Thoughts have been jumping around like popcorn in my brain lately.  Which is good…but it’s really hard to nail down popping popcorn and write about it, you know?

I submitted my resume/application for a job very similar to the one I used to have. I am slightly excited, but mostly terrified.  What if they don’t even consider me?  But the biggest fear is how both Bonbon and I will deal with not having each other, all day, every day.  She’ll probably be fine.  I will be a mess. 

My grandmother…she’s not doing well.  Family is about to descend for the holidays, and, well…I’m afraid it’s not going to be pretty.  The first to arrive, tomorrow night, is my cousin.  She will only be here for a few days, but she’s going to stay at my grandmother’s with her two young foster children, which is just…not well advised.  Grandma gets worn out very quickly, and having toddlers in her home for a few days is going to be a challenge for her.  She does not need challenges right now.

I was pondering yesterday the concept of being unequally yoked, and why the Bible says we shouldn’t be.  I had the mental image of a big ox, who although strong and able to do a lot of work, has to work that much harder when it’s partner is weaker – because the partner is still in the yoke.  So essentially, it has to do the work for two, PLUS drag it’s partner along with it – so it’s not double the work, it’s exponentially more work.  Not sure I have a point with this, other than…that’s something that popped into my head yesterday!

I need to start writing more.  Well, actually, I’ve been feeling rather nudged to write something else…which just seems like insanity given that I rarely even write HERE anymore.  So I’m not sure what that will look like.

I’ve dropped my BSF class, and haven’t gone to my women’s Bible study or mom’s group in weeks.  I thought I would feel…lacking…but instead I just feel relief.  I think that means I was trying too hard.  SO…peace instead.  At least for now.

It has been a crazy hectic week.  Today, Monday, it is 9:15 AM, and I am still sitting here in my pjs.  This is extremely unusual, as I’ve made a point, since the week before school started, of being up at 6, showered and dressed by 6:30, making breakfast and  lunches and shuttling kids to and fro from 7:30 to 9-ish. 

BUT…

I have had a weekend of nothing but go go go.  I’ve served at church for a good portion of the weekend, and then had various other committments and things to do, that ended up making my Sunday NOT very quiet or restful.  I’m also a pretty strong introvert.  I’d be happy as a clam with a  good book and not seeing anyone for weeks.  It’s just how I roll.  It’s not that I don’t like other people, it’s just…very tiring to me when I don’t have alone time.  And I haven’t had real ALONE time since I had my migraine a week ago!  (And seriously?  Not enjoyable then.)

The rest of this week, and over the weekend, we’ve got hefty plans, so I am taking today to rest.  Obviously, I still have my munchkin to care for, but I’m just going to hang out in pjs if possible, do my Bible study and reading for book club, MAYBE make some bread (which is enjoyable and relaxing to me), and just chill out today.  We are catering a wedding on Saturday, and there is a slight chance we will need to do some shopping and prep for that today, but maybe not.

But my goal today is REST. Worship. Some quiet time with God.

and a nap. 

So, we have reached an impasse. 

My husband (who is awesome, and whom I thank God for) and I volunteer in a variety of capacities in a variety of places.  Ok, well, mainly one place right now, but we are considering ‘spreading the love around’ a little, and starting something new.  Today, I think, we may have received the push we needed to venture off on the new path.  I’m not sure, it’s in Hubs’ hands right now, so we shall see what he decides.

One of our areas of service has been in a holding pattern for awhile, and Hubs has had a great deal of heartache and unrest over it.  Despite A LOT of prayer, tonight it may have come to a head, and a conversation that was meant to ease concerns we’ve voiced - well – didn’t.  There were a couple of comments that were made that were not well received, and it’s time to evaluate whether – in the grand scheme – it’s worth it. 

At the same time, another opportunity, doing a similar function in another area of need has come up, and maybe it’s time to pursue that.  It would be less volume, but more frequent, with less oversight, for people who would not only really appreciate it, but really need it. 

So…prayers have been said, for weeks in fact, and perhaps this is the answer.

Funny, but…while a part of me would be really, really sad to leave the old arrangement, part of me is also really incredibly stoked about the new thing, and the lack of politics that appear to surround it.

I feel like I’m in a rut lately – like this blog is all wah wah wah all the time!

What it comes down to is, I started my new routine a week before school started - and I don’t feel like I have hit my stride yet.  It hasn’t become natural, and I hate that feeling.  I mean, barring nights with no sleep, I am back in the swing of things, getting up at 6, getting breakfast and lunches made, keeping up wtih cleaning and laundry, and keeping my 2-year-old reasonably educationally entertained through the day. 

