Crying

Crying is one of those things that can make me go crazy. As a mother this one of my great struggles. I have no idea why since most of the time I am on the verge of crying and feeling sorry for myself. I should clarify. If the kids are in pain I never feel frustrated. However when they cry when answering a question I have to fight to remain in control and not get angry. It feels like manipulation. And it frustrates me that they continue to do it even when I don't respond to it. And I'm talking pulling the hair out, running out of the room crazy. I have been known to raise my voice.

Today was one such day. Samuel spent a good portion of the day that whenever he spoke he started crying. I eventually sent him to bed for a rest until he was able to give me an answer to a question I asked him.

The whole point to this story is that it started making me think about God and how He feels when "we" (ME) always cry to him about life. When I am tired, frustrated, hungry, or disappointed I cry to Him about how hard life is. I wonder if He ends up wanting to treat me the way I deal with my kids. Maybe I'm in timeout. Because there has to be a reason I spend SO much time alone. Anyway, if you look at the Bible you don't read about how Jesus whines and cries about how hard it is to be human. Here you have the Lord of the ENTIRE universe walking around in human clothes dealing with the frustrations of being human but He didn't cry about everything. (I wonder if He felt depressed. I doubt it. Is depression a sin? Hm, maybe this a whole different blog post.) While Jesus did cry and asked to be released from what He had to do, He still did it.

I can't help but be reminded of how much God loves us when I am so weak that I cry to Him all the time and He doesn't yell at me.

Crazy thoughts about older childhood

Disclosure: I had a colorful childhood with lots of interesting characters. If reading about AIDS and the like makes you uncomfortable, don't read.

I was reading somewhere else about the state of sex education in schools. I can't get over the fact that plenty of schools aren't teaching sex education at all. It's important. It scares you away from kids of the opposite gender! While they do reduce the chances, condoms don't prevent pregnancy. I know from personal experience. I have also come to discover that kids aren't having the begeebbers scared out of them with disgusting pictures. What's up with that? The drug needle pictures kept me WAY far away from drugs. And the STD pictures made me lose about 5 pounds and break up with my boyfriend. I wonder if graphic "stupid-teenager-driving -caused-this" videos are shown any more. I remember one where the stupid teenager killed a girl in his class and instead of going to prison he had to send her parents a check for 1 dollar every Friday. It made the guy crack up after 10 years.

But back to middle school. When I was in 6th grade I had a teacher die of AIDS. I didn't know it then, but my mom pointed it out to me the similarities surrounding his death and the things I had learned about AIDS. I think that she looked up his obit in the paper. He was my arts/drama teacher. He liked Michael Jackson, specifically "Man in the Mirror." I had never heard it before but it was a good song. I was supposed to lip sync a song in that class, but I think I remember him getting sick before it was my turn. During my sex ed class in 6th grade (I had one later in high school, it was the scary one) I remember the banana and the condom thing. But what I remember most was that my teacher couldn't find the ones to be used for the class so she went to go get one from her purse. What was she thinking?! I think she was trying to be provacative because she made a really big deal out of it. And I knew that she had just gotten divorced.

That middle school was really interesting. I learned a lot. Being sick and dying doesn't mean you can't still love what you do and feel passionate about it. Getting divorced can make you do really stupid things. And collecting frogs makes kids look at you like you're a frog. (My principal collected frogs and everybody thought she looked like a frog.)

Reading

I have been reading the last couple of days. And each day I have gotten a pretty bad headache on the right side of my head. The strong, bright light is on my left side. I wonder if that could be reason. But the a ton of the pain is in the neck region. So it may the angle at which I read. I am quite upset. Does this mean that I can't read without getting a headache? I may just cry if that is the case.

I have been reading The Mortal Instruments series. I have been enjoying it. It's easy, which always fun, but it does deal with good and evil a bit. The way the author, Cassandra Clare, deals with good and evil is interesting. She even makes room for the grayer shades. She asserts that only demons, at least in this "world," are the only really evil things. Anyway, I think I may read the books again just to see if they would stand the test of time before buying them.

Loneliness

Is the emotion of loneliness a sin? I wonder if we experience loneliness as a result of not being in continuous relationship with God, which leads to sinfulness. Or is it just because the earth is not our home?

Loneliness is a part of my life. It has been for most of my life, but now it seems to be worse than other times. I don't live near family and homeschooling the kids leads to a great deal of time spent alone. I am dealing, not very well, with agoraphobia. The agoraphobia means that there are many days that I don't leave the house. Peter says that I'm timid, I say that I'm shy. Whatever it is, makes it harder for me to alleviate the loneliness.

