Where Did January Go????

As I write this, January has basically come and gone. At one time, it seemed as though January and February just dragged on and on and on. No more!!!!! I have always enjoyed the Holidays and always miss the busyness of the season and it seemed to make the next couple of months longer. Now, it just feels as though the busyness of the holiday season is replaced by the busyness of other activities (I still enjoy the holidays more though!!!!)

This past week, I had the pleasure of spending a few days in Richmond for our yearly Legislative meeting of our Social Services directors. We got to visit the General Assembly and drop by the offices of our representatives. As always, they were busy, though we did have a nice conversation with Del. Bud Phillips. He had a nice long conversation with us, which is always nice to have a long conversation with any of them at this time of year.

I am attending the Rural Caucaus in Richmond this week. This will be my first time attending, so it ought to be an interesting experience. I enjoy the political activities and believe they have significant benefit. However, I do have to say that I was extremely disappointed with our Federal government and the ongoing bi-partisanship displayed when voting on the stimulus package. The original stimulus package developed by Pres Bush and pushed through by the Republicans had significant bi-partisan support. But now, when Pres. Obama pushes forward with a new stimulus package largely developed by the Bush administration and the new administration, there was not a single republican who voted in favor of this package. It would be wonderful if the people who we elect to office would take the time to actually represent our interests instead of playing partisan politics. Do what is right and work together. Spend some of your energy building relationships and partnerships instead of building walls between each other.

Discussions of the Utmost Significance

In these truly challenging times, it amazes me how often individuals get caught up in issues that truly do not impact the overall well-being of people, but just differences in people and how they believe. There is presently an ongoing discussion surrounding one of the Board of Supervisors in Floyd County contacting Channel 10 News and complaining about their anchors not wearing flag pins on their lapel and claiming the station is unpatriotic. In response to this, people are jumping on the BOS member for using patriotism to drive a wedge in between groups.

In my own personal opinion, this is just more of people focusing more on individual differences than on working towards addressing the current problems and issues that impact our counties, states and nation as a whole. I would love for people to put this much energy towards identifying commonalities and ways to work together instead of finding ways where they differ. Everyone has their own opinions, but sometimes it would be nice if those opinions were used to bring people together instead of trying to drive them apart and attack those who do not share your views.

New Year and No Resolution

As the New Year has come and is well on its way, I still have not decided what I would like to accomplish during this year. The last several years have been easy with finishing graduate school and trying to survive all of the papers, classwork, working, etc. that goes along with it all. But being as I finished last Spring, I truly have not identified a new resolution. I guess I could still look at losing weight, getting into shape, etc., but truly those just bore me. It is one of those things that I know I need to do; however, I don't have a desire to do so. In that sense, I would just make the resolution and then break it. So, I guess I will continue on and identify a New Year's resolution sometime during the year, though I guess it won't truly be a New Year's resolution then!!

It is the time of year that I have begun my weekly pilgrimages to Richmond. The Legislature is certainly different this year than it has been for the past several years. There are very few bills being put forth that truly have any impact on anything. For the most part, eveything is specifically focused on the state budget crisis. We received another disturbing report this week that the deficit in Virginia may be closer to 4 billion. That is another billion on top of cuts that have already been identified. My agency completed it's budget this week with a 10% total reduction. Being as we are mandated by VA Code to provide all of the services we do, this ought to be interesting as this process continues.

I will be spending most of the coming week in Richmond. I have to be there from Tuesday through Thursday as we meet with our Legislators and try to keep our face off of the radar. This is one of those situations where you just want to stay out of the crosshairs of the legislature and protect what funding you already have.

Other than the "fun" at work, everyone around home is doing well. Shatlyn is participating in Destination Imagination through school and we have to travel next weekend to Abingdon for their competition. Then there will be another one in March and then April. The group has written a play about Romeo and Juliet of course with the updated teenage take. It should be relatively entertaining!

I have been working on a project of scanning some older pictures into the computer. I never really thought about it, but we take more pictures at Christmas than we do the rest of the year combined I think.

And on a final note, I hope everyone enjoyed the historic inauguration this past week. Whether or not you voted for Obama or agree with his politics, this was a historic situation and there is an optimism in people that I haven't noticed in many years. Let's hope that things improve and people are once again able to meet their basic needs.