The thing holding me back is my older kids, and I hate to admit it, my husband.  While I planned out our new schedule, and posted it for everyone to see, it has not been embraced by everyone!  Hubs still gets moving whenever he feels like it, which throws a wrench in the morning transportation plans since we have three drivers and two cars, and everyone’s needs have been SCHEDULED, PER MY SCHEDULE, but others are not following it. 

The ‘middle kids’ also aren’t getting up when they are supposed to, even when woken up, and that causes problems.  On mornings when I am baking or making a more involved breakfast, I do plan on their help for making lunches, or watching BonBon, or helping out with other things.  When they don’t get up, I get no help.  I also have stated the expectation to them that before they leave for school, they are to bathe if necessary, dress in CLEAN clothes (I ask SOOO MUCH), tidy their bedroom and make their bed.  Given that they are all SUPPOSED TO BE up at least an hour and 15 minutes before they leave, this should be no problem.  Alas, it is. 

So I have been really, really frustrated by this, and today, I kind of exploded.  I got up at 6, showered and dressed for the day (make-up and all!), and went out to the kitchen to make pumpkin scones for breakfast.  I needed help.  The trash was never taken out last night – which is NOT OK when it was overflowing the can, and we’ve had a mouse running around.  As the morning ticked past, and nobody got up, I got more and more steamed. 

At 6:45, kids started showing up – you know – once they could smell the pumpkin scones baking.  I decided at that moment – everybody who got up late did not get scones, and I wasn’t making their lunch!  (I am such a big meanie.)  That meant two kids had to scramble to get their lunches put together, and one didn’t eat breakfast.  I feel bad, but at the same time, I am struggling with how to get through to them that I am serious.  Their continued choice to ignore not only the schedule I have set, but also my expectations for what they get done before and after school feels like complete disrespect.

The thing is, I know they don’t MEAN to hurt me by what they’re doing.  They don’t really MEAN to be disrespectful.  They just don’t care. 

SO, I unloaded on Hubs this morning, and I think he gets where I am coming from.  He has set his alarm for tomorrow, and will be getting up on time. (I have explained to him that he IS setting an example, and it does make a difference when he doesn’t get up when he should.  Obviously, there are allowances for when he has to work all night, but on a day-to-day, he’s going to make a better effort to follow the schedule.)

Tonight, the kids will be putting together their cards which explain what they are supposed to do every morning before school, in the afternoon, and before bed.  Hubs thinks having flip cards, which they can go through and remind themselves, will help.  (He did this in the past when I was working out of town, and had success with it.)

So I am optimistic.  I want this house running like the well-oiled machine I dream of.  Will it be perfect all the time?  Probably not.  But…I just keep hoping we can get there.

If not, this rut is gonna kill me!

(PS, the supermommyness category was used just to counteract Ren’s dislike of the FAILMOM category!)

Ever since attending Women of Faith a few weeks back, I joined their facbook page, and now get daily updates from the various speakers. Almost as good as being there – and with Patsy Clairmont in particular, I hear her voice actually reading her updates to me!

Well, one little part of today’s message was this: (Don’t forget: the purpose of an argument is not to prove our point, but to resolve conflict. Rats!)

But…but….but…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I am GOOD at arguing! Even extemporaneously, I always come up with the best responses! My replies DAZZLE my sparring partner (Sorry Dawn, it fit) with EASE! He doesn’t know what hit him! (His ADD helps with that.) I’m generally 3 or 4 levels down in the argument before he can even respond to the first salvo with any clarity! Which really stinks, because by THEN, we’re having two COMPLETELY different arguments! With each other! And neither can figure out WHAT.THE.HECK!!! we’re talking about.

So she has a point.

And I have to concede…conflict resolution? Hubs does it better. He is WAY better at pulling his emotions to the side, trying to find the common ground, and make these rough moments productive moments for our marriage. I *can*, the 3 year old in me just usually refuses to let go, and my inner debate-captain just can’t stand not getting the ‘win’. But it never really is a win, is it…

I had a fight with my husband yesterday. Well – *I* had the fight, he didn’t really participate. He had done something that hurt my feelings and…well…pissed me off pretty well. At one point during the day he sent me an email asking what was wrong (you know how guys aren’t always all that perceptive about what is bothering us…). Well, I proceeded to give him a 17 point bulleted list of everything that was wrong! All of which boiled down to one thing – my husband was a jerk to me in the morning, and that one thing dribbled down and pooped all over the rest of my day. EVERYTHING was smeared with the bad feelings from the morning. Now – I am big enough to admit – I let that happen. I let it hang on and affect everything else. I could have pulled on my big girl pants and moved on with life. (But as I said, I was pantsless for awhile yesterday – that could be why…) But I wallowed instead.

