Thankful.

My poor blog.

It is such a mess.

Perhaps a little reflective of life these days.

For many weeks now (or perhaps months, now) I have felt like I've been scrambling from one things to the next, and while I dream of some time to sit and get caught up on this, I'm not sure when it will happen.

In fact, I've felt a little like this....



Being pulled down the path of life at a faster speed than I can quite gracefully handle at times. :) 

I still haven't had time to move photos off my hard drive so that I can download my camera.  (Hint, hint, honey).  I uploaded a few that are there just to keep this post fun.  Because photos just make everything more fun.

That is, if anyone is still even reading this sad little blog.

Much is brewing with Dan's job.  I'd like to share more on that, but have to get clearance first.  In the meantime, all prayers welcome.

We started a new dosing schedule for Andrew.  Same med, higher dose.  We're going to try a couple of different dosing schedules to see how he responds best.  That will take a few weeks to sort out.  My hope is by Christmas we can be settled in with that and done with our trips to the Psychiatrist.   He has been deemed an "Atypical" patient.  So future guesses as to how he'll respond are off the table.  But I am hopeful.   



I have the funniest story about taking Kaitlin shopping yesterday, but I have to download the photos first. I am writing it here so I remember to post it. We'll see if that actually helps.

I went and got my hair cut and colored yesterday by someone new. We cut a lot off of my hair where it had really thinned.  It's short again by necessity.  I basically let her do what she wanted.  It looks so much thicker again as she cut back to the new growth.  I'm going to go back to her and so now I have to figure out a way to break up with my hair dresser who has a daughter in Matthew's class.

Awkward.

I have so many fun photos on my hard drive of the "good stuff" in life, that I hope to post about soon.

Life is good.

Truly.

Despite it feeling crazy and too busy at times, I go to bed each night and feel like my heart overflows with blessings.  I'm humbled by the gifts I've been undeservedly given.

The children I have.

My spouse.

Our families.

A home.

I know it sounds trite.  But it's true.

We have walked some challenging roads in the last 4 years.  It has not been easy.  It has very much felt like a season of challenge for us.  I have kept waiting for the "end" to come.  When we can hit cruise control and not have something that falls in the "major life stress" category on our plate.  But I'm shifting my paradigm a bit and wondering if perhaps this isn't really a season of challenge, but perhaps just life.  And that's not such a bad thing.  We've had some extremely stressful and heart wrenching days.  But oh, so much happiness mixed in.  So much laughter.  So many smiles.  So many, many perfectly wonderful moments.  So many more blessings than trials.  Ups and downs and a lot of everything in between.

Life.

No different than everyone else in the world.

But the trials, even though they don't always feel like it at the time, in retrospect have been blessings too.  I'm grateful for the challenges of the past 4 years and the refining it has done and the people it has brought into our life in the process.  It has been hard.  And painful at times.  But so necessary for me.  I can now sit in the midst of uncertainty as a different person...with greater peace and trust in God than I ever imagined I could.  That's not to say that stress and fear don't creep in.  They most certainly do.  I still have a long way to go in this journey, but I take comfort in the path that I'm on.  In the small seed of faith that I have.  I can look back on the last 4 years at how God has redeemed so many of the challenges that we've faced, and apply it to both our present and our future.  I can trust that while our future most likely won't look like what I planned,  it is where we need to be.  I simply pray for God to direct our steps in the days ahead.

I think this new peace in the midst of uncertainty is perhaps what I'm most thankful for this Thanksgiving.