....sigh....

I try to be upbeat on this blog most of the time.  I really do.  Because who wants to read about all my problems?  Nobody, that's who.  But sometimes a person just gets to the point when venting is necessary.  So if you prefer not to keep my misery company, then you might want to leave this blog and go to your happy place.  Otherwise known as Pinterest.

Do you ever have those mornings where getting out of bed and facing life is just so difficult?  I have those mornings more frequently than I care to divulge at the moment, but today is one of those days.  I am weary.  I miss parts of my life in the past that in retrospect seemed to be free of worry.  Sometimes I start to feel sorry for myself, with all of our problems and stresses, and I wish I had that part of my life back.  But sometimes it's the little things that really set us off.  Like my dryer.  I want it back.  It died on us a week ago and I have been doing laundry one load a day and then hanging it all over my house and across a sad little line strung across my family room.  One load a day is not sufficient when your family has six people in it and four of them are adult sized.  It seems like such a piddly thing to complain about really, compared to the other challenges we are facing, but believe me when I say that it feels like the last straw.  Do we have the money to fix it?  No.  It could have at least had the decency to last until May when it would be warm enough to hang outside.  But nooooo.  The middle of winter is a much better time for a dryer to kick the bucket.

I know what you're thinking;  stop complaining because it could always be worse.  I agree.  A few days after the untimely death of the dryer, we had a lady we know stay at our house for a few hours while her kids were in school.  Her and her family were just evicted from their home and they are living at a homeless shelter.  She takes the bus with her kids at 6 in the morning every day to take them to school because she doesn't want them to have to switch schools in the middle of the year.  She told me that it's the only stable thing in their lives right now and she won't take it away from them.  While they are at school, she finds some place to wait for them and then takes the bus with them back to their temporary home.  After she left, Shawn and I just looked at each other and I know we were thinking the same thing:  it could always be worse.  Could it be a coincidence that she came at a moment in my life when I was acting particularly ungrateful and spoiled?  Maybe.  But I know that night we thanked God for our home, for the means to feed our family and for the relative stability we enjoy at this moment.

Perspective is everything, wouldn't you agree?