It's Worth the Effort, No Complaints

I wanted to stop here briefly to thank everyone who has commented recently. It's so nice to be able to be real and have some great dialogue about concerns that affect us all, especially with so many different perspectives on things. I really value your input, and it's great to know what others besides myself are thinking and going through...thank you!

Lest anyone think that the last couple of posts are a pity party or Poor Little Me diatribe on my part, I'd just like to say that they were never intended to be. In fact, I feel immensely blessed, and figure that change is par for the course. Though Jack's and my path are not what we expected they'd be in some respects, in all respects we can say God has brought us through the challenges as better people, and maybe with some resolve and lessons learned that will last us through any more. Instead of thinking of sidelines in our lives as detrimental, we both strongly feel that it's opened more doors for us than have been closed. Necessity is said to be the mother of invention, and for us it's been an unifying factor...we need each other and love to put our minds together to innovate and find a way to make a Best Life that may never have looked quite the same were there never challenges and roadblocks.

I have to say I really like where it has positioned us, because it's narrowed the field of possibilities to the few that mean the most to us. And for that, again, we thank God.

It's almost shabbat again, and I'm so thankful for all the good things that come to us without asking on a daily basis. Looking out at our neglected and overgrown garden and pots, I can see that all that riotous Bermuda is evidence of fertility and vigor, and we have some exceptional plants that seem to be weathering the extremes with good humor and vitality. Indoors we have about a dozen calabazas in different stages of ripeness, awaiting eating or preservation. Slowly, the habits we've been adopting are becoming a part of our everyday lives. Trips to the store now are fewer, and if we have to wait, we have staple goods that are simple and hearty that can be fixed from what's stored in the pantry.

What a wonderful feeling! Even when things seem to take longer to accomplish over the long term (or short) than we'd like, we like having made the changes we have, and I can't say that what was necessitated by our changed circumstances is anything but good...changes we needed to make all along, but didn't even know it.

We're happy :) Thank you for sharing your viewpoints openly and welcoming mine. I'm grateful, every day, for the opportunities we DO have, even though it may sound otherwise when I'm on one of my rants about freedom and the government and some of our past experiences. I'd rather have freedom and take the long road of investing time and elbow grease towards our own self-sufficiency than have a government or anyone else offer me different options at the expense of our taking responsibility ourselves for our lives...no thanks.

I hope your weekend is restful and full of green, growing things and time with your loved ones.

:) Shabbat Shalom