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I love days like these and I only wish they came more frequently.  I suppose it really takes commitment to break away from the things that keep us so busy, but in the end, everyone is happier when we can sit down and laugh together.

This year will be different;  I am determined.

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This pose cost me a Tootsie Roll and a Tootsie Pop….oh yeah, and the dental bill.  If she doesn’t start cooperating, she might be in dentures soon.

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I know I mentioned awhile back, change was on the horizon.  I wasn’t kidding. 

I don’t know exactly when it happened; really, it snuck up on me, but I eventually came to a point of total burnout and I couldn’t get past it.  If you know anything about burnout, which I didn’t, it changes your whole perspective on life. 

Usually, when lives become difficult, people can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  They know that at some point, things are going to change; life will get easier and more manageable.  The tide will turn and maybe just maybe, tomorrow will be a brighter day.  And that has always been the way life was for me.  I was the eternal optimist.  Never say die, never quit, never ever be depressed because there was always tomorrow.

Well… things changed.

There was still tomorrow, but I couldn’t face it.  I had no more strength.  Lifting a finger became too hard.  Walking the stairs to the bathroom was too hard.  Seriously hard.

I started to ask myself why this was happening to me.  After a year of self searching and six months of prayer and tearful begging for a way out,  I finally realized that life was not going to get any easier.  Things were not going to change.  In fact, things were only going to get worse.  I chided myself for living in this delusional world of expectancy of the easy.  I was not going to have time with God; my health would not improve; I would not have time for my children;  I would never get out from under this pile; my house would never be clean; I would never spend time writing to friends I have met over the years; I hadn’t read a book in three years and I may never again; I would never enjoy my backyard, or play in the sprinkler with my children; my mother would die without spending time with her only child; I would not live a life of serving those in need, but only be living each day to free myself from each pile and to-do-list.  I would never ever turn into the three or four people it would take to run this business.  Those were the facts and I was finally facing them.

I grew more cynical, I felt completely overwhelmed to the point of total exhaustion.   I began to feel as though even God had abandoned me.  After all, I needed to work, I couldn’t just give it all up.  How would I support myself? Why wasn’t He helping me.  I begged, I cried, I pleaded.  And then I walked into the world and put on a happy face because no one really wants to hear the truth.  I was dying beneath that face… that facade.

No one had a clue what I was going through and how could I ever expect them to.  After all, how many single women do you know who homeschool, run a store from home and take care of ailing parents?  Yeah, me either.  Even with my best explanations, no one could really understand my situation without living it.  And had they, they would’ve won an Olympic medal in the “Run from Ugly Things Race.”

Finally, things grew so bad, I seriously began to question my own sanity.  My memory had become so poor, that my eighty-five-year-old father admitted I was in worse shape than him.  I could explode at any second and I woke up terrified each day that there would be some small mishap that would cause our boat to sink.  I couldn’t physically or mentally carry another thing and yet, everyone kept giving me more responsibility.  When my mother came home with a feeding tube and needed care morning and night, I finally broke.  I begged people to understand I couldn’t do it.  They looked at me like I was some pariah who was refusing to help her own mother, but in my own mind, I was one step away from a nervous breakdown.  I knew I would crash.

But isn’t His burden easy and His yoke light Hallie?  Yes, but the orders still had to be sent out and the piles on the floor stepped over, children fed and schooled and that takes someone with skin on.  And that someone was me.

And that is when God took over and appointed my oldest to do the job of caretaker.  He had moved her right around the corner just a few weeks before and had she not lived here, she would have never been able to take care of my mother and free me from the burden. 

And He wasn’t done.  I woke up one morning and knew that it was time to close the business.  I was done.  And I was confident that God would provide.  Not a doubt entered my mind.  I was finally 100% sure that God did not intend me to live this way.  He does intend for me to have a full life, full of joy and expectancy of His blessings.  Not sorrow free, but not like this.  I knew then, if I had not gone through this trial, I would still be living a joyless life.  I would never come to a place of rest and confidence in His ability to provide for us.  He does not need me to run a business that takes over out entire lives, to take care of our financial needs.  But, He can still provide me with income and a job that allows me to stay home with my children. 

So if you’re wondering what I will do now, well… God only knows, but I have started the arduous task of closing Blue Thistle Books.  We have thousands of dollars in inventory that I must liquidate.  I feel sick when I think about it, but God will bring us through this too.  He will give me the strength to do that which He has asked.

And for all of you that have come here and faithfully encouraged me….thank you.  I haven’t had time to respond, (and I hate that fact,) but your words have lifted me up and given me the grace to move forward, burden free.  To my two closest friends…(you know who you are!) I love you both.  Thank you both for being my laughter, my Kleenex and my temporary escape from this burdensome world.  

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I’ve been having a really hard time breathing with the cat around and decided as much as I like him, he had to go.  We searched high and low for a good home and finally Tim found one for him on a farm. 

I told Belle and she seemed to take it much better than I ever expected.  We talked about visiting Benny and she seemed fine with it, although she did state she would “really miss him.”

Today after grocery shopping, she walked in, found “her cat,” and pulled him into her lap.  As I walked from grocery bag to cupboard, putting things away, Belle looked up at me with the most serious face a three-year-old could muster and very calmly said….

“Mommy…..please don’t take him away; I love him.”

I have never heard a more touching statement out of anyone.  Ever. 

I almost started sobbing.

Hey, it’s only breathing; Kimmie said it was overrated.

Well, I must go now.  I have to make room in my bed for my nebulizer.  Did I mention he’ll be an outdoor cat?

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I have committed to posting a picture a day, so I am posting it, but I don’t feel like it.  It doesn’t seem right to go on like nothing has just happened when Marsha & David are hurting so badly.

When my mother lay nearly dying in a hospital room after her brain surgery, the grief was so overwhelming, that I didn’t know how I would make it through one minute of my day, never mind an hour.  The world just kept on moving and I wanted it to stop.  I knew my face showed every bit of pain that I felt, yet people just passed by without a second glance, as if I didn’t exist.   As time passed on, the phone calls stopped, the prayers ceased and everyone seemed to accept the situation; everyone but me.  The pain never left, though with God’s grace it somehow it became easier to live with.  It would have been a million times worse had been my child.

So I will continue to pray, weep and praise God everyday believing that one day their joy will return.  Someday I know it will.

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