Bedroom and a Beta

What a week!

We have been working all summer to clean out our old school room and transform it into our older son's own bedroom before he starts his first semester of high school on Aug. 12! (Still no word on our daughter's acceptance into 5th grade at the charter school, so this is a matter of ongoing prayer!) I'll be listing a bunch of curriculum for sale soon, in a separate post.

I would show you pictures of the bedroom transformation, thus far, but both of our cameras have died over the past six weeks or so. (Until I figure out how to get still pictures or video from my cell phone camera to the computer, I guess this is the end of therapy videos over at Stroke Of Grace for a while!)

This weekend my parents-in-law spent an entire afternoon helping us to paint the new bedroom. I was rather unsure about our son's color choices, but now that it is up on the walls, I do have to admit he has an eye for design.

My dad has rebuilt a bookshelf, and other than repairing a desk leg, buying a box spring, and setting up the bed frame, his new room is nearing move-in ready and should be good to go before our deadline. :)

We faced a family "tragedy" on Monday. Our daughter's beloved birthday Beta fish went belly up. The tears we uncontrollable. It was very strange and draining for me to try to offer emotional support to our girl when my own emotional processing center is still so terribly messed up. She sobbed and my heart broke for her, but try as I might, I could not bring about the release of my own tears.

Bless her heart, she choked out, "When I hunt an animal, it never hurts like this!" Being her first real taste of the sting of grief (Thank you, Lord, for protecting her from a much more traumatic loss 20 months ago!), it turned out to be a good jumping block to talk about her older siblings lost to miscarriage. She agreed that she was thankful we were only facing Rainbow the fish's death, not a human child, but it still hurt because of love invested.

A new bright orange goldfish, named Ella, and an African aquatic frog, named Lilly, are now happily swimming in her fish bowl and her shattered heart is mending and learning to love again. Thank you to her Daddy for canceling plans on Monday night to come home and love on our girl!