Checking in from North Carolina
On a personal level....life is a disaster....
Among other things, Spanky was rehomed in January to a family with 4 children. I get updates every now and then. They homeschool, and during the summer they sent pictures of Spanky being "schooled" by one of the girls. Apparently they have class, then Spanky gets homemade pony popsicles because he's such a good boy.
It's too complicated and hurtful to explain anything else. Suffice it to say my faith is sustaining me. My faith and my faith alone. If you're a Christian, please pray for my husband. He is a truly tormented soul right now..and he doesn't use drugs or alcohol. If you're not, please lift him up in whatever spiritual manner you're comfortable with. Noone should suffer like he is.
For the past 2 years I've been struggling to receive disability. We finally went to hearing last week, so in another 60 days I should have a decision. My advocate seemed to think it went well. It was more than a little difficult to hear their Vocational Rehabilitation expert say "there are no jobs for this hypothetical person" though. Pride, stubbornness, self-sufficiency, failing my family financially....it all ran through my mind in that instant....then I went outside, hugged a tree and used my walker to get to my friend's car and go home.
My daughter came to stay with us in April. She's another tortured soul. So far, we've not come even close to building anything resembling an amicable relationship. It's not hateful. It's just...nothing. A mom finds it hard to love their child so much and receive nothing on return. To extend a hand to repair old hurts and still be denied, to offer a hug and be denied, to ask "how are you" and be denied. Yes it's hurtful. I take some comfort in imagining how much it must hurt God, with the millions of us who do that to Him everyday. It puts my own situation in a better perspective. So please lift her up too. She has many demons, of which most of them I can guess at. She's always been very closed-even as a baby-sit I can help in no other way until she comes to me one day.
The micro-farmstead-currently my home-based been kind of fallow this year. The lawn has been mowed. The giant patches of datura (moon flower) and volunteer petunias have been cared for. The volunteer tomatoes were delicious. This year, unlike previous ones, we had hard frost in late October for a week, so the late tomatoes were lost. (The fleas weren't though.
)
I'm taking two online courses. The first one is 1000 hours in an herbal medicine immersion course. Herbalism foundations, soil, useful garden weeds, plant propagation, herbscand their uses--for immune systems and digestion, for the nervous and respiratory systems, medicine making and food as medicine....and the list goes on.
The second one is a six week floral workshop provided by Floret Farms in Washington state. This one is very business focused. Yes, there is a lot about the growing...but the business and marketing plan is there too.
My hope is that by focusing on these two beautiful things, I can return to the beautiful person I was before all of the tragedy and sadness started...oh so long ago on 7/11/2017 with the loss of two dogs to the heat.
P.S....please excuse typos...I kept falling asleep while trying to type this. Love you all guys, in a big sisterly Christian kind of way.
