Updates and Other Stuff

Here are some random updates:

Well, I wish I could say definitively that my hubby is not using, again, but I can't. I also don't have any hard evidence or proof that he IS. What I can say without a doubt is that he isn't still abusing the credit card (which I reluctantly reinstated), because I can see all of the transactions online, of course. And I would certainly expect his grades to start slipping if he were using, which doesn't seem to have happened. So, I should give him the benefit of the doubt, right? Maybe I am just having a hard time letting go of the suspicious nature I developed as a result of living with an active addict. Time, however, will tell whether my suspicions were warranted...

I still need to find another (cheap) dependable used car for my daughter. She, you remember, had an accident in August which totaled her car. She is beginning to really pressure me, but I just cannot afford to co-sign a loan for her to purchase a nearly new vehicle. She doesn't have a sufficient, stable income from her part-time, on-campus job for me to be confident that she can swing the note every month. I would still have to borrow the downpayment and cover the insurance, and if I had to kick in the note as well--even occasionally--it would put me in a SERIOUS bind. Sigh. I wish I could afford to buy her whatever her heart desires...

Sister-in-law spent another 7 days or so in a hospital recently for seizures related to alcohol poisoning/methamphetamine withdrawal and alcohol-induced liver impairment. She isn't getting it. The doctors keep telling her, if she continues to drink--she will die. She hasn't worked in two years, and hasn't had custody of her son for a year-and-a-half. She goes through the motions of acting like the anguished mother, persecuted unfairly by having her only son removed from her care. She protests the loss of custody because she thinks she should, that it is expected of her.

Please. Truth be told, I don't think she cares. Parenthood cramped her (partying) style, anyway. She knows what it will take to get him back: Get sober, get a job, get a stable home environment for him. In that order.

Here's something neat:

A couple of summers ago, my dad stopped near a cotton field and picked up some of the cotton bolls that were laying near the road. He planted the seeds and sent me a couple of the mature cotton bolls. So, this summer, I planted some of the seeds from the cotton that he grew, and grew some of my own. These were the first of maybe 12-15 bolls I will harvest. I want to save enough of the cleaned fibers to stuff some throw pillows and maybe give my dad one for Christmas!

Enough for now.
Ciao.