My apologies to the one Mormon I know who ever visits here…

But the thing is…the ‘mormon.org’ commercials? They make me think of The Borg.

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. And I’m a Mormon.

Unlike most of my family, as well as my friends, I have chosen a fast that does not include a strict food restriction…but instead restricts media. I am not ashamed to say that I am a facebook addict. I have facebook up on the computer at home from the time I wake up, through the whole day, and often late into the night when I should have gone to bed hours earlier. Leaving that is hard. I can’t tell you how many times I have thought “Oh, I want to post that on facebook SO bad!!!” But I have resisted.

What I miss more than anything is just the connection that I share with my friends, real and e-maginary (online) friends. I love sharing funny things about my baby girl, or my crazy older children, or my charming husband…or songs that punch me in the gut….

But the point of it is…facebook is a grand distraction. It draws me away from my time with God EVERY SINGLE DAY. God and I still manage a dialogue, but not as intensely as I desire, when I put him on hold to go play words with friends!

Seriously. Marinate in that for a few seconds. Creater of ALL THE THINGS…”Hold please…Tracy’s trying to come up with a good word using HJWllEQ.” He might just hold for that one, to tell me that stack’s taking me right to H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS!!

But that said, as much as I have missed facebook in the last few days, it has served it’s purpose. One, I have not missed my Bible reading time in 2 weeks. That’s not a record for me, but definitely hasn’t been the trend lately. And, on many of those nights, I read with hubby, and prayed together.

Worship on Sunday took a bit to hammer through my distraction…but it got there. I don’t remember which song, but it got there!

So – some would call my fast light – they’d JUDGE me weak…but I would say it has already headed me toward my fast zone – time spent with my God with little to no distraction. In the time I devote, it’s like…worship songs just spill out exactly how I feel and I want to post every one of them on facebook. Listening to Christian talk radio brings a different area of conviction every hour or so! But I am loving it…this feeling of revival.

The rest of the family is fasting different levels of a Daniel fast, so in the evenings, I am eating what they would eat. But, I am getting a good lunch in without much worry;

Anyway – I would say 3 days in I’m amped up and ramped up…ready for the long haul. I miss facebook…but it’s emblematic of loving the things of this world TOO MUCH. Which sadly, as I read our Bible reading the other night…the admonition not to love our children or spouses or parents more than we love God…and I struggle with that one. I can express astonishing love to my kids. I express love to my mom. I just don’t know how to get completely ridiculous expressing my love to God – aside from getting on my knees and telling Him…but that seems weak.

So anyway…so far, so great.

When I say we have tried EVERYTHING, I mean it.

Really. We have.

My kids, in the grand scheme, don’t have THAT much that they are asked to do around the house. That’s the benefit of having five children – the ‘to do’ list gets spread around pretty well, and nobody has too much expected of them.

Aside from the obvious – keeping their rooms tidy, making their beds *most* mornings, the kids are randomly asked to take out the garbage, unload the dishwasher, do the dishes – usually this is a task for two. But ONE day per week, I have them do a household chore that benefits the whole house. This is an important thing for us, because first of all, in a household of 7 people and 2 large, shedding dogs, the ‘deeper clean’ needs to be done often, and second, we really feel it is important for them to take responsiblity and service to the family seriously. Oh – and third, we do want them to know how to do these things when they are on their own. No son of mine is going to marry anyone without fully being capable of doing every chore ever deemed as ‘woman’s work’! Ok, with the exception of actually building and pushing out a child – but that can’t be helped.

Here is the struggle. Thursday is generally chore day around here. Thursday is the day that I ask our children to do their one deep clean chore – which MAX should take 30 minutes to an hour per chore. In fact – the list of chores they do were ALL the chores I was expected to do in my house growing up – by myself. So it’s nothing ridiculous. I am not asking them to scrub grout with a toothbrush, paint frescos on the ceiling, retile the bathroom, or anything of the like. They are asked to dust and vacuum, clean the bathroom, sweep and scrub the stairs – simple things.

And yet, EVERY.SINGLE.WEEK, with 3 of my children, this is a fight. If I am not standing over them, supervising every moment, they simply will not work.

Today, Hubs had a rather rough day at work. I had to go get him, since we’re sharing cars right now, and I asked the kids – VERY nicely- before I left if they would PLEASE – because their father had such a hard day – PLEASE get their jobs done while I was gone. PLEASE. I pretty much begged.

