Lots of Stuff Going On

I've been a bum in the Blogger world, I know. My plate has been kind of full, so playing on here gets shoved to a back burner.

In summary:

My friend E's mom died two nights ago and, for a number of reasons I won't visit here, this is really weighing on my mind. I'll just say that my heart aches for E, her brother, and their families, and I'm even more saddened by the unnecessary aggravations being forced upon their grieving hearts. I want to be ready for E at a moment's notice to do whatever it takes to make things easier. Their mom was always so sweet and welcoming to me when I was a dorky, chocolate-peddling preteen, and I'll post a bit about that later.

My Dear Old Softheaded -- er -- Softhearted Dad is getting a pacemaker at the end of the month. I know a pacemaker isn't such a big thing these days, but Hon, my stepmother, adores him and hates to think of him needing surgery of any kind.

I swallowed a huge portion of my pride and turned a chunk of my backlog over to a scopist. It was a matter of survival in terms of my professional reputation. Things were getting too stale, and pretty soon clients were going to start screaming. I still have transcripts to do, but now I feel like I can breathe a bit.

On a brighter note, I finally picked the Pacifica up today. Remember when I got rear-ended back in June? It took the adjustor almost a week to look at my car, and it took Chrysler three weeks to get the replacement bumper for our car.

And now I need to get my nose back to the grindstone.