I happen to LOVE cyber hugs so thank you!

It has been hard for everyone lately and my family is no exception. April especially has hit us hard, John's work cut back to part time, my hours cut too, our beloved cat Sydney fell ill and died and now I had to have surgery all the sudden. It is scary. It all happens so fast. We also have a tax assessment for paving our alley and this year they are doing the roads. It is really snowballing and we are feeling very stuck.

I hate to dwell on the bad news and often keep most of it to myself. It is such a relief though to be able to talk about it, just to let it out. I don't expect anyone to swoop in and save us but I have received some good ideas and tips to help us cut expenses from friends I have talked too. It is a relief to have someone to talk to and to be there to support them too.

I am really looking forward to May! Spring time and leaves on the trees. My rose bush is alive and growing and it makes me so happy to know there will be flowers soon.

First of all, thanks for the hug!

I didn't even have to think for more than a nanosecond to know that my struggles affect my ability to connect, at the very least here on Gabster. But, not for the reason of any financial hardship that may be suppressing my creativity.

No, what I have here is probably some kind of undiagnosed learning disability -- one that prevents the transfer of my thoughts to text on a page. It's like there's a roadblock on the highway that connects my brain to my hand. I've dealt with it for as long as I can remember. The only way I know to overcome it is by jotting down whatever small bits and pieces of my thoughts that somehow make it past the blockade, and then fill in the gaps later as more gets through. It's kind of like playing 'connect the dots', only in no particular order. It takes a loooong time too; I already have spent about eighteen minutes on this comment so far.

So, here's why I persist: Usually I'm pretty happy with the finished result of what I write, no matter how ugly my disconnected words and phrases look on the page in the beginning. Also, I feel like I'm winning a battle every time I sit down to write something and stick with it all the way to completion. I couldn't always do that.

My seventh-grade English teacher once gave an assignment to all the students in her class to write as much as possible about a particular subject before the hour was up. There was about a half hour of class-time left when we started. I wasted a lot of paper out of my notebook that day, because I kept crumpling up the page each time my words came out in fits and starts and failed to go anywhere. So, class ended with me staring at the mess of crumpled paper surrounding my desk, and one last page with only one word on it; 'Help'. The teacher thought I was goofing off, and gave me a real tongue-lashing for making such a mess and not doing the assignment.

Anyhow, now I don't give up so easily. But the time it takes for me to complete any written thing longer than a sentence or two is so great that I'm not going to be very productive in the blogging area. Hopefully, someday this problem will improve if I get enough practice.

So, there it is. I know this is a rather off-topic comment, and it's more fit as a blog on my own page, but I chose to take the inspiration and run with it right here instead. I consider it another victory simply to have finished, and that by itself is a very small thing but I truly do appreciate it. Total time spent on this = almost one hour. Ugh! Time to turn in and get some sleep.