I picked up Hubs, I took him out for a beer so he could decompress before we went home (and to give the kids a little more time to finish), and we came home.

They had over TWO HOURS to get their chores done. And understand – the kitchen was basically clean when I left, just needed the counters wiped down, sink scrubbed, shelves dusted, floor scrubbed. Living room just needed to be dusted, swept, and scrubbed. Entry way and stairs – again – sweep, vacuum, scrub – not hard. All of those are chores for different children, btw – so can be done contiguously.

NONE OF THEM WERE DONE.

I don’t know WHY I type that as if I was surprised. I guess, on some level, I just thought – if it was for their dad – not me – that they would really do it.

Nope.

So once again, I sit here, frustrated. I will give this to God, again, and I will ask for improvement. My kids aren’t bad kids – in fact, they’re awesome 95% of the time – particularly if anyone else asks them to do something.

But at home, if asked to do a chore? Nope.

Grrrrrrrrr. (For the record – 7 years of this. 7 years of the EXACT SAME PROBLEM.)

::WHOMP::

That’s the sound of my ‘to-do’ list landing on my need to be responsible and not miss a deadline.

ACK.

(I have been going since 6 am, and have crossed nothing off my to-do list, but have added to it considerably. I remember these days from when I was employed in the corporate world…I did not miss them.)

Ever since my first Connect & Celebrate meeting for Thirty-One Gifts, I’ve been thinking a lot about goal setting. At the meeting, which is intended as a way for us to stay informed, stay connected with other consultants, and just in general have some fun together, our executive director asked us to write down three goals for our business.

I didn’t have a hard time writing down goals – but in deeply looking at them, they were all fairly low, easily achieveable goals. They are low-hanging fruit, as we used to say in the corporate world.

I used to have to go through this process every 3-6 months. Our performance was always evaluated based on the goals we had set, which varied from some lower, easily achievable goals, to longer, harder, stretch goals, that honestly were a challenge to achieve in the time we had to do them. I really didn’t ENJOY that process, because in the end, I wasn’t really doing what I wanted do. However, the process of setting for and working toward a goal is something I had stopped doing, and I miss it. I am the type of person that if I don’t have a ‘deadline’ to work toward, will find a million other things to do instead, and never end up achieving anything long-lasting.

I am not happy with that.

One of our raffle items at the C&C meeting was a journal put together by another consultant. It had two sections – one for current goals, and one for “GBW” goals. GBW are “Great but Wait” goals – things you want to achieve, but that you’re not focusing your energy on at the moment. This really resonated with me, because I am exactly the person who will see something long term that I want to do, and end up missing my short term obligations because I wasted time on something that wasn’t mission critical.

The other important thing about goals, as we all know, is accountability. I am hoping that, if I write it here, I will be more likely to finish it!!

So, three goals for this week:
1.) Low Hanging Fruit – Drink 8 glasses of water each day
2.) Medium – Complete my Thirty-One training, book 2 shows, and research 3 open show venus
3.) Long Range – Identify and begin studying the web technology I will use for my web development business.

This past week, my oldest child spent a few days up in Minnesota visiting family. As part of that visit, Cheesecake went and spent an afternoon with my dad and stepmom, and they took her out to eat, and shopping, and just hung out a bit. After it was over, my stepmom sent me a message saying how beautiful Cheesecake is, and that I should really be proud of her.

It stuck in my head, because 18 years ago, when I was 18 and found out I was quite unexpectedly pregnant, I sat in my dad’s office, to break the news to him. Now – I wasn’t aware, he already knew thanks to my big mouth brother. Apparently they had all been discussing it – my mom and brother, dad and stepmom. My dad, brother, and stepmom sat there and asked me what I was going to do – and to be honest, at that point I was still in shock and disbelief that I was pregnant – I had no idea. I couldn’t even grasp what was happening, let alone, what would happen going forward.

My stepmom, trying to give me advice, and the benefit of her own experience, talked about her life, and how she had gotten married young because of a pregnancy – and how if she had it to do all over again, she wouldn’t have done it.

There was some pressure – a lot it seemed to me at the time – for me to have an abortion.

I can’t tell you why, other than God sheltering me at that moment, but abortion never even entered into my consideration while pregnant with Cheesecake. I was 14 weeks along when I found out I was pregnant. (I know, that seems ridiculous to some – but really – it had been a very stressful 3 months, and my body was doing bizarre things. I honestly had no reason to suspect.) At 14 weeks – I was already more than 1/3 of the way through the pregnancy. If I had listened to them…if I had had an abortion at that point – well, my brain rejects even considering that.

