Nana-korohi, ya-oki

(Fall down seven times, get up eight times)

- Japanese Saying

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

So - here we are.

I had to take a break from the blogging in part due to busyness and in part because I didn't have many constructive things to say and if I want to scream into the wind, I suppose that is best done outside . . .

We got some tough news last week which really set us on our heels (again).

Then the wife headed out of town for a family reunion centered around celebrating her Grandma Lucille's 90th birthday.

I didn't attend in part due to other obligations but mostly because one plan ticket was about all we could muster. The highlight of the weekend was when the family had gathered to speachify their appreciation to Grandma. When it came Holly's turn, she handed grandma the phone so that I could wish her well and let her know that we had named our daughter after her:

Annabelle Lucille Linden

After I hung up, the wife made the announcement to the family gathering and I am told there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

It was good for the wife to get away this weekend - to be surrounded by family and fun and frivolity. She seems to have come home somewhat refreshed.

In addition to the tough medical news last week, I also found out that the parent company I work for has decided to combine all three of their Title brands in San Diego County.

This is very common in our industry right now as the market continues to shrink and it makes perfect sense from the corporate standpoint. The tough part is that when these sorts of things happen, layoffs are inevitable (especially amongst the management of which we now had three duplicate sets of).

The upper management at the brand that I worked for has been mostly let go. Naturally, these are people that we all cared about and so it is hard even though we need to have faith that it is all for the best in terms of future profitability.

The really tough part is that my direct manager has been very supportive of our situation with Annie Lucille and not a visit went by without her inquiring as to the latest news. When the merger was announced, I e-mailed her to let her know that while I hoped my numbers were strong enough to insure my position, that the most important thing to me was to be able to maintain my insurance with the company.

I even went so far as to say I would rather be a janitor than be laid off as a loss of our insurance coverage could very well be a life or death proposition. She guaranteed me she would do everything she could to make sure that didn't happen.

She was let go later that same day.

Sooooo, now we have all new management. I have no doubt that they are talented and wonderful and that the move is a good one for our company . . . . but still . . . . they don't know me . . . I certainly can't expect them to be aware of my story or situation . . . . there is a certain amount of stress involved there . . .

Headed into this past weekend with all this on my mind and the wife out of town, I thought it best that I not be alone so some buddies of mine agreed to take turns spending the night so as to avoid a reprise of this . . .

Nevertheless, Saturday morning (in between buddy-shifts) I found myself weeping in the garden - I had no idea how long I had been there. Then I woke up on a towel under the pine tree in our back yard - again no idea how long I had been there.

Naturally, when I heaved myself to my feet and went inside, the house was once again a-buzz with tireless helping hands sanding floors, putting up drywall etc. It was a hard weekend for me but I can feel the darkness lifting once again . . .

I think another thing adding to all the stress is the process of the home make over.

DON'T GET ME WRONG the whole thing is amazing and wonderful and unimaginably generous and we love it and are so thankful and can't believe it . . . .

At the same time, if you have ever lived in a house that is going through a remodel - you know what it's like to live in a house where everything is covered in sawdust, concrete dust and a general layer of over-all construction funk. You know what it is like to get dressed in the living room every morning because that's where all your clothes are (on top of the guest bed sandwiched between the wall and the sofa). And as you get dressed, you know what it is like to have to shake the dust out your clothes one piece at a time, sending billows into the air that settle on the couch, the coffee table etc . . .

The good news is, the house is really coming along, looking great and . . . dare I say it? . . . we may be heading into the home stretch . . . .

So there it all is, some tough medical news, some tough employment news bringing on insurance and financial concerns, a hard weekend and dust, dust and more dust . . .

Did I mention that the weather was in the triple digits this past weekend? . . .

Okay, okay, enough.

The whole reason I went into all this is to ask, once again, for your prayers . . .

- Pray for healing for Annie Lu
- Pray for rest for Holly
- Pray for job and financial and insurance security
- Pray for strength and patience and encouragement for our whole family
- Pray for strength and patience and encouragement for all those who continue to sacrifice so much by showing up weekend after weekend all for a little girl they haven't met yet . . .

Your prayers mean so much . . .