This post pretty much takes on a life of its own about halfway through.

I'm having a really hard time getting going this week. I don't know whether this is an ADD thing or what, but if my Monday is off, then my whole week tends to be off, and yesterday's doggie drama disruption seems to have thrown me for a loop. I can't get focused or get my head in the game.

It doesn't help that, despite the fact that the high today is supposed to be 103, my brain has checked out of summer and decided that it's fall now, thank you very much, and no matter how many times I go outside and expose myself to the stifling heat, as soon as I come back inside all I can think about is sitting on a pleasant patio somewhere, working with yarn and sipping pumpkin spice lattes (or pumpkin ale -- something pumpkiny, at any rate) while I watch the leaves fall. And what's not helping that is that yesterday afternoon I went to Hobby Lobby to stock up on yarn for a baby blanket for my niece's upcoming baby shower. It's a super soft, heathery alpaca blend, and it's so pretty, and I just want to work with it all day long, never mind that my wrist starts hurting after about twenty minutes.

On the plus side, I think it's a really good sign that crocheting this blanket for someone else's baby is making me so happy. I put it off so long because I feared it would depress me, but so far I'm feeling totally okay with it, which is helping to lessen my dread about attending the baby shower. Really, these past few weeks I've been feeling a lot of peace about the whole baby thing. Still some pangs of grief here and there for my past losses, but mostly hopeful about the future, and full of conviction that, whatever happens, it will be okay. That things will happen according to God's plan and purpose, and if that doesn't happen to coincide with my plans, I'll be able to put my trust in Him and get through it with my faith and sanity intact. It's about trusting that Romans 8:28 is true, even when I can't see any evidence in my own life that any good is coming out of the stuff I go through.

Although, if I think about it, there is evidence. While I would happily suffer diabetes if it meant I could have my babies alive, the fact is that the miscarriages woke me up to where I was headed, health-wise, and forced me to start taking better care of myself. I also feel like my experience has equipped me for, and made me more open to, ministering to other hurting, grieving women. I think it's definitely made me more empathetic and compassionate in general.

Of course, none of this in any way makes me glad to have been through two MCs and an uphill battle against PCOS. But I can see evidence that God is using my experiences to help me grow, both as a person and in my faith.

Well, THAT went to a far more spiritual place than I expected. I thought this post was going to be about fall fever and yarn craft when I started. But maybe now all that's off my chest I'll be able to get some work done.