My little guy

Turns 3 today. He is so cute but just drives me batty at times with his quirkyness. Let’s see if I can give you a bit of a hint to his personality. Lately he is up at the crack of dawn (at least to me) Which is 6:30am (I’m so not a morning person) Upon waking he asks to watch Diego or Dora. I’m so tired of them but that is better than watching Scoobydoo yet again. For breakfast he eats whatever I will shove at him, thank goodness for that as I’m still not awake enough to care if he is really hungry. So a bowl of cereal, yogurt, peanut butter bread, toast with cinnamon on it.

Then he gives me a bit of a respite so I can drink my can of coca cola and check my email. If I take to long, he will go upstairs and wake up his siblings by shouting at them ” GOOD MORNING, GET UP, IT”S MORNING TIME” at the top of his lungs. Which gets his siblings up and very grouchy at him. As they all stumble downstairs complaining, the monster child gets distracted and is playing happily by himself in one of the bedrooms now. While the older boys do schoolwork, I can usually get Camryn to play with Caedmon in the basement for a bit of time. Then it is time for a snack and what seems like 50 cups of liquid which is making potty training a living nightmare. Before I can get a break it is lunch time and he has irritated everyone in the house 7 times 70 at least. If I”m really lucky that day I can put on a movie and he will fall asleep for an hour or two. Giving me a much needed respite from activity. God help us all if he doesnt’ sleep long enough as he is quite grouchy then for a couple of hours upon waking. On good days he wakes up so incredibly cheerful one wonders how he can be so grouchy on the other days. When it comes to bedtime he must fall asleep in Mom’s arms, he has taken to rubbing my arm to calm himself into sleep mode. I love his imagination, he plays quite well by himself and says some of the funniest things. My favorite is when he gets hurt, if it is not bad, and we laugh at his antics he tells you in no uncertain terms “That’s not funny guys” after having told you “Hey, that hurts me”. He bugs us so much some days, but then he is so lovable and talkative that you just start smiling at him. One day he crawled into my bed and the husband came home from work before he was up (the husband works nights) The husband tried to move him and was told “hey, that’s my spot, I was here first!!!” Then he laid down and went back to sleep. We have had many a laugh over that one. Here he is at his most innocent and easiest to keep up with. Happy Birthday Caedmon, I love you. Mommy

 

Purpose

I have another diary that only a select few are allowed to read. I was however reminiscing and had gone back to the beginning of that diary and read the first couple of entries as well as the comments left to me. One of the comments left was that I had ‘purpose”.

So I’m thinking about what my purpose is and how did I get to where I am? Only the Lord knows what my true purpose is but for the time being it seems to be wife, mother, grandmother, college student, MOPS coordinator, Women of the Church leader, homeschool mom. As for the how did I get here it has been a long road. Some of it so incredibly painful I seldom talk about it and keep those feelings locked up deep inside of me not to be shared very often at all. Perhaps one day I will share more of them but my journey to where I am but right now it doesn’t seem to be important enough to share with anyone. I think sometimes that since the Lord knows who will choose to live for him that many times our lives purpose comes naturally. To me conflict comes when we fight what the Lord has planned for us. This certainly doesn’t mean that our purpose is easy. I’m learning the hard way that it is not. Nor does it mean that there aren’t challenges that will throw you for a loop and that you won’t be on your knees praying for help and guidance from the Lord. What it does mean is that your life no matter how mundane it seems to you will be filled with “Purpose”. I encourage you to read the “Purpose Filled Life”, I have read most of it but not all and won’t be getting to finish it anytime soon but it did help me realize that the Lord does indeed have a purpose for me and that it changes as time goes by. I won’t always be the mom of little ones needing so much love and guidance. I won’t always be a college student. I know that every thing I have gone through in my life is to prepare me for something greater than I have ever dreamed of. I am at times amazed at where the Lord is leading me and very often ask ‘why?’ and tell HIm most emphatically that I’m so not ready, I need a break, can’t it wait a bit longer?” But God never allows that. So I continue on to whatever my life’s purpose is to be. Very probably that PhD I’m hoping to have one day. The moral of the story? Is your life filled with purpose? Do people think that you have purpose? If not start asking the Lord what your purpose is and how to get there. You wont be sorry.

 

Adventures with wild life.

I knew the neighbor had a mother raccoon and babies in her chimney, but this morning as I stepped outside to get my granddaughter Savannah, my daughter Renee says to me there is your baby raccoon Mom! I look over to the neighbor’s house and sure enough there he/she was. I went upstairs, grabbed the camera. It took me a moment to find it again as it had gone up on the neighbor’s porch; but I heard it crying. So I quickly snapped a few pictures of it. Then walked over to check out our garden, back to the raccoon and this time it wasn’t so afraid of me and started coming closer. Once it got to the edge of the porch I decided it was time to come in. Taking pictures is one thing becoming friends is quite another.

