Sunday, November 22, 2015

i'm not saying everything is all great now but...

The past few weeks/days had gotten pretty stressful around the farm. I'd been unemployed for a few weeks and with the holiday coming up I was worried about making ends meet for the family and then being able to afford to buy anyone any Christmas presents. I know that's not what Christmas is all about but it's a really fun part of it and definitely one of my love languages. I love gifting (and gift wrapping obviously).

During my time off I spent time contacting people trying to find work and then general hanging out with my family which was good but I watched the bank account dip and dip making me more and more worried. We cut back on everything as I already said and one of the things that had to be axed was our annual gal pal Christmas party. It just wasn't gonna happen this year. We'll try again next year. I hadn't been in this sort of financial sticky-ness in a long long time. It wasn't this bad in reality but I did give second thoughts to purchasing $3 hot chocolate at Disneyland.

Then I got jury duty which I'd postponed twice due to pregnancy and then newborn care and was out of options. I went praying that it would somehow work out that I wouldn't have to give a judge a sob story and the first day we were in the interview process then recessed for the day, came back the next day to find out they'd settled the case and we were dismissed and our service was completed. I wanted to buy the world a coke. THANK YOU JESUS.

We gave the cats away which continues to crush me daily. I had dreams I was reunited with them.

And on top of that I thought I might be pregnant which would be wonderfulyeahkindaofcoursebabiesaremiracleswoohoobabies but we were just NOT in a place where we wanted to have another baby mentally and especially financially. We've talked about expansion and all we know for certain is that we're giving Alice two years to be our one and only and then we'll reassess the situation. So forgive me and Matt for popping champagne bottles and giving each other serious high fives when I found out I wasn't pregnant but sometimes knowing a baby IS NOT on the way is good news too. Yeah, of course again, babieswoohoo but dude, I have one already and we're good for now. REALLY GOOD.

As you can imagine all of this made for great material when I called one of my best friends and sobbed this whole thing to her. The only thing that made me cry was the cat part in seriousness but let's pretend I cried about things other than animals. I told her that what made me the saddest was that I wouldn't be able to buy Alice that little play Ikea kitchen for Christmas.

A few days after this conversation I got a job that was going to cover us for the month, I found out I wasn't pregnant, jury duty was dismissed, and a package arrived at our home from Ikea for Alice. The girls had pitched in and gotten her the sweetest gift that did produce some non-animal, happy tears.

In the midst of this I kept praying. I knew there was a reason for this rough patch and that He would provide and He has so very much. Today at church we were reminded about giving. We're heading into a holiday about being thankful and this week more than ever I am thankful. For God's faithfulness, for a healthy family, and for truly wonderful friends.