Quite Honestly....

....I'm having a tough day. Enough of it is unbloggable that I debated even writing about it. However, writing provides such an opportunity to sort through my thoughts. Blogging provides accountability with that sorting process. It seems like a win-win on a day that has felt like anything but a win-win.

We haven't decorated for Christmas yet. Maybe that's not a big deal, but with a husband that works every weekend, it is kind of a big deal. December weeks do not typically provide wide-open days of leisure for decorating. I am mostly OK with this because I spent our decorating opportunity with my sisters and mom and that is not a bad thing. It is a verygoodthing. (Yes, that is supposed to be all one word.)

I haven't started Christmas shopping. I don't mean that I have some things and a basic list and a plan. I mean I haven't started. At. All. Shopping is one of the most stressful things in my life. Just getting through grocery shopping twice a month is about all I can manage. Black Friday shopping is one of the outer circles of Dante's hell, as far as I'm concerned. Christmas shopping has always been about six lightyears beyond what I can manage. One year, I did it all on amazon.com. That worked pretty well, but I had a list and a job that year. Jobs are useful for things like money. Some years, I make most of my gifts, but that is slightly more stressful than shopping and that is already a crazy amount of stress. I love to bless people, but I hate shopping more than any reasonable human should (or probably does). Given the funding, my Christmas dream is to hand each person on my list $250. That is probably the Christmas dream of some of the people on my list as well. Anyway, I'm not handling it too well this year. I don't even know where to start. If we didn't have kids, I would probably send out a little e-mail about how we're not doing Christmas presents this year. I assume my kids probably wouldn't appreciate that e-mail.

Today brought some ministry challenges. I have cried. That is all.

A couple of people I love very much still need jobs and it feels like we've been praying about it forever. It is hard to see them still needing jobs this day.

The blazing blue sky against the crispy grass, bare tree branches, and chilly air gave me a burst of life and color as things slowly turned to gray today.

But, quite honestly, I'm having a tough day.