Life, like always, is rapid, fast-paced, and hectic. And I am learning to love each minute of it for what it is, not what I would like it to be.

Friday my parents' 31 year marriage officially came to an end. It had been over since December of last year, on their 31 year anniversary to be exact. I am grateful that the process is behind our family, and hopeful that I can start rebuilding my relationship with my parents as individuals instead of as a part of our family unit. Especially my dad. My mother and I have always been extremely close. My dad worked nights and wasn't around when he was home, so in many ways my life was similar to that of a child raised by a single mother.

My dad and I have had a strained relationship for most of my life. We never spent quality time together when I was growing up, and it was like living in the house with a stranger most of the time. I have, however, always respected the fact that he worked so hard to provide a good home life for our family. And when my mom's parents were dying, my dad was right there at their bedsides helping to care for them. I will always, always have tremendous respect for him for that. To use a popular term, he really "manned up" at that time. Then there are things about him that I cannot respect. But, there is always love there. And I feel that as sad as divorce is, it will give him and I a chance to start our father/daughter relationship over. I hope it will.

Last week I also was seen for my wrist. The pain was getting worse, and especially the numbness in my last two fingers. There are times where the pain is absolutely unbearable. Times that makes this natural-birthing mama want a wrist epidural if such a thing were to exist! My orthopedic doctor has me wearing a cast-like splint to bed for a couple of weeks to see if it helps release a nerve. If that doesn't work we'll look at other treatment options, up to and possibly including surgery.

Of course, with this going on, I haven't been able to do massages. And I was scheduled to start a hands-on massage class July 6th. One that included learning a 90 minute massage. If trying to give my husband a simple Swedish back massage can reduce me to tears, a 90 minute full body massage will definitely leave me doubled over in pain. So, with lots of prayers, lots of trepidation, and a giant leap of faith I made the painful decision to leave massage school. Whether this is a permanent thing or not is something that is only known by the Savior, and will be revealed to me when the time is right.

Now that I am not in massage school, I needed to figure out what I was going to do. I got my job back at the portrait studio. The studio location that I was originally at and that I adore working at. I am planning on beginning classes for a nursing program in the fall. I'd always intended on becoming a midwife sometime after massage school, so that just got moved up.

Things are changing, and I'm not usually good with changes. There has been a lot of prayer and a lot of faith going on to get me here. Now it's just waiting to see what these changes mean in the long term.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

I got fired last week. Not necessarily fired, but I no longer have a job. There weren't enoug hours for all of the employees. A sign of the times, I guess.

You would think that would make things easier at home. I only have home, family, and school to worry about now. You would most definitely be wrong. Our house has had me so stressed that I've come to the brink of losing it more than once. The amount of clutter and mess was overwhelming. And I'm working myself to the bone to change that. I worked for 2.5 hours last night before having a guest over to get the house presentable. And, I thought it was still a little messy, but it was definitely presentable. Only to have my guest tell me how much I needed to clean my house. A hard blow to take. Which had me fighting tears and a panic attack the rest of the night. It also sparked a nice fight with my husband about the state of our home. None of which was helping it get any more clean. I stayed up until 4 AM cleaning our bedroom. And now I've been up since 7:30 AM cleaning again. My husband helped me a bit this morning when he got home from work before heading to bed. It's not going to get all done today, but we're definitely on our way to having it nice and clean.

I'm diligently getting rid of items. While I would love to take the time to freecycle everything, that's just not possible right now. I've bagged the clothes for the clothing recycling center, but unfortunately everything else is being trashed. I absolutely believe in protecting our planet and being a good steward of the Eart, but right now my sanity has to come before that. I can't keep things around even for just a couple of extra days! Seeing the number of things in our house steadily decreasing is thrilling! My ultimate goal is a warm minimalist home. A minimalist home with more photos and personal momentos.

My biggest dilemma is the TV. I hate it! We have a flatscreen on the wall. I rarely watch TV. I watch maybe 4 hours a week and at least 3 of those hour its just on for noise. I let my oldest watch maybe an hour a day on average. I try to keep it off as much as I can. So when its off there's just a huge black rectangle on the wall. I could buy one of the "fishtank" dvds, and I even think I have a fireplace one around here somewhere. LOL But that's such an energy waste! I've thought about sewing up a cover for the TV from a beautiful fabric. A sort of fitted sheet-like thing to turn our TV into a piece of fabric art when not in use. I've also considered putting a small piece of black velcro on the corners of the TV and having one of my favorite pictures blown up to the appropriate size and mounted on cardboard that can be velcroed over the TV. I like this on most of all, since there are a few prints I've seen that I wished I could hang in place of the TV. Getting rid of the TV isn't an option, as DH is going nuts as it is without cable.

I wish I could have someone come into the house and just help me with a fresh set of eyes figure out what to keep and what to get rid of. Help me organize and sort things. Help me get things in order. I don't have the money to hire anyone, though. And I almost feel like I've made this mess and it's my responsibility to fix it. But when it is so overwhelming you just feel like it easier to give in.