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Sadly, I thought on the TITLE for this blog for days before I heard that old song on the radio.  I can sense that it will be a challenge at times to name every blog with song lyrics…at least ones that I like and have meaning for me.  I think I can handle a challenge….

So, we went to the beach.  My mom owns a timeshare and we were able to use a week, so we headed to Panama City Beach (pretty much the only thing left available for the entire year by the time we scheduled it!) for the first week of November.  This is a pretty awesome thing, because we have never taken a family vacation before.  The last time Brian and I spent a week on vacation, I was just barely pregnant with Noah.  We spent a phenomenal week touring the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  But I digress….

Panama City.  A week away from the world.  No internet at first (we couldn’t find it, so we lived without it for a couple of days), no cell phone service (we had to go out on the balcony to get one bar), no schedules.  We just did whatever we wanted, when we wanted to….beach, pool, hot tub, nap, watch tv, you name it.  I read 4 and a half books and worked about half of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  Very nice.  I also sunburned twice.  Not so nice.  I took my brand new camera and took a few hundred pictures.  I enjoyed watching the boys play on the beach for the first time.  They loved to play in the sand.  We also had so much fun watching little shelled creatures wash up in the tide and immediately dig themselves into the sand.  We took a moonlight walk along the beach one night.  We played mini-golf and went through a huge maze.  We walked out into the ocean…though none of us tried to swim in it.  I think it was a little too cold and a little too intimidating.  I bought a snorkel set but hyperventilated just trying to put my face in the ocean and look at what was under there.  Noah really enjoyed it in the pool though!    I could have sat on our balcony and listened to the ocean 24 hours a day.  Brian and I both joked about sleeping out there.  It was just a little too chilly.  But that meant that during the day it was nice enough that we could leave the air off and keep the balcony doors open wide.  Gorgeous.

I am glad we took a vacation.  It did us all good.  I was also glad to come home.

Ha ha!  It was so manic I didn’t even finish my blog posting until Monday was over!

I have been voraciously reading the “Twilight” saga by Stephenie Meyer for a little over a week.  I finished book 4 today by doing next to nothing else except reading.  It has been a rather obsessive experience, one that I did not feel completely comfortable with.  I thoroughly enjoyed the books…I just felt like it wasn’t quite right to be thinking about them so much when I wasn’t reading them.  And then ignoring all else in the world while I was reading them.  But they are finished now, so I can move on.  I would definitely recommend them to anyone…they are VERY good books and I will purchase them all eventually and read them again.  Maybe more than once, which I’m not sure I have ever done with a book before.  Pretty sure 2 reads is my “record.”  However, if you do choose to read them, PLEASE wait until you have a vacation, or a very long weekend…a time when you are free to be totally absorbed in something besides real life.

In other news….our trip to Georgia was very fun.  We all enjoyed it and Brian’s parents and Raina really took to each other.  A few days later my mom came to see us.  This was also a WONDERFUL visit.  The kids all adored her and I always enjoy any time I can spend with my mother.  Right after mom left, however, was a not-so-fun experience.  I won’t share all the details here, but my sister apparently felt that I was trying to steal her daughter from her so she showed up unannounced to take her.  It was after the kiddos were in bed, so there was no opportunity to say goodbyes or gather belongings.  It was very hard for me and I cried for hours.  I was still a mess the next day….not because Raina was gone, because we knew that would eventually happen, but just the way that she left.  We all miss her around here, making us laugh and giving us undeserved hugs out of the blue.  Mom has talked to her a couple of times so I know she is happy and having fun with her mom.  We’re going to keep her in our prayers and ask you to do the same.

Saturday we went to the Fall Festival at Tusculum to see all our old peeps.  I just love those people.  All those smiling faces and all those warm hugs.  Genuine love even after we’ve been gone over 2 years.  I miss them terribly.  Noah is Anakin Skywalker this year and Elijah is a very daunting “Goth Baduh” (Darth Vader, spoken always in a hushed, ominous tone).  They have had endless fight with their “light savers” and are just too funny dressed up.  They love it and therefore so do I.

I’ve looked for you forever and a day.  Where’ve you been?  I’m just not myself when you’re away.  Such a sweet song by Kathy Mattea.  Growing up spending summers in Middle Tennessee made country music a big part of my life.  I enjoyed country a great deal and was never much of a music snob.  Plus, spending the rest of the year in Missouri or Arkansas, I felt like I was being true to my “heritage” by listening to country.  Ha ha.  Anyway, if it is good, I’ll listen to it.  I have a wide variety of genres in my cd collection.

