My cup overfloweth or... Sometimes I can be so dense

So. (insert big heaving sigh here) The patches have been a bit on the rough side around Ourhouse lately. I could go into all sorts of detail about being off for cancer treatment for a year... blah, blah... Daddy-O being in a service industry in a crappy economy with monied clients who can't see fit to pay their bills in a timely manner... blah, blah, gak, sputter, ptewwy. Ahem. Suffice it to say that our belts have been tight of late. We've been looking quite waspish, in fact.

Daddy-O & I have both been suffering in our own silent ways with the stress of the situation. Both losing sleep, etc. Not that we are any different then the rest of the nation. Far from it. Not a fact that eases the stressors, let me tell you. But we've been taking action - not sitting idly by watching our finances fall to pieces. It has just been an uphill battle. When everyone you know is paddling the same type boat you are it's hard to imagine you'll ever see dry land again.

Well, last Thursday I was laying in bed all relaxed from not having the boys all evening. (Now right there is blessing number one. Our Super Sitter took B & D on vacation with her for Spring Break. They went on the train (!) to her sister's house. Left last Wednesday & won't be back until this Wednesday.) All of a sudden it dawned on me... in all these stressed out months I have not once prayed about our money woes. Not once. I'm ashamed to even admit it. Sheesh. I guess I hate asking for help so much I don't even take the complaints upstairs...

I quickly remedied that situation with a quicky request for at least a bit of help in the stress-processing department until we could work through this next bit. Right away I felt much better. I slept well for the first night in weeks.

Friday was business as usual until the afternoon when Daddy-O called me at work. Out of the blue he got an offer for his Westfalia. It wasn't for sale. Had never been advertised. Long story short, this morning found him at the bank getting fifteen thousand dollars counted into his hand.

You heard me right. I guess you could say that was blessing number two, eh?

Now it's not like we get to go on a big spending spree. He still has to buy another car. A much smaller, cheaper car. And the rest will fill in the gaps a bad economy has left in our budget. One day after my prayer. I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes.

So this morning I was able to go see my chiropractor for the badly needed adjustment I've been putting off due to lack of money. What did he do while I was there? He gave me a tent trailer. That's right. Blessing number three, come on down! I told him Daddy-O had sold his Westy camper van & was a bit on the bummed out side... next thing I know he's asking if I want this tent trailer. Oh, and it's an ultra-light and can be pulled with a car. Yeah.

So I'm all high on life & back to work when our secretary tells me that my leave statement has changed significantly since my last check. This is never good. I got a lot of donated leave when I was off on medical & it completely messed up my bookwork. Everytime I would use donated leave they would take some of the leave I should have earned on my own and "bank" it... but no one could ever tell us how or when/if I would get it back.

Today, I got it all back. 32 hours of vacation and 19 hours of sick leave. Blessing number four. I also took advanced sick leave. I am currently still paying it back. Until today I wouldn't have had it paid back until Thanksgiving this year (& I've been back to work a year already). Now I'll start earning sick leave again in September. Woohoo!

One little prayer. "Help us with some stress, Lord. We're drowning down here."

Three days and three big blessings later our stress load is a whole lot lighter. Thank God.