Got a letter from Mary. It was very short and she didn’t say when her trial date was, but I guess it’s still on for March. All she basically had to say was to hang in there.

She’s right in that Tom is a HUGE blessing. He’s the only one who’s truly loved and accepted me as I am, but boy have we been anything but blessed for the most part. I have to laugh when I remember someone saying that “hopefully the happy newlyweds will be blessed” back in ’94.

Blessed? Blessed?! Yeah, God blessed us all alright. Financial problems, neighbor problems, sex problems, fertility problems, and of course we lost our home and two properties. The sex problems may’ve been a normal part of aging and the fertility problems turned out to be a good thing, but we were anything but blessed overall. And when I think of the future, I believe we’ll continue to struggle financially and that we’ll never have a home of our own. I used to wish and hope that we’d be compensated for all our tough times, but I’m still waiting and it hasn’t happened yet.

Tom, on the other hand, thinks that the economy going to hell is just as much of a favor for us in the end because housing prices have come down so far. He believes we’ll be able to buy a home in a retirement community when he’s 55 (he’ll be 52 in June). I hope he’s right, but like I said, it’s hard to keep up the faith after all the years of BS, know what I mean? I don’t mean to sound so sad and negative; I’m just going by our track record. He agrees that while there are no guarantees in life, things do look like they’re going to line up and fall into place nicely for us when he happens to be retirement community age, plus getting his $200 a month AMEX pension in a few years. Also, our credit will be sparkling clean by then. If an unexpected win came up before then or he unexpectedly got a damn good-paying job, we may buy rural land somewhere, but that’s not as likely. Besides, I think I may like a retirement community better. Okay, so they’d be tooth houses, as I call them, but there wouldn’t be sonic booms, gunshots, loose dogs, dogs left outside barking all the time, or screaming kids. As for whether or not we’ll get a bigger place to rent in the meantime is unknown. It’d have to be a hell of a deal because while I hate being cramped in here and would like an extra room, an extra half-bath, mail delivered to the house, regular trash service, a dishwasher, a washer/dryer hookup, and a cooler with a thermostat, I don’t want to trade in seclusion, barking and motorcycles for little to no privacy, 20 dogs instead of 2, then take back on the car stereos and wild kids, as well as utility bills. Here we only pay for propane, plus the phone and internet package. Lastly, the rent is lower than in most other places, though rents are dropping, too.

If I could somehow magically know – if I were that psychic – that yes, we’d be cramped in here for a few years, but would own a place of our own after that, man, I’d go ballistic with joy! I’d be crying such tears of happiness that I’d be practically blind for days. I wouldn’t sleep for days either cuz I’d be so excited. But in the end, there are no guarantees, like I said before. Maybe we’ll always be poor and renting old little dumps from others. Or maybe a meteorite will crash into our heads. Or maybe we really will “go home” someday. What state, if we do, is unknown. We may either stay in NorCal, drop down to the SoCal desert, or maybe even hit NV or Florida.

For now, I’m just glad we’re not as broke as we were in the motel and that things aren’t nearly as stressful. Man, had this happened then we’d be totally doomed! It’s scary to think just how many times we’ve barely skirted disaster. Like we’re being teased with our survival or something.

I said to Tom that I’d hate to not get another chance to do things right now that we’ve smartened up about money, and as he pointed out, we kind of did. We did, after all, quit spending before he got laid off, which helped get us through the times when his paychecks were less as they started cutting his hours.

Tom’s read contradicting reports on the extra $25 we’re supposed to get. One report says an extra $25 a week, and another says an extra $25 a month. So who knows which one it will be and when it will start?

As for the dogs, Tom said Jesse took off on the motorcycle around 10:00 and that they only barked for 5 minutes after he left, but that was it during the 4 hours he was gone. Gee, someone must’ve been asleep at that time! I know if I’d been up it would’ve been a lot more than just 5 minutes. I heard the 6:00 fit for a few minutes, but that was it since I didn’t get up till late in the afternoon.