The Saturday 7

First of all, thanks for all the love on my Arizona posts. I have jealousy issues, so I scroll right past people's vacation photos. I'm always surprised when people actually interact with mine! Lol. Way to not be jealous wretches like me!

1. I have to catch up on a little bit from last week that I left out, namely: homecoming. I was the queen of homecoming in my hey dey (not literally - our school didn't do homecoming court), and it's fun to see my kids get excited about it as they get older . . . well, mostly Lena. Lucy is a lot like her dad was back in the day and only participates to the extent that she won't embarrass herself. Lena went all out, just like I used to. Monday was apparently the only day I took pictures: crazy hair day. She finally attempted the cupcake buns that we've seen all over the Internet, and they were so cute!

Justin and I haven't attended the homecoming games in years, but this year happens to be the 20th anniversary of our graduation (#classof2003) and I'm a sucker for milestones. Plus Lucy actually has friends that play on the JV team, and Justin has soccer players that play on both JV and Varsity, so we made it a family affair. Levi adored climbing up and down the bleachers, running to the concession stand for snacks, and getting into trouble with all his little friends.

I don't throw anything away, so I was able to dig out my senior sweatshirt. I couldn't believe I could squeeze into it! I'm definitely 60 pounds heavier than I was my senior year of high school.

I'm pretty sure I peaked my senior year of high school - I finally had a good group of friends, Justin finally took notice of me and we started dating, I was skinny and good looking. Man, those were the days. I missed it a little bit while I was sitting in the stands that night. I was class president all those years ago, so it's on my shoulders now to set up a class reunion, but I'm not even sure it's worth the effort. Our graduating class was 14 and Justin and I were two of that number. Two more members married but have since divorced, so I'm not sure either of them would come to a reunion. Two other members were very close friends, but recently had a falling out. And while we were a Christian school and all professing Christians our senior year of high school, at least half have since walked away from their faith - some more vehemently than others. Man, growing up is depressing.

2. Honestly, "depressing" has been my theme the past two weeks. I wrote a bit about it at the end of my last entry, but I doubt very many people made it that far through all the vacation photos. Haha. I'm struggling big time lately - probably because of coming off my Zoloft after 10+ years, but it could very well be a reverse-placebo effect. Because I expect side effects, I suddenly have them? I also think I have a latent instinct toward hibernation that kicks in when it gets really cold. Lol. All I want to do these days is sleep. And I've given into that instinct a lot . . . which could also be a sign of depression. The worst part is the irritability and the rage. This week, I got stuck in the grocery aisle by a woman who parked her cart on one side of the aisle, then stood right next to it looking at items on the other side. She was holding a puppy and taking her precious time despite my hovering very near, obviously unable to make it through. I had to literally bite my tongue because I was thisclose to spewing, "I don't care about your stupid dog, and I'm not going to make allowances for your rudeness because of it. If you're waiting for me to fawn over it, we're going to be waiting all day. Do you realize you are completely blocking the aisle?!" Maybe I'm exhausted all the time from the effort it takes to curb my rage.

3. Part of me thinks I should stop being a martyr and just go back on the drugs. In fact, I'm not really sure what's holding me back. I recommend drugs to everyone - especially for anxiety. They made a life-changing difference for me when I first started on them in college, and I hate to see people suffer needlessly because they're too proud to admit they need the chemical enhancement. But I don't struggle with anxiety these days nearly as much as depression, and I've never really felt like the drugs do much for depression - at least until I weaned completely off them and realized what a complete rage monster I am. But, again, I feel like I need to power through for a couple more months just to see if things will level off eventually. I've been on some form of mood-enhancing drugs for the better part of 18 years. It's obviously going to be a shock to my system to abandon them altogether. I want to see if what I'm experiencing is just the lingering withdrawal effects, or if this is truly who I am without them. Haha.

4. In less depressing news, I finished an amazing book series this week. I actually started the series in 2020, abandoned it after book three, and just finished the last two this week. It's The Chronicles of the Kings by Lynn Austin, and I think I wrote about them when I first started reading them two years ago, but you guys have a short memory, right? The first three are about King Hezekiah from the Bible. But the fourth one is about his son Manasseh. Having fallen in love with Hezekiah in the first three books, I couldn't bear to read about how his son would fall away from the faith and go on to lead Israel into destruction. I've read the Bible. I know the rabbinic legends that Manasseh had the prophet Isaiah sawn in two But this year, I've been trying to read more Biblical fiction and it was gnawing at me that I never finished the series so I picked it back up. Lo and behold, book 4 (Faith of My Fathers) ended up being my first 5-star book of the year - which is a shocker since it doesn't even have any romance! The storytelling, rich historical context, and spiritual elements were just so incredible I couldn't give it any less than 5 stars. I think it was especially evocative because of Manasseh's fall from grace and the way Austin portrays it. He wasn't painted as a bad guy from the get-go, but as a devout Jew who was discontent with the law's strict parameters. In the first few chapters, Manasseh gets involved with a guy who wheedles his way into his life and undermines everything he believes in a way that's very similar to the serpent in the garden: "Did God really say . . ." This character, Zerah, was adept at making blasphemy more palatable because he twisted Scripture to suit his desires. So much of what he said throughout the story that took place in the time of the Biblical kings is almost prophetic of how today's culture portrays Christianity. Considering these books were written in the late 90s, I don't think Austin realized how prophetic she was being. Seriously, I can't say enough about them. They're beautifully written, meticulously researched, and you'll fall in love not only with the characters - some of them based on real people, some totally fictional - but you'll fall in love with God, his love for his people, and his beautiful plan of redemption that we have the privilege of understanding in modern times unlike our Biblical predecessors. Just go read the books so I can gush about them with you.

I read another book today (that I actually didn't like at all, my first 2-star read of the year), which brings my total for the year to 20 already!

5. Yesterday, I got invited to a Galentine's Day party with some friends. We had so much fun eating, playing games (anyone remember MASH? - I ended up married to Willie Robertson, working as a Carny, and living in an apartment in Bismarck, North Dakota with 4 kids - blech!), and watching a movie. I was curious about Galentine's Day's origins, and Google confirmed my suspicion: Galentine's Day was invented by none other than Leslie Knope (or, more accurately, the writers of Parks and Rec), which just makes me love it even more.

I was honored to celebrate a holiday of her making.

6. Today has been a lazy Saturday at home, which sounds nice in theory, but actually makes me quite restless. Levi has had a cough for a couple days, but all day today he has steadily declined, growing more and more feverish, complaining that his body hurts and he's dizzy, and then ultimately puking - since that's what my kids do regardless of whether or not they actually have a stomach ailment. So it looks like we'll be spending another day at home again tomorrow. Hopefully he'll be on the mend by Monday, though, so I don't have to take a day off of work. Although by then, one of the rest of us will have it . . .

Lucy read to him for almost an hour this morning. I knew he didn't feel good when he sat still that long. You can see in the picture above how his eyes were starting to look glassy.