December

Woke up with a bee in my bonnet the other day - getting anxious about Christmas and getting things finished up.
I made a list and went shopping, but at the end of the day, while chatting with my daughter, I discovered that I didn't do well at all. :-(

When will I learn that impulsive actions almost always go awry...

There's a whole month to go, I know, but only one more paycheck - and my hours at work are getting cut back already. It's going to be a lean year this year.

This has been a different sort of week - hubby has been spending his nights with his folks - he switched days with his sisters so that he could have some time at home on the weekends. I don't know how he keeps it all together with his crazy schedule - but he does.

He took half the day off yesterday, and actually spent it with me!
Okay, so he was messing up the basement with his Christmas crap again, but sometimes that's the price one has to pay...

We sat and talked some - no TV, no phones or computer.
(Wow - how long has it been since we did that?)
We talked about the situation with his parents - we're worried about his mom, she seems to be going off the deep end - and he asked me the "why" question...
Why his dad has to linger and suffer so much?

That's it, isn't it? The ultimate question.

I wondered the same thing so many times when it was my mom wasting away in a hospital bed.

Later, as I was flipping through my notebook looking for a blank page to write my grocery list on - I found the answer. (No empty pages, but plenty of quotes!)
I found this one by Joseph B. Worthlin;

"Our adversity not only precedes our glory - it produces it."

There's so much in this world that we don't understand.
I always felt that there was some kind of purification process going on with mom - like the good life that she led was being sanctified for the eternities by what she went through.
...Or was the trial more for us - the ones left behind?
I know that it unified us as a family, as it is with hubby's kin.

Some questions will never be answered until the next life, when we can ask the One who's in charge of it all...

I started another painting last night - the third in a set of 3.
I hope this one goes better. I'm beginning to think that the tole fairy died... (She used to come and "fix" my work while I was sleeping.)

...And I finished my book - Six Geese a Slaying. It ended well, but it sure took a long time to get there! I almost didn't make it LOL!

Sitting in my jammies this morning, watching it snow and dreading work.
I saw a movement at the window, and noticed someone was out shoveling my walks - I was expecting neighbor Bernie, but to my surprise, it was neighbor Ed!
He's a kind soul and a good friend, but when it comes to snow and cutting grass, he usually stops right at the property line - not a centimeter further!

I am truly touched.

...Like I said, good neighbors are a blessing.

"On the first day of winter,
the earth awakens to the cold touch of itself.
Snow knows no other recourse except
this falling, this sudden letting go
over the small gnomed bushes, all the emptying trees.
Snow puts beauty back into the withered and malnourished,
into the death-wish of nature and the deliberate way
winter insists on nothing less than deference.
waiting all its life, snow says, "Let me cover you."
- Laura Lush, The First Day of Winter
.