End of Year and End of Decade Rambling

Well, here it is, the end of 2019 and the end of a decade. This has certainly been the most challenging decade of our life, at least the last three years when it has felt that everything went wrong.  I should correct that to say one major thing went wrong. 

We lost the *com-post business because of irate neighbors and a govern-ment agency that found fault with issues that weren't really important but because of who they are, were able to convince a judge that they were important. It never ceases to amaze me that although there were never any environ-mental issues (tox-ins, water pol-lution, etc.) found with our com-posting, the govern-ment agency was able to "prove" that our operation was an environ-mental hazard and needed to be shut down. How in the world did they manage that? Simple. They had all the money they needed to fight us and we exhausted what we had and that wasn't enough. 

Although Ame-rica is a great country and brags of the liberties that every individual has, we found that not to be true in our case. We certainly don't compare our nightmare to the holo-caust but in a very small way, we felt persecuted and afraid. To this day, I can't see a white pickup go past our house without a small twinge of fear. I can't open our mailbox without dread and I hate email. Too often these latter two things brought very bad news. The other evening I rode along with Steve on his D-A-F run and we decided to stop at Sheetz for supper. We used to do this a lot, but over the past 3 years we have normally chosen another place to eat. After our order came and we sat down to eat, Steve suddenly had no appetite. It was too hard to come back to a place that we had enjoyed before our lives were turned upside down. We no longer want to be around people, especially me. I like to be alone. Steve does crave people (he always has more than me), but he is very selective of who he chooses to be with.

Fortunately, there has also been exciting and good things that happened in our lives over the past decade.

Opening the Mar-tic Store and the Mar-tic Pantry has turned out to be a blessing. While it is ironic that the only reason we bought the property was because the com-post business was doing well, it has kept our lives busy over a time when we desperately needed something to take our minds off of the demise of our com-post business. I am surprised at how much I enjoy the challenge of the store. While it isn't breaking any records financially, it is doing better each year and I am proud of our accomplishment. 

The Pantry has also been very positive for us. We have been amazed by the outpouring of support that we have received from the community for this ministry. We are grateful we can help people by giving them free groceries each month. Some bigger things that we have assisted people with like home repairs and building projects have complimented Steve's talents and has been huge in keeping him occupied and feeling useful and needed.

I am thankful for my part-time job as Office Coordinator at New Hope. I have now been there for 14 1/2 years. It is always a safe and comfortable place for me to go, when the rest of my life is in turmoil.

We are thankful for D-A-F. For those of you that don't know what that is, I don't feel like explaining, but it has been a constant source of income for us over the past 15 years or so. For that we are grateful.

Our health has been okay. I have noticed more aches and pains over the past couple of years (arthritis?) and Steve struggles with some issues as well. I'm pretty sure some of our physical ailments have come about because of our circumstances but for the most part, we seem to be weathering our age all right. Mentally, neither of us is as sharp as we once were. I'm not sure if that is just common aging or mental fatigue.

One HUGE blessing over the past ten years has been our children and grandchildren. We are so happy to have added a son-in-law in 2015 and daughter-in-law in 2016 to our family. Six of our seven grandchildren were born in this decade. Just look at this little cutie pie. How can you not smile at that?

Bryce

Of course I had to update my Scrabble Board after Bryce was born. I had to move things around but I was able to add his name without too much difficulty. I will be adding another name to this board in May when Jay & Kristen have their baby J

It's getting pretty full but I believe I can still get quite a few more names on it.

I reread what I have written and the beginning sounds pretty depressing. I don't want to paint a morose picture. We are doing okay. The ongoing saga still isn't over but thankfully it is coming to an end. I hope and pray that by the middle of 2020 it is behind us. Although sometimes it was/is hard to believe it, I know that God is faithful. We will survive and we will laugh again. It is time to put this decade to bed and look forward to what God has in store for our future.

*I hyphenated some words because I didn't want my little Blog to show up on a Google search if someone is searching certain words. Probably not necessary but it makes me feel better.