Thank you all! Finally, a full post.

You are all amazing! So amazing! Thank you all for your concern and caring words over the past few days. I am breathing lighter now; merely trying to do what I can when I can and the best I can. "Time heals all wounds," so I am patiently waiting out my time for this one.

In the meantime, I am trying to keep life on a positive track and keep my mind occupied.

I never got around to posting my progress from last week; I finished up about 40 (?) of my string blocks; not trimmed yet, but de-papered. I attempted to sew some more yesterday, but due to the fact that it was such a mindless task, my mind kept drifting back to the upsetting moments from earlier this week, so, I turned everything off and tried finding things to keep my mind occupied. Paul was just about to leave for some winter shopping for Caitlyn and Candace, so I quickly got dressed and bummed along with the family.

The rest of the day, I forced myself to "get into" a new book that has come highly recommended. The first chapter was SOOOO hard to get through; I kept drifting away from the words and then found myself re-reading the same paragraph over and over. But finally, I drew up a bath, relaxed with the jets on full-blast, and hunkered in. Chapter 1 did not appeal to me; many words were unrecognizable to me since they were Swedish-related terms. It was just hard to follow, characters were introduced and I struggled keeping names straight.

Even at the start of Chapter 2, it was discipline that kept me reading.
However, by the end of Chapter 2, the story was finally making progress and I was slowly getting hooked. I am now through Chapter 3 and am looking forward to some reading later tonight.


I could have read some today, however, sadly, much of my day today has consisted of this. Now that I've come to grips and peace with many of my school tasks, today's hours in front of the textbooks and Standards were quite tolerable.


Back to last week: it was filled with turning our house into a Christmas house. The tree was trimmed...


and the Nativity scene was set up, and other Christmas decorations were set up around the living room. We (I) am NOT an outside decorator (yet). Too much work.

Another event of this past week was Cassie's 11th birthday. She told Grandma "anything with wolves," so that is exactly what she received. Wolf calendar, wolf figurine, wolf puzzle, wolf tie-your-own fleece blanket. She was in heaven.

And from us, she was given a Kindle Touch; part Bday and part Cmas present. Prior to her opening it, I downloaded the Hunger Games trilogy as part of her present as well; she is well into Book #1 already, a week later.

I hope this slump is nearing an end. It's absolutely amazing how, within two weeks, I've gone from "life is awesome and couldn't be any better" to ..... THIS! I've read a lot of quotes on attitude lately, and I am mentally listening to my own attitude and trying to turn it all back around to the positive side of life. I don't like controversy. I don't like being grumpy and depressed. And I CERTAINLY don't like being considered "insubordinate" when I work so hard at my job.