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!!)

My prayer this morning, as I tried to figure out what I was energetic enough to cook for breakfast: “Oh, Dear God, thank you for toaster strudels.” And that was 100% sincere.

And I also might have said a very similar prayer about coffee.

Too much going on right now – working on my business, trying to nail down everything we have to for our church Wednesday night dinners (a lot of administrative stuff), planning wedding catering, doing a garage sale, planning food for our Step Out event this weekend, trying to get my book club book bought and read, and then just the regular running of our household which is enough in and of itself.

And I am exhausted. This week has kicked my tail, and it’s not even over yet.

And I have determined I am terribly nosey. Hubs was up late praying (tongues) and I am immensely curious as to what he was praying ABOUT, and he doesn’t even know. Guess I know what *I* need to pray for!! LOL

I said I would go to bed an hour ago. Two hours ago. Now, my goal is to be there in 3 minutes…and yet…must write.

My head is swimming tonight with a particular realization. It’s not…earth shattering, really. It’s obvious, more than anything. But…it is something I have overlooked for awhile.

My husband is the man of my dreams. Truly. In every single way. God made him for me, and kept us together when we were both ready to call it quits.

Tonight, my stepdaughter came home from a 6 day trip with some family members. She had a horrid time, because one family member in particular tends to be rude, selfish, and inconsiderate. I don’t know what made this vacation different, but we all missed her, and couldn’t wait for her to get back. My husband, though – not only counted down the moments ’til she got back – he actually went out and sat on the front porch waiting for the car to come down the street.

It was nearly the same a couple of weeks ago when our boys were away at camp.

I love that he misses his children so much. I love that he has his priorities in the right place. I love that, no matter what, no matter how much we may annoy each other with the little things, we love each other more – and that transcends annoyance.

He simply…amazes me. To the very core, he is the man other men can only hope to ever be.

So Hubs – I love you. You amaze me, and I am so happy *I* have the honor of being your wife. I am proud of you, and I thank God for saving our marriage, and us, so that we can walk together toward the relationship God designed for us.

And now, it’s way past my bedtime, so I am going to go snuggle with the man who isn’t only IN my dreams, but is right there next to me.

SO, I am finally officially missing facebook. Initially, I missed it just because I like to play games on there. THen, it was because I actually think in facebook posts. Something funny would happen, and I’d have the urge to post it on facebook. Then, I went through the last week or so with no facebook urges at all. Great, right?

Then today hit. I was supposed to go to my women’s Bible study this morning, and couldn’t, because BonBon is has some sort of tummy bug. I don’t know why, just not being able to go out left me wanting to connect somehow – and I usually do that through facebook. Plus, I use it to get info sometimes – to look for people’s pictures that I have to call for church or whatever, and I can’t do that, and I can’t look up somebody’s email address. It’s just….today I miss it.

The fast, however, has been going well otherwise. Hubs is going juice/water for the last few days, and I think I’m going to as well, assuming I don’t get Bonbon’s bug. If I do, I think it’s gonna be pretty much nothing, because she can’t keep anything down.

Beyond that…lots happening. Packing to move, which I absolutely ABHOR, but it will be nice once I get everything put away in the new house. We are going to be short on furniture, and after spending a night in which neither Hubs nor I got much sleep, I would really love to have a pull-out couch. SO – I will pray and we will see what happens! Obviously, life would go on without it, but it would be nice to have.

And now….back to my puddle of socks. I HATE sorting socks, but literally 90% of Bonbon’s socks are missing, so I’m having to go through everything. Ugh.

I am blogging just so Ren will have something to read!

Ok, so this is what is on my mind this morning.

I noticed when I got up this morning that my husband had left without taking one of his cell phones (he has 2 – the work phone and then his regular phone). So – he had one, he would have been fine, but I felt like taking it up there anyway. As I was driving, I thought about all the times he’s asked me to run something up to him, and I got annoyed, because I had something else to do, but today, since it is Friday and I didn’t have anything we HAD to be doing, I did it with a cheerful heart. I wish I could do that every day. And I wish I was saying I WILL do better – but we all know how that goes. When I have five children needing my attention, I need to get dinner going, and the dog has gotten out of the yard again, it’s unlikely that I will be very good at remaining cheerful if something my husband has once again forgotten needs to be delivered. But it did make me think – I want to feel that way all the time.

Also as we were driving, two things happened. First, we drove past Lake Zorinsky, and BonBon shouted “In da tubby! It da tubby!”. Tubby is what she calls a bath – so apparently Lake Zorinsky just looks like a big bath tub to her! She hasn’t really been swimming since she was big enough to understand what was going on, so, I guess we need to do that, so she can differentiate a bath from other water activities! Goofy kid.

