Ok - I am back for a minute tonight.  Promised myself that I would get to bed early and got caught up in a new graphics project for my Aunt.

It's been a crap week - just going to throw that out there. I haven't shared much real icky personal stuff yet - but we are having trouble with our girl. She is 16, and left home. The process she used to accomplish that with damn near killed me this year ... and tonight I am just too tired to get into it - but I will next time I log in.  Suffice to say, there is alot of pain, regret and heartache. Right now I am not sure if I want to wrap my arms around her to hug or to strangle.

Today was D-day for me in terms of my test results too. It came back that I am diabetic, and it has begun to affect my liver. (but not too badly yet cause the doc said it didn't worry him - whoop-ti-do!)  I can not believe I let this happen. I knew it was coming, that's why I delayed for soooo long! It changes things when you are faced with it head on. My husband is upset - already making plans to drag me kicking and screaming down the street for walks. I figure if I am kicking and screaming - isn't that exercise enough? Takes a ton of energy to throw a really good fit! (by the way ... I just had to google the word "exercise" - I can't even spell it!!)

Seriously - those of you who know me and love me enough to put up with me - I will deal with this. Just need to wrap my head around the new reality; and it sucks.  So does Zumba by the way!!  Gotta find my Richard Simmons videos - ugh!  Side benefit to all this ... maybe I can be sexy again? I miss that alot!! lol

I was looking at a girlfriend today, whom I have loved dearly for more than 20 years (when we figured that out today I felt so damn old!) ... now she is a little hottie - not just that she is tiny with boobs that haven't dropped to her knees yet (and she is a year older than me!) - but her attitude about herself is so awesome - she inspires me just by being in her presence.  People used to say that about me.  When Nicky walked in the room the party got started.  Not cause I was always loud and making a scene - well, maybe sometimes; but because I liked people - and I liked them best when they laughed with me or at least when I could make them smile and feel good.  I guess when I stopped finding reasons to laugh; my twinkle went out.  Should a person need to "find reasons" though?  There was a time when it was just more natural to be that way.

My friend was twinkeling today and doing her best to help me smile. Roles have reversed now.  I know that my big hurts in the past were alive and well, but it was still easy to make someone else laugh, not easy any more. I was told that I am transparent now and not so good at faking it or switching the perverbial hats. People see the hurt in my eyes, not the twinkle.  That sucks too.  I am grateful for my friend though. We are polar opposites with just about everything in life; but she is my kindred spirit - and she did accomplish making me smile.

I will explain more about my family past and present as this goes on I think.  Just writing this much tonight has helped. I think I can sleep now - after my prayers. I am tired at least and I think I started to ramble!  lol

Hello world!  At least the few of you; my dear friends who have read what I stared here! 

Yesterday I had that blasted test. Again I say - Ugh! I fell asleep in the waiting room and SNORED for nearly two hours! Woke up feeling nausious, and so tired. And a little emembarrassed!  But - it is done. I am bracing for the worst, I don't want to be a diabetic - I like my food, and although I know I need to make better choices, nothing can replace the hole in my heart that will be left if I have to give up ice cream!  Truly it will break my heart.  LOL

Today I shopped with a new friend in the good ol` U.S. of A.  I so enjoy it - not so much the grocery part, but the day as a whole. Just to be there, and seeing different things, getting ideas for more projects (sorry honey). I am trying to make myself stay focussed on the house and getting the inside things finished before I head outside. Somehow though, a new cushion for the back deck wound up in my cart. Our boy Sam (a big slobbery golden) chewed ALL my bench cushions, chair cushions, and everything else I left out on the deck. Damn dog. Stupid me. I look on the deck, and I am sad. Can`t wait to tackle it and make it lovely again.

Bathroom! Gotta stay focused - need a floor and a vanity badly! Boring - but true. Well, it`s boring compared to the deck and my gardens!  That is the kind of therapy I like. Let me sit in my gardens and I will feel peaceful. 

Peace has been like an elusive myth-like teaching to me. There have been moments of it when I have rested in Him - ever so briefly. I don`t know how I came to it, or what I did to chase it away. All I know, is that I need it - like air.  A facebook friend posted this earlier this week: ``Peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of Christ. ``  I know that a lack of peace in my life speaks of my relationship with Jesus, and not too favorably.  It comes back to the mind and heart thing. For such an emotional freak, the connectors are touchy at best in my intimacy with Him. I will stand and fight tooth and nail for the scriptures, for His name, for His glory - but get me in a place where I FEEL him near ... it`s missing.  It makes me sad, and I know the ball is in my court.

There are many things in my past that have happened that all seem to hinge on some connection to each other - a cause and effect if you will. But it`s like trying to remember a name of a stranger you met 10 years ago on a bus - it`s more like a vague image in your memory than a real knowing. My issues are connected - so what is the root?  What did I miss along the way that has so stunted my "growth"?  Most of the time - this is where I stop. I sit and wonder and feel bad about it all, and get caught up in guilt? Fear? Overwhelmed by the magnitude of my life I feel so inadequate to handle.  So - I eat, or shop, or run, or turtle (my word for hide). This past year - I did all of that together - at the same time. It was manic, and terrifying, and so lonely. Guilt piled up.

So - again - here is a choice. I choose not to leave it there. I want to search out the answers and heal - and feel His peace inside me and all around me. Maybe that is the ultimate goal - I hope I can do that and heal some of the relationships in my life too.

Ok - well. This weekend is busy, and I am not sure I can sit and write tomorrow night (which is when I like to do this.)  Spaghetti fundraiser at the church tomorrow and I am baking like a mad woman tomorrow!  Here's a tip ... never promise something huge based on other peoples past good nature! You might end up baking more pies than you thought possible!  I said I could come up with 20 pies for the desert tomorrow cause I knew some Queen pie makers who love to bake! Oooops.  Duh!  Nicky to the rescue - and FLOP on my face!  LOL  I had it coming to me!

Good night world. Sweet dreams.

Step 2 ... going to get my bloodwork done. Dr. has probably given me half a dozen requisitions for this test over the last couple of years ... putting on my big girl panties and getting it done this morning!!!

Actions over ride fear.  If it comes back and I am diabetic ... then I adjust right?  

Ugh.  I'll write more later today after I sit there for 2 hours twiddling my thumbs. 

I learned of the balm in Gilead (Jer 8:22) years ago while doing the Kay Arthur study called Lord Heal My Hurts. I learned of my Jehova Rapha – the God who heals; and that there is a way to be made whole again. I guess that is where I stopped, or stalled my healing. There is a HUGE difference between learning something intellectually, and then allowing your heart to receive it; be open to it. At the time that was too terrifying to me. I didn’t want to feel that deep pain anymore. So I smoldered instead for another 15 years. Stupid huh? 

Now I am choosing to let the feelings come, and to deal with them to be released from them – the option of stuffing them and letting them eat at me is over.  I thought I was brave before. Now I am going to God for a better kind of courage – HIS. Action over rides fear … so here we go!

If you are a fellow traveller on this road we are all on together; and you need a little support or you need to know you are not walking alone – welcome.  Join me on my journey and we will walk together. Sometimes just knowing that someone out there is holding your hand and praying for you is enough to help you put one foot in front of the other.

Keep going, we all need to … that’s why today I’m choosing to write again. I’m not 100% sure why I am blogging all this, but I think it’s because I need to know I’m not the only one out there too.  Writing is part of my healing. It’s been years; but the dreamer who used to take the time to pour out her thoughts and feelings and passions on paper has grown up (a little I hope) and I need to take this old part of me and re-introduce her to myself and this life again.

Welcome back Nicky. I’ve missed you.