Bleak Start to the New Year

I have not posted in a long time.  Why?  I keep waiting for good news to report so I can keep Jewel Box® upbeat and fun.  So far, 2012 has been bleak.

•  Two contracts have been written on my mother-in-law's house and both have fallen through at inspection.  
• My youngest son has told us, "why should I work hard in school or even go to college?  That has not worked out so well for you and Dad. What is the point? You are middle-aged and  miserable. Why would I want that? NO THANKS!  I'm going to do whatever I want and be happy.  
• My husband has now been unemployed for 3 years and 5 months.  No prospects in sight. 
• We don't have money to pay the mortgage this month or my oldest son's last semester of tuition. 

And that is the state of the Jewel Box® Home on Sunday, January 15, 2012.  In our house, the American Dream is Officially dead.  I'll leave you with a poem I wrote over the last week:

Beautiful flawed children,

harnessed to the mistakes of their parents.

Strong broken women weeping in the shadows.

Broad-backed idle men searching with vacant eyes.

Thinking, whispering, but we did the right thing,

we followed the rules...

 Genevieve