Then, as we were driving, I looked in the rearview mirror at her, and the sun was hitting her hair just right, so I could see the strands in her hair that just look like pure gold. I was just slammed once again with how much I love her – and how thankful I am that we decided to have her, despite financial woes and time constraints! She is just so awesome. (As are all our kids, but today she got the focus!)

I was reading a blog post yesterday about “sighing as we serve our children”. In other words, when your children need you to do things, do you sigh about having to do things for them? I KNOW I do. As I pointed out up above, I do the same thing with my husband. When I am busy and trying to accomplish something, and have to stop to do something for kids or Hubs, I often sigh. It doesn’t mean I don’t love them or don’t want to do it for them – it’s just an expression of my frustration with not being able to complete one task before moving on to something else.

I realized, though, that I’m overly sensitive of when Hubs does it. He will often sit at the table and sigh heavily when he is tired or thinking about something. I always tend to take that as frustration with me – even though it frequently has absolutely nothing to do with me! For a moment I wondered if my husband or kids take it the same way – and I know our oldest is sensitive to my sighs of frustration. My husband, occasionally, does notice….but most of my children? Don’t notice! Even so, it’s probably a silly thing to do. So I’m not going to do it!

Also? I learned that “Empujen” means “Push” in Spanish.

We have watched A LOT of Dora this week. BonBon is OVER Blues Clues, and is now in love with Dora.

…seeing an expression your husband makes all the time mirrorred in your baby’s face!

I was noticing this morning as I was driving that BonBon kept furrowing up her brow, and frowning a little. As we drove along, I kept glancing back, trying to figure out if something was making her mad. It wasn’t – she was just focusing on something, and as she did, her little eyebrows drew together, furrowing up her brown, and she frowned a little.

I realized, looking at her in the rearview mirror, that it’s the exact expression my husband makes all the time. Each time he does it, I worry that he’s mad about sometime, and frequently will end up MAKING him mad by insisting he MUST be mad about something, because he’s making that face.

Apparently, however, it’s just a look they both get when they’re really concentrating, or thinking about something! Funny that it took the baby to convince me my husband isn’t really mad about things!

For some reason this didn’t post earlier!

I’m feeling a lot better today. Granted, we did pull a LITTLE trick this morning. My van keys happened to be in the bedroom, so I grabbed them at 6, and hit the panic button. It only got ONE of them up, but hey, that was an improvement over yesterday!

Homeschool-wise, we’re all caught up and on track. I’m managing, but I still sometimes worry that I’m going to miss some crucial point that he NEEDS TO KNOW! But mostly, I think we’ll be fine. Pez is going to the regular school each day for gym/music/art, so he is still getting some interaction with other kids. I’m torn on the value of it, though. It does disrupt our day, although truth be told, he could be completely finished with pretty much all of his homeschool stuff by the time he goes to school at 1, if he really focused. Alas, that’s his biggest problem – focus. The first few days, though – it really was a struggle to get him refocused when he got back, and I was feeling like maybe it was doing more harm than good. He has settled down somewhat, so we’ll see how the next few weeks go. The school has been AWESOME about working with us. He does gym/music/art, and he can check out books and such. I’m kind of wanting to ask whether or not he could participate in the standardized testing, to make sure he stays on track, but I’m also not sure how I’d handle it if his scores dipped! (He always tests very highly on the standardized tests – if he’s had his meds.)

Hubs and I spent a little time reconnecting last night, and it was really needed. It seems silly when I’m writing it out, to say that he and I can get disconnected in just a matter of a week or two, but it really does happen. The thing is, when we’re good, we’re great. So the slightest misalignment, and it just feels like life is crashing down a little. It’s like having a popcorn kernel stuck in your teeth…it’s just a little thing, but creates a lot of discomfort!

I have to say, though – I’m really impressed with him. Lemon Drop had a doctor appointment this morning that didn’t go the way Hubs wanted it to. He got all huffy and blustery about it, and then realized what he was doing. He took a minute off the phone to stop, pray, and redirect himself. In the past, that never would have happened. He was kind of known for his rants! It is so awesome seeing the changes God is making in him.

Anyway – that’s about all I have to blab about today. I’m looking forward to the long weekend. I’m hoping the baby might allow us to sleep in a little bit at least ONE day!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

I’m frustrated, I can’t get a post written these last couple of days.

I start writing, and then one of eight bajillion things going on around the house gets in the way, and I lose my momentum, and it’s gone.

I wanted to write about how, when I was out driving yesterday, I was listening to the dj on K-LOVE talking about how being a Christian is about having a relationship with Christ – not about rules, or good works, or following some archaic methodology for how to get to heaven. And the thing is – they have to have been saying that my whole life, you know? Why didn’t I hear it, or really GET it, until last year? Why did I waste all that time? Why did it take so long, not only to find my own way, but to start showing my kids the right way?

