Guilt and other little nuggets of my brain

It has been a rough two weeks for me. I don't know what on earth is going on. Hormonal perhaps, but I think there may be more. Possibly God is trying to get my attention. Thankfully I have been trying to listen in the midst of several emotional melt downs. (I am not the easiest person to live with at the moment I am sure!)
Anyway, I just finished a great book by Dr. Leslie Parrott "You matter more than you think." It is a wonderful book about making a difference. It helped me to see that even though I am not professionally our helping people and making a difference, I do make a difference to the people around me. I am making a difference in my kids lives (hopefully!)my husband (hopefully again!) and the people around me. I don't have to go to India or China or wherever to impact the world. I can do it right in my home.
The other thing that I feel God revealed to me last night (again in a sobbing melt down) is that I live in a sea of guilt. Guilt over everything and nothing. I realized that I apologize for everything. Things that don't need apologized for. I feel guilt pretty much all the time and it is not healthy. I think a lot of that is
in that need to feel perfect. I feel guilt for not being perfect. When you say it out loud it sounds ridiculous and I would counsel someone about how crazy that is...yet, that is where I am. I think being aware of it today has helped. I have tried to battle it and not give into the feelings. It will probably be a life long battle, but one I feel like God is trying to work on with me.

There were lots of quotes from this book I wanted to share, but this one has really stuck with me the most...a bit silly, but very true.

"There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud." Carl Sandburg

Grandma and G-Pops house

The kids and I went to my parent's house a few weeks ago. This was in the car when we were leaving and one of Harrison when we got home. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the kids with their grandparents.

Hat Swapping

Papa (age 99) and Harrison swapped hats. Surprisingly their hats fit each other!
I am so glad my kids are able to have time with their great-grandfather.

Happy Birthday Harrison! (25 days late!)

My baby boy turned 3! We had a great swimming party after church. He had a wonderful time and got some great gifts. Here is his "bat-o-wheel."

First day of school (2 months late)

Here are the kids on their first day of school. They are both doing great in school. Julia is starting to read and Harrison actually took a nap today at school - the teacher sent home a certificate she was so excited!

100th Post

This is my 100th post on my blog...wish it were more exciting!
I have many things I have been planning to post, but no time.
Many things have happened since my last post almost 2 months ago - UGH!
School has started! Julia and I are on our adventure of homeschooling. I have coined our name St.Arbucks Academy since we spend our Tuesday sitting in Starbucks reading all her books. School has been positive for the most part and I think she is learning a few things. Harrison also started school (parent's day out) and turned 3 and got rid of his 'pappy.' Big mile stones, if we could only get him potty trained he would be good to go!
My active life of working out 6 days a week has come to a screeching halt. I have injured my back, knee and ankle. This has been very difficult for me to deal with. I am finding myself more and more depressed due to the lack of activity and frustration with not knowing how to make this thing better.
Other than those few things not much else going on. I have lots of pictures I want to get posted if I ever get them off my camera.
Hopefully post 200 will be more exciting.

Friends

 
 

I am so blessed to have many wonderful friends in my life. It is amazing how God has blessed me with special friendships at every stage of my life. I had a great opportunity to go visit two of those wonderful friends while I was in Atlanta a few weeks ago. Brittany (picture with me with long hair), we were friends growing up in school 4th grade through high school. We have a long history together and have kept in touch via email, but really had not spent any time together for about 15 years. We had a wonderful visit and it was amazing how the time didn't make a difference - it was like we had never been apart!
Julie (picture with me with short hair-taken 2 days after first picture), we worked together at my first job. Julie was a God-send for sure. It was great to have such a wonderful friend and co-worker. She was also my crafty buddy. We loved to do crafts and took cake class together. She is doing much better than I am keeping up with those hobbies.
We also had a great visit.
It was fun to get to meet both of them again as mothers. I have not seen either of them since they both had two children. They are wonderful women and fantastic mothers.

Locks of Love

Today I donated 10 inches of hair to Locks of Love - an organization that makes wigs for underprivileged children who have medical conditions that cause them to have permanent hair loss.
It was a hard decision to cut it off, but I feel good about it. It is neat to think that a child will be wearing my hair!
Here are a couple of pictures.
I feel like a new me!

