Counting our Blessings

Its been a rough year.  A really really rough year.  And every time we think we might be OK again we get another knock.  Despite lives everyday knocks that we regularly weather through, there have been some big ones.  End of January Dave lost his job.  This was a huge shock to us.  We were blessed that he found good employment a few weeks later, but at a significant wage decease.  As he was looking for work, I started to look around some also.  But we both feel that I am not supposed to go back to work yet.  So we have made many adjustments to our life style and have given up much, but have been further blessed that so far we have been able to stay on top of things and within our budget.  Then in June my mom had a brain tumor removed.  What we thought was going to be a 4 day hospital stay ended up being a 4 month rehab stay before she came home.  She is doing well, but still has a ways to go. I enjoyed all the days I got to spend with her in the rehab center, just talking and being with her.  But since she was there we missed going out to my parents house during the summer. Leah seems to just keep getting knocked, battered and bruised, by people that should have been her supporters.  Every time she turns around she has to fight to keep what is hers and what she has worked to achieve.  When they should have been working with her.   The question she asked me a few days ago is very well worded.  "Why do some people get to swoop in last minute and stroll merrily along on the path that I have dug and worked to build and paved for two and a half years?"  I don't know sweetie, it hurts me to see you have to go through this.  But she does have some fantastic friends that love and truly support her.  Now my parents are moving.  You take advantage of things that you think are going to be constant your whole life and it really throws you when they change.  The pressure to be out has set my mom back a bit and is not good for her brain to make all the decisions she has to make.  They are coming to terms with it and have started looking at some things that will be nice about the move.  But I will miss it.  The farm was what made me who I am.  Because it was sudden and my mom was not there last summer, we didn't get one last First of July with the beef and 8 minute parade.  We didn't get one last bridge jump or one last lazy summer sitting in the soft grass and chatting. Just to name a very small portion of what I will miss.  I am glad that my kids are old enough to always remember these things.  I will never go back. For a few years I have seen this jar on Pinterest.  You keep it up for the year and on New Year's Eve you read all the papers that have been added through out the year.  At the beginning of 2018 I finally decided to do it.  I thought it might peter out Mayish, but it hasn't.

I now feel that I was inspired to do it this year.  Even though it was a tough one, we have seen amazing blessings and good times.  All three of our kids had fantastic jobs this year.  Cora can  pay for her own mission, (she is not sure about school after, but we keep being told that the Lord blesses His missionaries,  fingers crossed) which is great since Dave and I can't help her anymore.  Leah has been able to start saving for school and still get herself some clothes that she needed. Dave has work.  Cora will be serving a mission.  Our kids are healthy and doing well in school.  They have good friends and love sports and do well at them.  They are funny and a  joy to be around.  We are really looking forward to taking out all these papers and remembering our wonderful times this year.  And to remember all the things we have been blessed with.