Welcome to tokoni

Granted, I have been a member since late September but have not had a chance to sit down and write anything. Nor do I have the time to read. It seems like I am dithering and dathering there. It doesn't help much that every single week there's always something going on with my husband's job. For the last two weeks, he was only one of two millwrights in his area. He has been laid off at least four times in the last year. He's facing layoff again in December.

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for our son's medical issues. Granted, and thankfully, his medical issue is "minor" in comparison to a lot of children. He doesn't have cancer nor does he have a life-threatening issue. He just needs a new set of ears so he can hear and fortunately, just this week, our insurance company approved the whole surgery and hopefully, the follow-up care. He will get cochlear implants on both ears. He's looking forward to being able to hear. So that's a whole another set of issue facing us.

Then to top all this off, because of my husband's job, he decided to go back to school at the age of fifty and try for a third career. He fell into the factory job by accident. He got laid off from his job as a medical technologist when a big company bought out his hospital and brought in their own people. So he was offered to work at GM when his brother-in-law at the time sponsored him. It's been an interesting 13 years for him since he is technically a white-collar worker in a blue-collar field. Last year, the opportunity arose where he could take refresher classes at the local community college to see if he could handle going back to school. (Yes, I am proud to say, he's a straight A student!) He took a full-class load and worked fulltime and overtime AND dealt with the sudden hearing loss of our son ... all at once. He handled it better than I did.  Ok, maybe not. But it felt like it. With that in mind, he decided to apply for graduate school as a physican assistant. Who knows if he'll get accepted ... this year or next. Plan B is to go into nursing. Plan C ... who knows? We'll figure it out. Once we get him figured out, then we can figure out what I can do. Until then, one of us has to be around to help our children ... and right now, I am the better choice for it. This is not to say that he's not a good father because he is. He is one of those hands-on father who takes care of his kids when they're sick, work with them on their homework and all this stuff. His kids adore him. Me too.

So, throughout this year, we have been struggling and praying for a way out of this situation. Now, while it does sound dire, I don't feel like it's going to be the worst thing that has ever happened to us. It will all work out ... I don't know how or what or when, but it will work out.

Until then, we will celebrate Christmas with our children and family as well as with friends. This may be our last "extravagant" Christmas but we will still be together. God willing.

This is our story, well, my story. Our story because my husband and I are a team and while we have a lot facing us in the new year, I have a feeling that it will be a good year. It will definitely be a year of changes.