This is me...starting over. Again.

Yes, dear reader, today is the day!  Today is the FIRST day of the REST of my life...and I am alive and I am well.  Funny, that song carried me through my transition from Life One to Life Two, and now from Life Two to Life Three.  But, between Two and Three, the song has remained, ever-constant at the forefront of my brain, repeating that Dave Matthews voice I love so very much over and over and over again.  So, yeah...if I have the rest of my whole entire life to look forward to, then I have a very lot to be thankful for, as the rest of my life vs. not having a "rest" of my life is way far the better choice, I think.  Don't you?

It's funny how God prepares us for things, isn't it?  He prepared me for my new start, for "Starting Over, take two", by giving me an amazing group of friends, both near and far, who have surrounded me with their love and kindness and time and prayers and thoughts and help.  I think the "preheat"' of any recipe for starting over should involve friends and prayer, don't you?

Given that we have the above ingredients, the next ingredient needed for starting over, when you have nothing but some cash and a car, is a job.  Yes, one needs a job.  So, when you don't have one, and you're starting over, that's when the friends and the prayers come in, and lo and behold, you end up not only contemplating one job, but miraculously enough, a second one appears, and in the end, you get to make a choice.  Now, I just made that sound easy, and while it was *sort of* easy, lookingn back, it wasn't so easy during, and of course, the wait did you guys in nearly as much as it did me!  But now that we have all that sweat behind us, it's all a piece of cake, right?  Because a job means money, and everyone needs money to survive.  This is true.  BUT....when you only have a job and a car and (now) not much cash, the only roof over your head is your car. 

Yup...ya need a roof over your head.  This would be where we mix in the tiny little house, sitting on its own spot of yard, with a "for rent" sign in the yard.  (Did you hear the angels sing???)  Note:  While it is advisable not to take advice from me, THIS IS ME, ADVISING YOU:  BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR....because it might just come true.  I've always said I'd love to have a house to fix up, to decorate, to have little nooks and crannies, personality and charm.  It was my lucky day, when I was feeling really unlucky, and I decided to stop packing, take a ride so as to be able to breathe, and as I was driving away from a duplex I had just called about, still reeling from it all, *there it was*...a "for rent" sign...in red...just very small, out by the road.  That small sign looked like a Vegas billboard to me as I was driving slowly, talking on the phone, trying to find more numbers, more places to look for somewhere, something, and as I looked up from the neon sign flashing at me, *there it was*...the perfect little house on the perfect little spot of land, with the perfect front porch and perfect shutters, and well...it was just perfect.  Too good to be true, even...but I called anyways.  Ummm...ya'll...that's called perseverence. We, perseverence and I, have been working on a relationship of some sort, and we just haven't quite come to terms, yet...but at any rate, persevere I did, and it paid off.  Because guess what???  Yup...that little white house?  It now belongs to me.  Ah, perseverence, thank you so very much for dragging me through the muck and the mire and making me make that phone call!  Oh, how I love you!  (At least for this minute!)

Now, some may not see this as a necessary "need", but others will understand.  In order to call a house a home, it must contain one of these:

and what better than one that comes at slightly over a year old, already trained, and doesn't shed???  I can think of no better!  Oh, I guess I can...because I forgot the "free" part.  Yes, free.  Meet Leo, my new companion.  You don't want me to get lonely while I'm there without Anna, right?  Right.  And so, I will come home to Leo.  He and I will bond, and he will keep me warm at night, and be glad to see me the next day when I come back again, and he will love me no matter what, because that's what dogs do best! 

I have done things totally Abby-Style: head first or not at all.  Yup...jumped right into this life with both feet, scared to death and excited to see what it holds for me in the future.