Starting Over

Well, what do you know? You CAN lose your blog. I had a blog that I maintained for over a year (same name) and left it unattended for about two. With a little inspiration (thanks, Kerrie) and reconstruction (thanks to free templates), you can reblog.

Why am I calling this Art On A Limb? You can read all that in my profile. I'll share some of my art at a later time.

Why did I abandon my first blog? Easy! We became parents... of a teenager! Our daughter came to us at age 13 and we adopted her ON her 14th birthday. She's 16 now and life is finally settling into some sort of routine. We have issues, lots of them, and we're all learning as we go, but we have some really good experiences as well. Over all, she's a fantastic kid and we feel blessed to have her. She is, however, a teenager, so we are discovering how much into the fire we jumped. Send good vibes, thoughts, and prayers our way.

If you've ever considered adopting an older child, I'd be happy to discuss it openly and honestly with you. Before you think I will be negative, let me assure you, I encourage it! I will, however, not sugar-coat the experience.

Since this is my second first blog, I'll share a little about myself and see where life takes these posts.

I was employed at a major auto finance company for (almost) 24 years when I got laid off this April. This meant losing a lot of perks - a decent salary, five weeks of vacation, and good friends acquired over a long time. The friends, of course, remain, but we just don't see each other on a daily basis anymore.

Anyway, my job was so industry specific (auditing car dealerships), I was afraid I would have to go into general administrative work. I wasn't against that, but loved what I was doing.

God is good - all the time! Before I was through at the first place, I was offered an amazing job by one of our contractors. This isn't a contract job - I am a full time employee doing similar work for what may be the best people to work for. They are headquartered in California and have no full time people working anywhere out of that state - until now! At the exact time I was being shoved out one door, my current employer was opening a satellite location right here in Houston. So, now I have my own office overlooking a beautiful parkway that I share with one other employee, the marketing manager. I couldn't be happier in my work situation.

Jerry and I will have our 19th anniversary in November. We've been together since 1981, so we've shared half our lives together and we're still best friends. That's a really good thing.

Our daughter, Nicole, will be a junior this year. Unfortunately, she thinks school is strictly a tool for socializing. We're hoping she'll buckle down a bit this year, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. She recently got her driver's license and now we don't see her too often.

One thing we've required of her is if she is to have a car (she has my old one), she is responsible for the gas. Gas is at $3.90 a gallon here in Houston as of today and that's a lot of money to a teen. She has a summer job babysitting for her aunt and uncle four days a week. She's making $120.00 each week - saving $30.00 to savings and $30.00 for the new Sprint Instinct phone she wants to buy, so that leaves about $20.00 for spending and $40.00 for gas. We're finding she's needing to do extra "work" around the house to earn more spending money, but that's good for her.

We have two dogs who are members of the family, Gordy and Georgi, so they may be mentioned from time to time as well. They're really very funny.

Nicole and I attend the local Unity church and Jerry is Catholic. We have a spiritually diverse home, but it works for us. I am certain I'll be writing more about this over time.

I intend to also include some lists of favorites - books, movies, etc.... later.

Yep, it feels good to be back and I look forward to cultivating regular reads.

Thanks for reading my first new post. I will return the visit.