The loneliness has gotten more extreme since being home from Houston and have recently been doing some research. I wonder if loneliness is a mechanism that the Lord uses to bring us closer to Him. Did you know that Elijah dealt with depression? He felt all alone and that he was all alone in following God. So did David, but I think his may have had something to do with his horrible decisions. Or maybe he made those bad decisions because of his depression.

I would love to say that know I am going to just focus on all the positive things in front of me, but that wouldn't be real. I tend toward seeing the hard things. Sometimes that's good because I am apt to see why those hard things are necessary and do whatever it required. And people being mean and saying unkind things does tend to get to me. That is sometimes all I hear.

I don't have all(or any of) the answers but I think that I need to try and focus on Psalm 27 for now. Fear really is son of a motherless goat to quote my funny husband.

Laundry, ugh!

I dislike laundry! I wish there were a way to dress my kids without having to fold laundry. That is really the part that I dislike. I don't mind any of the other parts. Weird, right? I am trying to be thankful/grateful for the things I have instead of focusing of the negative. So, I am thankful that my kids are able to have more than one change of clothes. Maybe if I hold onto that I will be joyful while doing the folding. I may even watch a little TV. Our laundry couch is right next to the TV so it makes it quite easy to let my mind turn to mush.

Addiction is bad

So where have I been?  I have been detoxing from Diet Coke.  It seems that being addicted to something for more than 10 years can make a person grumpy and tired for the longest time.  I was feeling better on Sunday then I decided that coffee would be okay.  I was hyper then grumpy.  And on Monday for a wonderful treat I got to start the day with a headache.  It ended at about 7pm.  So I'm off caffiene completely now too.  

I also have been without a camera.  Peter was using it at work.  So I didn't get any pictures of the boys first soccer game of the season.  Or the first days of play outside weather.  I hope to be feeling more energetic next week.  And to have my camera back.

Better

Yesterday I was in a funk.  I just could not get out of it.  I complained within myself, I complained to those who would listen, I grumped.  It was not pretty.  There was much anger and frustration coming from within me.  I am REALLY ready for spring.  The snow and cold and is starting to get to me.  Since it seems that spring is not on the horizon for us I decided to buy myself some spring yesterday.  It was a good price at Costco, you can go get yourself some spring there too.  

A little Madness in the Spring

Is wholesome even for the King

Emily Dickinson

Isn't my store bought spring wonderful?

Will I ever learn?

So it's 8pm here and my kids haven't eaten!  Yes, I know I'm a bad, bad mommy.  There are extenuating circumstances.  One is that I couldn't go shopping for food until 6pm because we were down to one car today.  Our Yukon is having a tizzy and decided that the transmission had to go.  So we are waiting while her tempermental self gets a new one and can be driven again.  Tomorrow I will have a vehicle so dinner won't be so late, maybe.  

Back to the dinner lateness.  We went shopping late.  I knew that I wanted to try a new recipe, chicken tetrazinni.  I had chicken left over from chicken soup and there's only so many sandwiches I can make myself eat.  I usually try to have all my chopped things chopped and minced before I turn any appliance on.  I'm just not that good to chop and watch things, especially in a new recipe, at the same time.  So Peter stood in as a sous chef.  Talk about different styles!  He's bucket chemistry, I'm precise.  Sometimes I will tamper with the amounts, but only if I have made the dish before and have a pretty good idea about the taste ratios.  

So the dinner turned out okay.  Not enough flavor, but that's because of differing styles by the cookers.  If there had been less chicken and linguini then it might have tasted better.  Oh, well.  Now I have learned to do it myself.  I should have made this tomorrow and had sandwiches for dinner.  I guess you live and learn.  Now if I could just learn a bit more often.

Everything's Amazing

Louis CK said on Conan O'Brien, "Everything's amazing, nobody's happy."  (I urge you watch the video at the link.)  We have so many wonderful things available to us.  We live in a very prosperous country, even if we are having some hard times.  I still think that things may get harder, but we still fly through the air.  We have cell phones and internet.  We have the ability to talk to more openly than ever before about difficult, sensitive subjects.  I don't think that unplanned pregnancy was talked about in newspapers (or even in families) in the 1950's!  We have a black president in a country that went to war over slavery just 150 years ago.  The British haven't had a black prime minister.  And they practiced slavery as well!  We have washing machines and soap that doesn't burn your hands while doing the wash.  I can't believe I complain about doing laundry.  My great-grandmother would box my ears if she heard it.

