Autumn weather has arrived and hopefully to stay.

I’ve written this before on this blog so we will see if I have to write it again in another month.

Last week we had temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s. Not exactly the weather I was hoping for to allow me to curl up under a blanket with a good book or to write a blog post.

Today, though, the temperature is in the low 60s and it’s raining.

Perfect weather for cuddling, reading, and writing this blog post.

Oddly, though, I am not drinking warm tea or cocoa today as I write this. I am actually drinking cold orange mango juice that my daughter made for me in a sippy cup with a straw that her grandparents gave her for her birthday. Why did my parents give my daughter a sippy cup for her 9^th birthday? Well, because my daughter likes little cups with straws and now she has one. The cups are so cute, my almost 17-year-old son even likes drinking out of them. I have to admit that even I like having that cute little with a lid in case I knock it over, since I am a bit of klutz at times.

This is completely off the subject but as I wrote the date while saving today’s post in my computer (I write my posts in my computer and copy and paste because of WordPress’s poor composing interface), I realized that today is my late grandmother’s birthday.

Facebook reminded me of this as well with a memory post from when my dad shared a post of mine about my grandmother:

I miss my grandmothers terribly. Mom and I were talking about how remembering our loved ones helps to keep them alive and she’s right. I told her saying that has always felt sort of corny to me since I really want that loved one with me, not “alive” in my mind. Yet, I understand the saying and as I’ve gotten older it has made more sense to me, even if I would prefer to physically hug my grandparents instead of just keeping them alive in my memories.

  If you are a longtime follower of my blog you may notice that I mention my grandmothers more than I do my grandfathers. This is because I lost both of my grandfathers when I was very young. My paternal grandfather died when I was 2 and my maternal grandfather died when I was 9 and I only saw him once a year because he lived 600 miles away. I wish I had been able to know both of them better, but I am grateful that the rest of the family has been able to share memories of them with me over the years.

This past week wasn’t a super busy one for us, luckily.

It was mainly homeschooling, reading, working on book two in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, and on Friday a trip to get my license photo. License photos are horrible already but I would say this is the worst one I have ever had taken. No, I’m not going to show it. It looks like I smelled something bad but am pretending I didn’t. As someone with glasses, I was told to tip my chin so there wouldn’t be a glare on the glasses. The frustrating thing is that this made my second chin more prominent. Luckily, I have rarely had to show my license to anyone in the last four years so hopefully I won’t have to show this one to anyone either.

We don’t have a lot planned for this upcoming week other than school. The Boy is excited because he doesn’t have school Monday. Well, he doesn’t have it at his trade school at least. I told him I may still give him some assignments for our homeschool lessons, but I really don’t think I’ll be that cruel.

He has been attending a trade school for two and a half hours in the morning and then has assignments from his other subjects in the afternoon. He is learning how to build things such as sheds and corn hole game boards at the trade school and it’s a lot more work than he or I realized, but he seems to enjoy the hands-on work it provides. It is much better than sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture from a teacher, that’s for sure.

This week he will be going on a field trip to a technical school an hour from us and is currently earning college credits that can be used at this school if he decides to attend it in two years after he graduates.

Switching gears again, the leaves changed so fast here and then fell right off. I barely had time to grab any photos and really had no time this week because I was dealing with a sore tooth that I can hopefully have taken care of in January. Getting into a dentist is hard in our area and then there is the whole thing about needing money to pay for the dentist when you don’t have dental insurance. It’s no fun but I am hopeful I can keep the tooth feeling okay until I can get in.

I did get an antibiotic Thursday from my local doctor because a small bump developed above the broken tooth. While the pain was minimal, I decided I should get an antibiotic to make sure if there is an infection there it doesn’t spread. I am very thankful to God that the pain has not spread and that it doesn’t seem like the infection has either. It’s also amazing I have not had more pain with the shape my teeth are in. Sadly, I’ve always had very bad teeth and some health issues – like hypothyroidism – haven’t helped that issue.

I have been feeling a bit on edge lately with so many personal things going on at once and today I thought I’d be honest that I have not leaned into God the way I should have. I am trying to be better about that but this morning I started to think about how that may be one reason I have not written a Faithfully Thinking post in a while. It is hard to encourage others to trust in God when you know you haven’t been doing a very good job of it yourself.

I haven’t been totally forgetting God, but praying to Him has not been my first reaction for most of the past few weeks. On Sunday the pastor for our online church started to talk about the many needs we all have in our lives and how we need to trust that God is enough. It was hard for me to focus on the sermon because I had just discovered we had a financial shortfall and knew that would mean we would be struggling during the week. This was added to even more financial issues we are having, plus health concerns, health concerns for my parents, work issues for my husband, etc. etc.  I didn’t want to hear another sermon about how God was going to come through when I felt like I’ve been asking him to come through for me and my family for a long time and we are still struggling in many areas.

I almost tuned the pastor at but made myself listen at least to the second half and take some notes.

I am going to listen to it again today because I know I need to be reminded – yet again – that when I feel like I do not have enough of one thing in my life (money, health, time, for example) God is enough and will make sure I have enough. This week He provided for our family in many ways. He made sure the pain in my tooth stayed at bay – reminding me of all the natural ways I can  help mouth sores or teeth issues. He made sure we had enough food and gas to get to where we needed to go.

He gave me time to quiet my brain a little bit with books and shows or movies I enjoy and spending time with my family.

Instead of bringing Him my complaints and worries every day I am going to try to thank Him for what he’s already done.

The pain in my tooth might get worse this week. I don’t know, but I am thankful for the long length of time I have had without tooth pain.

Our finances might tank even more (though I pray they do not), but I know that somehow God will make sure we do not starve.

I am not faithful the way I should be much of the time but even when I have been faithless, he has been faithful.

I am awful at making gratitude lists, but I want to start doing that more. I want to start remembering more about what God has done for me in the moments when I feel like He hasn’t provided enough.

How was your week last week? Is it chilly yet where you are or nice and warm?

I’ll be back tomorrow for my Sunday Bookends post but I also wanted to mention that I am now co-hosting a weekly post called the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot that allows bloggers to share their favorite blog posts from the week from their own blogs.  If you want to participate this week, you can find the post HERE. The post will go live on Thursday evenings around 9:30 p.m. EST. It is a nice opportunity to connect with more bloggers and share your work.