Before you start reading, if it gets boring jump to the punch line at the bottom…………………………..
“The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men” of which you may have noticed I am neither being of the female persuasion! However, that didn’t make a lick of difference when it comes to the year 2010. Robert Burns wrote the poem To a Mouse in 1785 and the main quotation is usually paraphrased in English as ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry’.
Yeah….. no shit Sherlock! I think I can honestly say 2010 ‘went awry’ spectacularly and was my worst year EVER! As the Queen said in her speech in 1992 “….is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. ………it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis.”
Annus horribilis doesn’t even begin to describe it!
It started with me having to pack up the house *again* and move to California (this only 2 months after my second back surgery), we were supposed to get reimbursed for all the expenses but as you know that never happened.
We ended up borrowing, getting second mortgages, emptying our 401ks etc (all our retirement money for those of you outside the US) in order to get the company back on its feet. Which, as I blogged some time ago, died a spectacular death leaving us almost half a million dollars in debt.
One of our renters (Mark and Rosalind Cazares in case you are thinking of renting to them) had to be evicted for nonpayment of rent leaving us with over $35,000 of unpaid rents and fees PLUS all the lawyer’s fees.
With no real income since August we had to come back to Utah, (and again pay all the costs ourselves,) plus most of the year we had to pay rent in California while trying to make the payments on the house the Cazares were evicted from all while trying to rent it out again which we were never able to do.
I had to drive back to Utah countless times to sort the houses and do the eviction and get it ready to re-rent etc etc ad nauseum, all the while my back is getting worse and worse from all the driving, cleaning and other stuff you have to do with rental houses.
On top of which we have had no medical insurance since the company died in July and I am probably uninsurable if we could afford to buy private medical insurance because of my 2 prior surgeries, medical insurance through your company of employment usually doesn’t have that restriction, they will just say you just have to wait x months before you can claim for that specific ailment.
The housing market has taken such a plunge that all the rental houses are underwater in terms of mortgage or the rent we get is less than the payment. In one case the payment is $3,700 a month and the rent we are able to get is $2,000 per month.
2010 a bad year? Whatever gave you that idea?
So yesterday was the last day of 2010 and that day did not disappoint. It was after all still 2010 so why would it be any different? My back goes through good phases and bad phases, and for the last week for whatever reason it has been getting worse and worse by the day. I have been lying on the bed with the hospital table (you know the kind you can pull over the bed) with my laptop on it so I am at least able to work. Lying down all day hasn’t seemed to make much of a difference, it still hurts and my legs and back spasm while I lay there, just not so much, but if I am up for an hour I am in screaming pain again.
Remember this is New Years Eve, this is supposed to be a night of revelry and we did have such a night lined up. Our wonderful neighbors and friends Zac and Rosemary along with their daughter Shelley had invited us to Shelley’s house for the evening and I’ve talked about these guys before. They are wonderful friends but they are also really fun people. Whenever we have been invited to their house with their family I leave with my sides aching from laughing so much.
As you can imagine I have been really looking forward to this night. By 5pm it is obvious that the pain killers are not working and my back is in spasm so bad I need to take Valium in order to try and get it to relax. There is no way I can stand for 4 or more hours at a party (remember I can’t sit, that makes it worse) with or without painkillers and Valium. I have to lie down and that is a party stopper right there.
So come 10pm Tim and I have both had it. I’m lying on the couch and as we have no TV service we can’t watch the proverbial count down or anything, we have already watched 2 DVD movies and have square eyes anyway, so we give up and go to bed.
Me because my body is just not cooperating and him because he has just had enough of 2010 and wants to see the last of it as soon as possible!
So today is 2011. The sun is actually shining out there and I am determined that things will get better. Let’s face it, when you have hit rock bottom there is only one way to go and that’s up.
(Punchline in case you skipped to here ;o)
So my first thought for the year is this:
I often joke about needing to go to the body shop and replacing mine coz it’s all worn out. Like those old cars you see in Michigan, the only thing holding them together is the rust.
Trouble is the only types of body shops in the Yellow Pages and the like are for cars. When you get to see pictures of all the designs for those cars some of those bodies are pretty slick, especially those sports cars with the sleek, streamlined, sexy bodies. Now I have been known in my time to be hell on 2 legs (aka party animal extraordinaire!).
Now if I could get one of those new 2011 sports bodies with all the upgrades, trims and go faster stripes, I could be hell on 4 wheels!!!
Pick a body – any body ;o)
New Corvette 2011 C7
Maybach sports car
Koenigsegg Sports Car (now that's a rear end !)
Chevrolet Corvette Moray Concept Italdesign 2003
1960s concept sports car
Not many with 'go faster' stripes but I think I can live with that ;o)
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