I proposed to Dad and the boys The Great Purging of 2026. In honor of the ten year anniversary of us moving here we would embark on a two month project to clean out the basement by May 1st. Nothing is totally set in stone, but it is possible Ethan and Laura will be staying with us in the summer. She’s going to do her internship here while Ethan works at the day camp. They could choose between the upstairs or downstairs.

That would leave sometime in May for the installation of the carpet. They actually seemed okay and pretty on board with all this. The hardest part for them is going to be getting rid of their things. The hardest part for me might be the reminder of all the money we’ve spent on their Legos. I am eager to make money to have more wiggle room and money for spending. There are debts to pay and kids to keep helping.

I’m still in the phase where I have to recover several days after working. I really don’t know how people keep going and lately I’ve been frustrated with my felt limitations and that isolation with feeling like nobody really understands. I just sound like a wimp and like I need to get a grip and keep moving just like everybody else. What I am grateful for is that I do still bounce back and start to feel ready again to go back for more work days.

I asked to pause on couples intakes so I could get my bearings with the notes and situations. I honestly never pictured myself doing so few individuals. I like that I can do it but it’s more like “Hey wait, I still do want to have one on one times”. The couples waitlist has leveled out but the family one is also long with only one other therapist who is taking intakes for those right now. I asked if I would be able to take any of those.

She said I could. I will tell you the only reason I feel like I would even try it is because the teacher I had at Lincoln (the hard one) modeled it in our family dynamics class. I would not want to do parents and children. I don’t think working with kids is my area. I need clients to have a certain capability for understanding. But they have ones with requests for grown adults within families and some for parents and teens which might be okay.

Again, this isn’t really what I imagined myself doing. But I do like have the opportunities to try things and get experience doing a wider range of therapy sessions. There are many parts to these types of therapy that I feel could be streamlined. And while I realize that it can’t be all about me and psychoeducation, there are things that can be taught, and then modeled, and then practiced. You teach the people to fish so they can do it.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but it gives me hope that this kind of work is sustainable. With the harder teacher you never felt like the warmth and caring was there in abundance, but I learned in a way that I did not with the others. I actually think it hurt her feelings that she was known for this aspect. For me, I would rather people learn and have their lives be enriched with the difference of knowing than have them know me.

Anything deeper is just a bonus. It is a Lenten goal of mine to continue working on my “touchy feely class” as my husband helpfully calls it, so I can complete that as well by the mid April deadline. It’s just a matter of trying out and writing on seven more graph filled pages of exercises, writing the book report, taking the exam, and sending in the compiled documents and practicum info. It sounds like a lot but I feel like its doable.

I have a lot on my mind. I just want to be faithful the life and opportunities God has given me. That is my main goal. Today we went to church and Bible class at Trinity. The pastor is going through Genesis and today was Genesis 17-21. He started by talking about chiasms and then he said these chapters formed a chiasm. It starts with God’s promise to bless Abraham with a son (Ch. 17) and ends with the birth of Isaac (Ch. 21).

The middle part is God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah (Ch. 19). God had to cleanse the land before he could make it a place for his people. On either side of the middle is Abraham interceding. The first time he intercedes for Lot and Sodom (Ch. 18) and the second time he intercedes for Abimelech (Ch. 20). I forget sometimes how great the verses are that talk about how God is gracious and does for us what he has promised.