Is the stimulus bill a hard one to swallow?  Yes.  Is it the end of the world? NO!  The mortage bailout plan is hard too, but we will all live.  We may lose some freedoms, but maybe that's good.  It, hopefully, will help us realize what we have lost.  Then we will have a chance to fight to get those things back.  

Odds and ends

Last week when I decided to start eating a diet without comfort food I realized that I would need to write about to keep myself accountable.  This week has worked out pretty well.  I have made dinner every night except Wednesday because we had Logos.  And they make healthy food, so I didn't feel bad.  I have had some not so good food come out of my kitchen.  I had a hard time getting the pork chops right, which I used to do quite easily.  That tells me how lax I have gotten about making real food.  Another thing I noticed is that my husband enjoys even my bad food.  The kids, not so much!  But we are learning together.  I made some lentils, which honestly I don't have a love for.  However I will be making them again.  Peter really enjoyed them, I liked the squash I put in them and a small amount is filling.  Last night I made a yummy kale and avocado salad.  I think that it might make a weekly appearance on my meal plan, at least for myself.  The kids even ate it.  I made chicken to go with it, but for myself I don't think I will.  

I have decided on most of the curriculum that we will be using next year.  Right now my concerns lay in art and music.  We don't have a piano and I have not an artistic bone in my body.  I think I will seek out an art class for the kids.  Thanks for all who encouraged me on our quest!  I didn't even get a your crazy comment, but that may be due to the fact that not many read here. Oh, well, C'est la vie and que sera, sera.

A storm brews

On Saturday I had a wonderful morning  filled with enjoying my children.  Then around 5pm it hit, the loneliness.  My very strong emotions tend to be actual, physical pain.  It hits in the chest and then spreads out.  In order to quell the raging sea, to silence the sure tears, I ran to my drug of choice, food.  As I pondered what I wanted I heard a small, quiet yet insistent voice say "the come down is going to be so much worse."  But on I went.  And sure enough the come down was horrible.  Crying ensued, safely after the kids were in bed, of course. 

I couldn't fall asleep until nearly three.  In the hours between the kids bedtime and when I fell asleep I took stock.  However, I wasn't planning on it.  God just kept putting the truth in front of me.  I started reading one book and came upon a truth I did not want to deal with.  So I turned to the Bible, yet here was another.  Then I remembered reading on a blog about another thing I didn't want to hear.  At about 2am they all came together to say changes are a comin', if I am to be refined by God's hand.  And boy are they going to be hard, but clearly worth it.

One thing I can say is that Peter being gone for as long as he has been gone has been good, at least for me.  If he had come home a week ago I would not have made these discoveries.  And they were sorely in need of coming to light.  

I am by nature an impulsive person.  For the last ten years I have been filting from one thing to another.  In the past month or so I have discovered that I need to live my life with intention.  And make decisions with intention, not just because all other options have passed.  It is time for me to finish growing up.  

One of the things I dealt with the other night was my eating habits.  I read on Walk Slowly, Live Wildly about our bodies being temples.  This post made me question my self on how can I worship God in my craptastic temple of a body.  It does effect how I feel about myself and my ability to worship God.  There is the ever voice of displeasure my physical state.  Is every action of ours a way that we are supposed to honor and worship the Lord?  If so then eating should be too, right?  So, all this to say that, I am going to start eating in a not just controlled way but with worship in mind. (I should probably read the fasting section of Celebration of Discipline.)  Somehow, with this in mind the idea of eating mostly fruits and veggies doesn't seem like such a sacrifice.  While I am not ready to go vegan or even vegetarian, I believe that I need to limit my drug-like comfort foods.

There are other things that I discovered the other night, but I need to wait until Peter gets home to sort them out completely.

Bad juju, and some who cares

So I went to Target yesterday morning.  I was being a good wifey, not spending needlessly.  I had to get essentials and cheap birthday gifts for kids for the year.  Once a year they put the extra Christmas toys on super-extreme clearance.  There were a ton of us crowded trying to get some good deals.  I noticed a group loading up a ton of stuff into mulitple carts.  I stuck my big nose where it didn't belong and asked who they were to others around me.  Apparently they do this every year.  This group buys the stuff on clearance at Target and then sells it for full price on ebay.  So I guess that's the way capitolism works, but I won't be buying anything from those guys.  Why would I pay full price when I could get it, theoretically, cheaper at my local Target?  So I'm just not gonna buy stuff on ebay from people around here, well toys at least.  

