End of the Year

Here we are, New Year's Eve morning, hard to believe we are about to enter a new year. This is the year that comes with both comfort and some confusion. 2012. If we are to follow the Mayan calendar there is a change happening, what that change could be is really up for God to determine. Am I scared, no not really, but I am not going to sit here idle either. We have been talking about developing an emergency preparedness kit and we are going to start putting that together. We live in area where earthquakes happen, we need to be prepared.

My hope for the New Year would be to leave all of last year's GARBAGE behind. I know there are some pieces which will continue to carry forward but not by me. I leave it all in the past and I hope others will too.

I don't like to make resolutions, they are so easy to break, but I have some goals in mind.

• I need to get my life organized
• I want our family to get healthy
• I want to be more patient

I realize these may not seem like much but they are enough to get me in the right direction at the moment.

Taking the advice of a fellow wife of a veteran with PTSD on Family of a Vet, I wrote my husband a letter for Christmas letting him know the reasons I still love him even with all of the PTSD troubles we have been facing. Sometimes it is hard to look at a person and remember why we married them in the beginning when life throws troubles our way. This was a wonderful exercise for me and for any married woman to remind herself and her spouse why they got married in the beginning. My husband and I have gone through A LOT of bad times but we never let those get us down. Those times always brought us closer together, which is our goal for our marriage in the future.

I remember many times of happiness in our 15 years together. We have watched our own family develop and grow as well as our extended family. We were still in the early stages of our relationship when my oldest niece was born. He was amazed at how a family came together for this one event and he wanted to be part of that family, he never had anything like that in his life before. He was so scared to hold this tiny bundle but his face lit up when he did and the family was so encouraging to him then.

When we had our own child, our son, everyone came to the hospital again. These are times of celebration and when you discover the true meaning of family. Family should stick together even when they have differences. Differences should be discussed to be resolved.

That sense of family I have talked about is gone and I would love to have it back but that will probably never happen now. This makes me sad but my life is with my husband and children and it truly is a wonderful life.

Happy New Year one and all and may the new year be everything you wish it to be.

Getting Ready for the New Year

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas/Holiday with their families and/or friends, I know we had a great Christmas with my mom. Hard to believe we are about to enter a New Year, this past year seems to have flown by. We still have several fun days ahead of us to celebrate with family and friends.

I have decided that this next year will be a year of some challenges both personally and as a family. So the Top 5 Challenges/Goals for 2012 are:

• An Organized House
• Especially the Office/Classroom Area
• Laundry Put Away, Right Away
• Be able to have the house clean in minutes
• Help my Daughter get Organized in Her Room
• An Organized Heart
• Get Healthy both body and spirit
• Lose Weight
• Exercise Regularly
• Continue to Eat Healthy
• Declutter and Purge the Excess

So maybe this is more than 5 but I am sure you get the idea.

I think we are going to take the tree down today, it is very dry. Then I can put the house back in order.
I feel very fortunate that my classes start a week after the kids go back to school so I will have a little more time to relax and focus on keeping things running smoothly before I jump in the my classes.

Happy December 26th.

Christmas Letter 2011

December 2011

Dear Family & Friends,

          Hard to believe another year has passed. Like so many others this year has given us many ups and downs. I think the downs have made us stronger and the ups have made us a bit more humble, I hope.

          As many of you know we moved in June from Ocean Shores to the Olympia. Hard to believe we lived at the Beach for almost 10 years. Our house hunt was grueling and took us the better part of a month, but we finally found a great house in Lacey and we are pretty happy here. I think we had forgotten how different city life can be from living at the end of the world.

          We also have discovered just how serious PTSD can be and what it can do to a whole family. We would not be in our new home without the assistance of a VA Program and Catholic Community Services VA Program, which in itself is very humbling. The VA Programs have not only physically helped by they have helped monetarily and even emotionally. We feel so blessed to have been directed to this program

          The kids have had a great year as well. Veronica turned 10 in June and finished the 4^th grade in Ocean Shores. Joey turned 13 in July and made so much progress in school he was very confident about starting 7^th grade in September. With the move came several other changes, we decided to homeschool using a public virtual academy, Washington Virtual Academy or WAVA which is centered out of the Steilacoom Historical School District. While this has been a huge change and challenge we have all learned so much. I would much rather spend 6 hours a day teaching my kids then to have them gone for 6 + hours then do another 3-4 hours of homework with them.

          Schooling at home is so different and the kids have not missed a single day of school. They have schooled when sick, while on the road to the VA, and even going grocery shopping with mom and dad. We have discovered there is nothing that cannot incorporate school lessons of some kind.

          The VA has finally approved a portion of Joe’s disability and we are working on the balance, they claim they need more information! After my years of going back to school, changing not only programs but schools, February 14, 2012 I will have completed my associate’s degree and will begin on my bachelor’s degree in business management.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to One and All!

With Love,

The Busenius Family ~ Joe aka DH, Pam (me), Joey aka DS, and Veronica aka DD, Hailey the Beagle, and Duey the Dachshund

My Daughter

My darling daughter is 10 1/2 years old and I swear going to drive me to drink at times. This morning I got her up so we could get the day started at 8:30. By 9:32am she was telling me was finished for the whole day and free to do what she wanted. I called BS and ended up yelling at her.

Her idea of doing Literature this morning was to pick up the book off the shelf, thumb through it, and toss it back on the shelf. WHAT?!?! Then proudly announced she was finished. I asked her to show me her student guide pages and she countered with 'what pages?'...really?!?! I asked her the discussion questions and she had no clue as to what I was talking about. I told her that wasn't dump enough to fall for this line and now she was going to not only do the work but what ever else I decided she needed to do. Then dad got involved. Needless to say she was given the lecture from dad and promptly got back to doing her work correctly.

Now it is after 11am and she is finished for the day and I have given her tomorrow off. We will be doing some work during Christmas Break, couple of days here and there, since we will start in January with semester assessments.

Right now I have daughter picking up her room then she can have the rest of the day to work on holiday crafts for family members.

Dad and I will be going to the VA today and I have just found out I am going to have to change some plans for next week due to the VA, but life happens!

Happy December

I have not posted in a while. Life has been absolutely crazy and I wish everything would calm down but I know better.

We were going to decorate the tree but maybe we are going for the minimalist effect since it has been in the house for 2 days with NOTHING on it at all. Hubby goes to grab the box of lights to find out that we cannot find the white lights for the tree and I do not like multi-colored lights on the tree. I told him we could take the 300 strand out of our daughters room for the tree and I was told that was not even enough lights to get started with so why bother! I am not sure what he is thinking!

We have also rearranged the furniture about 3 times trying to find the right place for the tree, our living room is small. Hubby asked me why this is so hard to figure out. I explained how it took awhile to figure out how to fit everything to begin with and now we need to make a change...it is never easy. The tree is easily 7 feet tall and a good 3+ feet wide...so it is in the dining room...more room available.