the end.

Look at that.

I just STOPPED blogging again.

It's almost over.

This boxing match where I feel like I just keep losing.

Pink Eye,

Lyme's disease,

House inspections,

Random high fevers,

six people down with head colds,

two ear infections, 

poop in the house too many times for me to be able to think about,

one parent in the hospital,

two grandparents in the hospital,

one grandparent transferred to hospice,

(these people are all out of town but their pain still weighs on my heart and I want to be there for them so bad!)

one strep throat,

one harried night of trying to figure out how to turn on the generator, how to hook it up to the actual house, in the rain, in the dark, in the woods (read: I was sure I'd get eaten by a wild animal) and after it was all sorted and I'd called a local friend to make sure it would stay on all night ('cause I was NOT getting out of bed to put more gas in it so I needed to know how many pairs of socks to wear to bed)...THE POWER CAME BACK ON....which illuminated the pile of poop in the living room left by a very thoughtful dog.

Yes, yes it did.

All of this in between the normal stuff that weighs on a girl's heart.

We'd keep finding kids in positions like this:

 or this:

(now that I look at these pictures, that is the same kid! Lenora...maybe we just kept finding Lenora like that?)

Friends did come to bravely play at our germ infested home, their family had some hard days too so a little cold was nothing to even consider...

Still rockin' it at our homeschool co-op.

Lenora and Sophie's Beautiful Botany class, which they are EATING UP.

Those girls and anything science...they crack me up.

 Samantha's still swing dancing and LOVING IT:

Wait? We were well enough to go to Co-Op?

Um....that is relative.

Sophie hardly slept the night before because her ear hurt so bad.

Good thing Samantha still had several doses of her anti-biotic left because I totally gave some of that bad boy to Sophie in the night and in the morning before we left and then hit up the doctor that afternoon begging him for a vending machine of anti-biotics.

He said no, but offered to just give us another prescription instead.

Fine.

Whatever.
And I was on antibiotics for my sinus infection but was still way way far away from actually feeling 'good'.

And somewhere in these last several weeks, people still smiled.

Because as crazy as it's been, we have been held.

By prayers, by other people bringing meals, and by encouraging words.

Which is all just Jesus.

This boxing match is almost over.

Daddy is almost HOME.

I still want this feeling of held to go on, but this other thing, this Big D, it can end NOW.

from a note I got yesterday:

2 Sam 22:29-34

For you are my lamp, O Lord; the Lord shall enlighten my darkness.  For by you I can run against a troop; by my God I can leap over a wall.  As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.  For who is God, except the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?  God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect.  He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and sets me on my high places.