And even last night, when things were better, there was still that little nagging part of me that thought – he never apologized. He knows he didn’t do the right thing, and he STILL didn’t apologize (Because there is that side of me that’s always looking for the win.)

Arguments aren’t about who is right, but about resolving the conflict.

Several years of therapy in our relationship, and our therapist NEVER said it that succinctly. Or perhaps I was never listening for it, since it meant my particular style of arguing didn’t have a place in that paradigm.

Rats.

Thanks, Patsy Clairmont, for resetting my brain today. I may not appreciate it later, when Hubs or the kids annoy me, as they seem to really enjoy doing lately…but for the moment, I can appeciate that guidance for what it’s worth.

(FYI – that one little snippet was only an aside of her whole point for today!!)

I’m sitting here eating a great, fat, creamy spoonful of peanut butter. It’s not what I want, really, but it’s what’s handy, and I’m too lazy at the moment to make myself something else. So it is what it is. It is my peanut butter, and for now, it is making me moderately happy.

Today is one of those days…where every failure I have ever had is poking it’s head up, and cast it down and stomp on it though I may – there are more behind, waiting their turn. I have prayed. I have cried. I have told myself I am being silly. I have told myself this must be PMS. (Timing’s wrong, but that WOULD be a lovely excuse.)

The entire world has imploded in on me this week. I have a million deadlines for things due to others – and most of them are incomplete. I’m fighting a virus – and it won’t go away. I’m feeling inadequate as a wife, mother, woman, Christian – heck, you name a role in my life and I will tell you how I’ve screwed it up in the last month.

I’m having a huge, weepy pity party, when it comes down to it, and I’ve no one to pass me the tissues.

It’s led me to a great speculation on the nature of really LOVING each other. I’m not talking sexually, or mother to child – but loving those around us – truly being there for them when it’s really, really needed.

~~hold on – just noticed the time – I must go put pants on before the kids get home from school~~

(another failure – pants wearing)

(Oh stop judging me! I got up and dressed at 6 am – just threw my pants in with the load of laundry I did this afternoon, and hadn’t put real clothes back on yet!)

~~ Anyway ~~

(now that I have pants on)

I went to a baby shower yesterday for one of the new mamas-to-be at our church (Seriously – there are about 100, I swear), whom I think is super-awesome, as do about 50 other women who were also at the shower! One of the women who coordinated read this really awesome poem that struck me pretty hard:
It’s called “Loving Jesus” by Megan Breedlove. I would cut and paste it here, but it’s pretty long – so go read…I’ll wait…
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Wow, you’re a fast reader!

Anyway – I listened to that poem – and it’s been a rough week around these parts. School has only just started, and we’re already fighting to get homework turned in on time, reading done, etc, and still get the things done that need to be done at home. We’ve had plenty of hard parenting moments, and I do believe my 11-year-old’s teacher probably beleives I am the most lazy parent EVER because I have forgotten on a few occasions to check his assignment book (or taken said 11-year-old at his word that he was done! He wasn’t, despite his assertions to me!). The tone of her last email was rather “Could you PLEASE just check his assignment book nightly and MAKE SURE that he has completed all of his assignments.” She tried to make it sound like she knows what I’m going through – because she has kids too. I just wanted to say – Lady – I will bet you FIVE STINKING DOLLARS you have never gone through with this kid what I have gone through – and that’s not even MENTIONING his older siblings.

BACK TO MY POINT.

Loving one another – so the poem – made me really think about what it means to love my children. I mean – loving them – it just comes naturally. But REALLY loving them – and showing it – being God’s hands and feet to them – well…I will admit there are days when I would be ashamed to stand before God and have HIM see how frustrated I was with HIS sons and daughters.

And that brought me around to others. Sure, we’re great about trying to show God’s love to the homeless now and then, or to someone at church who is hurting – but what about those around us every day? What about those who have been with us through thick and thin? What about those who know every fault we have, and love us anyway? What about those whose faults drive us nuts on a fairly regular basis, but whom we choose to love anyway?

I think it’s easy to take for granted the people in our life who love us anyway. It’s easy to get frustrated and walk away from those who have given us the most of themselves. I think it’s important to remember, when we run off being “the hands and feet of Jesus”, to remember to be that to our kids, to our spouses, to our parents, and to our friends.

It’s easy to talk the talk, but are you walking the walk?

I’m sitting here, staring at a website for one of the colleges that is offering my daughter a financial award. I went to the site to look at the degrees offered, the requirements, and most importantly, the cost. It’s a smaller college, but even with the financial award, it would still be $32,000/year.

Oof.

I am sitting here, with my head spinning. I know other colleges will cost less, but I am overwhelmed. The mere fact that my first child is starting to look at colleges – that they are looking at HER – it makes me dizzy. How can my baby – the one with whom I really grew up….be ready to go off on her own? I was only a year older than her when I got pregnant with her!!