Yes, it is cute but let’s not have a pet raccoon. I am keeping my cat inside today if I can, he sneaks out and I don’t want him to get hurt. The husband said that he saw it walking down our driveway earlier this morning. Great just what I need, raccoons.

 

What Planet are you from?

My friend Elaine did this one so I swiped it from her.

You Are From Saturn

You’re steady, organized, and determined to achieve your dreams.
You tend to play it conservative, going by the rules (at least the practical ones).
You’ll likely reach the top. And when you do, you’ll be honorable and responsible.
Focus on happiness. Don’t let your goals distract you from fun!
Don’t be too set in your ways, and you’ll be more of a success than you ever dreamed of.

http://www.blogthings.com/whatplanetareyoufromquiz/

Some of this is very much me, but I don’t follow rules very well, just ask God

 

I was tagged……

Ok, Ginger just had to tag me to make me wake up and say hello…….. I hope you enjoy the peak into my life.

**Four things I was doing 10 years ago….**

1. Let’s see 10 year ago, Noah would have been 7 months old. I was still dealing with a hateful ex and court battles. But I was watching my girls during the day while he worked, it was great. Until he lost his job and was home all day.
2. Trying to update a century home.
   
3. Getting ready for the kids to invade my too small house for the summer.
4. Enjoying my family as much as possible while under a great deal of stress.

**Four things I was doing 5 years ago….*

1. Hmmm, Camryn was 3 months old and my husbands part time job closed down unexpectedly.
   
2. I went to work as a postpartum doula.
   
3. I wasn’t dealing with court stuff anymore, Praise God.
4. We were homeschooling Noah

** Four things I am doing this year….**

1. Working on my degree
2. Updating our house. I should be able to post pictures of the dining room soon
3. Getting ready to plan next years homeschooling
4. Watching my 2 granddaughters for the summer

**Four things I did yesterday….**

1. Did  laundry
2. Took Noah to Taco Bell for lunch, went to Target and the library
3. Looked through the stuff a friend sent over for me.
4. Gosh, I didn’t do much yesterday at all, although I did watch part of the new exercise dvd I got from amazon.

**Four shows I like….**

1. The Highalnder, I either get them form the library or watch them online.
2. Law & Order
3. Crossing Jordan, which ended and need to see if I can watch it online or get them from the library
4. House

**Four biggest joys of the moment….**

1. My children, even with all the issues of having adult children who aren’t always making wise choices, I love them all and would still have them if I were to get a do over.
2. My house, we are really enjoying our house. It is in a great neighborhood, we have a great yard.
3. Right now? the fact that I am working towards my degree. For me that is a wonderful thing.
   
4. My friends, I have a great circle of friends both in real life and online and they get me through the rough spots of life.
   

So there you have it, my rather boring answers. My life is usually in some sort of chaos but, it doesn’t always reflect in survey type meme’s.

 

don’t flay me but this is cute.

Since I”m not overly thrilled with any of the candidate this year, I couldn’t resist. I hope I don’t offend to many people but after all this is my blog. I think it is cute and possibly accurate.

 

The Compromise

So I walked to church for my meeting with Pastor Doug, it is such a nice walk, long enough to get you moving but short enough not to overwhelm. I walked in and ran into Larry our parish administrator, yesterday was his birthday so I wished him a “Happy Birthday”. He said “how did you know? Blabbermouth?” “of course.” (blabbermouth would be PD) I followed Larry to the office asking where he was anyway. I asked Larry how old he was and we got onto a conversation of early graying hair, since his has been white for years. Pasotr Doug came down the hall finally and we went to his office to talk.

I told him that I would do MOPS for one more year if I changed it from the traditional MOPS group to a MOPS@ group. Which involves much less work for me therefore much less stress. I was very detailed about what i would not be doing this year: getting there an hour early every month, decorating the room, planning for hours for meetings. I would however keep the group open (which is what he really wanted from me), I would come a bit early and make coffee and bring a snack for moms as well as chocolate. My friend Kim from church and MOPS has agreed to help out as well. I was very explicit that I would only do this for one year and that if we can’t get someone to take it over with less responsibility next year it would still close. But I would do my best for one more year. This is going to be a long year for me. I just felt that the Lord wasn’t done with me and MOPS quite yet. Pastor Doug had also guilted me a bit about closing the group. That was another thing I told him he wasn’t allowed to do was to guilt me if it closed after one more year.  I also informed him that with a much smaller group we could not do as much fundraising and the church might have to pay the charter after this year but that i would try to do at least one. Most likely the Lenten dinner which is fairly easy and makes us decent funds. He is happy, I’m feeling a bit stressed. I think that the women will be happy, I”m not sure how in the world I’m going to do all this for another year. Please pray that I can without dropping the ball to often.