And now this week, I took my 17-year-old daughter to high school to register for her senior year of high school. I didn’t need to take her – she could have driven herself and done all of it without me. She’s old enough now. She is an amazing, beautiful inside and out, loving, wonderful young woman. She is the best thing that ever happened in my life (which I hesistate to say, because I fear my husband will feel slighted, or that it minimizes my salvation, or even that it minimizes BonBon – but it really doesn’t.) IF it wasn’t for my choice to stay pregnant with Cheesecake – to be her mom – which at 19 I put COMPLETELY into God’s hands – I would never have become the person who my husband loves, or the mom who loves BonBon. Cheesecake changed me completely – in every good way – and to think…if I had listened to the advice I was given, her life would have ended before it was even given a chance…

..it takes my breath away to think of. If I had been weaker. If I had been just a touch more self-focused. I would have missed out on the opportunity to love and be loved by this beautiful being. She was the only thing that kept me going through several dark moments in my life – my only reason it all seemed worthwhile. I have no doubt in my mind that God put her in my life at that point because He knew she was what I needed. How do you say thank you for that? For all the hugs, smiles, kisses, cuddles, drawings, funky trash-art projects, temper tantrums, adorable grins, awkward moments….He gave me so much in her. And then He used that to help me become the person my husband and stepchildren needed, and eventually the mom BonBon needs. What a plan.

Thanks, God, for giving me my first daughter. Thank you for having a plan, worked through her, to make me into more of who You planned for me to be. She is amazing, and definitely one of your best creations!

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 am not a person who dreams. Correction…I am not a person who remembers their dreams, most of the time. For the last month and a half, I’ve had some back pain, so I’ve been taking ambien before bed – which usually renders a nice, dreamless sleep. During the day, however, it’s not unusual for me to lay down with Chloe to get her to nap, and the dreams I have during those couple of hours are often more memorable. Memorable, but not BAD, per se.

Wednesday night of last week, we had a night where neither Hubs nor I could sleep. We were both exhausted – Hubs from a plethora of work issues, me from several days of serving at church. I had been existing on 3-4 hours of sleep a night since Sunday night, and Wednesday was set to be another 4 hour night. I had taken the ambien hours before, we went to bed, and I just…never slept. At around 2 in the morning, I began to feel that the not sleeping was a spiritual attack – Hubs felt the same. He had dozed off and had a short dream that he was talking to one of the men from his group – who was on the phone with him, and was praying for him. I am not sure exactly why I decided it was an attack, but it was the only thing that made sense given the medication I take, and the level of fatigue I was feeling. Around 2:30 we prayed together, binding any evil in the name of Jesus, and settled back down to get some sleep. No sleep. Around 3, I scooted over to cuddle with Hubs, thinking if I couldn’t sleep, at least I would cuddle with him. I laid there, and thought I heard BonBon, our 2 year old, start talking, and then start crying. I got up and uncovered the baby monitor – nothing. She wasn’t making a peep. Not sure why it seemed like she was. Very odd.

Later that day, after making breakfast at church, I came home and dozed off. I had a dream that I was with my mom, taking her to a museum to see some exhibit about the human body. I had gotten up in a rush to take her down there, and had just put my jeans on under my nightgown, and was walking around with my mom and my oldest daughter, trying to find where my mom was supposed to go. Mom found a map, but I didn’t think she was looking in the right place, so I found a different map, and was looking at it. Another family, husband wife and kids, came up to the map while I was there, and the husband or wife said to me “Rough day, huh?” at which point I looked down and realized I was still in my pajamas. The dream at that point changed to me talking to a famous news guy – who was telling me about a story he investigated about this woman who was murdered – and all that was found of her was her mouth. He somehow had kept it, and wanted to show it to me. I didn’t want to see it, and turned away – but had determined to destroy it. Next thing I know, I had it, I threw it on the ground, and told my dog Leela to eat it – and she did. The mouth on the ground was literally just closed lips, with a little skin around them, and it was black – not african american – black. As soon as the dog at it, I felt horrible, because no one would ever know who this woman was. And then I felt heat – from my feet up to my knees – like I was on fire. I felt that several times, and then it felt like the bed moved, as someone was next to me (no one was). I woke up.