My life is a crazy, hectic, beautiful mix. I am doing potty training and driver’s training and college planning all at the same time. I am starting businesses and planning events and trying to make sure I remember when each child has bathed last. I am debating involvement in church – when, how much, to what degree. I am trying to be the wife my husband needs…and the mom my children need…and the woman I need to be for me.

I am overwhelmed. Not so much that I can’t handle everything – but when I think about everything I need to get done, my head kind of starts to spin. I am thrilled and blessed and amazed by the abundance in our life of good things…and worried I’m going to miss something and drop one of the balls that can’t be dropped.

This is good, in the grand scheme – I have plans like I haven’t had in a long time. But there is part of me that longs for the the quiet of ‘nothing to do’.

I need to get back in the groove. School starts next week for my oldest, Cheesecake. (I know, UGH, really? This early?? YEP.) And next week for my other three school aged kids. Of course – not on the same day, mind you. Peeps (13) and Pez (almost 11) start on Monday, while Lemon Drop (15) starts on Wednesday. So – it’s a staggered start. In the middle of that, our Women of Faith convention is in town, and I am working at that, so it’s going to be a busy couple of weeks!

We always like to start the school prep (aside from new clothes and school supplies) with getting back into a regular routine, including everybody going to bed on time, and getting up on time. Even the baby has changed to a summer schedule, and isn’t waking up until 8:30-9 am. Well, we’ve got to adjust that!

We have also been going through a video series from Focus on the Family called “The Truth Project”. In the episode we watched last night, called “Unio Mystica”, a major theme discussed was our own unique relationship with God – and how as parents we need to teach/model for our children how to build that relationship through one-on-one time with God. (There is A LOT more discussed in the episode, but this was the point I was really bumped hardest on during the episode.)

Here’s the thing. Last school year, I made a point of getting up before everyone else, making breakfast, getting everyone out, and having a morning Bible Study with the family. Well, it became a fight, trying to get the kids up – and it seemed like they were never listening, and just viewed the time in the morning as a pain we were making them do, rather than a spiritual time. Add to that the fact that several of them would not eat eggs/oatmeal/half of what I made for breakfast, and I was ready to bonk heads together in the morning. NOT exactly the way we want our spiritual growth to happen, you know?

Anyway, that was a long seque into saying that this year, I want to try it again, but with a different directive. I think I will get up at the time I had been getting up before, and I will make breakfast, but I think what I would like to do is have a quick prayer, but then have just a daily devotional that we let each person do on their own. Knowing my children, they won’t be able to do it in their rooms or they will go back to bed, but I think just letting them chill upstairs, eat while they do it if they want to, and make it a focused devotion time, that might work. If not, we’ll be doing it in the afternoon/evening, but I am determined it WILL happen!

I am thinking the new schedule out, and used a downloadable family schedule from Lisa Welchel to plan out our days. Sure, there will be variances from day to day, but in general, it’s how I would like our family to be going. I think, like the budget we’ve been trying to do, it will take some tweaking, but we will see. All in all, I am excited to get going with things!

Speaking of which – I need to get going on planning my first Thirty-One party! Zack has offered to cook – so at the very least, there will be yummy food! I am really growing fond of the bags, so I need to sell some so I can justify buying more!

I need to get caught up on my Financial Peace postings (I am missing the deals lesson, the lesson on investing, and the lesson on saving for retirement and college). But…

Our junior high and high school students at church have a mission “trip” (they are staying here in town, but doing service projects for a week) begins Sunday. I did 1/2 of the shopping today with one of the admins for the youth groups. Pushing those giant flat bed carts around Sam’s, loaded down with tons of cases of gatorade, tons of lbs of lunch meat, and various other things I need for the upcoming weeks’ meals was…just…HARD! I am so tired, and my I ache from my hands up to my shoulders! (whine whine whine!!)

I am excited, and also quite nervous about the upcoming week. The food I am making is considerably less complex than anything my husband cooks, so I know I CAN do it…I’m just afraid of messing up! (My life story!)

In other news – after watching the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, Hubs and I are going to attempt going on a juicing fast for awhile….I am scared!

Today I am missing Colorado.

While I didn’t even live there a full year, I miss it. I miss SEEING the mountains every day (when it wasn’t hazy), but even more than that, I miss, after a rough day, being able to go for a drive in the mountains and having my perspective re-set. Even though we were too far out to get into the REALLY impressive areas after work, just driving up to one certain area, and looking out over Denver as the sun set and the city lights came on – it was breath-taking.

Today is one of those days, when I’d like to tell certain people to pound sand, pack a picnic up in the car, and take off for higher places.