frazzled & frumpy

Please excuse my recent absence. Things get in the way. Life happens. We're living in some serious murk here in Utah, so I thought I'd repost something I wrote a couple years ago. Happy Wednesday! December in our Den I lumbered into December heavily this year. A big, fat momma bear, burdened with the care and keeping of her cubs. We moved slowly through the month, reveling in the light displays, the scents and sounds of the season. Talk of gifts and all the excitement kept the cubs rolling and wrestling with anticipation and each other. Then, one day, I looked out to find our world wrapped in grey.  The mountains had mysteriously disappeared along with my cheer. I tried and tried to keep the inversion at bay.  This miserable lead stripe that colors our horizon and buries us in depressing fog.  The pollutant threatened to squeeze its way into our home. Discouragement is as thick and gunky as they come, though it has the peculiar ability to slide into sma...

I'm an optimist. Hope is always out there and I'm on a quest to find it.  This condition is what got my husband and I involved in a multi-level marketing scheme years ago.  We were presented with just that- hope.  Hope not only for a better life, but a MUCH better life. I wanted so badly to give my kids a great life,  I took it in, hook, line and sinker.  We stayed in for a few years, attending meetings and conventions, buying products and the idea that it was all going to make us rich.  After throwing our money at the dream for so long, we finally accepted the fact that it wasn't going to happen.  We quit in pretty much the same situation as when we'd joined.  Broke. Strangely, this experience didn't diminish my optimism.  I still search for the silver lining, no matter how thin or hidden it may be.  Without hope, life is meaningless. The Handy Man and I have been married for almost 20 years.  During the last sixteen, he's had ...