We have another snowstorm, which is leaving me reading, pondering, and praying about the changes in our lives. So here goes…

I believe, and I have faith that there will be “glory which shall follow after much tribulation.” ² We are in the midst of the tribulation part, working toward the glory. I know that we will be stronger and happier and in a better place after these tribulations. I also know that we will have help from Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, and the many people in our ward, our homeschooling friends, our other friends, and our family.

I knew this would happen eventually, but I kept hoping against hope – we are being evicted, and need to move out on the 19th. This isn’t going to be easy, and I’m not particularly happy about it. It’s a big struggle for the girls, too – so much change!

That said, we have an opportunity to really start fresh, and to clean out our physical, emotional, and spiritual spaces. I am learning to ask for help (it’s much harder than it sounds!), and to literally get down on my knees and thank God for my many blessings, and ask for His help right now. I am so grateful for my wonderful girls, for our pets, and for the wonderful people in our lives. There are so, so, so many hard choices right now. I have been following the guideline “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good,”³ and trying to go in the direction I’m led by the Spirit. It’s very, very, very humbling.

Jesus has taught us that we can learn when we are humble -”Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.” ⁴ Well, I think I’m well and humbled at this point! I prayed a lot on Thursday and received a blessing, needing strength and hope and help with a place to live. Much to my surprise, on Friday morning we received an offer from my family for temporary housing and help with storage of our stuff & pets. “Ask, and it shall be given unto you,” ⁵ indeed!

I’ll keep praying and working to get a smallish apartment somewhere reasonably close to where we have been living, but it is nice to know we will have a place to go! A place that is smaller, yet not as remote, and also more walkable will actually be an improvement. Ideally without too many stairs, too. I’ll ask for a car, too, while I’m at it!

The past several months have been so incredibly hard, and I’m so, so, so grateful to my friends, faith, and family. I couldn’t do this alone, and being the Strong One for the girls can be a real challenge. It takes a lot of weight off my shoulders to know that I have help and support from so many directions – it’s not easy, but I can get through.

Just to add a small whine in here – my tailbone injury from a week & a half ago isn’t yet healed. I’m on a second round of steroids to help with the swelling, and I’m still on the extra fun painkillers to keep me semi-functional. Injury + chronic pain + stress = not fun. I know that it will pass, but it’s still Not Fun.

We’ll get through this time, though. We will get through it with some help, and we will be in a better place when we are done. For now, we just need the strength to carry on. “The Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”⁶

¹ D&C 58:4
² D&C 58:3
³ Alma 37:37
⁴ 1 Peter 5:6
⁵ 3rd Nephi 14:7
⁶ 1st Nephi 3:7

• your medical scooter stopped working at the bottom of the hill the day before

• you woke up to day 3 of a headache
• your microwave broke, so you can’t make quick sandwiches on corn tortillas
• your website was taken down for possibly spreading spam
• you are accused of being like a “drug mule” by a (bad) support person
• you have to do some major screening of your daughter’s comments on her shirt.woot! entry.
• you had to do a full grocery shop without having had enough caffeine or food

What do you all say to a nice nap?

Hey – it’s therapy night tonight! Yay!

So, I just finished a book. It’s the fourth in a series, and I enjoyed the first 4. YA Chick lit, basically. The series made a big bang when another author ripped entire sections out of it for her “novel” over a year ago. So, I’ll happily recommend Sloppy Firsts especially.

You know how some books end with the reader crying? And it’s a “good” tears, because there was some type of resolution? I never realized that you could cry at the end of a novel because it had no resolution, and just ended with everyone feeling worse. I do not recommend Fourth Comings. Bah, humbug.

I know I’ve gotten a bit of crap here and there for being focused on a happy ending. Maybe I am. I’m becoming more and more OK with that, especially since I was looking for escapism after a long week. I believe that a book with wedding rings on the front that has a marriage proposal in one of the first chapters shouldn’t spend the whole book breaking up the couple. That’s my perspective at any rate.

