spoiled

i realized yesterday that my husband has spoiled me. really spoiled me. i have always been a very independent can-do-it-and-will-do-it-all-on-my-own kinda woman but ever so slowly my husband has worked his manly charm on me. my epiphany came yesterday when i was almost forced to drive his pickup. to put things into perspective i drive a 2003 ford supercrew pickup and my husband drives a 1988 chevy dually pickup. i have been driving since i was 14 and have driven my share of brokedown cars and trucks. but now that i'm older i don't want to drive how should i say this "challenged vehicles". my husbands truck is what i would call a "challenged vehicle". as he was running down the list of how to start it, then how to keep it started, then how to drive it instructions i realized i didn't want to drive it unless i absolutely "cause the world is coming to an end" have to. so being the spoiler that he is he postponed his little trip in my truck and let me run my errand in my truck so that i wouldn't have to drive his. like i said i'm spoiled. does my husband love his truck? no, but he drives it because thats what we have and its paid for. someday soon i'll be able to spoil him and buy him the work truck he needs and deserves that doesn't need 3 pages of instructions on how to start it.

fyi

in case you ever wondered what a tupperware bowl full of brown gravy would do when dropped on a tile floor.
wonder no more.
it goes everywhere.
and i mean everywhere. i had to move the fridge to get the puddle that formed underneath. i just kept telling myself that i needed to clean under there anyways.

6 months

today is the 6 month anniversary of us having the kids. it doesn't seem like 6 months but it is. the guardianship stuff is on track. their dad has until monday to advise the court if he has a problem with us becoming the kids guardians. since he has never been a part of the kids life we are not expecting any hassle from him. so next week they will set a court date (make it quick Lord) and then the kids will be ours. my sister made a small fuss when she was reading over the paperwork but quickly realized that we would fight her if she didn't agree. she has really been quite calm through all of this. i really expected her to put up more of a fight but deep down she knows she can't care for them right now and we have to be able to care for them completely. which means legal guardianship.

thanks guys for all your words of encouragement. marme hit the nail on the head with her comment. it's not the work but the enormity of all of it. in 6 months i have gone from being the full time mom of one child (squirt) and step-mom of one child(bubba) to being the mom/stepmom/aunt of 4 teenagers. a very dear friend told me that on the outside i appear to have it all together but she knows me well enough to see the cracks. God is truly walking me through this valley and He will not leave me unchanged. there are just times when it overwhelms me.

stuck in the middle

i've been feeling so stuck in the middle of things lately.

my sister is here for the week and i don't want her here but the kids need her. so i'm stuck with her.

she doesn't trust her new doctor and i get to call the social worker and try to work out a solution. so i'm stuck with her and them.

freddie wants to drive all the time. so i'm really stuck on this one.

everybody wants hot meals, clean house and clean clothes. stuck, stuck, stuck.

work wants me to actually work and not sit and talk all day long. stuck again.

don't get me wrong i love my family and want to be a good mom, sister, wife, and employee.

so how do i get unstuck?

sorry guys i'm a little emotional right now...almost that time. but i can't be the only one that feels this way from time to time. so how do we get unstuck? do we take time for ourselves? do we spend more time with Jesus? do we just have a good cry and a good sleep? i'm convinced that last one cures a multitude of attitude problems. at least for me anyways. so give me some comments. what is your number one best way to get unstuck?

i've been tagged

ree tagged me, you big stinker.


Seven things you never knew about me and now wish you didn't. Or as you put it...Seven strange/weird/crazy things about me:

1. i have a freakishly good memory. i can remember just about anything i don't need to remember. addresses, kids i went to kindergarten with, movie dialogues, songs, conversations, just about everything.

2. i have an obsession with school supplies. i sometimes cruise the school supply aisle at walmart looking for something to buy.

3. i listen to Christmas music all year long.

4. during the last trimester of my pregnancy i wore mens tighty-whitey underwear. it was so much more comfortable than womens maternity underwear. the wide waistband lays so nice and flat against your big pregnant belly and they are fuller in the seat. nuff said.

5. i'm allergic to cockroaches.

6. when i shop i have to touch everything and if i don't like the texture or feel of it i won't buy it. this applies to anything fabric. could you see me in the grocery store feeling a can of green beans.

7. i have a birthmark in the shape of a dollar sign on my left calf.

i tag chris and dawn

comments to advice comments

we are looking at ASU since it is local and she can still live with us the first year or so. the actual tests are not free but the prep courses are. i'm thinking i'll make her take both prep courses and then we will go from there. they are having several prep classes before the test dates so we should get a good feel from those. she is not a good test taker so i want her to have all the prep time and opportunities to take the tests as many times as she needs to score as high as she can. we are already looking at scholarships since us or her mom will not have the cash to pay her way. in the long run i think it will be a better education if she has to work for it. she is not very motivated and tends to be a slacker and a taker. i have had to cry out to God on several occasions to direct me on how to raise this teenager. it has been a good challenge. thanks guys for all your good advice.

advice

ok guys i need some advice. freddie wants to go to college. should she take the ACT, the SAT or both? we are trying to get a jump on things and they are offering free ACT and SAT prep classes at her school and we need to take advantage of all the free help we can get. i never had the opportunity to go to college so i am at a loss as to which test or tests she should take. so i'm asking all my college educated blogger buddies for help.

our worship

church was so awesome yesterday morning. before pastor rick dubois preached he gave us such a wonderful and timely word from the Lord. concidering our womens retreat was all about worship and finding that secret place with God. below are my notes in case you weren't there. i plan on getting the tape because i couldn't write fast enough.

