It's a Sort of Organized Chaos

"Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." – Henry Van Dyke

It's been quite an eventful summer. Since our last lil' talk I've moved in with another single mom and her three children (yes, this equals SIX crazy little munchkins running rampant in one household). Believe it or not, it works rather well. Holly and I work as a pretty good team, though there are times the kids get the better of us both (we win the war, but they do conquer our patience in the occasional battle). Lemme tell ya, the house is LOUD but the laughs are endless. We've got the market cornered on smart-aleks in this joint.

As for the kids, Gracie is once again queen of her classroom, Zach thinks his teacher is too strict (not necessarily a bad thing for him), and Emmie was placed into a math class a full grade above her own AND made a tutor to her peers in it. Em is also beginning to outgrow her "skateboarder grunge" stage, for which I am endlessly grateful.

After losing Daddy the first semester of college, then the "incident" in the second (which lead inevitably to the big move amidst my summer classes), I'm looking forward to a (hopefully) less eventful period this term. Major life events aren't exactly conducive to excellence in coursework and my GPA took quite a beating, which certainly wasn't helped along by those three dropped classes over the last fall and spring terms. Two of the three are being retaken this semester which should provide a massive improvement in the cumulative grades area. This term's courses include forensics, which is incredibly interesting. Next term will be equally exciting, with the beginning of my criminal justice classes.

I went through a period these past several months in which I was angry and yes, even spiteful. I questioned my worth and value as a parent and as a human being. In the process I nearly lost me. But it's one of those natural stages, and must be gone through in order to heal. The good news is it's done and gone. I've found myself again, and owe that in part to being here with Holly. I swear sometimes we were separated at birth. In some ways we're nothing at all alike, but in so many other ways we could have been divided from the same egg. She's done much in a very short amount of time toward bringing that me that had become hidden away behind thick walls back out into the open. Probably more than she realizes. Sisterhood is a beautiful thing, and I'm thankful to have some very incredible sister-friends who call me out and keep holding me accountable.

One of those things I'd lost sight of is the catharsis of creativity. So when Holly and I came across an ad offering literally everything we could possibly need to make candles and soaps at home for an insanely cheap price, we jumped at the chance and came home with nearly half the back of her full-sized pickup truck taken over by the massive boxes. We spent the next several hours gushing over our crafty cornucopia like kids on Christmas. I also picked up a few things to sew up some dresses for the girls, and will probably do some machine embroidery as well. Most of my hand-work supplies remain in storage for the time being. There simply isn't room enough for all my many other bins at the moment. It'll probably force me to actually finish as many projects as I start, anyway. The burning question is when exactly we'll actually find the time to work on many creative ideas, since we're both in college full-time and have six crazy short people to tend to.

I still get occasionally wistful over what could be (or what I wish could be), especially over the past few days.... but that's another story entirely.

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