I ended up skimming parts because I was getting too upset, too fed up with the over-thinking of everything. But I figured the ending would be happy, or at least on the road to happy. I don’t think I could’ve been more wrong. I feel so let down by the author, especially after following the character through four books.

What a waste, especially when there are so many good books waiting on my shelf. I’ll admit to being up too late (wanted to finish the dang book), and getting overly emotional is often my own PMS; a couple months ago I started crying about the fate of the characters in the soundtrack for Wicked (2003 Original Broadway Cast). I may care a tiny bit too much about the fate of characters in novels and plays. Y’think? It’s good I keep some feel-good quick-read books around. I need a cleansing-palate book before I read the next book for review!

I’m ending with a happy, lovable picture. Ra’s coloring is changing for some reason (we’ve had blues before, not red cattle dogs, and I guess reds change color a bit?), and he now has a beautiful heart-shaped mask on his face. Who can be sad when they look at a cute puppy? <3

The evil headache is back. Plus there’s very damp weather.

This has been a very whiny moaning weekend. I’m hoping Monday is a vast improvement.

After reading so much Garfield, I can’t quite believe I’m looking forward to a Monday!

Weekend Math:
3 kids + 3 dogs + 1 cat + 1 husband + 1 headache + 1 achy body = 1 difficult Rachel, feel sorry for those who have to live with me!

It’s wet today, so I’m feeling creaky and achey anyhow, but I was having fun creating another shirt.woot t-shirt design with BG and MG today, and playing around always makes me feel young. Earlier this week I wrote about feeling young, and that feeling set the tone for the week. Park days, puppies, and spring temps helped too.

Then I was in the pharmacy picking up 3 prescriptions when one of the pharmacists was saying that New Kids on the Block was touring again. That was freaky enough. But then she started saying how old they look, and that she was a baby when they first toured. wimper They’re my age! I can’t be old!

Then I walked into one of the side-mirrors on the car and wonked out my left hip. So now I have “old” stuck in my head and I’m limping and creaking and aching. Yeah, I don’t feel as young as I did earlier. I think I need to go out for a drink and get carded! Anybody with me?
(cute sleeping puppy picture below to bring a smile to our old faces)

Have you ever had one of those days where you think you never should have come out from under the covers?  Yeah, me too.  Today, in fact.  There was a snafu with receiving a gift certificate, so I woke up to find out that 2 minutes after I closed my laptop gmail received the GC.  Of course, Amazon hiked their prices waaaaay up overnight, and all my well-chosen presents in the cart went kablooie.  There are some things I will purchase for $5, but definitely not $32!  Ugh.

The day, sadly went downhill from there.  In computer terms, this is a cascade failure.  Or a cluster f***.  Whichever you prefer.  You can say “cascade failure” in front of kids, though.

Rachel’s tip for the day:  If you were in tears by 8 am, maybe you shouldn’t spend the day running 2 weeks worth of errands.  Just FYI.  We went to several different stores, and I managed to have computers crash at almost every store I visited.  In one it happened 3 times, and I wasn’t even touching it.

On days like this, I feel incredibly grateful for Good Friends who listen and offer helpful suggestions when I’ve started to go over the edge.

 Perfect things today:  The sunset over the frozen salt marsh – it made me think of how I imagine Alaska, a place I’ve always wanted to visit.  The sunset reflected in the sound near our house.  Pity I didn’t have the camera.

Money quote for the day is from LG:,”I finished my treat, but the girls hadn’t finished theirs, so they gave  some to me.   Charity is good.”   Lets remember that she is 4.

Right now I’m waiting for a callback from the doctors office.  For some reason they were having trouble processing a routine prescription refill.  How, exactly, do they expect me to call them back if they leave a message at 7:03 when they close the phones at 5:30?  I would have been home by then if the cascade failure hadn’t continued.  To make things even more fun, when I just got up to eat, the world spun, started to get dark, and I fell down.  I don’t think I’m going to walk much tonight.

Tomorrow is another day.  There’s plenty of room for improvement!    Maybe I’ll be able to get the picture of the sunset.