

My New Year's Resolution

In 2013 I will absolutely spend as little money as possible.  I will only spend money on needs instead of wants.  This is a resolution that I have never had to make before.  Thanks Obama!  For the past 2 years I've done some spending restrictions but nothing like this.  With the re-election of Pres Obama  I really don't see the economy going well at all.  Working in the medical field is also a bit of a worry because of the effects of Obama-Care.  My bosses really don't know how much Obama-Care is going to affect them but they are anticipating being paid less.  With so much uncertainty there really is no option but to prepare for the worst.  The next 4 years is definitely the time to be the ant rather than the grasshopper.

 

I Hate Colds

I have been suffering for the past two weeks with this cold.  After forcing myself to lie on the couch and watching TV this weekend I have reduced it to an irritating cough.  Buy stock in throat lozenges!   It sure would be nice if parents would keep their sick kids at home instead of leaving them with the poor childcare volunteers at church. 

Fiscal Cliff, What a Circus

Having watched the GOP leadership the past year I had scant hope that they would get some solid spending cuts.  I’m so disappointed that they didn’t get any cuts.  Apparently the GOP leadership is totally incompetent. 

Since they mishandled this “Fiscal Cliff” so badly I really don’t expect much headway on America’s real problem; spending.  I believe a big part of the problem is that the GOP leadership isn’t much interested in the getting the debt under control.  It seems they enjoy spending our money as much as Obama does.  I get the feeling that they are more concerned with keeping their power rather than keeping to the unpopular GOP principles. 

While I hope to be surprise in a couple of months I fully expect America’s debt to continue to spiral out of control.  I really don’t expect Moody’s downgrading threat to make any difference.  Frankly I don’t know what it’s going to take to make Washington and the American people to take this seriously.  I’m certainly open to any ideas to get our GOP leaders to make the hard decisions and to effectively communicate just how dire our situation is to the American people. 

2012. What a Difficult Year

I have never been so happy to see a year end. You might think I’m not happy with the year is because Pres Obama won. Well, that would only be one part of it. I was wishing the year would end quickly by April. I guess it was just a year in which I had tons of stuff crammed into it.
The year started hectic. I volunteer to be Pres of the Washington County Republican Women and we started off with a bang and just kept going. It was definitely a lot more work and time than I had anticipated. I’m always busy at work. A good thing I suppose. A co-worker was having family problems which required her to drastically cut her hours. In fact she was out several months. The resulting review of our staffing led to a new hire. By September I had a fully functioning staff but I didn’t get caught up on the work until the end of December.
 Lots of meetings, fundraisers, working for candidates, getting all my continuing education in by December and just all of the stuff that needs to be done, I’m just plain worn out. Anyway, I said no to a number of requests and I hope in this new year to work on several projects that I didn’t get around to in 2012. One of them is this blog. I hope I can get back to writing in it regularly.