Tender Mercies.

*Image courtesy of Microsoft Clipart Gallery

Yes.

I've been a bit absent from this blog-o-sphere lately.

You see, it's been a very stressful past few weeks.

I won't go into any of the details, but there have been some days when I've thought, "Okay. I'm done." 

D.O.N.E.

Done.

However.

In the midst of all this stress, there have been tender mercies all along the way.

So I felt like I needed to record them because I know I've already forgotten some.

And that is not right.

Number one:

I ordered the bulk of Parker's clothes for his mission back on the 4th (missionarymall.org. Highly recommend them!). Well, I thought I did, anyway. We hadn't received the package yet, and earlier in the week I kept having this feeling that I needed to check into it. So yesterday I finally decided to pay attention to that feeling and when I looked at the order, I realized I'd forgotten to hit the "Place Order" button.

What?!

We are now down to less than three weeks before we leave to take him to the MTC. So not good.

So I called them yesterday, and was able to place the order over the phone and all his stuff should be here by the end of next week.

What if I hadn't paid attention to that little feeling? I hate to think about it...

Number two:

I had a big paper due this week in my American Lit class (25% of my grade=huge!). I'd been working on it off and on the past few weeks, but over the past few days it just wasn't coming together as I'd like. Maybe it's all the other stuff going on around here? Anyway, it's not due until Saturday night, and by 9:30 am this morning, it was submitted. Woohoo! I did my paper on a short story called "The Lottery." Interesting story. Shocking, actually. I guess it's a pretty popular and well-known short story, but I had never read it before...I guess I need to expand my horizons a bit.

Anyway.

So, with my extra time I decided to work on our taxes.

I'd been putting that off big time.

I was really afraid we'd end up owing taxes this year. It's been a strange year.

Which leads me to tender mercy...

Number three:

I use turbo tax, and I was getting sicker and sicker as I saw the red number on the side that said we owed taxes get higher and higher.

Really sick.

I kept praying that we'd at least break even. That would be good.

But I kept plugging along, and although we're not done yet (still waiting on some forms), we will get a refund, which will come in very handy with all this missionary stuff and graduation stuff and such.

Woohoo!

Number four:

We've been planning on driving out to Idaho for graduation in April because we were planning on bringing Kam and all her stuff home with us. We were not looking forward to that drive, to be honest.

This afternoon I had a feeling to check airline fares just "for fun."

Well.

It was really fun!

I found a great deal and so now...

We're flying!!!

And we figure we'll store everything but Kam's clothes in Idaho (it's so nice having family there!) since she eventually wants to go back out West, or Kailen can use her stuff when she goes to school in 2 1/2 years.

Yes.

Tender mercy for sure.

Now I just wish I could remember all the other tender mercies from the past few weeks...

And.

I will graduate with Zach, Angela, and Kam 7 (7!!!!) weeks from tomorrow. I remember way back in September when I had 28 weeks to go.

My, how time flies.