Peace v. Stress

Steve is traveling to Georgia, and I find myself an anxious mess. This is the part of grief I have encountered time and time again. Fear of losing another person I love. It has been nerve-wracking to let my family out of my sight! Yes, I pray for them, and I prayed for Steve, but I find myself looking for "clues", as my sister-in-law found after my brother passed. The voice memo text he sent me, the photo of him on the plane, the words I said to him this morning that I didn't expect to say...it all kind of added to my anxiety. 

Why do I do this to myself? I don't let myself have the peace I know God wants me to have. I'm too busy trying to control my own self! Ugh! 

Back to my knees I go. ;)

Piece of Cake

I "celebrated" Valentine's day with a migraine that started sometime Friday night and lasted until 3:30 Saturday afternoon. It was a blinger! I was more than discouraged that my medications are not preventing my migraines. It was the 5th one in 7 days, that one being the absolute worst. It was too late to take the migraine abortive medication, so I had to suffer through that one, but boy was I glad when it was over. 

The girls had made plans with some friends and were already gone when I got up. Steve made me a nice dinner and we got into the planning of Natalie's birthday cake. 

There is just no such thing as a break around here. Migraines have awful timing. Natalie's 17th birthday was Sunday, and although I tried to plan ahead and tried to buy a cake, I couldn't find one in the theme I wanted. Steve convinced me I could make one, even though I really didn't feel up to it the night we went shopping for her birthday. After that migraine, I sure was wishing a cake would just appear! 

And it sort of did..Steve had Serena bake the cakes for me, and he got to work on the other elements needed-blue finger jell-o and Rice Krispie treats. Knowing my plan, we were able to sit together and draft up a sketch of the cake that night, and all I would have to do on her birthday was the decorating. As long as I didn't have another migraine...

As always, the day after a bad migraine is a "recovery day", and I was whipped. But it was Natalie's birthday, so I found some strength, and with my amazing team of Steve and Serena, this is the cake we created for our Minecraft addict: 

So, if you aren't familiar with Minecraft, it's a video game where you build with many different materials. The cake is made of "grass blocks", "sand blocks", "sandstone", and "water". Then we added the animals from the game, and the character "Steve" with his pick axe. It was pretty fun to make and she loved it. 

Turns out, she wasn't feeling too great either and has actually taken a couple days off school this week. 

Maybe it's the subzero weather around here! 

We sure could use a little warm weather and a lot less snow! Definitely no more migraines! 

Post #1000

Today marks my 1000th blog post since I started my blog in 2008! I thought today's post should be unique and different to mark this special occasion, but then I thought, why should #1000 be any different than #1? 

And so it is, 7 years later, I'm still blogging about the "neighborhood" that is my life. Some would wonder why I'm not trying more to "build my reader audience", or "advertise", or "whatever"..., and the truth is, I'm still just writing. It's that simple. 

If you are reading, that's great, and I appreciate it and I hope you enjoy it! But I'm just an ordinary person who writes out of the sheer need to just put thoughts  "out there". Sure, my hope is to touch someone or make someone feel something worth feeling. That's the whole purpose of writing, I think. But if no one reads it, I still think it's worth writing, because I need to write. It's my thing. 

Sometimes I go back and read my own writing just to see how far I've come or what I've learned, haven't learned yet, or have yet to conquer. My own words serve a purpose to me that another person's words cannot serve. They convict and correct me on my own terms. They kick my own butt, soothe my own soul, tickle my own funny bone, and walk me down my own memory lane. My words are my own heartbeat. 

I write for me, and if you're with me, still with me, or just starting to know me, you'll find it might be about me, but you might just meet you too. 

I hope you stick around the neighborhood to see where I go next. There is always something to talk about and lots of feelings to take apart. Thanks for being here with me today and every day. Time to change my shoes now. ;)

(I sure hope you all get the Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood references... Not sure how many countries he is known in!)