So where have I been, you ask?  Worried about me?  You should be, LOL!  I’ve been busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  (Speaking of heritage….and NO, I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase before in my life.  It just came to me and I thought it would be funny.)  I went to visit my mom the third weekend in September.  It was a wonderful visit.  We went up to the mountains.  My grandmother has a little property up there on the family homestead.  All around us are other members of our extended family.  I love being up there.  I knew a long time ago that that place is my idea of heaven.  We spent the vast majority of the time out at the creek.  I took a book each time, but I never read.  It is enough just to sit there, watching the kids play and listening to the music of the water.  I walked around in the creek some and brought home an extensive collection of river rocks.  I took lots of pictures and just breathed it all in.  It is such a peaceful place.  I literally don’t feel hungry when I’m there, or tired…just peaceful.  I never want to leave.

When I did come back home a few days later, I brought my niece with me to watch while my mom was on vacation.  Then everything hit me at once.  I was trying to unpack, get reorganized from being gone, get back to schooling with Noah, and start my part-time home-based job I do every fall, all while adding a third child to my family.  It was insanely crazy.  It has taken me 2 weeks to get my head above water, and things are still FAAAAAR from normal.  But I’m taking it a day at a time.

We’ve been lots of places since we got back from Knoxville.  We went to McVegas to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday.  I think we all really enjoyed that day, and I know Daddy was pleased to spend it with his family.  We went to Chattanooga to meet Brian’s parents for homeschool day at the aquarium.  That was pretty cool.  I loved the penguins.  I could have watched them pop up out of the water onto the ice for hours on end.

We’ve been to a pumpkin farm and let each child pick his or her own pumpkin to paint.  It’s funny, I really don’t consider myself an outdoorsy person…maybe it is this time of year, but I could spend hours there, too.  They have lots of baby animals every year and I smiled so much and laughed watching the tiny piglets’ stumpy tails wagging back and forth, or the baby goats sticking their heads through the fence hoping for a snack from my kiddos.

We also had an International Fair with our homeschool group.  Our country was the Dominican Republic, where one of our Compassion International children lives.  We had lots of fun sampling food from all the different countries.  I think the most fascinating thing I learned was not to shake left hands with anyone in Malaysia, because that’s the wiping hand (public toilets are just holes in the ground and there’s no toilet paper).  Fun, don’t ya think??

Tomorrow we head south to Georgia to visit Brian’s parents.  I can’t believe how jam-packed October is.  I’m scouring ebay for Halloween costumes, still trying to organize around here, still trying to figure out this whole 3rd child thing (although we are meeting her mother near Memphis next weekend to send her back), still working as much as possible (my ideal is 15 hours a week, but I tend to fall short of that).  So I don’t know how long it will be until I post again.  I will try to not be so neglectful.  I have lots of good ideas of things to blog about, but never the time to sit down and do it.  So, anyway, that’s where I’ve been.

Wednesday was a really bad day.  I mean, another one like the last I blogged about…we never got around to doing school, Elijah had a major bowel explosion that required bathing and a powerful sprayer, he emptied an entire bottle of shampoo in said bath while I was cleaning up another mess, then later as I curled up with a bowl of cereal for supper, he knocked it out of my hands into the carpet…and onto the neighbor’s mail that got delivered to our box that day…Anyway, I spent a very long time crying that evening.  Even while I made Noah’s supper.  I was so sad.  Brian was so good to me when he got home.  Just hugged me and told me we could talk about it when I was ready.  I told him I wasn’t sure I was capable of doing it all.  Honestly, I don’t think anyone is capable of doing everything I am expected to do in a day.  But I give it my best and most days I get a good variety accomplished and what I miss I can hit the next day.  Anyway….I digress….

Yesterday was AWESOME!  I woke up with new resolve and just said “Satan, you are NOT going to get me down!”  I started reading the Beth Moore book “Get Out of That Pit” and doing the 40 day journal that goes with it a few days ago.  I think that is why Satan attacked me so hard on Wednesday.  I’ve got some good stuff going on.  A real strong light at the end of the tunnel.  And he doesn’t like it.  Too freaking bad.    In the immortal words of Pat Benatar…

“You don’t fight fair, but that’s ok, see if I care.

Knock me down it’s all in vain

I get right back on my feet again.”

