Blog Therapy

Here goes. Straight from the heart, without pondering phrases or themes. completely and truly un-edited. pure rambling thoughts.

Sometimes I want to blog and have no one read it – i guess tha’s why here’s a private post setting.  But then it feels like I’m hiding something, and I dont like that either. i’m all about transparency.

my “t” button on my keyboard is incredibly stubborn. My sentence up there was supposed to say “That’s why There’s..”  just cuz I’m not editing, doesn’t mean I dont see or care about my mistakes. hmm.. i could go somewhere with that thought. perhaps later.

I am 28 today. On sunday I was 27. i feel like an infant. still in my twenties, and yet i feel like i’ve seen so much, lived through so much.  but i’m still a baby.  i am trying to fathom what I will feel like when I am twice my current age.  I truly have alwways looked forward to aging.  maybe not the creaky knees part, but the living life part, the growing, maturing, learning, loving.

I have not blogged since we moved out of Detroit. tha tpoic could take up a whole post of it’s own.  It is enough for now to say that I am in a state of awe at where God has taken us.  I pinch myself often to remind myself that it’s real, that I will not wake up in Detroit tomorrow, that I dont have to go home to Detorit tonight. 

The road that lead andrew and I to this place of blessing was paved with trials, and at least a couple of ly canyons.  Somehow, through the Grace of Our Lord, we pressed on, held eachtoher up, and made it through to his peaceful pasture.  But now that I am here, i dont want to lose that desperation for God.  I want to stay so ultra dependant on Him.  If nothing else, my times of weakness  and frailty were times of incredible faih building and growth.  Now I am in this place of comfort, and I am aware that comfortable places can lul me into pride or complacency. 

Lord help me to seek you like my life depends on it, even when I am not at rock bottom. Because… my life depends on it.

 

So I don’t forget

Someone dear to me shared a quote that he had memorized ten years ago because it so touched his heart. 

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

By Thomas Paine in The American Crisis

 

Christmas Break Wrap Up

Best Quote: Riding home from Christmas day activites, looking at the pretty decorated houses, my 5 year old Grace, almost jumped out of her seat when she heard the “Hallelujah Chorus” play on the radio.

“Hey! This is the song I wrote! How did they (the radio people) know it?!” she yelled out. Her smile couldn’t have been any bigger.  Yes, she “wrote” the song  months ago at her Grandma’s house on a fancy shmancy keyboard that was on some sort of demo setting.

Best Book: I just finished reading The Mysterious Benedict Society to my 8 year old. I highly reccommend it.  It’s a fabulous book, even for adults.  We have started the sequel.

Best Present: My Christmas Cactus, which I have been faithully taking care of for the last eight months, bloomed for the first time two days before Christmas. 

 

Two more days until the kids go back to school.  I will be happy to get back into a routine again – vacation has really made me unproductive.  I have a whole week before I start my classes again, and hopefully I can get a lot of packing done in that week.

Best thing I’m doing today? Taking my kids ice skating for the first time!

What were some highlights from your Holiday Break?

 

Oops!

I goofed.

If anyone wrote down that recipe for chocolate- molasses lace cookies, you will want to go back and edit it!  I forgot to include the amount of flour in the ingredient list, and the amount listed for molasses is wrong!

SO. The recipe takes 2/3 cup all-purpose flour, and 1/4 cup molasses.

I edited it down below too.

(Thanks Mom!)

 

Today

Today, I am done with my semester – I have no assignments or tests nagging my mind.  It’s a feeling of pure freedom.

Yesterday, we met with a man who will make our house sell – of this I am sure. We are short-selling, which means we sell it for whatetver we can get for it, and the bank agrees to take the loss.  We walk away with no profit,  but no loss except a black mark that will be on our credit for two years.  

When our house was listed for $78K, I didn’t even bother packing; nobody was looking at us.  Now, newly listed at $59K, I have a feeling we’ll be getting some calls.   Which means I can’t sit around doing nothing about my house situation anymore.  I am going to start packing and actively looking for a rental home.   I am just hoping to stay in our house until the school year is over so that the move will be less stressful on the kids.  You can pray for that – if you are a praying person.  

