It’s been over a year since I last made a post. This past year has been one of great ups and downs, and…well, I planned to restart this thing several times and failed until today. I plan to start blogging again, five days a week. Those days would be Tuesday to Saturday, which matches my new work schedule. Work. Hm. Let me start there.

In December of 2012, I applied for and interviewed for a promotion. I probably would have gotten it, but the position got put on hold and then went away because all of my group’s jobs moved from Colorado Springs to Texas. This was announced in February of 2013. I had a few choices: I could find a new job with another company, I could take a lesser job with the same company but stay in Colorado, or I could move with my job to Texas. I chose to go to Texas. I got a promotion in the process, but the move was…well, I am still trying to recover financially. Fortunately…and unfortunately…I will finally manage that soon.

So my roommate, my son and I moved to Texas. In the process, I picked up another roommate, who became roommate #1’s boyfriend. I can’t remember what name I gave my roommate before, so I’ll go with Moonshadow for her and Murphy for him. My son and I came here first, I found an apartment, and we all moved in.

Now, before all this happened, but around the same time that we found out about the moving of the jobs, something unusual happened: I got a credit card. Actually, over the course of the first half or so of 2013, I managed to accumulate five of the bastards. This is unusual because prior to 2013 my credit rating sucked big balls and I was never able to get one. I think the payments I had been making on my car slowly raised my credit score until it’s where it’s at now, which is moderately good instead of miserably poor. Even better, I have managed to not miss a payment on them!

Anyway, I started my new job in June. In Colorado, I was a support technician, the equivalent of a tier 2 tech here at the Texas call center. My promotion made me tier 3, which meant the tier 2 techs came to me for help. I took a whole lot less calls from customers, and then only when the tier 2 tech needed me to.

Fast forward six months. I apply for another promotion, and I get it, along with a significant raise. The move brought a nice raise, but this was a really nice raise. Also, it was the third of the year, as I also got my annual performance raise in the February / March time frame. My new job is much more technical, and in short involves monitoring networks. I am (or will be, when training is over) back on the phones, but the people I will talk to are not customers but other network monitoring technicians working for other companies.

This brings me to the sad way 2013 ended. My mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012. At first, they thought it was operable, but when they actually went to operate they found it was much worse than they thought. Mom went on chemotherapy, but in October of last year they took her off as there was no further benefit from it. She came to visit my daughter (who coincidentally moved with her husband and kids to Dallas about the same time I moved to Austin) and then me and my son. It was a brief but pleasant visit. She got to see where I worked (before the last promotion, which moved me across an interstate to a different building), and everybody thought she seemed to be in great health.

This was a bit of an illusion, unfortunately. I Skyped with Mom sometime in mid-December, about two weeks before a planned vacation to Indianapolis where she lived, along with the rest of my immediate family. I started my new job, worked for a day and a half (had to leave early for feeling ill), and drove to Indy. In the days prior to this, Mom’s health started to deteriorate. We had a week of final visits and even got a last family portrait the day after Christmas. I drove back on December 29 (minor lost keys adventure delayed my departure), got back to Austin the morning of the 30th, and then on the morning of the 31st she died. This has been as hard on me as Danny’s death was. She was an amazing lady, and very loving of her family and friends, and I miss her dearly.

I was supposed to work on the 31st, but called in and advised of the death. I took bereavement leave, went to Indiana…and on top of a few other minor bad things, a snowstorm and deep freeze struck. This postponed the funeral and cancelled flights and thus delayed my return by two days. The service was beautiful and brought tears to my eyes several times.

So, for those keeping a tally, I worked on and a half days and then missed two weeks and two days before continuing in my new position. My supervisors have been very understanding about it, so all is good.

I can’t tell you how depressed I am over my mother’s death. It wasn’t unexpected, but I am still in shock. Part of me refuses to believe it and insists Mom is still a phone call away. But she is not.

There is a bit of an inheritance coming. It will be in two parts, and I’ll receive the first part in about a week and a half. It will allow me to pay a couple of debts, including my back child support. This means 1) a significant increase in my net pay as it won’t be coming out of my paycheck any longer and b] I can get my passport and thus finally meet Sweetness live and in person (yes, she and I are still in a long distance relationship over 18 months later!) so she can get a fiance visa and come to the U.S. and marry me. I have this more or less planned out: Apply for passport next month, get it in March, buy a plane ticket for mid-May. Apply for her fiance visa once I have my passport, and have the interview for it with Sweetness in Kenya while I am there. Then she moves here with her son somewhere between July and September. Then we get married sometime between September and November. My niece is getting married in August, so I am going to try to avoid that, and July has my birthday, my son’s birthday, and my anniversary date for my ex-wife and I so I am going to try to avoid that, too.

This year has a lot of promise. Last year was, overall, a good year with a sad ending. I miss my mom more than words can say, but I will not let her death taint this year. She would not want it to. My job plan is to try for another promotion around mid-year to a senior network technician and then try for a job at a data center expansion my company opens in January of 2015 in Colorado. I want very much to get back, and this is my plan to get there.

I also plan to do a lot of writing. I have started doing more writing since my Texas move, not counting a two month hiatus at the end of the year. I am working on edits of three books, two of which are already available but badly in need of revisions. The third will be new, and I have one friend doing the edits of it and the other two books while another friend is doing cover art for the new one. My hope is I can use a part of the second inheritance to 1) get the rest of my work professionally edited (including book four, which will be done by summer) and b] publicize all of my writing and get noticed. It’s not at the top of my list of things to do with my inheritance, but it’s on the list.

Okay, that’s more than enough for now. No, I am not going to post resolutions this year. I think what I have outlined above covers what I plan to do, at least the important parts. See you next time…which will hopefully be in a day, not in a year!