Our first family Vacation

If you haven't read on Paul's blog by now we have been to Disney! What a blessing!
It was a great vacation for us. It was wonderful to get away and enjoy such a great creation. For the full tour of photos please go to Paul's blog. I am going to post a few of my favorites. They are my favorites because of the incredible people in them.

Everybody else is doing it!

Your Score: Matt Parkman

You scored 79 Idealism, 29 Nonconformity, 20 Nerdiness

I don't want to be a chump.
Congratulations, you're Matt Parkman! You're a great person: caring, hard-working, and honest. You might not have the best of luck, but you do your best in all areas of life. Your kind and responsible nature is rare, and you should be proud of it.

Your best quality: Heart
Your worst quality: You may take more abuse than you deserve

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Beautiful Boy

Here are the pictures I mentioned in my last post. Isn't he just the best looking boy you have ever seen! He has the greatest smile - not to mention perfect teeth.
He loves his "Queen" bike and also his car. If he isn't riding them in the street he is riding them in the house or sneaking into the garage to get into them. He also manages to get into our cars and turn all the knobs and gages.
He gets away with murder because he is so darn cute!

Growing up

Just thought I would share a few new photos. Julia and Harrison are growing so fast. Julia is becoming such a young lady. She has so many wonderful qualities. She is loving and cares about people. She is using vocabulary that cracks me up. She is so expressive with words. For example, when I ask her to do something now she says "Of course I will." She loves to make up stories...she has a very big imagination. (gets that from Paul)
Harrison is a joy. He has such a sweet heart. He is starting to tell you all the time "I wove you." It absolutely melts your heart. He is also ALL boy! He always has a car in his hand or shooting his imaginary gun. His new toy is a long rubber snake that he tortured Julia with the first day until she accepted the fact that it was fake.
They are both into music and love to play all the instruments in the house. Harrison is quite taken with the song "Hey Jude" he loves to watch the video on my MySpace. You can even catch him singing it throughout the day.
Their new favorite thing to do is ride their bikes in the cul-de-sac. I will have to post pictures of Harrison on his bike separate, there wasn't enough room.
We are staying very busy these days. Paul is working more late days/evenings. Julia is still in school until the end of May (on Tues/Thurs). I am working at Salem on Mondays and am subbing at Julia's school for the remainder of the year. I have been attending a fun new class at the Y two nights a week - Zumba (Latin/funk cardio dance). It is a lot of fun when you go with friends. This week I ended up going by myself, not so fun when you don't know anybody.
We had a great time at our garage sale last weekend. My parent's came up to help me. Paul's mom took the kids and we managed to sell just about everything in my basement and garage. It was amazing. We even made pretty good money. My dad has quite a calling for pushing junk on people! (I love you both so much - I couldn't do life without you!!!)
Life is good. We have great family and friends - what more could you ask for??? (maybe a latte!)

Anberlin

Sunday night Paul and I went to the Anberlin concert at Rocketown.
If you are wanting a musical review...best to wait for Paul's review of the concert. I thought the music was good. How is that for insightful?!

I wanted to discuss my thoughts during the concert.
My number one thought of the evening was "I am officially old!"
We were at least twice the age of everyone at the concert.
It was a very fun culture event for me. I enjoyed observing the teenage concert-going population of today. A bit scary, but interesting none the less.
The room was filled with funky hair, skimpy clothing, and lots of facial piercings. I was a bit surprised at all the young kids with lip, eye brow and other various piercings. Not to mention the big African like dangling ear lobes (why do people do that???)

It was fun to watch and try to imagine our children in their teen years. What type of kid will they be? Will they be the kid dressed in black, weird hair, eye makeup, God forbid facial piercings and draped with chains or will they be the preppy dressed stuck up kid with the attitude? Or the little out of place nerdy looking kid that wants to be cool, but not quite sure how? The girl with the pants half down her rear trying not to be obvious that she is trying to show off her flat little belly and thong panties?

I am not sure which I prefer...probably the nerdy kid.

The other thing that made an impression on me was the concert life these days. Gone are the days of waving your lighter in the air to the tunes. Now, you must have a cell phone with a good text messaging plan, because you are supposed to spend the entire concert text messaging your buddy next to you and taking pictures of the band. Instead of waving your lighter, you wave your cell phone about.

