The Year In Review

I know. I know. I need to post pictures, and trust me I have some. However, right now I don't know where the cord is for the camera since we are in the process of moving things all around the house in hopes to eventually create the nursery. (Boy, this has become such a much bigger project than anticipated!) However, in the meantime as the old year leaves us and a new year begins I can't help but think back on this past year.

"We make plans and God laughs."
I know I have used that phrase a lot, but honestly that is truly how this past year has gone. At the beginning of the year, we had a lot of plans. We knew there were a lot of endings coming in the year which would also lead to a lot of new beginnings. We just did not realize just what type of results each one would truly bring nor had any way of anticipating what they would bring.

2011:

1. Child support FINALLY ended! Unfortunately, it did not end as smoothly as we had hoped. Instead, it ended as we had feared. Jim's daughter legally changed her last name on her 18th birthday without telling us and his ex-wife attempted to have child support reinstated after his daughter had graduated from high school and the child support had ended. Consequently, a lot of bad feelings have intensified not only with his daughter and ex-wife, but my husband's family as well. This has led to several relationships being severed that I do not know will ever be repaired. I hope with time that they can. However, it is truly nice not having a court order hanging over us and making all of us have contact with one another when that is not in the best interest of anyone at this time with emotions running so high.

2. A new contractor was named on the project that Jim works on. Out of the three contractors that were in the final decision, this was the one company we hoped would not get the contract because we knew what it would mean for the employees and the community. While we did survive a pretty hefty layoff that occurred, my husband now has to commute out to the actual nuclear site which has resulted in a hour to hour and a half drive each way. He is unable to ride on the site buses because he is a subcontractor and is also unable to ride in the van provided by his actual company he is an employee for due to his work schedule that he is required to work by the contractor management. Instead he gets $7.50/day in gas reimbursement and that is it. Since I am unable to divulge a lot of details for various reasons, the work conditions have also been compromised so we are currently trying to decide what is best for our family at this time.

3. After several failed infertility treatments, being told there is nothing more that medically could be done, and suffering a miscarriage, we discovered that I actually was pregnant in August of 2011. So far the pregnancy has been "normal" including horrible "morning" sickness that has decided to once again to rear its ugly head. The plus side: we know the baby is alive and kicking. Also, we just had the "big" ultrasound and everything is looking completely normal. Truly a blessing!

4. Jim graduated from with his master's degree in December and even with a 4.0 gpa! How is that possible when he previously had two Bs? They were from ISU and transferred to U of I as just passing with not impact on his overall gpa. He has taken the PhD entrance exam and we are still waiting to hear the results of that, but regardless he is taking the spring semester off! This is not only due to the extra help I need with Tre as the pregnancy progesses and after the baby is born, but his present work situation does not allow him to attend school. In fact one class this last semester he was unable to attend at all after September and luckily was able to still get an A with the lecture notes the professor posted and the professor's understanding. What a blessing! He is now studying for his professional engineer credential exam, since it is required for a lot of different jobs that he has looked at.

5. Some remodeling has been done on our home, including: replacing the surround in the master bath with tile, adding railing to the deck, repainting the main room and hallway in the basement, adding a sprinkler system to the front yard, replacing the counter tops in the kitchen with granite and adding a tile back splash. Now that Jim is out of school, we plan to hit the remodeling again. This will include replacing all the flooring in the upstairs, completing the laundry room, replacing the trim and repainting the two bedrooms in the basement, fixing cracks in the wall, touch up painting upstairs, and STAGING! Our goal is to have the house on the market by the end of March. (Fingers crossed.)

6. After a year of several misdiagnoses of arthritis and other things, we finally had Jim see an orthopedic surgeon for his shoulder and found out that he had bone spur, bursitis, and two tears within his rotator cuff that all required surgery to clean it up. While others were celebrating their graduation, we were spending his graduation day in the hospital. Amazingly enough he has been healing rather quickly and was able to go back to work within a week. We feel truly blessed, especially when we know what could have been the outcome and are reminded of this every time he goes to physical therapy and we see all the other people there who have had shoulder surgery and have long recoveries ahead of them. He is not 100%, but will be with time.

7. Cancer has once again reared its ugly head in the Boyd family. My father is currently battling colon cancer and one my nephews is battling some type of cancer in his brain. I don't want to/can't go into a lot of details. Let's just say cancer sucks and it's time for our family's turn to end. If nothing else, remember to hug your loved ones a little tighter. You just never know.

With all of this in mind, we have a long year ahead of us with lots of changes and uncertainty. The biggest one of uncertainty for our own little family is where we will be living by this time next year. The only thing I know for sure is that it will not be at our present location. Should be interesting with a toddler and a newborn, but somehow we will make it work. We always do.