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Well, it’s about time you got back here!

It’s been a ridiculously long time since my last blog.

So, what have I been doing?

I’ve had to adjust to a move back to Kirksville from Columbia. Interestingly enough, the landlord who manages this property also manages the first property I called home when I moved up to Kirksville back in 2002.  We haven’t got much in the way of furniture or shelving, so that makes keeping things tidy and organized a challenge, but we make do.

Unfortunately, we had a bad situation with our housemate, and the landlord had to intervene and move him to another property.  He evidently lied to my boyfriend about me and my daughter being welcome here, and when we arrived, he went out of his way to make us feel unwelcome.  He lives elsewhere now.

We also got a puppy for Samantha.  He was an adorable black lab mix named Buddha, and he was a very sweet, mellow pup.  Unfortunately, that pup had Parvo, and I had the horror of witnessing it taking his life, helpless to do anything to ease his suffering, other than soothing him as best I could.  We only had him for five days, but we loved him as much as we could in that short time.  I still love dogs, but every time I see a black dog, regardless of the age, I feel a little pang in my heart.  It’s going to take me a while to get past that.

Two days after Buddha died, a dear friend of mine, Hunter, lost his battle with end-stage lung cancer.  He left behind his children, who had lost their mother a few years prior to a different cancer.  His picture pops up on Facebook every once in a while, and when it does, I cry all over again.  He was only 46, and he had quit smoking, but it was too little, too late by the time he got his diagnosis.  He fought bravely and aggressively, but in the end, the cancer was just too strong.

On February 22, shortly after midnight, my Uncle Bill, who had overcome stage four throat cancer, died of organ failure.  Unfortunately, prior to that, my sister and I had a falling out with Aunt Pam, my mother’s sister and Bill’s wife, because of someone my sister and I had previously disowned over something pretty close to unforgivable.  She had forgiven him and still considered him family; we had forgiven him and forgotten him, disowning him and denying his existence as a blood relative–forgiveness is one thing, but being family is another.  (If you knew what he had done, you would understand why my sister and I disowned him.)  We’re both here for her, though, regardless of whether we’ll ever see eye-to-eye about things.

And yes, my computer is up and running again.  The problem was my hard drive.  Fortunately, we were able to back up the bulk of the files I wanted to keep before the hard drive decided to move on to its next life as a too-light paperweight.  For my next trick, I need to scrape together enough money to get a replacement keyboard for my laptop.  I’m relegated to using a USB keyboard at the moment, and it really cuts down on my ability to be mobile with full use of my laptop.  Alas, money is stupidly tight, so I may have to wait yet another month to get that done.

Should you feel the need to get some artwork and/or contribute to my ability to pay my bills, I have a CafePress store at http://www.cafepress.com/rivsaikmanstudio

In other news, Samantha is going to school full-time Monday-Thursday and a half-day on Friday.  Her afternoon teacher has been good about staying in touch with me, but her morning teacher hasn’t been, and that bothers me.  Talking to the school social worker is on my to-do list, because I need everybody to be on the same page regarding Sam’s education and progress.

Speaking of school, I’ve been taking some free courses through https://www.coursera.org/

I’ve also been spending some of my time playing Wurm.  I fell in with a great community called the Serendipity Alliance, and I’ve really enjoyed being able to help shape the world.  If only real life was so easy!

I have several ideas that I would love to share, but putting them into words is just evading me.  Give me time, though, and I’ll show you what I’ve been dreaming up!

 

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