The biggest news is that we're down to a single income family again, instead of a 1.2 income family when Mrs. Ha is working. It's summer, so our utility bills are lower, there's no need for school lunches and community college tuition, that all helps. By vastly decreasing the amount of wine we buy, moving to the cheapest beer I enjoy, deferring car maintenance, selling things on ebay, paying off surgery bills in chunks, letting therapist bills build up, draining the twenty one year old's college fund, and getting unemployment, we're not putting much on our credit cards.

I also had five gallons of late spring lager fermenting, which I've since kegged. I've made better, but it's paid for. I may not need to buy beer for another month.

We are going camping for two days, as sort of a vacation, and eating lots of the Wegmans equivalent of Nutty Buddies, as another sort of vacation.

The college fund withdrawal is ultimately for her benefit. A few hundred for her therapist to provide a report that might help her get an IEP in college, and three hundred to get re-certified for life guarding in Buffalo, so she can get a lifeguard job. I had hoped not to touch it, thinking we may need that modest amount when she goes full time, but she might not be able to handle full time college for a while. In the short term, this will help her get a job and possibly get accommodations when she's going to college, and there's still some left in that account.

She'll be staying with my sister in Buffalo for the four day course, it should be good for her. My sister has three cats, and the 21 year old likes cats.

Other than that, she's good. She turned 21, and did not want to go out for her first local drink at a VFW, firehall or country and western bar. She doesn't really have a taste for alcohol anyways.

The sixteen year old is good. Oddly, she does not want to get her driver's permit. We do want to get her a passport, but that's been put on hiatus for budgetary reasons. Somehow I have to try and scrape up $140.

She did have a meltdown on her birthday, the internet was out and she said every birthday has sucked recently. When we counted back, she had a point.

In 2017, all she wanted to do was chill and watch anime on Netflix all day. That's kind of hard without internet, and only eight gigs remaining of 4G.

In 2016, we said goodbye to a great cat, days before her birthday.

In 2015, the then 18 year old's boyfriend was visiting. Hours after he left a cousin showed up. There was a lack of attention paid to her that day.

In 2014, instead of celebrating her birthday with my parents on the Fourth, as we normally do, we had a combined graduation party for the then 17 year old, along with newspaper_girl and sa_girl.

Plus there's the whole "she's a teenager used to having a lot of autonomy to do whatever she wanted all summer long and now mom is home all day long criticizing" thing.

It hasn't all been bad for sixteen_year_old. In early July I DM'ed for her, seven of her friends and nearly 21 year old, using old school First Edition AD&D.

The Port of Athos is beseiged by the Dread Pirate Roberts in the ocean and hordes of orcs and goblins in the surrounding mountains. All the party's assets are in the Bank of Athos, while their gear is held hostage by the inn keepers; letter of credit from the Bank of Athos are not worth much. Fortunately, a patron by the name of Zaphod Beeblebrox, with two retainers named Dent and Marvin, has heard of a rumored 20 mile long tunnel under the mountains to get to Athos, and he wants to bring Greek Fire to break the siege.

The oddest moment was when a Druid was able to charm a Warg right out from under an attacking goblin. We need to continue that adventure.

She's doing her Saturday morning art class too, and has started her summer AP work.

Mrs. Ha is much less anxious now. She liked the hands on part of being a chiropractic assistant, but she didn't like the sexist older doctor, or the incompetent office manager. The person hired after her wanted her position, and knew how to play office politics, so it was not surprising when she got fired, and she's now much less stressed. She's been looking, and will probably find something soon. I don't know if she'll find something she can work at for ten years without a lot of drama, but I can hope.

The twenty one year old is being a big help with the internet computer things needed for applying for jobs, Mrs. Ha and computers don't go together well.

Our gardens do look great, the twenty one year old is discovering a talent for gardening, and Mrs. Ha now has time for them.

For me, travel is picking up a bit, work varies from way too busy to a little slow, and more mandatory training keeps getting assigned. I have started going to a therapist to deal with the stress. The therapist suggested going from two beers a night to one, to see if that helps with stress. Even if it doesn't, it stretches my beer supply.