just when I thought life was going along all hunky-dory

and the most I had to worry about was Christmas shopping and future vacation destinations...

updated: crisis has been averted, thank goodness, although I think we all sustained some damage in the process.

a certain mentally ill family member is being evicted today and has nowhere to go but here.

Our home.

We were in this situation about four years ago too, and I still have flashbacks. Now we know better. We just cannot put ourselves (and now Swee'pea) through that again. We cannot enable the mental illness.

But it feels wrong and selfish all the same. The counsellor with the local mental health clinic we've been working with over the last (gasp) 10? months pointed out that when someone is mentally ill, you can't draw closer around them the way you can and do with physical illness, otherwise everyone will get sucked into the craziness. We must first protect our own sanity.

I hate this knot of anxiety and guilt weighing in my belly yet pushing my shoulders to my ears.

I suspect we will not make it out to the horse-drawn trolley rides, dinner out and lighting of the trees we had planned for this evening. But I guess that's the last of my worries...