It rained this morning. I like when the windows are open at night when it’s raining like it also was last night. Tim did something to the outside of the house to where he rerouted the gutter so the water wasn’t just pooling outside of the boys room. He dug a trench and buried tubing so that the water drains into the woods. We lost power for a few hours the other night because the winds snapped a power line.

It is a little weird having a child come home who’s been gone for a while. Not in a bad way, just that you’ve adjusted and things have changed since they left. Even in two months the dishes system was different. I still have pangs of sharper emotion following exchanges where feel again I’m living in this new different. Sunday he asked to go to Laura’s after church and planned to spend the rest of the day there.

It’s happened every time he’s come home so far, where something hurts from the scab of his leaving getting scraped off. But like I said, I am at peace and feel that too, and of course I am always glad when he’s home. The high school was having a fundraiser tonight selling chicken dinners. Josh had ordered eight of them, so we had one extra that was split amongst the dinner eaters. It was a nice meal shared.

The three older kids went to school today. He has to shadow a teacher over break for one of his classes. His major is Mathematics. They left this morning and didn’t get home until around 5:30, the usual time once track practice starts. My other son is trying track to see how he likes it and he came home having done something to his hip. Dad and I drove the younger boys to school together then stopped by Hae’s.

I’m starting to feel better again but still didn’t do much. I was mostly in bed again. Whatever this latest recurrence is has really been a more prolonged one. The walks I was going on were 100% motivated by wanting to look a certain way. So was the beginners weight workout that I only did once because I didn’t think it wise to do again. I’m just going to have to get over all that. I know where those ideas come from.

The spring intensive started today and I’m really glad to not be taking it. I told Josh I was going to do my own intensive researching things about PMDD and GABA neurotransmitters. We had a nice dinner tonight as a family. Dad had the kids do their reading time and then skill time. One of the boys made a sign for the outside of the house. He didn’t think the letters looked very nice but I thought it was great.

I called and talked to my mom today. I usually call her when I’m needing to talk through something important and I’m seeking advice or a second opinion. Somewhere in the conversation she pushed back a little when I used the phrase about something not being normal. “Where did you get that idea from?”, she asked. I at first thought she was meaning something more like how Jesus said that in this life there will be trouble.

And she kind of was. “But”, I said, that doesn’t mean we just don’t do anything to help ourselves or ask for help if there is some sort of way to potentially get it. Her point was it was normal to be dealing with something. There is the woman at church with degenerative, and at times debilitating, Meniere’s disease. And the woman who suffers from chronic migraines. And the man who needed surgery for his kidney problems.

How many more do we not even know of? It’s baffling to think about. And even though I know that human life is riddled with way more than even the multitude of physical problems, you just don’t always see those things. But they are out there. We reviewed the handful of things that I have known to have been helpful for me in the past, and she encouraged me to be consistent with those things, those basic things. I agreed to that.

Dad and the boys returned home last night around 10:45. He’d earlier again in the morning around 6 to pick up our oldest from school for spring break. One of the boys had rode along with him. The birthday cookies and presents were ready for us to celebrate once they arrived back home. The other boys who were home had set up a camp site in the raised yard behind the dining room. They wanted to sleep outside.

I finally consented. I wouldn’t have cared except for the fact that it was still supposed to be colder. At 1AM I woke up and went outside to check the fire. They were all asleep. I put some more logs on it and went back inside. At 3AM I woke up again and went back outside. This time one of them was awake and the two of us went up and down the stairs to replenish the woodpile. I came back in and moved my blankets and pillows downstairs. I had asked Josh earlier if he could check on them at five when he woke up.

So I fell asleep in peace and didn’t wake again until almost 7. Earlier today camp had their pancake breakfast between the 10-1 hours. Our maple taps are out now and the sap was boiling. We had a lot bigger yield this year. I was working on an assignment after wanting to redo it for a higher score. It still wasn’t great but maybe better. For whatever reason my brain just wasn’t having it with this particular assignment.

I went down to main camp to visit for a little while. I wanted to, yes, but I also am just tired of being the one who is habitually and oddly not present at events. I probably should’ve stayed home. The talking to people was great, but seemed slightly too much. For anyone who has not read my past two now deleted posts, I just haven’t been feeling that well again. I finally went to the store yesterday but not because I had the energy. The boys put it all away and we enjoyed the night. Elianna left to come home by 10.

The past two posts included me working out thoughts that have led me to the conclusion that basically, it isn’t normal to be so laid up in the time when you’re leading up to, on, and getting over your period. I’ve done the tracking. I’ve got the information, I just need to know what to do with it, to know what to do that could possibly change this. I am open to suggestions. I am looking into medicine. I just need to do something.

