Merry Christmas

As usual I had a bit of fun with photoshop creating this year's Christmas card for our business.  That's Mr Sunshine on the top left.  Romeo on the top right and Grannysaurus on the bottom right.  The other 3 are who we had left of our staff due to the global financial meltdown.  In fact the young woman bottom left has now found other employment also and I have had to learn to handle all of the clerical side of the business.  It has been a steep learning curve.  Office work and I go together like oil and water.  So now there are just five of us where there used to be eight workers - not counting myself as initially I had no role to play and I was still working for the church.

Fortunately the last couple of months have seen a turn around in demand for our work and things are starting to look more hopeful.  We are not entirely out of the woods yet and we have a huge amount of catching up to do to repay our debts (mostly to the bank, the tax man and ourselves - especially ourselves), but we can see a light at the end of the tunnel and we are hoping that it is not the headlight of an oncoming train.
The truth is that in spite of the dificulties, we have many, many blessings to count.  Five lively, lovely, healthy grandchildren and three great kids who have great spouses and are happily married and all of us healthy and only a five minute drive from each other is more than many families have and we are grateful for all of it.

Christmas is a little more austere than we have had for a while, but the good news is that we are not beaten yet.  And we are certainly not starving - too many friends and relatives for that :)

2010 is looking okay so far.

I hope the coming year is a good one for all of you and that 2009 will be looked back on as a just a nightmare, bad dream, an interesting learning experience. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!