Pyles of Clutter

So.....

It may or may not be true that I bought myself some snazzy new reading glasses that I have to wear when I'm looking at my phone.

Getting old.

Miracles happen.

Dear People,

It's with a very humble, and grateful, heart, that I type this to you today.  I want you all to know that the Lord really does hear and answer our prayers.  He does!!  I knew that already, but it's been reaffirmed to me today.

Things are a little tight around here.  No doubt you could have guessed that, and it's true.  To balance our money between wedding, Christmas, bills, and living has been a game that I hate.  I want to be able to give Lilly a wedding that she will look back on fondly, and not as the "we are unemployed" wedding.  Prideful?  Probably, but nonetheless, true.  I want to be able to keep the mystic of Christmas going for Tessa.  I don't want her to find out the true meaning of Santa because we couldn't afford it.  Prideful?  Probably.  I want to pay my debts, and be self sufficient, and not have to ask for help.  Prideful.  No maybe there.  And then we still need to eat, drive our cars, have heat and water.  All those little nuances of life. 

Enter the Christmas Jars.  I made 125 Christmas Jars.  I didn't keep one for myself.  I didn't even think about it!  I just gave them all to Tamara.  Silly.  And about a month ago, I found one in my car, but this time, it had money and 100 wedding stamps.  I was grateful for the money, but soooo grateful for the stamps.  I made me feel less overwhelmed by the mailing of all these invitations.  Thank you!!!  Thank you to whoever gave me 100 wedding stamps, and money to buy the rest of the stamps!! 

About a week later, I got a new calling.  When I received a blessing for that calling, I was promised that we would have the means to take care of our family, among other wonderful things.  I've clung to that promise because, I feel like we're trying, trying to find the balance in our money card house.  But I also felt like we were failing.  Enter another Christmas Jar.  Tamara brought me some more money, and told me the family wanted to stay anonymous, but hoped this would help with the wedding expenses, and that they loved us.  My heart exploded with gratitude again.  How very generous our ward family was being to us!!  How could I ever thank them?

And here we are today.  Life is stressful.  Our unemployment benefits are ending.  We lost a loan opportunity that was in the final stages.  We are questioning our inspiration, our faith in our decision, and if we have what it takes to move forward.  We are, literally, on our last leg.  Enter another Christmas Jar.  People, this was incredibly generous.  So generous that it made me cry when I saw the amount, it makes me cry now while typing about it, it will make me cry for years to come.  For this jar has moved us forward, and given us hope, and has helped us see the end of the tunnel. 

I happened to mention in our Relief Society lesson how touched I am when I hear people say, "We pray for you by name."  To know that people petition the Lord in our behalf, BY NAME, humbles me so much.  I'm so very grateful for those people, that love us enough to put us in their prayers.  In a letter that came with the jar, it says,

"We have been praying to know how we can help you.  We always pray for you by name and for miracles.  If finally hit us that we NEED to be part of the miracle.  Money has been really tight for us this year, but we have been saving for a big screen television....Well, that money needs to go to you." 

Oh my, people.  My heart is exploding once again!!!  Thank you!!  Thank you to whoever listened to the inspiration that Heavenly Father sent you, who helped us so greatly and sacrificed what they've been working for.  I wish I could know who this is, and I'm hoping by some miracle they read my little ole blog, so they can know, I'm so, so grateful for all that you've done for us. 

I'll be praying for this family, not by name unfortunately, but as our Christmas Miracle Jar Family. 

Love,

Me.

The way it is.

Cold morning.  Hot chocolate.  Wrapped in a blanket.  Soon going back to bed.  It's just that kind of morning.

I've been thinking about a lot of things lately.  And so often I get to the point of, that's just the way it is.  There is no other explanation.

For example, I recently watched the movie, "Water For Elephants".  If you only watched this movie and didn't read the book, please go read the book.  I wanted to find the author of the book and shake him, and say, didn't you keep creative license for this movie?  Didn't you learn anything from the Harry Potter movies?  Or the twilight movies?  They, at least, resembled the book.  Not so in this movie.  The basic premise was there, but so many of the key parts were changed, and I didn't think for the better.  Too bad.  Read the book.  And so goes my thought, in that if they make a movie out of a book, always read the book first.  That way, you get the real story and can know what's really going on.  That's just the way it goes.

Facebook is a time sucker.  Lots of debates going on about the value, or destructiveness, of Facebook.  I agree wholeheartedly that it can be soooo destructive.  In fact, a friend of mine just recently found out on facebook that her husband is a schmuck.  I'll leave it at that, but say that she has since moved out of their house.  But I will also say, that it can be a great tool.  I have a friend that posts daily on his facebook what he is learning in the gospel.  Things like, today I had this epiphany while reading the scriptures.  Nothing too long, just a little snippet that allows him to bring our thinking back to Christ.  I enjoy that.  And I enjoy all the gospel centered facebook pages that I have "liked" that give me little snippets of the gospel while I'm on.  On the other hand, I've blocked a lot of people that I just can't read their ugly statuses anymore.  Your opinion is not my opinion, and I just can't be assaulted with it anymore.  I'm also glad to have another way to keep track of my kids that aren't home.  If they are on, I need to be on too.  I need to know what they are doing the best I can.  But it can be draining, on every facet of my life.  And so it goes.  Good?  Bad?  Stay?  Go?  Still debating. 

Unemployment sucks.  Having major life experience, while being unemployed, sucks.  Having major holidays while being unemployed sucks.  That's just the way it is.  Terry and I have been praying hard for direction, and it seems that we both felt that we were supposed to head in a certain direction.  But so far, this direction is not working out so well, and that has us questioning if we really had that inspiration, or whether we just wanted that for ourselves.  We don't want to be like the Israelites with Moses, always looking back to the old ways, but we don't want to be like this either.  So, we are praying.  And praying.  And praying some more.  And would appreciate your prayers as well....

Christmas is hard.  No matter how much I'm prepared, it is still hard. That's just the way it is.  And this year, I'm so unprepared, it's ridiculous.  In fact, if we didn't have someone that still believed in Christmas, and Santa Claus, and Joy in the Season, I probably wouldn't be doing Christmas at all.  It's just too hard. 

And now I'm starting to be a whiner so I'll just end this post.  It's cold, only 14^.  I don't have to run in 14^ weather, so I'll be going back to bed, and snuggling in my blankets. 

And that's just the way it is.