The rest of our visit was him catching up with me on my family and general talk about issues. We have theological discussions on occasion that are really nice. A brief one we had yesterday was about fertility, I believe the Lord is in control of that and he believes that we were given the choice by God. Especially since we are Lutheran. One of the reasons that I am Lutheran actually. I do believe that the Lord gives us choices and that we aren’t supposed to be automatons following rules just because they are there. I think one can miss so much good in life and others by seeing things in a black and white world with rules of right and wrong.

 

How’s it going?

Fine, the walls and ceiling are done. I’m just working on the woodwork, I hate painting windows……I’m a bit disappointed as the paint is more minty than sage but it is a nice color and brightens up the dining room. Although I’m changing the living room color to something lighter and then painting the hallway the color I had planned for the living room. Need that darker color for covering hand prints on the walls going up and down the steps. Yes, I’m having fun just a bit frustrated since my fibro is acting up and it is hard to want to paint when you are in pain every day.

Other news, I’m working on my eating habits and working on cutting back on my classic coco cola drinking. That is my 2nd vice besides chocolate. It is also my first stress reliever. Did you know that coke has phosphoric acid in it? and that homeopathicaly PH. Acid is used for people who are run down healthwise? Hmmm, now we know why I’m craving coke all the time. I need the phosphoric acid to boost me up, not just the caffiene and sugar. It is going to be a rough week for me I think. But I really need to stop drinking this stuff. for breakfast I’m eating 2 Special K waffles with coconut oil and just a hint of cinnamon sugar on them. They are very good. I’m working on getting my step count up to at least 6000 a day. The last 3 days have been over 7000. One day was just under 8000. I also ordered two new exercise videos for me to do. Will let you know how they are.

So the children’s Godmother came over to see our new house yesterday. We hadn’t seen her in a long while, she still had the littles christmas gifts from last dec. as well as Camryn’s birthday gift and decided to bring Caedmon’s gift as well. You know he turns 3 in June!!! The kids had a wonderful time showing her the house and yard. We talked about colors for the rooms and carpet, as well as the landscaping for outside. She also brought Camryn and the older boys hand me downs. Which is so appreciated. Let me tell you hand me downs really save us tons of money, as well as being kept out of the landfills.

Today I have to go visit Pastor Doug about MOPS, I have an alternative possibility to offer him vs. closing the whole group down. I’m sure he will be pleased but I’m not sure I will be. Will update on the details after I see what happens with him and then talk to the group about the possibilities. On a side note Pastor Doug passes my house at least 2x a day, he never stops just notices that we still have what appears to be a blue blanket in the front window. He said to me yesterday ” you really need to save some money for curtains in your living room, the blue blanket hanging there makes it look as if you are hiding something. Like your kids running around naked or something.” I laughed at him and told him ” would you care to contribute to the fund?” His reply? ” What colors? I think we have some curtains that we aren’t using and are packed away somewhere.” When I told him greens reds, burgundies and pink, he groaned. he doesn’t like pink apparently. However my husband doesn’t mind it all and is looking forward to the room being decorated in pinks and greens.

I’m reading the new Catherine Coulter FBI book, it seems pretty good already. I love her novels both the FBI series and her romance novels.

We are waiting for a bit more sunshine and warmer weather. It is still only 47* at 9:03am. My yard needs some drying out it is boggy. Any suggestions? We need to cut the grass but with all this rain it is hard to find the time.

The sewer had blocked up again right at the street level so we are behind on washing clothes. The sewer guys were here at 7:45am but it is working and laundry is in progress. I just wish I could find my brush. I lost it in this chaos of painting and can’t find it.

 

My feelings about the house and raising children

Lately, I’ve been bombarded with lots of emotions that I really wasn’t expecting. I know I seldom post anything very personal but I feel safe enough here to share this.

