Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
Saint Francis de Sales

I was thinking of updating here earlier today, but was wondering what to write that would be interesting.  Well, guess what?  Our house was hit by lightning this evening!  It hit a tree right by the house and evidently arced over.  There's a hole in the wall and sheetrock all down the stairs.

 

Here's Cole showing where he was standing when the lightning hit and about how he was scared about all these "yellow things like bbs, that I thought would hit me and make me blow up".

He was the only one upstairs, and thankfully unscathed, though pretty shaken!

 

The internet is working again at our house, so I can once again frequent important sites like Xanga, Facebook, Myspace, etc. :)

So, let's see--I'll try to just mention highlights in my life since I last wrote.  It was a difficult fall, and I struggled with depression through most of it.  Partly because I always get depressed when the days get short and dark, and partly because I've been so overwhelmed with things at work (the homeless advocacy part of the job).  There are so many needs, and every day I talk to people who are having a very difficult life.  Some are in abusive relationships; some lose their jobs and consequently their houses and their cars and no longer have any stability in their lives; some are trying to feed and clothe their families on a very tight budget, and just not quite able to make it.  And since most of the people I talk to have children, I know the children are suffering most of all.  What makes all this frustrating is that often people are not willing to do what they need to in order to change their circumstances.  They'll take any handouts they can get, but don't want to put any effort of their own in.  Which may be why they are in their particular circumstances.  But again, it's the kids that suffer for their parents' mistakes.  And then there are the families that are trying really hard to do what they need to, but it seems that there aren't any resources to help them get back on their feet.  I try really hard to support these families, and advocate for them where possible, but often there isn't much I can do.  But there are those families who take what help we can offer and use it to work towards stability for their families.  I'm always so excited for them when they achieve it, and that's why I go back every day.  It may sound cliche, but I know that if we can provide lasting help to one family, it's worth it.

In a happier direction, I got to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, for the first time in seven years.  I also got to go home for Christmas, which turned into an interesting saga.  The day I left, it was supposed to snow two feet in Denver, but last time they predicted two feet, we got maybe two inches.  So I wasn't too worried when I started out.  It was snowing hard, but visibility was good and the roads weren't too bad.  But by the time I'd gone about thirty miles on the freeway, the weather was getting a little nasty.  Ice was building up on my windshield, despite use of my heater and windshield wipers.  I got off at the next exit.  I wasn't sure what town it was, but there was a Waffle House, and I figured I'd pull into their parking lot to scrape off the ice.  I couldn't see the road well because of the ice on the windshield, and was having trouble figuring out where the driveway was.  I pulled off the road by their mailbox, and there was a nice concrete slab there, so I thought I'd found it.  Wrong.  As I crept forward, there was a loud bang as the front of my car abruptly dropped forward a foot and the bottom hit on something.  Turns out, I'd driven into a two and a half foot deep drainage ditch that had been hidden in the snow.  There wasn't a thing I could do to get out, so I went in the Waffle House to ask if they had a phone book.  The regulars were sitting at the counter enjoying their morning coffee and kindly informed me that I'd missed the driveway by about three feet.  I thanked them.  Then, since I hadn't been able to read the exit sign, I had to ask them what town I was in.  Their esteem for my intelligence rose greatly, so after I called a tow truck, I went back to my car to sit with my dog.  After the guys with the tow truck showed up and winched me out, the truck got stuck by the side of the road, so they had to do some shoveling to get it out.  The people in the Waffle House sure had an entertaining show that day.

So a hundred dollars poorer and two hours later, I was back on the road.  They'd closed the freeway, so I decided to stay on the road I was on and see what the weather was like when I made it to the next town.  When I got there, I had lunch and waited a while to see what would happen.  It was still snowing heavily, but the road was still driveable, so I headed off for the next town.  About two miles before I got there, my windshield wipers quit working, so I pulled just out of traffic and waited to see if they'd start working again.  No such luck.  By now the wind was blowing sideways and visibility was getting pretty low.  I finally decided I'd have to carefully drive to the next town.  I cranked the heater to 90, made sure the emergency flashers were still working, and rolled down my window.  By driving alongside the tire tracks, and guessing where the road was from passing cars and oncoming traffic, I made it.  It was the most terrifying drive I've ever made.  Plus, my poor dog dying from the blast of the heater, was hanging over the seat, whining in my ear, which did little to improve my mood.  I drove into the first motel I saw, and promptly got stuck in front of it.  Snow was over a foot deep in their parking lot.  But the owners came out and shoveled out the tires.  And as the proprietor said as he drove my car over to park it, "Windsield wiper not working?  Ho, ho, ho velly big problem."  I spent two days in the motel before they opened the freeways again. 

When I checked the weather after two days, it was clear all the way home.  Since I didn't have any idea of where to find a good mechanic, and I couldn't go home (the neighborhood was snowed in), I just decided to drive to my parents' place and take my car to a garage there.  I made it safely, but my dad wasn't very happy when he found out about my decision.  We had a nice, quiet Christmas, and I made an appointment to take my car in later that week.  During the following part of the story, please bear in mind that it is a 100 mile round trip into the nearest town of any size from my parents' home.  I took the car in, and my mom drove in her truck, just in case.  I dropped it off first thing in the morning, and we went shopping and checked out the post-Christmas sales.  We kept waiting for the garage to call with an estimate, and stopped back by twice before we got it, at 3:30 PM.  They said it was the wiper switch and would take them until next week to get the part in.  I told them I had to be back to work before that, and they said they'd see what they could do, and come back in an hour.  When we came back, they said they could get the part by noon the next day, and the car would be ready by 4:30.  So my mom took me home.  I called the garage at 1 PM the next day to be sure they'd gotten the part, and stressed I didn't want my mom to have to drive 50 miles in if they wouldn't have the car ready.  They said they'd gotten the part "just now" and would have the car ready by 5:30.  We showed up at five, and they said it was ready to go, so I paid the bill and went to drive home.  Unfortuanately, the dimmer switch was broken and the headlights were stuck on bright.  So back in I went.  The controls for the headlights and windshield wipers are on the same knob, and the told me the dimmer switch had somehow broken and they'd fix it at no charge.  (Good thing--if they'd tried to charge me, I would have had something to say about it.)  They gave me a car to drive home, so my mom wouldn't need to make the trip in again the next day, and said the mechanic would come in the morning (the garage is closed on Saturday, but they'd make an exception) and to pick up my car by noon.  When I came back at noon, the headlights worked, and the windshield wipers, too, though slower than normal.  But since the garage was closed, there was no one to ask about it.

Unfortuanately, the story doesn't end there.  Six days later, I was back in Colorado.  It was snowing steadily, though not heavily.  I hadn't needed to use my windshield wipers since they'd been fixed, so I scraped the window clear, backed out of the driveway, and went to turn them on.  Nothing.  I was so mad, I went in the house and called to cry to my mom.  Good thing work was cancelled that day. :/  It turned out that the motor needed to be replaced as well, and now that that's done, my wipers finally work correctly again. :)

As you can see, life has been quite adventurous lately.  For those of you I haven't told, I moved again in December.  I'm renting a basement with living area, bathroom, and two bedrooms, and shared kitchen and laundry room.  My landlady/roommate is a single mom with two rambunctious boys and a hyper Great Dane/Pitbull mix puppy.  So that's been interesting.  Also in December, I adopted a one year old black lab/German shepard mix.  His name is Brodie and he is incredibly sweet.  He likes to sleep across my feet and night and wants to go everywhere I do.

If you made it to the end, thanks for reading, and I'll try to update more regularly now.

God bless and have a great day. :)