I am pleased to announce that Peter should be home next Tuesday.  Or maybe it will be Wednesday, it depends on what time he leaves Germany and if everything is on time.  I am looking forward to him being home.  The kids are too, though Samuel did ask if Peter was moving for two years.  

On an unrelated note, I found out today that doing some socialization in the morning followed by hanging with my girls (Esther and Reveille) makes me a much happier mommy.  I really didn't need much, just talking to Samuel's teacher for 3 minutes did it for me.  Interesting, huh?

The tiredest I've ever been

Okay maybe not.  But I sure am close.  I suppose it was when Micah was 8 months old and had not slept through the night yet.  If anybody saw my eyes, or rather the gigantic, black bags under my eyes they would be horrified. 

Peter is in the Middle East right now.  He is on his way to Lebanon as I write this.  He left Turkey about an hour ago.  The boys definitely miss him, but I miss him more.  I hope he stays safe, but according to him he should be safe.  Why, you ask?  Well, because he is with Manfred.  Somehow the bombs will be bouncing off Manfred.   I am underwhelmed with the decision of them to give money to Lebanon just by going there.  

Anyway, Peter will be home in about two weeks.  We are managing just fine.  Though I am REALLY looking forward to this weekend.  I will be able to sleep when needed.  Having Peter gone with a baby is a lot harder here.  In Oregon I had the indoor park to go to.  It just helped to be able to go somewhere, talk mom talk and kinda veg where the baby was safe.  Esther is into everything all the time, which is normal but quite hard when exhausted.  The most surprising part so far was when someone asked when my mom was coming to help.  I was actually mature and said "she's busy with her own life, we will be okay on our own."  I love my mom and would love to have her here, but I don't expect her to come bail me out.  

It's been interesting to see how the boys have reacted to Peter being gone.  They have been doing role playing with Abraham being the dad.  Samuel has related Peter's being gone to his best friend's absence from school.  Esther hasn't noticed that much, but she hasn't learned permanence completely yet.  Reveille really misses Peter, but that isn't surprising is it?

National Bankruptcy Day

The new CPSIA law will be going into effect this year.  Many small business will be affected.  Amazingly the congress members that created this legislation decided that all children's products will have to have lead testing.  This targets toys, including wooden, and clothing.  This legislation includes resale items as well.  

I learned about this at Happy to be at Home.  There are other places that are mentioned on the internet.  At Mothering there is an article.  The LA Times and ABC news did a piece as well.  

I cannot believe the incompetence of our lawmaking bodies.  Thousands of small business owners will be going out of business and people who need to buy from resale shops will not be able to buy their children's things from these organizations.  Well great for Wal-Mart!  (I know lots of people like that place, but I hate it with a vengence!  Long lines so people won't return things and they go around the voters to buy city governments to get their way. Yuck!)  I realize that big places were once small, blah, blah, blah.  Either our lawmakers are stupid or they've been bought by Wal-Mart as well.  I may just go in for a conspiracy theory on this one.   

Anyway, I am going to try and buy as much as I can from small mother owned boutiques through etsy while I can.  You should go by and utilize a great resource to find cottage industry.  There is also a National Bankruptcy Day website.

There has not been a ton of coverage on this and wanted to send up a flare.

Being Emphatic

I been thinking lately about the being emphatic. I am quite disgusted with myself and the boringness(yes, I know this isn't a word, but that's what this post is all about) that my language has become. I have recently been thinking about how to be more emphatic without being boring. I was reading a post at Amy's Humble Musings and got distracted with how I would comment. In order to be emphatic without saying "really" or "quite" I thought how about toe stubbing hard. That is very descriptive, right?! Peter "edited" my recent post about Hiding and Seeking. His constructive criticism was the same as Mr. Witcoff's in 7th grade, "elaaboorate" (with wild eyes and hair, Mr. Witcoff not Peter). He was extremely good at getting his point across! I tend to get straight to the point without alot of fluff. It is not on purpose, I just have so many thoughts circling around in my head, not unlike those penny donations recepticles at malls. They go around and around and I am sure that they will go down the hole if I don't put it on paper quickly.

So all this is to "put it out there" that I am going to try to be more descriptive and bring the points I have to fruition with details and fluff included. I mean I like fluffy things, like fuzzy inside UGG boots.

An here is Esther's first "real" food. (why is this gruel called food? It's totally blech, I mean look at her face.)