I’m sorry it’s been in fits and starts lately. I’m actually going to on purpose take a blogging break for a couple of months. I’ve got so much on my plate, and I’m not giving my best to any one thing. Not healthy. But I thought I’d check in with you and tell you what I’ve been up to and what my plans are through January.

Where do I even begin? I think that’s why I don’t write, actually. It’s not that there’s nothing to write about. It’s that there’s too much. So much, that I can’t even process most of it. I think I’ll just free-write here, and you’ll get the gist of what’s going on.

I just wrapped up the biggest weekend of the year for my business. It’s a huge weekend for many businesses (Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday all tangled together). Preparing for this weekend took weeks. And then the weekend came, and my sister packed Black Friday orders all day Friday. We opened up our home on Saturday for the first time so local customers could browse our products, smell stuff, try a few things, and make holiday purchases. It was a huge success. We had a bit of a breather on Sunday but packed Cyber Monday Sale orders all day Monday and Tuesday. Now we are busy making more products to restock our bare shelves! Things will slow down in January, but we have to ride the wave while it lasts.

My ASD 3.5 year old has started ABA therapy in our home five days a week. It’s only been a couple of weeks, and the progress is amazing. I’m thrilled to see God meet this need so quickly and effectively.

My ADHD/ODD daughter has been in counseling now for a couple of months, and she is also making beautiful progress. Again – SOOOO thankful to God for this. It is not a complete transformation (or anything close), but it is a movement forward, and that is exciting.

If you’re wondering why I label these kids – it is merely to help others who have children with “labels” to know immediately what I’m talking about. It’s easier to say “ADHD/ODD child” than to say, “The child who rages, is violent, screams, is noncompliant, etc.” Besides, all those things are just the tip of the iceberg, and only a parent who lives with it will understand the scope and magnitude of how it affects the family as a whole, as well as all the individuals within it.

My oldest daughter and I finished watching Revenge (we watched an episode each night on Netflix), and now she’s into Call the Midwife. I can’t join her anymore because I’m taking a class in December and another class in January, and I need that time to study. The problem is that “TV time” is also when I exercise, so I’m not sure how I’ll fit that in now. If you have any ideas, I’m all ears.

I’m taking classes through Light University to get training in life coaching. My hope is to eventually do online group coaching for women. This blog will probably be my platform, but that is where I’m still stuck, actually. I’m not sure what direction to go. I’m probably going to send out a survey at the end of the year to find out what’s on your heart. If you could have a life coach, what areas would you want help with the most? (You can leave me preliminary ideas in the comments section – or just reply to this if you get it in your email inbox. I’d love to hear your thoughts.)

I’m still separated from my husband, and I’m in counseling. I’ve got a great counselor locally who is helping me with my PTSD symptoms and my anger, fear, and shame. Last year was my first year celebrating the holidays without my husband, and it was one of the saddest times of my life. I cried constantly and honestly didn’t see how I was going to come out on the other side of that pain. My youngest child (we didn’t know he had autism at the time) did poorly – and I had to leave my parent’s home after about an hour both on Thanksgiving and Christmas – so I was by myself with my son at home, pretty much just crying. BUT…this year was totally different! I’ve processed a lot of grief now, and I’m in a different place, although I still struggle at times when issues come up. I’m making progress though and learning to celebrate the little victories. My husband came over the day before Thanksgiving this year and helped the kids put up the Christmas tree – and I made a mini-Thanksgiving dinner for everyone, including my married son and his wife.  It was nice. Even nicer was that my little boy did GREAT at my mom’s house on Thanksgiving! We stayed the whole time, and I enjoyed visiting with my extended family.

I haven’t had a lot of time to read lately, but I’ve been slowly working my way through Ruhlman’s Twenty (don’t tell her, but I bought my sister that book for Christmas.) If you like cooking, you’d love this book. I’m also reading Jesus Feminist – a book I would never have considered reading five years ago. I find myself saying, “Amen” over and over. It’s not what I thought it was. And yes, I suppose I’m a Jesus Feminist, and I’m pretty sure Jesus likes me that way.

I’ve been watching these excellent videos from Deeper Walk International. They are free, but I’m planning to get the other three classes with a friend of mine and watching them as well. They are excellent. The speaker comes out of a similar background to mine, so I found myself relating to so much of what he shared.

• Session 1: Heart-Focused Discipleship
• Session 2: The Well: The Four Core Elements of Heart-Focused Discipleship
• Session 3: Grace: Understanding Law vs. Grace
• Session 4: Grace: Understanding Your New Covenant Identity
• Session 5: Spirit: Walking in the Spirit  
• Session 6: Spirit: Listening Prayer
• Session 7: Healing: R.E.A.L. Prayer
• Session 8: Spiritual Warfare

Remember when I said I wanted to do Periscope? Well I did my first scope while driving one day, and my little boy in the back seat sang so loudly it was a wash. It took me a while to get up the nerve to try again, and I did one before my open house on Saturday. I intended to do another one during the open house, but it was so busy I never got a chance. I am seriously going to start scoping regularly, but I want to have a focus first, and I’m just not sure what that focus should be. I’d kind of like to just answer questions you have – and talk about issues that affect you. Not quite sure how to go about that yet.

My daughter and I went to University of Northwestern’s performance of Phantom of the Opera last month. She is planning to go there next year when she is a Junior through a program in our state that allows juniors and seniors to go to college on state dollars. It’s a fabulous opportunity, and she wants to major in music education, so why not get started? Back to the Phantom. Have you ever seen it? I hadn’t. I’ve heard of it, obviously. But I’d never seen it, nor did I really even know what the story line was (sheepish grin here). It was somewhat hard to follow the story while watching the play (I’m spoiled because we always enable captions on our shows at home so we don’t miss any dialogue.) Anyhow, we LOVED the music, and as it turned out, I was familiar with almost all of it. We came home and promptly rented the movie version which made sense of the whole story and was phenomenal.

In other news, it’s getting cold here in Minnesota. We’ve had a hacking cough for four weeks that just won’t quit. And I really dislike my dog. I’m not a dog person, and I must have been high on drugs when I brought him home a year ago. I thought he’d be settled in by now, but he is still as naughty and untrustworthy as can be. I’m secretly feeding him raisins. (Not really – but I fantasize about it.) My sister loves him, but even she brought him back after a weekend and said, “Too high maintenance for me.” So I’m stuck with him.

This is it for a while. I do post on my Facebook page every week, so if you want to keep up with me, go there and “like” it – and then open up that drop down menu on the “Like” button and select the part that allows you to get notifications.

I wish you warm blessings of peace and joy during this season of celebration!