Well, I finally did it.  After suggestions from many friends and family over the past couple of years, I made an appointment and went to speak to a counselor.  It was good.  It helps that it is a woman I already know and love.  In the course of two sessions she has already helped me to see some things about my life I’ve never seen before.  She’s also helped me to feel like there is really hope.  I have always avoided professional help because I felt like I wasn’t “that bad” off…I could still get by and things always got better after a while.  I could do it.  The thing was, sure, things got better.  But better than terrible still isn’t all that great.  I have lost my joy somewhere.  I used to have and be so much fun.  I would laugh until I cried, dance in public, and just generally have a good time no matter where I was or what I was doing.  But then something changed.  I am not even sure what it was.  But I accepted that…I made an AGREEMENT that I wasn’t really a fun person.  I had just been immature.  Now I am a grown up, a mother, and we just don’t act that way.  But that isn’t true.  I can still be fun.  It is in me somewhere.  I just have to find it.  I truly believe that I will, with the help of my counselor.

I was filling out some of the paperwork yesterday and one of the questions was “What do you like best about yourself?”  I thought about it and couldn’t answer.  I kept going back to it.  All afternoon.  What do I like best about myself?  Do I like anything at all about myself?  I am not sure.  That makes me so sad I can’t even describe it.  I don’t think I like anything about myself.  Holy crow.  I can name things I like about the old me.  Maybe I just need to put those.  I don’t know.  I do know that I am likable.  Other people like me.  Or they lie.  HA HA!!

My friend Elizabeth posted on her blog (I have no idea how to make her name be a different color and link to her blog…I am sure I could figure it out but don’t want to take the time right now.  She’s on my blogroll.) today about learning to love yourself.   Where to start?  How to begin?  I don’t have an answer, obviously.  But it is clearly a common problem.  She had several comments and none of them were advice.   It was all people saying “Hey, I have this problem too.  If you figure out an answer let me know.”  I thought that was interesting.  I have lots of ideas.  My most-used answer (just ask Elizabeth!) is to read a book.  I have LOTS of books that can address this issue.  I am starting one today.  I have about 3 more lined up to try next.  I know it has to do with realizing your identity in Christ and knowing how much He loves you.  It’s the implementation of that that gets me.  All I can say is, I want it.  I’m going to become a seeker.  I am going to do everything in my power to get it.  For me, for my children, for my husband.  They deserve to know the old me.  The one I liked.

I had a rough morning.  It’s hard to get kiddos ready for church on a Sunday morning without Daddy.  I’ve kind of gotten into a swing of things, though, and I’ve been doing pretty good with it.  But we got a puppy this week.  I haven’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since Tuesday.  The dog has been getting me up every morning around 5 or 5:30 and also being rambunctious enough to wake Elijah that early as well.  This has obviously prevented any kind of quiet time with God for 4 days now.  Not good.

This morning, we got up super early.  The dog peed in the floor.  The child whined nonstop.  Mommy lost her temper.  The dog chewed on some receipts, a paper bag, and Elijah’s cowboy vest.  The kiddos fought.  Mommy lost her temper.  The dog barked and whined.  The children constantly interrupted Mommy getting ready.  Mommy lost her temper.  Sense a trend?  Finally, everyone was ready to go.  15 minutes to spare!  Then Mommy stepped in another pee spot.  The dog got sent outside.  I had a wardrobe problem and had to change.  Elijah pooped in his pants.  We had to fight to get the dog in the crate.  Now we left for church 5 minutes late! Wonderful.

Managed class with no problems.  Skipped church because for some reason I didn’t feel much like worshipping.  Or wrestling my children during the service.  So Brian took us out to lunch.  This was a big deal, because we’ve really had to tighten the purse strings lately.  This is the first time we have eaten out this month.  So lunch was good.  Brian puts us all in the van (he’s going to stay at church all day because he has to be there for evening services and it will save gas) and tells the boys to be extra good because Mommy is having a rough day.  To put it mildly.

