Long time.....

Sorry - it's been awhile since I posted, and, unfortunately, I have no excuse. It just seems like it takes me longer to do things these days, so my accomplishments (aka the things I get to cross of my list) seem to be less and less each day. Hmmm.... Anyway, I am involved in quite a few major decisions and happenings as we speak. I am contemplating moving my residence; Tanner is most likely moving into the dorms when they get finished for his schooling; Spencer (my first grandchild) should be arriving anytime now; my car has over 232,000 miles on it and is begging me to let it die and go to heaven (or wherever worn out cars go); and Barry and Britt (my oldest son and his wife) have announced that they are expecting their first baby in July. Now, I realize, some of those things don't effect me directly, but they all seem to fill my mind as I'm meandering down my life's path here. Add to that all the other things crowding into my head, and, well, I seem to get a little distracted, and boom, the day is over. Not much is happening to report right now. However, I will say, at the risk of sounding like an old woman, I am saddened by the way things are changing in our world. I did some legwork in anticipation of getting a car, and consequently, a car loan, and was sad as I talked to the loan officer at my bank. Now, to give you a little background - I am a small town girl. I have always tried to keep my business in my small town as best I can, and that includes my bank. In the past, I knew everyone who worked at my bank - now I don't know most of the people, let alone their names. In the past, I would just call, say I found a car, this is how much I need, here's the bluebook value, and they would say, "want that money in your checking account or you want us to write it to the place?" Of course, it wasn't quite that cut and dried, but basically. Now, there are more forms to fill out each time - not just updating what they have on file. And I'm a small business owner, so now we want 3 years of tax returns - really? For a small loan for a car? The loan officer explained to me that they used to take a person's character into consideration - of course, the collateral had to warrant that much money on the loan, but basically if you were their patron and your history was good with them, they would loan you the money. Not so anymore. It saddened me because a person's character is no longer important in this world. I can fill out their forms and produce copies of my taxes - all that stuff, but it just made me sad - there's no longer a benefit for me to keep my business in a small town bank. I understand, times are tough, the banks have lost money and gotten "bitten in the rear" in this economy - but to say we've lost the "human" part of our dealing, and now we just go strictly by the numbers on the papers - that makes me sad. In this progressive, forward thinking, electronic driven world, people are becoming less and less human and more and more numbers on pages. Ahhh...now I have really started sounding like my grandma! I'm just not sure that all change is for the better.