We have done more homework in retirement fruitions, etc., and have decided to retire after our 64th birthdays in one year. Technically, we are looking at retiring around April 1st, 2008, but we'll see how it all ends up. It'll be interesting since we need to clean out the house, which is FULL to the rafters with stuff (lots of books). Also, because once we retire onto our Social Security, our income will be very low for the Bay Area, California, so we'll probably have to leave for India pretty quickly. We dream about buying/renting an RV and traveling around the U.S. for a while before we leave, but it is hard to imagine being able to do that, particularly financially. I also feel that the longer we postpone moving to India, it may never happen since we're getting older and older. Something may happen to prevent us from leaving.

We had a meeting this month with Social Security the last day of my bereavement disability leave and learned that our benefit will be higher than we thought. What a nice surprise.

My son, Mike, has been dead for 3.5 months now. Our grandson is 11.5 months old. Here's another picture of Dexter.

Tragedy

Well, when we move to India, we will not be leaving my son, Mike, behind. Mike died December 14th of a drug overdose. We know that his death freed his physical life from a force he was helpless against, but fought so hard to overcome. But, as his mother, I am still working through how even that is OK. We miss him so terribly. I am working at accepting that he is really dead. At the moment, I am trying to be consoled that his spirit will always be present. But, I even struggle with that. I'll put a picture of him in the blog. My baby.