No, I haven't abandonned this journal

I just finished (at 2:40 this afternoon) the last paperwork for Winter Quarter 2005 and I feel like celebrating. This week was the first week of classes for Spring Quarter 2005. Three weeks ago I was let go from the other job because the registration has been going down. They didn’t have enough students to offer me any hours. This week I was substituting for my friend who is still teaching for them. She is the one who gave them my name and helped me get the job. Things have been busy, stressful and I’ve been bordering on depressed. It showed in being very negative and grumpy at home. Every little thing felt like a big problem and took a lot of energy and made me anxious. My mom actually told me that I had been acting miserable for a while. I was trying to deal with things in my own strength and not setting my mind and my hope in God. I’ve barely been keeping up with my Bible study and kind of just going through the motions.

Last weekend my aunt, uncle, and cousins came for a visit. My oldest cousin, who got married a few weeks after I returned from Korea, had a baby 8 months ago. None of us here in Washington have seen him. He is my grandfather’s first great-grandchild. We were all thrilled to see him and he is a wonderful, easy-going baby with strawberry blond hair and the biggest, brightest blue eyes you can imagine. It was also my aunt’s birthday and we had a great time as a family. I hadn’t seen my cousins at all since the wedding in September 2003. We went to a PBR (Professional Bull Riding) show in Tacoma. It was a lot of fun. That weekend was the only truly enjoyable thing that I can remember in the last month.

My sister and her husband are really getting serious about getting up here soon. They are actually starting to look at house listings. It also looks like they will bring the youngest kid with them. She is 14 or 15 years old. My brother-in-law had two children with his first wife. They have been married for 5 years and don’t have any children together. They don’t want any more children. The two girls have been living with their mother, but there have been a lot of problems lately. Their mother has been having terrible fights with her live-in boyfriend.