An Emotional Rollercoaster

The last week and a half has been rather odd at our house, filled with a myriad of emotions--happiness, worry, excitement, stress, sadness, etc.

Happiness because our Savior, Jesus, rose from the dead on Easter morning, and our church's Easter morning worship service was very uplifting for Tom & me.

Angela and Me

Worry, anxiety and excitement because our daughter (pictured right at age 9 or 10) left Thursday morning for Virginia to interview for jobs and find a place to live around the Virginia Beach area. Her decision to leave was sudden as it was based on all the opportunities (job, housing, etc.) that just seemed to fall into her lap all within the last 1 1/2 weeks. Thankfully, she has a friend that lives just outside of Washington DC and she was able to divide the trip into a 2-day drive by spending Thursday night there. She arrived safely at her ex-college roommates' apartment in Virginia Beach today at 4:15 p.m. The moment she left, I was a complete worry wart, but now that she's arrived safely, I feel much better.

Her leaving got me to reminiscing about life with her as a youngster. I sat at this computer last night viewing the many photos I have posted of her on my Facebook account...just remembering how much fun she was while growing up. There was never a dull moment in the house when Angela was around, that's for sure!  :-)

Tom & I have both been feeling a lot of stress from our jobs the past few weeks. My stress has come from all the extra work that I've had to get done in preparation for Holy Week and Easter, and then this week creating and mailing the monthly church newsletter, which is usually a 12-page "monster," and a lot of work. I'm usually thrilled with the final product, but the articles, graphics, lay-out, etc. take me a good 16 to 20 hours to complete. I have to work tomorrow (Sat.) too. <sigh>  Tom's stress has been due to his bosses giving him new paint colors to "match", then staying on him to match them like...YESTERDAY. He's wonderful at what he does (he's been matching colors for 30 years now), and is one of the best, fastest color matchers in the business. So to put that kind of extra pressure on him is just totally ridiculous. The end of this week found us both wishing VERY BADLY that we could retire NOW!

And then, of course, Tom & I felt sadness Wednesday & Thursday as we watched, in horror, the devastation the tornadoes caused. Mother nature has certainly become much more volatile lately, hasn't she? It makes us wonder how severe the May & June storms will be in Michigan this year. We seem to have a tornado in Detroit/Metro Detroit once every 5 years or so. I hope this isn't one of those years.

We know that God holds us in His hands, and so we pray daily that He will take away our worry, and help us to trust him always.

Have a really nice weekend, all!