{"id":13393,"date":"2026-10-29T17:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T21:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/?p=13393"},"modified":"2026-10-29T17:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T21:40:19","slug":"13393","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2026\/10\/29\/13393\/","title":{"rendered":"Glow Amidst a Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hey,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since being here, it has been pretty stressful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To try and ease some of the stress, I surprised the fam when my parents were over by taking them to this<\/a> Pumpkin Walk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This has to be one of the coolest (and biggest) and free displays that I’ve seen. They take donations at the end to help out those less fortunate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might be thinking: stressful? Yeah right. Look at your photos – look at everything. Listen, I get that I’ve posted some nice photos of things around here, but overall, it’s been very stressful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, we just dropped the price of our house by another 16k, now a total of 26k, and may have to drop it more. We also paid a couple of thousand more to have new carpets throughout the house. Every drop or improvement we make there means doing less to the house we purchased here. When we purchased here, we did so with the intent of fixing things in it (and that was before discovering the things that blindsided us: see basement, foundation, plumbing, and electrical).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, we could use some prayer. It’s been frustrating seeing the lack of effort by those we left in Portland to keep in touch. I get it: out of sight, out of mind. Not a part of ‘our church’ anymore? Well, then that’s that. No, not everyone has been that way; a few have kept in touch with Sky, another couple with Arabella. Not enough to ease the sting, considering the big emotional send-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if you took that away, then it’s the stress of finding a new church. Not having friends here in this area, and the list goes on. What else can we add to things?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Work. I was informed at work that we will be closing up shop – this time for good. When? Mid-November. That gives us 2 more weeks of pay (before our unemployment will have to pay for double the bills, plus a mortgage in Oregon).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. Anything else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also found out that my brother (whom I don’t have a relationship with anymore) has been homeless for the last couple of months on the streets in Portland. That was alarming to hear about. Thankfully, he has gotten into a nonprofit shelter that will help him with substance abuse, among other things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I digress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Found out last week that Grace’s Sunday night youth program is not a huge hit with Ara, so I’m not sure it’ll work out in the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We have been going to all of the community trick-or-treat, trunk-or-treat, or whatever they call it events. Here was another (with Elijah standing in front of a car called a ‘web slinger’.

I leave (or I leaf you?!) with some positives: the weather has been gorgeous. The leaves have been falling like rain. Arabella even made a leaf-angel. The kids have never seen leaves like this before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On to November!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

just Pray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey, Since being here, it has been pretty stressful. To try and ease some of the stress, I surprised the fam when my parents were over by taking them to this Pumpkin Walk. This has to be one of the coolest (and biggest) and free displays that I’ve seen. They take donations at the end…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2368,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2011\/08\/18\/2368\/","url_meta":{"origin":13393,"position":0},"title":"www.jshox.com","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"August 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"www.jshox.com","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13378,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2026\/10\/21\/13378\/","url_meta":{"origin":13393,"position":1},"title":"Chasing Colors","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"October 21, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey again! 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