Within 5 minutes of heading home, Elijah drops his cup.  The lid pops off and spills water, ice, and lemon slices all over the back floorboard.  Uh-oh.  Mommy has a slight temper tantrum, about how we’re supposed to be having a better day and it’s not working.  Elijah then proceeds to fall asleep.  I have a little trouble with that myself, slapping my legs and face occasionally to keep from drifting off.    I forgot to mention the breaking of sunglasses this morning, so I’m having to squint and that doesn’t help the sleepiness.  We get home and I find that Elijah apparently spilled half his drink on himself before he dropped it in the floor.  I have to change him.  This wakes him up fully.  I take the dog out of the crate and let her outside.  We get everyone settled down, and I put Elijah in my bed to nap (because he asked).  While I am in the bathroom, the dog pees in the floor.  I clean it up, then settle her in the bed to nap with us so there will be no more accidents.  She won’t be still.  I finally decide I can’t take it because I REALLY want to nap, so I take her out of the bedroom.  Where I find another pee spot.  I clean that up.  I get back in bed.  Elijah is quiet just long enough for me to drift off, then he gets in my face and starts talking.  I get up, take him to his own bed.  Go back to bed.  Drift off to sleep again.  Wake to a large crash and screaming.  Elijah has tried to climb the dresser in the bedroom and it has toppled on him.  He is scared but unhurt.  I put him back in the bed and leave the giant mess (including Noah’s ceramic tooth holder which is broken in several pieces) so I can go back to bed.  Within 2 minutes Noah is opening the door to Elijah’s room.  His pants are wet “somehow.”  I go and get him clean shorts.  I block the hallway so the dog can’t get down it and can only pee in the living room, where Noah can see her and hopefully stop her.  I lay down AGAIN.  How many times is that?   Five.  Within about 30 minutes here, people.  I think this time I got to sleep about 5 or 10 minutes before Noah and Elijah started arguing and Noah knocked on my door asking for a snack.  I get up and put Elijah back in his bed.  In the living room I step over the hallway barricade into a pee spot.  Nice.  I put the dog outside.  Decide a nap is just not going to happen.  Put some laundry out on the clothesline.  Start another load of dog laundry (stuff we’ve cleaned up so many pee spots with).  Why am I doing laundry on Sunday?  Isn’t it supposed to be a day of rest????  Elijah comes out of his room.  He’s poopy.  Goes outside before I can change him, plays a few minutes, then comes back in with his diaper almost falling off and stuff running down his legs.  Off to the bath.  I leave him in there to play, and go into the living room to straighten up (I can hear him and the bathroom is very close, please don’t think I am leaving my child to potentially drown).  I hear screaming.  Go into the bathroom to find he has emptied the very large bottle of baby wash into the tub, on his head, and in his eyes.  I rinse him off good, get him out, and add baby wash to the shopping list.

Can this day possibly get any better?  I am still waiting to see.  It’s only been 3 hours since we got home.   But hey, only an hour and a half to bedtime.  Surely I can make it????

I’ve been running myself ragged lately.  I feel like I have gotten lost in life again.  A friend asked me yesterday why I was having a hard time, and I realized as I told him that I am in one of those places I have been before….just a few short steps from a depression.  I SO don’t want to go there again.  So I am fighting it so hard right now.  I’m just trying to get a grasp on everything.  And yet, spiritual experts tell me I should let it go.  Release it to God and rely on His strength.  Where is the balance?  How do I let it go and still get it done?  I know there are things I am doing that don’t HAVE to get done….but a lot of them do.  Especially the stuff related to school.  Man, if I don’t do that stuff I really will go crazy.  But all the rest seems important too.  I’ve been told lately (by various sources) how to be a better wife, how to be a better mother, how to be a better Christian example, how to have a conversational intimacy with God, how to watch out for any spiritual strongholds in my life, how to journal my prayer life, how to memorize scripture, how to be a good friend, here are some more Bible studies to join, you haven’t visited your family in too long, and hey, you REALLY need to read these 20 AMAZING books that everyone else has read.  IT’S CRAZY!  Where do people find time to do it all?  How do I take care of my family the way I am supposed to when I am trying every minute to remember HOW I’m supposed to be doing it?  Or feeling guilty because I should be spending more time with God?  I am just at a complete loss.  I’d try surrendering it but I just don’t have time!  Ha ha.  Trying so hard not to hate myself.  I really am.  I hate it when I do this.  Not enough….always not enough.  The story of my life.  The agreement I have made.  And I can’t unmake it because I believe it is true.  What a mess.

Brian’s and my 10th anniversary was Friday.  He surprised me with a big day of pampering – massage, manicure, pedicure, haircut, lunch out, and ice cream!- then surprised me again when I got home with a party!  We had a house full of people and a yard full too!  It was so much fun and I was so pleased to see old friends and new ones!

I am ashamed to admit, however, that after everyone left that night I looked around at my little house with mismatched furniture and really bad carpet…..I was a little embarrassed.  I actually said that I hated that people saw our “entertainment center” which is an end table covered with a dvd player, vcr, tapes, dvds, and rabbit ears antenna.  Brian, of course, quickly reminded me that they were there to see us, not our house, and this is just how life is for us at the moment and they can deal with it.  I knew he was right.  But I also know that that has been a hang-up for me at our church.  I often compare myself to the people there, who are overwhelmingly wealthy, with large, nice houses and beautiful decor, vacation homes and nice cars.  Not that I aspire to have those things, I REALLY don’t, but I still feel like I am not good enough to hang around these people.  And, yes, I am aware that that is my own faulty thinking….I place no blame whatsoever on the people I go to church with.  Especially the wonderful ones who showed up at my party because they consider me a friend!!!

