Only in my little world!

I know! I promised to write more... just never seem to have the time! Another week has gone by, and I have not even sat down to read everyone else's blogs! So, have no fear my dear friends, I have not forgotten you!

I will get to the main post in a sec-- just a brief summary of life the last few weeks. Sparing you of details, I needed to boost the equity in the house a bit in order to refinance in my name only. So, I decided to invest in getting a new roof and replacement windows put in. My house is a classic New England style, complete with many unusual angles, so it proved quite a challenge for the roofers. But what a job well done! It was a huge investment that I will be paying for for a long time, but so worth it to have that final thing gone that he can no longer hold over my head.

The kids started school this week. Kristen is in second grade and Ty in kindergarten. Bryce will be starting "speech school" in two weeks. This means on Thurs and Fri. mornings I will only have the baby at home! While it will be very different, I welcome the break.

My new house guest also arrived a couple of weeks ago. What a blessing Dory has been to us!! She is so sweet and helpful. But here is the main part of this post! Franklin, NH is a very quiet little town. We see very little crime and have just three police cars and a staff of not much more. I praised this quaint town up so much to Dory, and assured her that most people do not even lock their doors here. So what do we get wakened to at 1:15 AM Monday night? The police banging hard on my door! Can't say I have ever had THIS happen before!! When I opened the door in a half asleep stupor (you must remember, I just worked all weekend and Mon. nights is when I crash), they asked for Dory. I was too stunned to think clearly, so I knocked on her door and said "the police are here for you." In a very gruff voice the policeman asked her where her car was. She looked just as scarred as I was, and stammered "in the driveway." He then told us no, it is not in the drive, but is sitting crashed into a light pole downtown! He asked her to show him her keys to prove that she did not give it to someone. The ironic thing about the poor girl getting her car stolen right out of my driveway is that it is a borrowed car! She was borrowing it from the principal of the school where she was to begin teaching in just two days! Many details later, they got the guy- he was drunk- and we found out that he had also hit several other houses in the area. It just so happened that he chose my driveway to steal a car from! I do give huge praise to God for keeping us safe and for sparing my van of anything. I foolishly left my wallet in the door pocket and the van was not locked. It was not touched! Yes, we are taking a few extra security measures now, and we all share quite a laugh at this one! So much for no crime!!

Being single sets in

I promise to write more light-hearted things tomorrow and give some pics from our recent camping trip, but first I must work out some thoughts. The last few weeks have been stressful in a whole different sort of way. The enormity of being a single mom has hit me in full force. Until now, I had been in some sort of denial state where I thought that either my husband would repent or God would just miraculously send us a new wonderful Godly man and this whole nightmare would be over in a year or so, tops. Imagine that! As it is so painfully apparent now that he has no intentions of repenting of his new life, I am faced with the certainty of being a single mom to four kids. I am just one- there are four of them. I get so discouraged at times because they need me so much but all in different ways. How will I ever stretch myself to meet all their needs?

But then God sets into my heart and whispers about how he has sent me a helper. Her name is Dory and she has just come to live with me. She is my new angel. My family and her family go waaaay back to childhood days. Dory graduated college this year and took a teaching job not too far away from me. Her sister lives about a hour south of me, but is unable to have tenants. So she has come to stay with us. In exchange for room and board, she will watch my kids every other weekend while I work. She is so sweet and even cleaned up the house yesterday!

I think I have mentioned the "Quieting a Noisy Soul" series by Jim Berg before. I am still plugging away at it, and have had to park on the two chapters about discouragement and despair. Wow, has God been smacking me around a bit! Here are some tidbits:
-- If you put joy and peace in a blender, you get contentment
-- you need to pray not just for deliverance, but for endurance
This one really hit me hard, as I so totally thought that this was just a blip to give me something better in life. I really had not thought this might be long-term. I know- that really sounds insane.
-- God may want us to be changed, so the circumstance can't be until we do.
-- Far too often our despair happens because we are listening to our self instead of talking to our self.
It took me a bit to get that one, but it is soooo true! When I listen to the thoughts of "God does not really love you, etc." instead of quoting scripture at myself, I get discouraged. I fall into despair when I start thinking about how unfair all of this is and how I don't deserve this. But Job was one of the most Godly men and he lost everything. But look what he gained for staying faithful to the Lord! It is just so hard to see the other side when the waves are crashing so hard against you!! From where I stand right now, it seems the life I vowed I would never live has no end in sight. I vowed my kids would never know the pain of what I endured growing up, but they do. And some how God will sustain them too. God gave me Godly men to influence me at just the right times, and He will for them too if need be.

Somewhere in the back of my thinking is the verse about God giving you the desires of your heart. I just don't see that happening yet. But even as I type that, that really is not fully true. My heart's desire is to see my children walk in Him. So far, all love God deeply. But oh, how my heart aches when I have to go to work every weekend and they beg me not to. And when my little girl looks at me with tear- filled eyes and says "can God give us a new daddy that loves God?"

We have been singing a song in church the last few months that is so great. It is by the Gettys and called "Speak, O Lord." I have yet to get through the third verse with dry eyes:
"Speak O Lord, and renew our minds; help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us. Truths unchanged from the dawn of time, that will echo down through eternity. And by grace we'll stand on your promises; And by faith we'll walk as you walk with us. Speak, O Lord, til your church is built, and the earth is filled with your glory."

I'm back-maybe!

I have just been catching up on my "blog reading" and I know it has been a couple of weeks since I have written anything. Life is sooooo busy right now I can barely breathe! It seems my computer time is the first to go. (Not that that is a bad thing probably, but I do miss everyone!) I will write more tonight, I hope!

Bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils

One of my favorite romantic comedies is the Tom Hanks/ Meg Ryan movie "You've got Mail." Made back when email was just becoming a huge hit, it has many one liners that I love. One of them is about the fall and the start of school. She talks of bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils. School is just three weeks away here, so we did a bit of shopping yesterday. It was such great fun to help the kids pick out new backpacks and lunchboxes, etc. I will have three in school this year. Kristen is in second grade, Ty will be three days a week in Kindergarten, and Bryce is signed up for special speech school two mornings a week. Bryce is really coming along with his speech and just barely qualifies for the special school, but I really want him to get some extra help while he is young. All this translates into a busy schedule, but also on Fri. mornings, it will just be me and the baby at home. Hard to believe!

The kids are excited for school as well. Tyler actually said he couldn't wait for school to start because it is quiet all day there! I guess we have had a busy and exciting summer!

Oh, on a side note, the other great part of "You've Got Mail" is her love of daisies. I have always loved daisies, and she calls them "...such a happy flower." I totally agree!!