So things have been set in motion over here. We will not be in this house come fall.   We feel like it is in our best interest to rent a home for a little while.  We are praying to find a nice 3 bedroom house in Royal Oak for under $950 a month.   You can pray for that too.

 

Mic. Check: “Testing, 1,2,3″

Back to life. 

My semester is wrapping up this week.  Words cannot express how happy that makes me.  I am ready for a break. 

My mind and fingers are already beginning to feel a little bloggy again. 

Today I will simply leave you with a nugget to chew on:

Phillipians 4:11-13

11I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.  – Paul

The secret of being content.  hmm.

 

i am wondering

if i will ever be a regular blogger again.

 

How Thoughtful

 

“Just to warn everyone,” he said.

 

The Idea

 

 

The Execution.

 

The Content

 

And so it is perfectly clear, the last word in his thoughtful note is supposed to be spelled:

P-E-R-I-O-D.

Consider yourselves warned.

 

 

Freewrite

My week flew by with lightening speed.

Back to the school-year rush.  waking up too early and staying up too late to try and get things done.  I haven’t had a chance to blog, even though I’ve been dying to – just for the fun of blogging.

But, my kids got to school every day, we all did our homework, and the house went through several cycles of disaster-area to marvelously clean. 

I already feel like I am not giving my best to my school work though.  I just have to remember that my priorities are different than some students, and I may not be able to study as much.  You all would probably laugh at me if you knew that I am a 4.0 student, probably getting two more A’s this semester, who is feeling guilty for not doing better. I gotta go easier on myself.

This is my biggest struggle, allowing God’s grace to cover me, and accepting it.  I am getting better at it, but until recently, for years, I would lay in bed every night and run down the list of every mistake I had made that day, every nice thing I didn’t do for someone, and every thing I said that sounded stupid. I can’t believe I fell for that. It’s a very depressing thing to do.   When I catch myself starting to do that, I breathe-in my Lord’s goodness and breathe-out the lies.

I have let something go this year.  I can’t put my finger on it.  Part of it is my fear, and my need to control. Whatever it was, since it’s been gone, I can hear God better. I have more peace.  I have grabbed onto something this year.  A desire for uncomfortable truth and boldness.  A longing to fulfill the purposes God has designed me for, and the ability to accept that his calling is at the same time greater and more humble than I first would have let him tell me.

Andrew and I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary on Thursday, September 11th.  We just finished our year of new beginnings, and since there are nine fruits of the spirit, we are calling this our fruitful year.  We are expecting great growth in the fruits if the spirit in our home this year. 

One day at a time.  One load of laundry at a time.  One chemistry test at a time.  One runny-nosed child at a time.  I’ll take it all one prayer at a time.

 

Friday Five

Inspired by Kris.

Five things that make me happy:

1) My son’s fabulous attempts at intelligent humor.  Today I told him I was going to help some church friends prepare some things for an upcoming women’s retreat.  He said with a sly grin, “What are you retreating from? Or are you revolting????”

2) My daughter’s zany silliness.  We sat together on the couch today before Blake was home from school and just made nonsense jokes for about fifteen minutes.  We were giggling so hard tears were rolling down my cheeks.  Nothing we said made any sense whatsoever, but thanks to that crazy mother-daughter bond, we totally understood eachother.  And of course it ended in a tickle fest.

3) My new chemistry teacher.  A kind and funny Jewish man who is supplying a copy of the periodic table of elements for every test so we don’t have to memorize it.  Oh yes. This made me happy.

4) My Bacon-Parmesan Pasta. It’s a great budget meal.  Garlic-cream sauce that is oh-so-bad for your waistline and oh so heavenly for your tastebuds. Add some chopped green onions and pine nuts and serve with spinach salad. mmmm…..

5) Good hugs.  I love good hugs.  I was hugged on Sunday by a dear friend I don’t get to see very often, and it was an awesome, genuine, squeeze-the-life out of eachtother for twenty-seconds kind of hug.  Yes. I was blessed by a hug.