Hi! My name is Rose Goodwin. I haven't come to CASP since Christmas. I seem to have lost my incentive for writing stories and poems. I think I've been coming to CASP for about four years now. I received my GED, wrote a book of poems, and was planning on writing more poems, but I think I lost it somewhere along the line.

This winter I've been working off and on. My children are both teenagers and are at a stage where they think they can tell me what to do and what they're going to do. I'm to a point at times when I could send them both away. I love my children very much but a person can take so much before they break.

Winter is such a hard time of the year. Hydro is higher. I just think I'm getting ahead when everything goes wrong again. The dryer breaks, have to buy another one, another bill behind. Gas prices gone sky high, can't afford to drive the van, to sell the van, car, and truck to buy one you can afford to drive. Land tax bills are in. Income tax time, no money coming back, but have to pay lots in. Sometimes I get sick of trying. When you think there's light at the end of the tunnel, there always seems to be a switch to turn off.

I'm so looking forward to spring. When it's warmer and everything looks alive again. I have to get my incentive back again for writing and other things I should be doing. Hopefully when the weather is nicer, I'll feel more like doing things. I need to stop worrying about every little thing and learn to have fun in this world. Life is so short. One day we're here, the next we could be gone. I keep saying I'll take one day at a time, for who knows when there might not be another day.