Step into my time machine and go back to Sept. 1993, I was married to my ex-husband, he had just bought a house for us (my name wasn’t on it and I didn’t get to pick it). I had 6 children~ 3 girls and 3 boys. It was a nice neighborhood then, but now it is much rougher due to so many low income people moving in.That section has many apartments in a small area. It is in the same city where we just bought our house, just a few miles down the road. I had so many hopes and dreams for our family. After all we were finally in a house of our own. I thought that everything would be so much better. Ha ha what a joke!!! When you are living with someone who has a probable personality disorder, things can never be better. My friends weren’t allowed over, I couldn’t paint the house to make it ours. Nothing I did was ever enough. These things were sad but the worst for me was the crashing of my dreams for my children. I was thinking that living in a house while homeschooling was going to be so exciting and that we would have a chance to do so many other things that we couldn’t do in an apartment. I was hoping to find a way to instill not just the responsibility of learning but the joy of learning. I used to try to picture the kids and what they might be when they grew up. They are all brainy kids but as young adults or teens they have all but one gone down the wrong path. One of getting into trouble, drinking, not getting their diploma. Two of them have gotten their GED, but that is all. My oldest son wanted a music career, so last summer I helped him enroll into the community college to work on it. He never went. I can’t even talk about the trouble my second son has gotten into, I’m just praying that the truth comes out and the person who is lying owns up to it. My third son who will turn 18 next month? Who knows, I try to talk to him about his future but he is very passive aggressive and says things he thinks I want to hear, but never follows through. My teen age daughters are doing a bit better, probably because I left their father when they were young enough to have my new husband influence them the most.

All of this weighs heavy on me lately as I homeschool my little ones in the same city just a few miles away from the heartbreak of the house I once lived in. It hurts sometimes very much as I picked out this house, pick out the colors of each room, check the sun patterns to see where to put a small vegetable garden, organize things. Yesterday we got part of our books for the fall, you can read about that here. The husband is so happy in this house, while I struggle with broken dreams of another house and my older children. I work very hard not to dwell on the brokenness, so that my family that the Lord blessed me with doesn’t suffer. But it is there, and makes itself known on rare occasions. Like out of the blue as you are driving home from pricing paint and your husband is so happy talking about how nice the house is going to look and how greatful he is that I’m working so hard to make this house a home for us. Or as I sort through our schoolbooks, write plans and schedules.

I can look back now and see the Lord’s hand in my life, I fought and waited and prayed for the Lord to work a miracle and get my children from my ex. It wasn’t to be, not one person would do their jobs and do the right thing and remove those children from him. They were all too afraid of him but wouldn’t do anything, they lied to themselves that “he loves those children, he wouldn’t hurt them intentionally”. If only they knew what I know, over the years the kids have shared many things with me about how badly they were treated. But their was no one but me and my husband on their side and we couldn’t get anyone to help us or believe us. I can see where I did an immense amount of growing in the Lord over the years. I also learned the hard way that I could do nothing to save my children, that only God can do that. I’ve also learned that they have their own path to follow and they have to decide for themselves to follow the Lord that just because I do, doesn’t mean they will. I pray for them almost every day, but it must not be time yet.

I am much more wiser now with my little ones, there are many things that I shelter them from that I couldn’t with my older children~ music, we only listen to contemporary christian music, no scary, demonic movies, I keep them on a short leash (so to speak) They are not and will never be allowed the freedom that my older children were given because the ex didn’t either have the courage to do the right thing, read : it is easier to let them do whatever they want. or he is so mentally gone that he truly doesn’t know right from wrong or my favorite hypothesis: he didn’t want his children to end up better than him. When I look back at my oldest son, I know that something happened to him that he has never shared with me. In 9th grade he was an Honor Roll student and had been since 7th grade, He even made Merit Roll in 6th grade with it being his first year of public school. The ex has always said the so called right things but never has he followed through or made the right decisions so that the children could learn to make the right choices.

So this weekend will find me painting our dining room, I truly will enjoy it. It is wonderful to be in the house that the Lord gave us. Fixing it up the way I want, without having to fight for the right to do anything at all. I love this house and am truly blessed by the Lord to have it. It is just the tiniest bittersweet for me though. Even though I know that I am where the Lord put me and wants me to be, every once and awhile I wonder what my life have been if the ex was normal and a christian both of which he is not.

I will continue to pray for my older children while raising the little ones to love the Lord with all their heart with all their soul, with all their mind and with all their strength. A couple of years ago I studied the Jesus Creed and this has become my favorite quote.

 

What we’ve been doing

Pricing paint for the best bargan, priming the dining room. Trying to keep up with the dishes, cooking and laundry. (an impossible task I might add) We will buy the paint on saturday, Thank God we have a 10% coupon so that helps a bit, paint is $28.95 a gallon. I need to pick up something for my granddaughter’s birthday. I also have to go to Grandparents Day tomorrow at Ivette’s school. It is finally sunny here after days of rain and cold weather although it is still a bit cold for me. At 52* at 3:30pm. I need it to warm up a bit so I can open the windows to paint without freezing us to death. I won’t paint when it is so cold and wet. I’m thinking we might not be painting until Sunday at this rate. We spent some time weeding the front area where we have two bushes and some bulbs. Saw lots of spiders, worms, a few potato bugs, ants, and a bronze colored beetle. Anyone know what that was? It was shiny and very small. Just in case you didn’t know, I hate bugs………

Ok, I have work to do or a nap to take we will see what wins out.