Sick

I am sick. I have been sick for about 5 years now. I don't want to get cut on without an official dx and they can't seem to be able to figure out what is wrong with me. What I do know is that I agree most with the dx of GERD (of all the ones that have come up) what I am most scared of is that my liver has gotten damaged somewhere along the way. My worries are that I won't have anyone to help me with the kids and if you had ANY idea what a week in the life of us is like... well.... someone has to do what I do and that someone is always me. I would insert a smart-ass remark right now but I won't... I just wish I wasn't always so alone. I never thought in a million years that I would be a single parent of three boys. Now I am moving off this pity pot cause if I don't I am sure to cry and I don't like to cry. Crying is a sign of weakness and besides that your tired afterwards and I can't afford to be more tired then I already am.

It is a Friday night.. I have not ate since Tuesday and I really can't count that since I ended up throwing all of that up before the night ended.

*insert off topic... I just heard my three year old telling the puppy to get some act right or he would be going back in his house!... I wonder where he heard that one from? :)

But I digress, I am weak and tired... I didn't turn my term paper in but I am going to send it in late along with my ER notes. I just really don't have time right now... I was hoping to wait until the boys were older. I know that dinners and stuff will come from all my friends and I will probably have one or two who will come clean for me once or twice but what will be the hardest is getting the kids to and from school and getting homework done and baths and bedtime... that will be the part I am not looking forward to. oh well, it is life and it is the one that apparently God designed for me.

I find myself just simply praying... for God's will and some wisdom, because I obviously have no idea what I am doing. I also find that I can almost hear him telling me that I need to stop trusting him to heal me and start trusting him to see me safely through surgery and healing.

checking in

This is just to check in... because I haven't been on here in a really long time! Sorry. My life has been overrun with my sons doctors appointments and my homework. I took a really light load this time but I am still about to be overrun. I am really looking forward to next semester! We are gearing up for Christmas but I am so lame that we haven't really put anything up yet... I have a billion ideas on pinterest that we are doing though... as soon as my semester ends.... next week.

We found some puppies and they have taken tons of time too... I was NOT trying to become a mother to 4 MORE "children" They whine and bark when they are hungry and they like to eat all the time.

I am also late on trying to arrange for our visit to the nursing home, and while we planned on making cards I went ahead and just bought a pack to do that way.. I will have the kids color a beautiful picture to put with them.

I meant to blog about these great pumpkin cupcakes that we made... they were super simple.. cake mix, pumpkin mix and I added some REAL vanilla... they were a BIG hit :) and gluten free.

Well that is it for now, hopefully I will be getting back into the swing of things.

The Parenting Adventure

I started a bible study called "The Parent Adventure" It has been wonderful and surprising. Surprising because I love being affirmed that for all the not so great things I do as a parent... yelling for instance... I do a lot of things right!

I am a firm subscriber in saying yes more than I say no and I don't mind the mess when we want to play. We love to make messes and be creative. I believe that if you tell a child no too often about the little things then by the time you need to tell them no about the BIG things, they will have learned how to tune you out. The one thing that I do wish that we could do more of is spend more time outside. I try to make my schedule free enough to where I can devote my time to just them in the evenings but I still have to cook which means that after a few minutes we are inside again. I think that is what makes me want the rock climbing wall or the rope ladder wall in the family room. I am also going to get a mini trampoline for the room too. If you have boys you know that they are an active HANDFUL lol... I have three 7 and under.. It is always a flurry of activity at my house.

One of the other things that the study discusses is how often you talk to your children. Since at this point I am not able to home-school anymore (I was able to for a year) we use the time to and from school to discuss things. Sometimes I let the conversation flow naturally and we may pray for a good day, other times we let the conversation evolve from one of the devotionals or awanna CD's we are listening to. A favorite CD of the kids is "The Jesus Storybook bible" if you haven't checked it out then I strongly encourage you... the accents are AMAZING.. the only fault I have with it is at one point it calls someone or something stupid.. and I did not like that.