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I took a nap this afternoon. Their boys were having their joint birthday part at Grandma’s. Sometimes they’ve been with us on the actual day and other times it just works out better to combine and celebrate on a different day. I wanted to go but didn’t think I was up for going, not sure if it would make me feel worse or not. I told Josh I have no idea how I can go from feeling great and normal to feeling like this.

He said maybe it’s version of the flu that’s been going around, or maybe the mono coming back and getting retriggered. Or maybe depression. I thought maybe I had just overdid it on the walking, even though it felt fine at the time. He still had a sermon to write so we weren’t going to be staying super long at Grandma’s. Plus Laura was going to be there.

And this was going to be Ethan’s first time seeing the house. And my daughter asked me to go saying it would be fun and I could just sit in the chair if I wanted. I did decide to go and I am glad that I did. Grandma made supper for everyone and I felt okay enough to help clean up afterward. She had three barstools for us to work on to put together. The kids all helped and I helped too so I wouldn’t get antsy. It was a fun night.

The girls called to see if I could pick them up from the bike trail. They’d gone out riding and somewhere between the in-town house and the end toward camp, one of the bikes starting giving them problems. Of course I said I’d come get them. I drove up to the trail in the van as close as I could get without actually driving on it. I could see the three girls were not far away, otherwise I might’ve turned right and driven all the way down to get them just to be funny, and to show her I would’ve done it for her too.

They thought the whole debacle was hilarious, as girls do. I was just happy everyone was okay. I did begin laughing at the next ridiculous challenge which was to fit three bikes and three girls into the minivan. It seemed like it should’ve been able to be done. While they were walking toward me with their bikes I was putting down the back seats and moving sandals and large Styrofoam pieces out of the way. We had to also put down one of the middle bucket seats, which left us short a seat for bringing the girls back into town. It was a windy and cold 32 degrees.

The all volunteered to ride in the back, but I told them I could not risk other people’s children’s lives. I told my daughter to drive and that I would sit back there. She was like, “Mom I’ll just sit back here, it’s fine”, and I was like “Whatever, fine” and got in the front. The bikes were dropped off. The two other girls were dropped off. My daughter got her car and was actually back home a few minutes before I was. I had to stop and get gas on the way home and for pictures by the airport.

Do you ever just sit at home at night and wonder where the time went? I did a little bit tonight but before that I’d met up with a church friend for supper. It’s been almost a year since the last time. Life happened and things got busy for us both. You can’t really have friends at this point in your life if you’re not okay with things like this happening. It’s not like high school where you’re basically inseparable.

I told Josh not too long ago that he was my best friend, one of them at least. I am trying to be more vocal with these thoughts as they come. I’ve never understood the men online who argue that best friend status is a demotion from being a wife. I think I understand what they’re saying, that you don’t want your husband to treat you like he treats his guy friends. That’s true but I also see it a little differently. To be friends with your spouse is one of the greatest honors you can give to them.

The grocery store had to wait today. I didn’t have the energy to do that too. I met with another mom this morning at Hae’s. The prayer card making over the weekend went well. Laura’s mom was there along with a few others. Dad had a few meetings of his own today, one for the high school, and then lunch. This is one of those times where I just have to fill up my line spacing and then be done for today.

Tonight was our last day of class for the quarter. I spent most of the day, and weekend actually, finishing up a take-home test. It was nice not to have a paper this time. We also had to do and turn in these self-tests located at the beginning of each chapter and then report the percentage change after taking it twice. I texted my son because he is the one who knows math. There was some odd formula I would never have known.

But it made me happy. The kids have their own smart phone now. My mother-in-law gave us Papa’s old one. There’s a new number and in my phone it says “Kids”. They haven’t ever really complained about not having a phone or asked for phone. Our reasoning for not is basically that we’re not giving them hand-held crack any sooner than we have to.

This will be nice for them to have though. If Dad and I go out somewhere then they’ll have something here they can use without either one of us having to part with ours. Elianna took it with her to Bloomington yesterday afternoon. She was home with me over the weekend while the boys had their woodcutters retreat. She and Miles had their one year anniversary over the weekend. They went to the lookout tower for stargazing.

One time during Sunday School I had to teach the story of Joseph. It’s one of those lessons where the story is so long that the assigned readings included multiple sections and chapters. One of the parts we read was where Joseph speaks to his brothers after Jacob has died. The brothers were afraid that since their father was dead that Joseph would turn against them and seek to exact revenge for all the evil they’d done.

But Joseph doesn’t do that. We came to the part where he says, ““Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…(Genesis 50:19-20).” I thought to myself, “Now how did he know that????” How did he know that God had meant all those terrible things that had happened to him for good? He didn’t have Romans 8:28 then. You hear people say things like this all the time.

