Merry Christmas 2009!

♫ It’s a sign of the times. ♫
Remember that 1966 Petula Clark song? Well the sign of our times, is job loss and our family has definitely seen that this year. In February, Marty got laid off of his job and in November, I got laid off of my job. My son, Adam, even went through two layoffs this year. The good news is that everyone is working now, even if not in conventional ways.

I went from being a full time employee of my company to being a contract worker. I was actually out of work for 3 weeks. I am now back writing assembly procedures for R&D and I love it. Adam has also gone on to a job that he enjoys. He is operating a laser cutting machine for Owen Oil Tools.

Marty is pursuing the path less taken. After looking for conventional work, he decided to pursue internet marketing. It is like starting your own small business. He has spent most of this year learning about subjects like search engine optimization and latent semantic indexing. We are excited about the things he has discovered. Although he has not yet developed a money making business, we feel he is getting very close. I plan to help him by writing for the business in my spare time.

Besides Adam going on to bigger and better things, two of our other children have passed milestones this year. Fallon, Adam’s wife, graduated in May with an Associate’s degree. She is already taking more courses toward her next degree. Marty’s daughter, Carmen, went to school and got her Certified Nurse’s Assistant (CNA) license. We are very proud of both of our graduates.

Marty and I were very blessed to get to take a vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida this year. We went to the wedding of Chris and Brooke Woodrow in Atlanta and decided to just keep going to Florida. Disney World was great. Even though it was my fourth trip to Disney, I got to see the electric light parade for the first time. Marty got to meet his hero, Buzz Lightyear.

On our trip, we also got to stop in Lexington, South Carolina and see many dear friends I hadn’t seen since I moved away in 1999. They in turn got to meet my wonderful husband. How many prayers were said over my 8 years as a single, that God would bring a good man in my life? The mind boggles. But God is good and my SC friends could see proof of answered prayer.

Marty had a victory early this year. His picture of neon lights in Haltom Plaza won for the category Haltom City Scenes. It appears in the 2010 Haltom City calendar which is available for free at the HC library.

This year I got to carry on a family tradition of making Christmas cookies with the kids. My grandson, Addison, and my sister, Delia, joined me for some messy, but fun cookie making. Maybe next year, more of the grandkids can come.

My goal with my Christmas letter is to go mostly to an online version. This blog version has more pictures than my printed letter and you can click on the links. Marty’s latest website is BuyAdultDiapers.net and this is my new Arlington Barbecue Restaurants Examiner column. If you prefer to receive a paper letter next year, send me a note with "paper letter" in the subject.

We hope that you will have a heartwarming Christmas spent with your family and loved ones and we wish you increased health and prosperity in the New Year.

Love,

Veronica & Marty Hobson

Christmas Letter

It isn’t even Christmas yet, and we have already received our gift. Marty got a job. A year ago, he decided to taper off from his contract work in Houston. He wanted to find a job nearby so he could be close to wife, kids and parents. He’s been looking all year and it’s been a long journey but, on December 14 he started a new job as an imbedded software designer in Fort Worth, Texas.

We started 2008 with great optimism. Marty had a few very strong job prospects in January and in April. Each time it seemed as if he had the job sewed up, then it mysteriously vaporized. Every morning he started his day by searching the online job listings and sending in applications. But after a few months, we decided there had to be more to his life than this.

He began purchasing self paced training modules for computer applications that he wanted to learn. He spent weeks learning C#, dsPic processors and Java. He also did some short term contract work. He worked two different times for Weatherford International. The first time he did firmware troubleshooting and the second time he did a Photoshop project. He also occasionally returned to Houston to work a few days.

The rest of the time he was at home. This turned out to be a really good thing. Over the course of a few months, our house required the fence mended, toilets reworked and the roof replaced. Every time, Marty was there to set appointments, greet the repairman and oversee the work. No need to schedule appointments on Saturday, go in late to work or take a vacation day, he was available to handle it.

I started depending on him to help get me ready for work every day. I tend to cut my time very close and I am always rushing in the morning: throwing some food together for my breakfast, feeding the dogs, grabbing all my stuff and running out the door. It started slowly as Marty took over feeding the dogs. But soon he was buttering toast for my breakfast, carrying my things to the car and sometimes even driving me to the carpool lot.

The other way that we took advantage of Marty’s increased free time was by taking three vacations. In April we visited “A” towns in Texas: Abilene, Amarillo, Arlington (Dr’s appointment) and Austin. One highlight was visiting my cousins, Laura and Terry Browder. Terry runs several outstanding, upscale guest houses in Abilene collectively called the Sayles Ranch. We took a second vacation in July to Illinois to attend the Hobson reunion. We rode in Marty’s car with Marty’s daughter, Carmen, her 1 year old, Julianna, and her 3 year old, Shane. Amazingly, we traveled well together. Carmen rode in the back seat between the two kids. She was occasionally awakened from a nap by a finger in her eye when Shane got bored, but otherwise she was ok. Our third vacation was in November to the Lost Maples in the Texas hill country.

Another class that Marty took was on writing and book publishing. I took the class also and was inspired to begin writing a blog. My blog inspired Marty to begin a website cancerreportdaily.com. It is a collection of late breaking news articles related to care, treatment and discoveries about cancer. He spent several weeks building a quality, easy-to-use website. He updates it once, or more, a day. Just about the time he got ready to roll out his website, he applied for one more job. Evidently this was the one that the Lord had been saving for him, because he was hired 10 days later.

We are both ecstatic. Marty is relieved to be earning a steady salary. He is excited to be at work again. Now we will have a little more leeway in our budget. We can begin saving again for car replacement and future retirement. Also, we both are looking forward to buying new shoes. There is just one drawback to this whole Marty job thing. Who’s going to pick up my dry cleaning?