So there is a point to this story….I was reading a blog of another homeschooling mom this morning, and she had a beautiful poem in it.  It spoke to me very loudly, and I almost started crying.  I needed to be reminded of my treasures.   This is one of those moments when I can just clearly see God reaching out to me.  He saw what I needed and He provided it.  He is so good!

TREASURES

Some folks I know,
when friends drop in

To visit for a while and chin,
Just lead them round the rooms and halls

And show them pictures on their walls,
And point to rugs and tapestries,
The works of men across the seas;
Their loving cups they show with pride,
To eyes that soon are stretching wide
With wonder at the treasures rare
That have been bought and gathered there.
But when folks come to call on me,
I’ve no such things for them to see.
No picture on my walls is great;
I have no ancient family plate;
No tapestry of rare design
Or costly woven rugs are mine;
I have no loving cup to show,
Or strange and valued curio;
But if my treasures they would see,
I beg them softly follow me.
And then I lead them up the stairs
Through trains and cars and Teddy bears,
And to a little room we creep
Where both my youngsters lie asleep,
Close locked in one anothers’ arms.
I let them gaze upon their charms,
I let them see the legs of brown
Curled up beneath a sleeping gown,
And whisper in my happiness:
“Behold the treasures I possess.”

by Edgar A. Guest

I recently went on a very fun journey to my old stomping grounds.  I spent a day in the town I grew up in, Cameron, Missouri.  I also spent a few days in Bentonville, Arkansas, where I lived for my 9th through 11th grade years.  It was an adventure for me.  I hadn’t been back to Cameron since probably 1991.  It was somewhere I had always wanted to go back to.  It represents childhood to me.  We moved around a lot growing up.  I lived in probably 25 different places by the time I was 10 years old.  But we stayed in Cameron for 6 years, longer than anywhere else I lived growing up.  I have lived in my current home for 8 years, so that is the new record for me!    We did, however, live in 3 different houses while we were in Cameron!  And I was able to remember where all of them were, and drive by and take pictures.  I visited some old friends, who treated me like family, as did their parents who also remembered me and embraced me as their own.  It felt so nice!  It definitely made me want to go back again.  And soon.  Hey, tickets to Kansas City are pretty cheap on Southwest!

Bentonville was fun too.  I got to tour all the new growth areas and still drive by my old hangouts.  I ate lunch at Mazzio’s, my after school workplace there.  I LOVED that place, and the pizza is still fantastic.  I got to see old friends at my 15 year high school reunion.  I also saw many familiar faces at church the next morning.  The highlight for me was getting to hug the neck of one of my Christian mentors.  I told her she’s always one of my examples when I have to tell about my Christian walk, and she said she was proud of me.

I wish I could describe better how good it felt to take that trip.  I missed my family, of course, but it was truly a homecoming for me and it made me look at life in a different light.  Now I am back in the future for me.  I can see where I was then and where I am now.  I’ve grown a lot in every area of my life (including physically, HA!) and I’m pretty proud of me too.

I have spent a lot of time thinking over the past 2 days.  I am in a mild/moderate depression, so I generally don’t do anything except sit around and think.  I have come up with a good analogy for my life….it is like a house of cards.   Most of the time, things go wrong and a card falls but the main structure stays firm.  Then occasionally, something goes wrong and the card falls just the right way to tumble the entire thing.  I am mashed flat without even a foundation to stand on.  I just lie there, wondering how to rebuild or if I even want to.

So, I had a bad night Thursday night.  I honestly felt like I didn’t want to rebuild.  I am tired of rebuilding.  I am tired of fighting the unseen force in my life, and tired of wondering whether it is God or Satan I am fighting against.  Yesterday was a little better…we went out and had Mother’s Day lunch on a not-so-crowded Friday afternoon.  Then I got slammed again yesterday evening.  I was actually stupid enough to leave my purse in the buggy at Wal-Mart and got my wallet stolen.  So there goes ANY progress I had made during the day.  I am so tired of trying to fight against all this.  It is too much.  I am just one person, and frankly, I’m tired.  I’ve felt very numb for the past 20 hours or so.  I don’t know what to do with it.  I know I should try to do something, but I still just don’t want to.

I’m really not writing this to evoke sympathy in my 3 readers.  I just wanted to get my thoughts out.  Sometimes it helps.