Peeking in to say hello

Hi everyone! I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I checked my mail
and found a post card from Mirjam waiting for me. Thank you Mirjam!!
*hugs* By the way, I love camels, they are so cute looking. ;o)

So because of Mirjam's post card, saying she missed seeing me and hearing
from and about me, I thought I would pop on very quickly to let you all know
that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.... at least not entirely.
;o)

Best wishes for all birthdays, anniversaries, births, etc that I may have
missed. And of course condolences to anyone (Noreen *hugs*) who have lost
loved ones... please know that they are always with you.

Nora and I keep in constant contact, so she knows that I'm still around. So
if anyone ever needs to know anything about me Nora will know. ;o)

Things are a *little* better for Matthew and myself (for now) at the
moment... he did the requested (by the government) "Focus Workshop" thing
where the group of them discussed all sorts of things good and bad that have
happened throughout their lives, but most especially over the last year or
so, and talked out how things *might* be improved upon. The workshop helped
to raise Matthew's self-esteem (which had taken quite a beating after being
out of work with no luck finding a job at all for 16 months) and confidence
quite a bit. In fact he had an interview two days before the Workshop (six
weeks) was over and went in with such confidence and good positive feelings
about himself, that by the time we drove the 25 minutes home he got a
phonecall from the interviewer saying he had impressed her a great deal and
that he had the job. ) The down side to it is that it is only until mid
July... that is all the time that this job is scheduled for, so there is no
possibility of an extension for it. However, during this job the workers
are in contact with a lot of different people which will open doors for some
of them to have another job to go to after this one is finished.... if not,
the supervisors will all give letters of recommendation (and a couple of
them have good names in the area, so that will help in finding future jobs
too) and their names can be added to resumes as well. So hopefully, by the
time this job is over in July, Matthew will have another job lined up to go
to. *fingers crossed*

Liam (my sister cousin Linda's son) has been talking to Matthew online a lot
lately and is saying how he would like to move up this way to be near us.
He is afterall all alone in Toronto now with both his grandmother (3 years
ago) and his mother (last November) gone now... so he would like to be near
us to have *some* family (most especially Matthew, being only 8 months older
than himself) around. So we are looking into apartments.. low-rental.. etc,
etc for him. I personally think it would be good for Matthew to have Liam
living closer too, that way he has a *male* close to his own age to hang out
with and do "guy things" that some of his female friends aren't interested
in doing. Since Matthew's best friend moved further away (and the cost of
gas going so high), he has no male friends around here to just hang out
with... and the female friends he has only want to go to movies or go for a
walk... they don't want to play pool, go to the gym, or even go bike riding.
So I think if Liam were living in our town they would both have someone to
hang out with, which will do them both good... and of course we could have
Liam here for holiday meals, etc too instead of him being totally on his
own. This past Christmas (only 1 month after losing his mother) and this
Easter, were his first on his own, and he just didn't want to even think
about it even though a couple of friends of his mother had invited him to
dinner... he just stayed home alone. (

Well, other than the above, not much else has been going on... so I will
sign off.

Everyone please take care of yourselves... and please know that even though
I'm not on the newsgroup anymore, it doesn't mean that you aren't always in
my thoughts and prayers.

*hugs*
Gemini

On Apr 11, 12:47*pm, "Not Likely" notinthislifetime@yougottabejoking
wrote:
Hi everyone! *I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I checked my mail
and found a post card from Mirjam waiting for me. *Thank you Mirjam!!
*hugs* * By the way, I love camels, they are so cute looking. *;o)
snip

Thanks for the update, Gem! Please drop in when you get a chance.

Higs,
Katherine