One idea that I am taking away from the study in the "talking" section is the idea of having family meetings, even at the young ages that my children are. I can remember as a child trying to get my parents to have family meetings, we never did. I think that is one of my favorite parts about being a parent~~~ you can take all the things that you loved about your own upbringing and enhance them with things that you wish that you would have had or done. I can't give my children a complete family (something I beat my head against brick walls trying to force to happen) but I can give them the best that I have to offer and I can give them a promise that I will always be looking for ways to improve my parenting of them and within reason I will always be willing to work with them as we navigate life together.

I know that this may seem absurd but I have always made it one of my own parenting mottos that I am not raising just children, I am raising future men and fathers and husbands... I am raising little adults.

I'm not alright

This about sums up how I feel lately. I am glad that I am able to recognize my own failure and my own brokenness.. I am very ready though for God to heal my heart. I can't figure out why it feels the way that it does. The, I really don't know what he is to me, told me today that I needed to rework my steps, and I probably do. In fact I think I am going to break out the old literature and ponder on it when I get in the tub. I have the kids in bed though and I have my workout clothes on and I am about to get on the treadmill and go until I can't anymore, then I will do the soak thing. I am hoping to get to bed early and that the treadmill will help that process. I just praise God that I know that even though my heart is broken and I know that I am hiding behind walls, he can restore my heart and make it whole again... the only thing is... I am really not ready for my walls to fall.. I really don't desire to expose myself ever again and I really don't feel like being vulnerable.. I just don't trust that the payout is worth the effort.

Turning my sins around

I woke up this morning thinking; thinking about some old issues and thinking about some new ones too. As the thoughts wove in and out of my mind and the music played and the kids chattered on, I went from thinking of the sins AGAINST me and started moving towards my own sins. How easy it is (isn't it) to notice first the sins of others and yet be oblivious to your own.
It took me doing celebrate recovery for three years and Al-anon (twice) in the last 5 years to be able to switch perspectives.


Even when your situation is an abusive relationship and you want to only blame the abuser you still have a part in it. For a long time it was very hard for me to accept that. I am not saying that it was my fault that he hit me, or that I even played any role at all in that. But it was my fault that I ignored the warning signs that he was abusive and it was my fault that I allowed myself to be a victim for so long. Of course it's a lot easier to say that on this side of the fence. I am in no way perfect at doing this, nor am I in any way healed from what went on in that relationship....

To be honest I looked so hard for the one size fits all quick fix, but there isn't one.. Just a lot of turning it over EVERY SINGLE DAY.. and tons of falling into old patterns and having to quickly correct them.... But I digress.. Maybe another day I'll share with you my Ah ha! moment that started me on a course to reclaiming who I was before I put on the cloth of victim and allowed someone else to define who I was...

But this morning during my processing I thought about the infinite sadness at not being able to move past your sins and grow from them to how wonderful it is that once I recognize my sin and repent, (hopefully finding forgiveness from Christ, myself and hopefully anyone my sin has impacted) THEN God uses MY sin for his glory!! And it's not just my sin that he uses but YOUR sin too!! Isn't that amazing?? No matter how i mess up or what i have done (or you) God forgives us and helps us to GROW from our sins! I know that it is such a basic truth but it is one that blows me away every time that I think about it.

God STILL restores us and takes this ugliness, this blemish.. And he makes it a beauty mark.. He refines us. HE turns OUR sin and uses it for HIS glory!!

It reminds me of the song east to west by Casting Crowns;

"Jesus, can You show me just how far the east is from the west
'cause I can't bear to see the man I've been come rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
'cause You know just how far the east is from the west
From one scarred hand to the other

I start the day, the war begins, endless reminding of my sin
Time and time again Your truth is drowned out by the storm I'm in"

I have to say that this is one of my favorite songs, the greatness of what he did for us and how he intercedes our sins and he places himself in between our sins and us. How merciful he is! He died so that we could give our sin to him again and again and again. And he will make us whole. We can lay in HIS arms and let him be the strongman in our lives...

changing food habits..