I had another post written on how much I appreciate all the pastors’ wives in my life…from the ones at church, to my sister-in-law’s mom, and my cousin’s wife. They all give so much of themselves – they sacrifice time with their husbands, and sadly are the subject of a lot of judgement from other people merely because of who they are married to…and it’s not an easy job! But that post didn’t get finished either.

Homeschooling went great Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday? CRASH and BURN. I found out last night, after Pez had gone to bed, that he never took his ADHD meds, and this child, without them, is unable to focus on ANYTHING. I thought he was taking them when I told him to, but obviously, I need to be better about supervising him actually taking the pill. He literally accomplished NOTHING yesterday, so today we start over and try to move ahead. Sadly, I think he’s going to have to do some work on Saturday to get back on track.

Family Morning Devotions? We’re still doing them, but we’re going to have to change things up a little. Since Lemon Drop started conditioning for Swimming, she is going to school 3 days a week at 6 AM. Hubs is getting up to take her, and since he has something one other day each week at 6:30, he decided he’s just going to get up every day at 5 and go in early.

From an FMD perspective, it’s kind of crushed things. We’re still doing them, but we’re doing FAMILY morning devotions with only half our family! I think we’re going to start doing them at dinner instead, which will only be a problem on Wednesdays when we have church to get to. Either way – it’s not dead and gone. WE’re still doing it. The kids still nearly sleep through it, but we’re doing it.

From a family perspective, it seems like we’ve been a little more disconnected the last few days. I don’t know why – with Hubs coming home earlier from work, we end up being together for more of the evening, but he’s been going to bed early, while I still have to stay up with the kids, so we’re missing that time we used to spend talking before we went to sleep each night. We have always spent so much time with each other that when we don’t, we really start to feel like something is wrong! SO we’re going to try and find ways to fix that.

AAAAAAnd…now BonBon is demanding bubbles, so that’s all I’m going to get written today!

For some reason, I was even more tired than usual this morning. Hubs had an early morning, and got up at the time I normally roll out of bed. I just laid there. I knew he’d be in the shower, so I felt like there wans’t a WHOLE lot of reason for me to get up. When I did get up 15 minutes later, it was to find that Hubs had already started the coffee, and set out all the ingredients for breakfast (waffles), and had even plugged in the waffle iron to get hot. He is awesome.

We can’t use the programming on our coffee pot right now, because it has an attitude and just turns itself on willy-nilly, so I do have to make it every morning when I get up. I will say, though – waking up and walking out here half zombie-like, and smelling the freshly brewed coffee already waiting was like heaven.

So Zack, thank you for being so wonderful this morning. You have no idea how much that was appreciated.

I had been doing so well at posting every day!  But I did two the day before, and two today, so that makes up for missing posting yesterday, ya?  Ya.  I don’t care what you say, it does.  So NYAH! 

So Family Morning Devotions.  (Du duh duh…)

We’re still doing them!  A whole week!  Woohoo!  Go us.  Ok, Go God, because we would totally have quit by now if it was just us.  We have two children who perpetually can’t get up on time, but we’re working on it.  We’re never quite sure how awake the kids are when we’re doing our devotions (or for that matter, how awake Hubs is), but we’re doing them.  We’re spending the time together in the morning, and we’re spending time together in prayer before everybody heads out for the day.  If nothing else, we start the day off the right way.  

As we all get a little more busy with things, there are also going to be times when one or more of us isn’t here in the morning, but what I really feel strongly about is not so much the devotional, but that we have time to pray together, as a family (or as parents over our children) before they head out.  They may be tired and not quite sure WHY we are making them do this, but maybe someday they’ll get it.

I will say – I’ve caught 2 of our brood reading their Bibles WITHOUT having it suggested to them several times in the last week.  I think that rocks!  The whole experience has just been really centering for all of us, and by centering, I mean, putting God at the center of everything.  (YAY!)

And now, my funny story for the day.

As I mentioned before, we have two of our 5 who perpetually CANNOT get up on time.  Literally – in the last 8 days, Lemon Drop has gotten up ONE TIME when she was supposed to.  I wrote about my exasperation with it on the day I made pancakes last week.  Yesterday, it was Zack’s turn, as he made sweet polenta (corn mush) for breakfast, and once again, they were late, and just sat there staring at breakfast when they finally did get up. 

So Zack became proactive.  For today’s devotional, we looked up a devotion on Punctuality.  Now I will say – it was a BIT of a stretch to relate some of the verses to the kids getting up on time.  Mostly they had to do with the importance of being prepared, of honoring others’ time, and being where you should be.  But we did it, and they got it. 

Unfortunately, Zack had an early dentist appointment, so he had to leave before we were finished.  And, in Zack style, he left at about 7:04 AM.

For an appointment at 7 AM.

Ahhhhh…irony.