Ha! I do miss posting near daily, but it was very time consuming to research and post everything, though I very much enjoyed sharing the compulsive addiction joy of savings with my fellow gamers. However, in the last few months my life has become a lot more complicated. I don’t want to junk up the Bargain Thread with my personal issues, but long story short:
My mom was diagnosed last fall with terminal cancer. I am the only family she has here, everyone else is 1000 miles away, so it fell on me to handle pretty much everything these past months. My mom also has 50+ years of untreated depression/mental health issues, and this has made the situation even more difficult. It is incredible how much time and effort goes into trying to maintain someone else’s household and put their affairs in order when they’ve done literally nothing for at least 20 years. On top of that, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer at around the same time, which means my wife and I have also been busy tending to her needs and affairs. It has been a crash course in medical treatments, estate planning, social services and more. Thankfully the county we live in has a lot of great social services for seniors and people battling cancer, the support of some of these services has been amazing.
It’s not all bad news keeping me busy though. My daughter, who just graduated from high school, has played competitive volleyball for nearly a decade. Every January-June we would travel all over the country with her club team when they would play in tournaments. This led to her receiving offers from colleges to play volleyball. She visited several and decided on one, and we moved her 10 hours away a couple of weeks ago (just days after graduation) so she could begin training and practicing with her college team. She loves it, and is very happy. While it was a lot of time and travel these past few months, it was also a great escape for both my wife and I from what was going on with both of our moms. We are very much looking forward to traveling some in the fall to see her team play at various schools when we can.
As if all that wasn’t enough, my workload has probably doubled since everyone came back to the office post-COVID last year. It’s a non-stop stream of desktop and server patches, software updates and roll outs, and trying to fend off the security threats that seem to have tripled in frequency in the past couple of years. I’ve spent a lot of nights and weekends trying to play catch up when I have time free from the other stuff.
Hopefully things settle down some fairly soon. We seem to have found a good routine lately with the moms, my daughter is moved and settled, and I’m going to spend the summer trying to catch up on some of my work projects. Perhaps I can find time again for bargain hunting in there as well, as I do miss scouring the web for deals.
Saw this over in the Bargain Thread and just wanted to say to @SlainteMhath that I’m sorry to hear about his and his wife’s mothers situations, and good on you guys for being there for them. The stress of being the responsible child is real and I hope you take care of yourselves through the process…and not spending your time on posting bargain summaries for lazy gamers like us is a reasonable start!
No need for anyone to junk up the Bargain Thread responding to this post. I just wanted you all to know what was up and not think I had abandoned you or stormed off mad about something. QT3 is a great place filled with great people, and I know without the need for replies that you all wish me well. We care about each other here, something that is pretty rare on the internet these days, and that is why I love, respect and admire you all. Keep on hunting and posting those bargains, take care of yourselves and your families, and I’ll return to bargain duty when time permits. :-)
-SlainteMhath
I know you know we care, but I like to post it anyway! Just not junking up the Bargain thread :)
