July was eventful for us as well as hot and burning. Sometimes rather literally. Summer thunderstorms swept through our area in early July. Lightening from one of those storms hit Warehouse L and burned it to the ground. My husband received the call early in the morning about the fire but we had no idea how thoroughly the fire took out the building and all the bourbon until morning. By a miracle (and I use that word sincerely) none of the other nearby warehouses burned down. One of them caught fire but the firefighters were able to prevent it from burning down. Fortunately, no one was hurt but about forty five thousand barrels of bourbon was sacrificed to the angels (bourbon peeps will understand the reference).  My husband took some cool pictures but I am not allowed to share them.

My kids keep talking to me which makes writing this so hard. I’ll blame the disjointed nature of this post on them…I’m not going to complain too much since my Oldest is making me some nachos at the moment. He is pretty awesome even if I rarely tell him so. My daughter just brought me a bowl of ice cream too. Between my husband and my kids I am so spoiled. This is my first bowl of lacrose free ice cream. This stuff is better than I expected! Having IBS sucks.

My IBS symptoms have been particularly difficult the past few months. Sometimes I am in so much pain that I want to lay in bed and cry. I’d be lying if I said I had resisted the temptation to do so. Some days are worse than others. Sometimes the very idea of leaving the house has made me want to cry. Stress plays a huge factor in my body’s IBS response. Right now I am not handling stress very well. Quite horribly actually. Sometimes I feel like I am reaching the edge of falling apart. I’m not there yet but sometimes I am sure that I can see it. But there is strength in having children that depend on you to stay okay. They keep me strong. My husband told me that he wants me to try therapy. At first his suggestion shocked me and I wanted to ignore him. But I have learned that his wisdom is far deeper than my own and reluctantly researched his suggestion. I have resigned myself to give therapy a try. I am scared and can only try because of him. Therapy has helped our daughter so much but I am afraid. My past is horrible and I would prefer to ignore it all together. But I guess I have reached the point where my body can no longer endure the stress and pain. I am afraid of falling apart but I think I am running out of options after forty some years. I have kept everything in my past so tightly shut down that I fear how working through it will change me. I am so very much afraid.

Fear is hard to face but I know it will kill me if I do not fight. I do not love myself enough to fight but I do love my children and husband enough to fight and overcome. I will win because I have them and they have me.

We hung out with Jim Beam friends for the fourth of July fun and celebrations. Of course, most of the talk was about the warehouse fire. I didn’t chat as much this year with the other guests. I did enjoy being there and for once my IBS was a bit calm. I enjoyed watching the fireworks explode and captured a few cool pictures. I was a bit of a zombie the next morning at work but it worked out okay. I am glad to work and have  a job to go to these days. I think it would be harder for me to leave the house without the job.

Oldest went to camp this month. I am glad that he had a great time but I wish he had taken better care of himself. He ended up with some fairly bad sunburns on his feet. He is over the worst of it now and wants to go again next summer. I think Middle Boy will join him next year too.

This week we finished up our first quarter of the academic year. Tomorrow begins a brand new quarter. I plan to take the crew out for breakfast in the morning and take some pictures. I completely forgot to take pictures at the beginning of this school year so we will do so  tomorrow. Schooling is moving along pretty well. I found an option so that Sparkles can pursue her ideas without going to high school next year. I hope that she chooses this option. I really, really do not want to have any dealings with the public school system. This is a huge weight on me at the moment. I am also frustrated with the textbook style of education that we are using with Hewitt for high school. I have sent a note to our Hewitt counselor about this and hopefully we can work something out and stay with Hewitt. Textbooks are the worst sort of way to learn science and history. Hopefully something that makes us all happy can be worked out. I am not afraid to high school without an umbrella school.

Beam Cares team working at Salato
off to camp
Boots in the shade
Sparkles and Littlest
Littlest at library
Heather French at Leadership Frankfort graduation
history project and dessert making time
building his Roman Road
Leadership Frankfort
Oldest at camp
camping