Merry Christmas 2009 from Robert Perrine and Marlene Weldon

We wish you the best for the holidays and for the New Year. We can hardly wait for this year to be done. It was a difficult year. Marlene spent six months out of town with almost no opportunity to see Robert. And Robert spent about six months working part time while watching his bank accounts go from green to red. Well that was one way to put the holiday colors to use.

Marlene now spends her days and most of her nights caring for her mother. Robert spends most of his days working and hopes to continue this habit into the New Year. Work, however, is unpredictable. Some days Robert has too much work and too many deadlines. Then a couple days later there will be nothing to do and that means no income. Life for us both is a rollercoaster.

When work slows down Robert spends his time doing research for a book to describe how we cope with life. This year has given us both a great deal of practice in coping. Robert has posted a book on best practices for information technology on the internet. He is almost finished with a book on how the Bible illustrates our ways of coping with life and has it also posted on the internet. This third book is planned to be short, easy to read and intended to be sold. Robert is doing the research and writing. Marlene is the proof reader and critic.

Marlene’s goals for next year are to continue caring for her mother and help Robert on our book. If things go well she hopes to get into some classes so she can get a better job.

Robert’s goals for next year are to try to stay employed during the day while working at nights to finish the book on coping styles. If work slows down again then that will give Robert more time to work on the book.

Along the way we are trying to take life one day at a time. Each day brings new and unexpected challenges. Each day we become more aware of just how much this latest recession has changed our way of life. Along the way we also discover that the research we did this year on twelve-step self-help programs is really beneficial. Religion, twelve-step programs, self-help programs and family support are all ways of coping with difficult situations. We learned this year that all of these tools can fit together to help guide our lives.

We pray that God bless you and your family throughout the next year.