As I pray and delve into what I want to do with this blog for 2018, tons of ideas running through my head, I covet your prayers.  I was going back through things I’d posted over the years, I found several rough drafts I’d never shared, this one from 2014…. crazy how things change and then they don’t.

Do you ever just have those days that you think, “oh good gosh, what in the heck is wrong with me?”  Yeah, I know you do, you do too.  I do that a lot, more lately than before, but it’s just not me (since writing this I’ve learned, yeah, it’s me:).  This place here, like a journal, has become such a respite for me especially on those off days.  If you have or had a parent with Alzheimers, I am sure you can relate to the paranoia that comes with it.  Mitch and I talk about it often and compare notes to things we do, sort of silly sad.  Every time I forget something that I should know with certainty, it sets in.  I try to jot down the things I do that feel off to me because I remember the doctors asking me those things about Mom and I couldn’t even remember them all.  I don’t know want my kids to have to know, things like just recently signing my name and totally drawing a blank on how to write my middle initial.  I know, silly, and it was only a couple of seconds, but it happened.  I have to often take breaths and reassure myself it’s all going to be okay.  Keep busy woman, work that brain.

Since I was a child, I’ve told myself many times in my head (we talk a lot) to pull up my darn bootstraps and move on. I’m not even sure where or when I first heard the term but it stuck with me.  There’s just so much going on in life right now for all of us but somehow, even at my lowest low, I’ve been able to suck it up, reach down and pull up those bootstraps, dust myself off and get through it.  Yes, as I get older I find that it takes a little longer to find them, sort of like it takes a little longer arms to read these days. And I do have different pairs. I have the bootstraps that are all pretty and sparkly for those days when things are grand, when life is right.  I don’t have to pull as hard on those so they never get as worn.  There are the athletic ones for those days of running in 20 directions, although I’m usually tripping over these since athletic and I don’t go hand in hand.  There are the prim bootstraps (still in the box I think… oh yeah, where is that box?) for those days of trying to look prissy… okay, that made me laugh.  And then there’s my favorite pair, the ones that are old and worn and weathered, a lot like me most days. They’re distressed and crackly but strong for the years of wear and they show the signs of living.

No matter what day, what’s going on, I can always find some of my bootstraps through the help of the Father who made me and I find them all priceless.  I originally wrote that it was bittersweet helping Mom pull up her bootstraps daily… and now I write what I’d give to help her pull them up just one more time or 1000.  I try to help Daddy when he needs help with his but usually he’s the one helping me.

My prayer for 2018 is that every day we find someone, just one, who needs some help with their own bootstraps, whatever the reason, whatever the pair, or someone who even just needs a pat on the back for the grand ones they’re wearing that day, but that we use the opportunity in that moment, and cause a little more wear on our old comfy ones in the process.

p.s.  The drawing of the old boots above was done recently and without my remembrance of this particular post.  The artist is the most magnificent Mackenzie Mitchell whose info is below.  She took my vision of pulling up my bootstraps and old worn boots and gave me this… and I melted.  God’s timing coming upon this post now.  If you ever need any artwork done though, logos, special projects, etc…  I cannot recommend her enough!  She’s done a few projects for me and is simply incredible.

Mackenzie Mitchell