I haven’t posted anything very serious here yet, but I guess it’s time.

Omer continues to make great progress doing rehab. He said he was tired when he came home today, and that he had not chosen to increase his speed on the treadmill today. But remember, this is one half of the competitive duo speaking here. What that translates to is that he walked for 15 minutes at 4.0 miles per hour, and chose not to increase that to 4.2. That’s a pretty good clip for anyone, let alone a person who had a heart attack 10 weeks ago. He’s been out skiing with me a few times too. He gets frustrated because I’m better at it (believe me, I’m not that good), but I doubt that I could out ride him on a bike if we had a contest today, so it all evens out. If I could just get him to believe that, sigh...

We went to the Christmas Concert at our former church. It was a perfectly wonderful musical experience. I’m still amazed at the talent of the people there. We were warmly greeted by many people. We really miss them.

My recent good news about getting a job as adjunct faculty at West Shore Community College has been tempered by some not so good news. After eight years of doing the North Country Trail Association web site on contract, they have decided to take it into the office and do it there. That was my single biggest source of income. That will begin January 1. Although their decision was purely financial, I’m having a hard time living with it. I really loved doing that site because I knew so much about the trail and the people involved.

And of course, this throws our finances for a loop again. Now, instead of having some extra money to put on the medical bills, I’ll have enough to cover the regular expenses for Jan-May, and then I’ll be in trouble again. I’m hoping I might pick up a college class or two for the fall again, but I really am hoping that I won’t have to give up my big hike of the summer.

We think we have finally received all of the medical bills. The Ludington Hospital is considering us a charity case and so the rehab is free. We are still waiting to hear if they are going to also cover the emergency room bill there. The Muskegon Hospital was mostly covered by Medicare (thank goodness! That was $45,000.) The Cardiology Clinic admits that their formula for assistance does not work well for self-employed people, so we have to list our income as what we bring in, not what we get to keep after the expenses are paid. Pretty stupid, eh? So we only got a 15% reduction on that bill. I’m sending every place a little bit each month, but this will be a long haul to work our way out of this hole. And I thought we were already living at the bottom of the barrel.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying hard to earn some money on line. Taking the average amount I am offered for articles on Associated Content, I can bring in $200 a month if I write 12 articles a week. But so far I haven’t been able to quite keep up that pace after I have everything else done. Here’s a fun one about that experience My Wrong-Headed Journey Into AC Land

The Shared Reviews site that some of you know about is still in Beta testing, and I’ve earned my maximum in that phase ($150) unless people who signed up under me also write reviews. After it goes live (supposedly this month) then I get paid some percentage based on how my reviews rank. I really can’t predict how much or how little that might bring in. But that $150 this month sure helped! And it’s a really nice on-line community to write with. Much nicer than AC. Some of you who are reading this did sign up under me. They have put another $10K in their beta pot, so get busy writing reviews! It was a fairly easy $150. If you want to sign up, use this link to Shared Reviews, so I get credit for you! Until it goes live, you can’t really see the reviews unless you do sign up, but I’ll be sure to give you an update when that happens. It’s actually pretty cool. Who would have thought that I could get excited about writing product reviews?

I still think my best bet for income is to expand and work on the Get Off The Couch web site. I need to get my act in gear and return to working more on that. I was going great guns before I left for the North Dakota hike, but haven’t picked up the pieces since I got home and Om had the heart attack.

So that’s what all is happening at our house. Oh yeah, Omer’s down to 134 pounds, and is wearing pants he hasn’t been able to get into for 15 years. I’m down to 117 (horray!), and will be really happy if I can lose a couple more.

Stop back here as often as you like for whatever bits of nonsense I’ve decided to share. You can leave comments here with only a Google ID. Meanwhile, I’ll email "the list" when there is something major to report.

God is good, no matter what life seems to be like. This year has been one of great change for us. I would say second only to 1990. It’s very hard to see what direction we are supposed to go. We really appreciate the kind words from many of you. Thanks!

P.S. It’s snowing again! *smile*