I have been seeing a nutritionist and it has been going pretty good so far. I was already a fairly healthy eater; organics, sticking as close to natural as possible and limiting meat consumption. I am now doing even better with my latte consumption.. And that is HARD because I adore fall weather, bible study with a nice latte.. And I also adore driving w the windows down and a latte... Nothing says unwind to me like a caffeine laden beverage hahahaha :)

What irks me the most about my body at this point is facial fat, my breasts changing shape and my belly. Once I get the weight off I'm having my breasts done though, all the more reason to hurry up and get it off!

The thing that scares me the most about having gained all this weight is that I am almost certain that I'll have to have surgery to fix my body back. I will be more than ready for that by the time I lose the weight but I also have concerns that when I have another baby I'll ruin it all, particularly the breasts. I'm a nervous wreck that I'll just end up weighing less but with flabbier. I wonder how much of me is currently flabby skin? Yuck! Right now that feels exactly like what is happening, I'm losing but I feel like I jiggle more too!

Shoes! Or something like a midlife crisis

Is it just me or are shoes the PERFECT item to shop for? It does not matter how small or big you are with enough confidence you can rock any shoe. And it's not something that you buy "hoping" that you can fit into later.

In addition to the shoe shopping extravaganza I've indulged in I also dyed my hair pink, purple, and blue. Really it's just a bunch of highlights set against dark brown hair. It looks great and I feel young again.

I went to Whole foods for the first time and was automatically in love with everything that I saw. I got fresh clams and meats and yummy butternut squash, figs, purple and orange bell peppers... There was so much to chose from and in the body shop area I was able to get two almond oil bases and a few essential oils to use with my boys. They love having a nightly massage. I also indulged myself in some salt rubs.. They smell divine.

The bad part of life this past week was having to replace my water pump, but the blessing is that it was not expensive and also I needed to have my serpentine belt changed and they went ahead and did that while they were in there so it was almost like getting it for free :)

Camping

This weekend we went on our first family camping trip with the boy scouts. I loved being in a troop environment, it makes you feel much safer since there are so many people there that you know. (Of course the ever paranoid mother I STILL hardly slept and had every safety prep that could be had.)

We had a great time around the fire. We even had fun in the rain when we all had to pile in together. We had a really cool grilled cheese maker so we were able to have hot grilled cheese for dinner and we brought jiffy pop popcorn stuff that pops in the bag.

All day Saturday the boys worked hard; first piling up the wood, then making it a fort and finally tearing the whole thing down.

We went hiking and learned how to use a compass, we played badminton, and even went on nature walks and hikes. I had to carry my 5 year old all the way back from one of our treks, luckily he doesn't weigh a whole lot.

This morning when we were packing up we saw the worlds largest spider web, and it had a really pretty spider too. It turns out that it was only a yellow and black garden spider but it was absolutely beautiful, who says that the ordinary can't be gorgeous?

I really enjoyed being out of reach of the rest of the world. I did allow the baby to have a few minutes of DS even though we were not allowed to have them, but he had a terrible run in with a bee the morning that we were packing the stuff up (his first bee sting) so he was a little terrified when we first got there.

We did our bible verses by the light of the propane lamp and continued our reading of Peter Pan, it was magic and will be going in our "memory box" (its an index card container that we fill with our favorite memories)

what is in a name?

I have wanted to write a blog for a few months now and could not think of a name for it. Sitting in the bathtub one night I had the PERFECT name but by the time the bath was cold and the bubbles were gone I had forgotten. As a single mom of three boys all 6 and under getting out of that tub in my rare time of peace and quiet was NOT going to happen!

Aside from the title you see above you; I also thought about "let the story tell itself", "An unfolding life", and a few others. I thought about things that had parenting, and journey and adventure in them because that is definitely what I am doing now, but I knew that I wanted to have unfolding in it because I didn't want to have this huge bio page that told about all the junk in my life. So I am just going to let my story unfold itself.. sort of like life unfolds naturally.

My goals for this blog are to:

1. To put my life down on "paper" for my children and my grandchildren...

2. Just to have a place to get my thoughts out about dating, about weight loss, about life as a single parent, about raising three boys without a dad, about having children who need extra help, about bible verses that mean so much to me and what I am learning as a failing Christian.

3. Maybe help someone who can relate, or just