I'll start my blog with where I've been

OK, so here's what happened in a nutshell... November 2008 the parent company for Bobby Jones Apparel went belly up thus cutting off my main source of income, we went broke, lost our home, I cried, popped antidepressants and sleeping pills like candy and stayed asleep as much as I could. I was a lousy mother during that time and my precious little girl held me up. Walker graduated from Baylor in the spring of '09 and spent his summer getting us moved and settled into our apartment. I honestly do not know why I was not admitted to the psych ward and how I went to work everyday (more on the job thing later). On June 30 of '09 we lost our home. Through the grace of God and the kindness of a few friends and one total stranger we got a place to live 2 weeks before we were to become homeless.
Speaking of friends, I learned a valuable lesson about friends who really love you and friends who really aren't friends at all. When you lose all of your money, "friends" scatter like roaches when the light goes on. The people I thought I could depend on most either vanished or just acted like it's no big deal. My personal faves were the ones who compared their financial situations to mine while they have hot cars, second homes, country club memberships, elaborate vacations, food, gas, money and "Stuff". Then of course there are the friends who really love us. A dear friend, single mom of three little ones offered to get her boyfriend to finish out her basement for us to have a place to live. A precious and loving offer which we could not accept although she would not have allowed us to be homeless. One couple pays our rent every month because they really care that we have some quality of life. I know that with three kids in private school they could be using that money for something for their own family but they found it in their hearts to help out friends in need. A church which we do not even attend and who are of polar opposite beliefs than ours (or so I thought) made sure we had food on our table when we were wondering what to do with a can of water chestnuts, stale cheerios and half a jar of creamy peanut butter, which was all we had left.
During this time I also changed jobs. On top of the financial and familial upheaval, I started my new job and was almost instantly targeted by a bully whose goal was to completely break me. I was incredulous that at 57 years old I was the victim of a bully. I really needed ton of more stress. One day I was in the bathroom at work sobbing and Walker called me. He told me to quit my job that day, that the tuition benefit I had worked so long and hard for to educate them wasn't worth my health and that he and Lizzy would borrow every dime they needed to go to school. He was so sweet and so concerned but no way was I going to give up their education money, I earned that benefit. After taking my case all the way to the civil rights department I finally got the bullying stopped. God throws things at you for a reason, I now work in the same department, am successful and actually look forward to going to work everyday. Oh and for some reason the bully still works there, go figure.
A huge, amazing thing happened to me during this time. Through the grace of God and the wonders of Facebook I reconnected with my very best friend from high school who I lost touch with 40 years ago! She now resides in France of all places. Right before we lost our house she came to visit, we drank wine on the front porch till 6 AM and it was like 40 years had never passed. She has a cool French long distance calling plan where if she calls me on our land line it costs her nothing so we are as close as we were when we were 17. Technology is truly awesome. She has vowed to elp me in any way to get my children through college.
Lizzy had the most amazing, opportunity filled senior year of anyone I have ever known and graduated this May'10 cum laude from Father Ryan High School. She has been my joy and my strength through all of this, has learned way more than a child her age should have to and I am so sad that I spent most of her most joyous time a nervous doped hot mess of a human being. She is an amazing young lady.
I don't want to minimize Walker's suffering through our debacle. He was away, dealing with the heaviest school load he has ever faced and I am sure was worried sick about what was going on at home that he was powerless to fix. At 19 he developed severe hypertension which is partially bad genes he got from me and partially stress that I caused. He is on meds for it now and doing fine.
So in the end, we have our little family, our health, a roof over our heads, food on our table and most importantly we have learned that money (or the lack there of) doesn't define you, that "stuff" doesn't define you, that what you drive doesn't define you. We have learned that character defines you and that is all that matters. We love our God and have over time come to realize what a gift we were given when we lost our world as we knew it. He opened our eyes to what is truly important and to the needs of others less fortunate than we are.

So there's the story if anyone was wondering what really happened to us. I guess that was more like a giant peach than a nutshell, sorry about that. Now that I have let it out I will try very hard to make the rest of my posts more optimistic and maybe even funny now that my sense of humor is returning.