God this. God that. He worked in such-and-such a way, He opened a door and closed another one. Some people feel uncomfortable talking more about their thoughts and feelings. I think that’s just about the weirdest thing in the world, but it’s also how I feel when it comes to talking about my faith. I’m not here to parade it, not that I think that’s what these other people are doing. They have more courage than I.

So I went back thinking I’d look through the Joseph chapters from the point where he had been sold to see if there was anything there to give any indication as to where Joseph would’ve gotten such a bold, faith-filled statement from. It didn’t take long to find things, and after one chapter I didn’t need to read more. “The Lord was with Joseph”, in Genesis 39:2. Again in 39:3, “His master saw that the Lord was with him.”

In 39:5, “The blessing of the LORD was on all that he had, in house and field”, and in 39:21, “But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love”, and finally, in 39: 23, “because the LORD was with him.” So somehow the Lord being with him must have given Joseph the assurance that in his trials, “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen (Psalm 77:19).”

I officially told the boys we’re transitioning out of morning birthday balloons. I wasn’t referring strictly to the balloons per se, but more in regard to the production that has been involved these years with the kids and birthdays. The birthday sign, chalkboard drawings, balloons, photo albums, and in some years when I thought of it, Dollar General plates and napkins.

The transition actually began several years ago, when on January 6th I was in the ER. I had not put anything up for my son and for the rest of that year the days were thrown off. It was simply one long endless night. I sometimes wish I would’ve written more here, but there was nothing to say, nothing new to report. I would write when I was better and could endure the screen light.

That was another weird symptom that I had. For as tired as I was I couldn’t sleep. I would lie in bed awake. By the evening I would feel as though I was on the verge of a seizure. Mid-January through March were truly the worst. It didn’t feel like I was going through hell, but more like a more comfortable outer suburb of it. I praised the Lord when I’d finally taken nap.

I sometimes wonder now if it was a side-effect of the medicine. The problem was that I needed to take it. It was the only thing that brought any relief in that it made being conscious tolerable. I told the doctor it was like being in pain, except it wasn’t pain, it was some vibration in my nerves, some indescribable state that no one could give me an answer as to what it was happening.

At times things return and I get discouraged: The shortness of breath and fatigue upon walking. The shaking in bed when I lie down at night is still always there. Two times today this Psalm, “Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal; the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.'”

We had the morning to ourselves again. The past couple of nights and days we’ve been asking for and missing each other, but the timing just has not been right. Tim has been here during the day replacing windows and fixing trim. I’ve been more tired again the past couple of days. Nights have been taken up with series shows that Dad and the kids watch together. I thought about texting, but sometimes someone is talking to Miles.

I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep. I feel like sleeping times as well as arrangements is one of those discovered things about marriage where there could grow to be some serious incompatibility. What if one person goes to bed or gets up earlier? What waking for an infant was in the decade of birthing babies seems to have morphed into a different level of expected and adjusted to sleeplessness for love’s sake.

But I will go downstairs if it’s been too long and I start to sense the that 5 o’clock hour would be too early to undo the hours of thinking it took to get me back to a sleeping state. I fell back asleep thinking of my aunt, and woke to the daylight after a stark dream where I was bawling my eyes out watching a movie about her life. My parents came up earlier this month and together we watched her remembrance service here.

I’m still thinking about this Elisabeth Elliot book I mentioned, and feeling like I did not articulate the fullness of what was truly bothering me. I don’t think it was because a famous and respected Christian woman had flaws. This was woman was married three different times. Her first marriage, of course, was the famous one to Jim. Then there was the one to Addison Leitch which, and this is what bothered me, started before

his marriage to his wife of 30 years was even over. While she was battling cancer he was meeting with Elisabeth giving her compliments and kisses. It was only mentioned happening once. Was it a full-blown affair, no, but did the two of them having feelings for each other? Absolutely. Addison was remarried to Elisabeth less than six months after his wife died, and according to Elisabeth this was all such a joyous gift from God.

That was not all. Then Addison dies this horrible death from cancer only a few years later. She was sure God would heal him even as he wasted away. She accepted God’s will and nursed him for months until he died. As time went on she longed more and more for a man. There was one who had been in her life for several years, but she didn’t love him. He was not in the same league as Addison or Jim in Elisabeth’s eyes.

But she married him anyway, and then toward the end of the book the author states how Elisabeth within two weeks of their marriage had told her closest family and friends that she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. This was an intelligent woman who had known two happy marriages before and no similar statements about those marriages were reported by the author, though both had known their ups and downs.

That her third “mistake” of a marriage then lasted 38 years was disturbing. All while the happy ones were both grotesquely cut short. There were reports of her third husband being angry and controlling, even as he had been so pursuing and helpful to her in her former years of widowhood. So why was this all so disturbing to me? Because if her marriage truly was a mistake, then I feel like she should’ve been able to get out of it.