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It’s been quite awhile now. I knew that I was taking a break from the blog world, but hadn’t anticipated it to be this long. My whole 5 reader audience has, I am sure, been devastated by my absence.

There have been many changes in my world over the last few months. Many happy moments, even more disappointing ones. Our lives are now quite different, and things are still unsettled as to the future.

One lesson that I have learned: Although your child may deeply disappoint you, your love for him continues. Our son’s recent actions have surprised, disappointed, hurt, and confused us. Yet he is our son. A well-loved son. Merle and I have struggled, wondering how our parenting may have contributed to the situation. But then we realized that these were his actions, not ours. He wrote me a letter at Christmas thanking me for my strength through all of the recent hardships, and acknowledging his mistakes. The letter made me cry.

So much for strength.

He lost his job. His family lost their primary income. His wife nearly left him. But they have decided, at least at this point, to try to stay in their marriage. They are now living with us. We are very thankful that we are in a position to be able to be of assistance. We love having all of them (our 3 granddaughters also live with us now!) here. It is a full, busy, noisy house again. This is the way this house was meant to be.

Our daughter was married in August in our favorite spot-Glacier Park, Montana. Along the shore of Lake McDonald, on a sunny, cool morning, they had their ceremony. It was gorgeous. It was “them”. Most of their guests were friends who had traveled from all over the country and camped and hiked and partied together for the preceding week.

Our oldest son has recently become engaged, and they plan to marry in August. This time the wedding will be much closer to home. It will be almost as opposite from last summer’s wedding as is possible. Bigger, fancier, much more extravagant. I am sure it will be perfect as well.

Family activities and issues have consumed most of my time, energy-and to be frank, money. I truly hope to carve out a bit more “me” time over the next several months. Time which may be used toward blogging, reading, or traveling.

I really want to travel. Just a bit. Not far. Not for long.

Lately the urge to just get in the car and drive has been getting quite strong. Preferably in a southerly direction, as it has been a horribly cold winter here.

I’m open to suggestions.

 

 

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