The next day, another nap, and another dream. In this dream, I was sitting on my couch when BonBon came and climbed up into my lap. I noticed she had stuck something in her ears, and I was trying to figure out what it was. WEll, in the process I had to ‘unscrew’ these corkscrew things she had put into here ears. They were long enough that they had gone through her brain – between the two of them -they would have met in the middle of her head. I knew I should take her to the hospital, but for whatever reason, I took them out myself, and then carried her back to my husband to tell her what had happened. At first she seemed fine, but then before my eyes, she changed – reverted back to the expressions an infant makes – and I knew she was brain damaged. I woke up totally distraught. (In these dreams, it seems totally real – I do not know I am dreaming.)

Today’s nap brought a third dream – I was sitting at my mom’s, on the couch, eating chips or something. I had a puppy, reached down, and just started eating it – like it was a sandwich or something. It was weird, because like I said – I did not know it was a dream, and part of me felt this was completely normal. Another, detached part of me, was watching this happening with complete horror – and again, I woke up horrified, and sick to my stomach.

For someone who doesn’t dream often, or remember dreams, and who has bad dreams even less often, 3 dreams in 3 days is really freaky. My husband has prayed over me, and I believe in the power God gives him to have authority over the enemy. And yet – I find myself worrying about what each new sleep will bring. And also, having a hard time delineating what is dream, and what is not. Before my nap yesterday, I had opened my phone and noticed that the dampness sensor had gone off on part of the phone. After I woke up, I couldn’t remember if that was part of the dream, or if it was real. I had to take the phone apart to verify. The fact that I was unsure also freaks me out a little.

So anyway – that’s where I am right now. I find it significant, because this has been a week of great spiritual growth for me. I took on a challenge I wasn’t sure I could do – and in the end, I was greatly leaning on God to get me through. I don’t know that I’ve had a challenge like that in the last 2 1/2 years – where there was no way my own strength would get me through. So – it makes sense that in a time of great spiritual growth, the enemy would try to derail me, but I refuse to BE derailed. This has been a good week, despite the fatigue, pain, and nightmares (daymares?)

I just would really like for them to go away. I don’t like the emotional hit that goes with it!

but I fell off.

I have a lot to blog about, and actually have one hand written post from Sunday…but I do not have the motivation to go down to the van, find it, and type it in!

My ‘to do’ list is about 18 miles long, but there’s nothing on it I *want* to do.

And, I am mulling over whether to walk away from something that has been a big part of my life. I’m very conflicted about it.

So basically, this was a blog post about what I haven’t done, what I need to do, but don’t want to, and what I have yet to do!

But mostly…blah…I think I’ll go eat some fruit loops.

We have some friends who joke that the husband will eat anything you can throw into a tortilla. I’ve found that’s mostly true around this household – with the exception for me of some of the NUCLEAR hot food Hubs makes.

Well, this morning Hubs went into work late, and before he left, looked over at me and said “What’s for breakfast?” Hah. Uh. Well….If you remember my menu plan for the week, there were zero MAN breakfasts on it. He usually grabs some leftovers from the night before, so I haven’t worried too much about making him anything lately. So to be honest, I had NO IDEA what was for breakfast!

I went out to the kitchen and started scrounging around in the fridge. I produced: a vidalia onion, some green pepper strips from a dip platter on Sunday, some crushed garlic, a couple of leftover baked potatoes (I made extra for just this reason), some ham, and the last 3 eggs in the household. Oh, and 1/2 & 1/2.

I diced up 1/2 of the onion and the peppers, and tossed them in a frying pan with a little oil. After they had cooked for a few minutes and were getting soft, I tossed in about a teaspoon of crushed garlic, and about a tablespoon of butter. I peeled and cubed the potatoes, and chopped up the ham (I probably had 1 to 1 1/2 cups of ham), and threw the potatoes and ham into the frying pan. Once the ham had gotten good and hot, I scrambled up the eggs in a separate bowl with the 1/2 & 1/2, and dumped that over everything in the pan. While the eggs were cooking, I warmed up some flour tortillas, and put a couple on a plate for Hubs. I filled the tortillas with the egg/leftover scramble, and with the addition of a little Valentina (extra hot, one of his favorite hot sauces), Hubs declared it a win.

And demanded I remember how I made them so I could make them again!! LOL

I can definitely see adding cheese to this – we just didn’t have any on hand due to last night’s pizza. These were also fantastic with the addition of Hubs’ homemade salsa!