I have been thinking so much about all of this today. I have been trying to decide what kind of parent I want to be to my teenagers. Will I be cool? Will I let them wear frightful clothing and pierce strange body parts? Will I allow them to go to concerts by themselves on a school night? Will I trust them to do anything outside of my sight? Will I give them a cell phone and pay outrageous prices so they can text message all their friends?
I just don't know. I am glad I have another 8-10 years before I have to make those decisions.
Unfortunately for my kids, I will be 8-10 years older then and will probably be even less cool.
Hopefully, Paul will stay cool for all of us!

Secret

Harrison came into the kitchen after being in my room for quite some time...I thought he was watching cartoons with Julia.
He came out licking his lips, with a slight residue still there. For those of you who know Harrison he eats everything he can put into his mouth. One of his favorite pass times is hunting for old gum underneath tables in public areas.
Anyway, I asked him, "what are you eating?"
He answered... "Ice Cream."
Again, "Harrison, what are you eating?"
again, "Ice Cream."
I decided I needed to smell his breath to find out what this unidentified substance was.
I pulled him close and took a big whiff of his breath.
It had a ever so familiar sweet vanilla smell.
Hmmm, I had to think...
Yep, you guessed it, he had been eating my Sparkle Vanilla flavored Secret Deodorant!
Yuuuuucccckkk!
Hopefully it will keep his mouth nice and sweat free for awhile.
Strong enough for a Man and smells good enough to eat like Ice Cream!

The Life I Always Wanted

It has been a long time since I posted. I have thought about it, just didn't have anything to say I guess. I have been journaling in about 3 different journals at home. I am currently reading 3 different books and trying to keep a different journal for each. I don't know how well that is going to work. Oh well.
Our small group is currently reading John Ortberg's "The Life You've Always Wanted." It is really good. I discovered a lot about myself in the first chapter. I learned that the root of a lot of my issues stems from disappointment. I am pretty much always disappointed in myself. It is a vicious cycle for me. I feel like a constant failure in many areas of my life. I sin, feel disappointed, then sin again to help ease the feeling of disappointment and back again.
I want to learn to really live in God's grace. To really experience and accept his love in my life. I want to live like I really believe that He is enough. I think that disappointment really stems from trying to rely on myself, others or things to make me happy. I expect my family, my friends, my physical self, my stuff, to give me satisfaction and be enough to make me happy.
That is not enough. God expects us to need him. We need him to help fill the satisfaction, to overcome our disappointments, to bring us happiness.
I know that. I can speak it to others, I can for moments believe it. But I want to live it everyday. I want to live every hour of the day like God is enough. If everything around me was taken away, that I would be content to live in that moment with God. That is the life I want.

Our 16th Valentines Day

This is my 16th Valentines Day with my sweet husband. I am still crazy about him. I love these pictures of him. It shows both of his greatest qualities...The first one being his smile. He has great humor and I love when he laughs and smiles. It lights up the room and my heart. The other picture I love because is shows his passion. (also his great looks) He has passion for so many things. I love to hear him show is heart. He is so kind and tender.
He is amazing to me. I cannot imagine loving anyone more than I love my Valentine.

The famous fire truck bed

Finally a picture of the famous fire truck bed. If you have been in our house since Christmas you have been drug by the hand to go see Harrison's bed and race cars. He is so proud of his bed...if only he would stay in it!

My Sweet Peas!

Harrison and Julia
Ok, so they do look just a little alike!
They are pretty cute. I guess that comes
from two really great lookin' parents!

40

I started reading Beth Moore's new book "Get out of that pit."
It is absolutely amazing and I am telling everyone they must read it!
I can't help but sing U2's song "40" every time I open it.
She references Psalm 40: 1-3 throughout the book

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and game me a firm place to sand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.

There are so many good things in here that I have been wanting to post about. I think I will wait until I am finished - which will be later today.

Happy 5th Birthday Julia

Yesterday was Julia's 5th Birthday. I can't believe how time has gone so fast. We had a wonderful Princess Tea party with her 3 friends from school. It was fun to get to have them over and see what God naturally created in these girls. They loved dressing up and feeling pretty. Julia had a great time and definitely a birthday she will remember.