Depression is a weapon of the adversary - how I'm working to combat it!

Most days I do better than other days. :)
What helps me MOST is serving others in ways I can see work for them. :)
This works best when I get to be around kids- as "validation" of children is easy for me- because I can see the "child of God" (that is the core of everyone) but has less "fruit" around the core (some fruits are much easier to appreciate than others!).

So when I don't have any little ones around-
- as being a grandmother,
with my kids raising their own kids and NONE of my grandchildren living closer than 45 minutes away-- it gets harder.

I loved my callings in the church to teach Primary or work in the nursery, and I liked being a Sub teacher for school
(though some days totally drained my body, my soul was lifted!)

but now- we keep needing to travel for business, and so I am not in one place long enough to receive an official church calling. I'm not even a visiting teacher :( nor do I seem to have any sisters coming to visit me.

I just saw on "Mormon Times" online magazine where one lady gives free tours of her home which she has made rooms of that show aspects of the Saviors life, and that sounded like something I could do with our "castle"- :)

The home motto is a poem done in colored, embellished calligraphy, framed professionally which hangs in the Woodhaven Castle tower entry. I "borrowed" the first line of the poem, but then gathered the rest of the words myself. It says;

Each man's home is his castle, &
True love makes a queen of his wife,
All Gods' children are royal,
When the light of the LORD fills your life.

Presently we are having the castle as a "Vacation Rental by Owner"
and so there have been many family reunions and gatherings of all kinds
but we are scheduled to lose it to foreclosure if we can't save it from the bank by Sept 6, 2011. :( (ironic date too)

Anyway-- other things that beat the depression (I have apparently inherited from both maternal and paternal sides of my family- the genes that hang my emotions at a below level of stability- which requires work to keep me "up". :(

Still, "all things will be turned to the good of them that love the LORD" and I do love our Savior, and try to do his works.

It is doing the works of Jesus Christ, that brings the joy into my life. I get hit by depression when I feel I have nothing to do that makes any difference in my life or others lives. I am reminding myself that

"if one can't do great things
do small things in a great way"

That even house keeping when done realizing that everything is Gods
and we are only stewards, means that when I dust and vacuum "MY" house,
I'm REALLY cleaning the House of the Lord!

Oh, my hubby and I DO have one official church calling! :)

We get to go with a team about once a month to clean the Twin Falls TEMPLE!
the hard part is the sadness of having to get substitutes when we are not here,
and finding any real dirt to clean, when we are cleaning what is already clean!

They have set cards with the list of things to clean, and the tools, and we still all wear white and have to have the same temple recommend to clean that one has to have to enter and do the baptism or other ordinances like sealing families together :). Clean teams wear all white, (even our white shoes are not to be worn outside!)

I have only been able to clean ONE time so far. Yet, the last cleaning time was when we got to take care of two foster children for the weekend to give the real foster parents respite. So that was "all good". I loved having the kids in our home, and they wanted to work to earn money to buy gifts so we actually got some of my "stuff" done! (They helped carry books to the "higher learning" attic room we made in this old Victorian home.

I need to take pictures and put them on our photo album in our son Erics' web page- wadhome.org. I'll try to do it today.

Today is actually the day before Christmas, and I have been struggling to keep my head above the flood waters of gloom over finances (I mentioned one- loss of castle, but there are about four others of as heavy a magnitude) and I struggle to trust God that "all is well" and "fear not". Somehow things will work out.

One funny (it IS time for something to chuckle over about now ;0)
-- is that I've been fighting myself to NOT make or TO make "goodies" (bad for ones health!) -- I broke down and tried to make gingersnap cookies shaped like Gingerbread boys and girls-- but in trying to "make it healthy" I substituted coconut oil for shortning, and so when baked, they "melted" into shapelessness! ;/

So NOW-- I think I will use those cookies, (which stayed quite soft still)
pressing them to make a pie crust shell, for a banana/coconut cream pie for our Christmas dinner!

Ok, it is not really healthy- but is is not SOOO unhealthy, and in this case a LITTLE bit (I'll only make one pie and there will be 7 people!) won't hurt us!

I hope! (I also have the challenge of hypoglycemia to learn from and conquer )

So to quote Tiny Tim from Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol",
"God bless us, everyone!"

counting what counts

Some things can not be counted
some things that can be counted, don't really count
while levels of kindness and love can't be counted
what really counts more?