This church is on the edge of a breakthrough in our worship.

The breakthrough comes with obedience and worship.

We have to change the way we think about worship; worship is not about an allotted time but about the purpose.

What happens inside the house of God effects what happens outside the house of God. You must not be timid in your worship. You must worship exhuberantly with your hands, feet, and voice.

of course this is only a fraction of what he said. he talks really fast. so for most of the service all i could do was just sit and listen. it was useless to take notes. his message made me think about my own worship and the sometimes passionless worship that i offer up to God. He deserves so much better than what i give Him.

we got style

from this

to this

from this





to this






i don't know what i was thinking but i scheduled 4 of us to have haircuts today. so i was at the hairdresser from 11:45 until 2 pm with children. bored children but they all got style today. moe got shape but both girls had 6 to 8 inches cut off. they where ready for something new. i also got style. my hair has always been straight as a board and since i did grow up in the 80's i have always had big permed hair. not as big as ree's. i bow down to ree as the queen of big permed hair. well now that i want my hair to be board straight it has decided it wants to be curly. i now have natural curl without the benefit of a perm. how crazy is that. squirt says i have finally beat it into submission.

I am...

I am kind and thankful
I wonder what heaven is like
I hear angel's wings
I see animals in the clouds
I want a weekend away with my husband
I am kind and thankful

I pretend to be a racecar driver in grocery store parking lots
I feel overwhelmed
I touch the hem of His garment
I worry about my kids
I cry at the movies
I am kind and thankful

I understand God loves me
I say joy will come in the morning
I dream that my house will be finished one day
I try to not overeat
I hope my kids understand why there have to be rules
I am kind and thankful

thoughts

freddie has finished drivers ed.......yeah!

i only had to work 4 hours today.......BIG yeah!

i did very good on my jewelry book party for meems...BIGGER yeah!

squirt is home sick today......boohoo

we are having fried chicken for dinner.....yum

and apple pie.............extra yum

mark went with me on a walk last night.....sweet talker

i love my family.....ahhhhhhhh

God has answered so many prayers i can't list them all....amen

moe did great at his choir concert last night....do re mi

he had to dance with a girl......ewwwww

to the song fame......i'm gonna live forever

squirt is making me watch fresh prince of bel-air....again

its the only thing that makes her feel better....pushover

mighty moe

well moe has a broken arm. what we thought was a bad sprain is actually a clean break in both long bones of his left arm. i totally feel like the worst mom ever. how do you let your child walk around with a broken arm. in my defense he hasn't been in pain and he has full mobility. but i still feel horrible. he really freaked the head nurse out when he showed her how he could move it. my poor mark has spent a total of 7 hours over the last 2 days in the ER and doctors office getting it x-rayed and casted. the amazing part is that the specialist said the bones are healing nicely and he should only need some therapy in 4 weeks due to the arm being in a cast.
Thank You God for taking care of moe.

sunday nights

sunday nights have always been hard on me. i can't really put it into words but dread sometimes creeps up on me on sunday night. when i was young this was the night my dad would bring us home and every mile closer to home would be another mile farther away from my dad. don't get me wrong i loved living with my mom but i also loved being with my dad. he was not a perfect dad. well actually he was an abusive dad, but the abuse was very sneaky. if you would have asked me as a young child if my dad abused me i would've said no. i didn't see it as abuse i only knew it as love. when a child knows no other way they can't say or see it as wrong, until someone tells them its wrong they don't know. deep inside i knew it was wrong but deep inside i couldn't believe my dad would hurt me. so i buried it. so deep no one not even i knew it was there. on a conscience level anyways, you always know its there subconsciencely. the abuse started very young and ended when i was 10 so it was easy for me to bury it and keep it buried. the abuse was not an everyday thing and since my parents separated when i was 3 and divorced when i was 4 my father lost access to me on a daily basis. also my family is big on denial so no one was going to pry or admit that maybe something wasn't right. even though now that i'm older i've spoken with other older female family members with simular stories involving my dad and my grandfather. at the time they were not able or willing to come forward and admit that there was abuse. and i can't fault them we were all on self-preservation made growing up. after the abuse stopped my demeanor and personality reverted back to normal so there was no reason to worry. yeah right. it has been a long hard battle and somedays are better than others but i now realize that this abuse no longer defines me as a person. i know that God has healed me and loves me completely and totally without reservation. i know that it was God that was there with me before, during, and after the abuse. i know that He loves me without perversion as a true Father would. that has been the hardest thing to accept that God loves me in spite of all the bad, but He does. God has also given me the strength to forgive my dad. do i have a relationship with him? no. but that may come in time. i'm not willing to completely shut the door on him, but i have set some boundaries. unfortunately because of his proclivities he will never have a relationship with his grandchildren. this is sad to me because he was a very fun dad. maybe in the days to come i will post some of the fun things my dad would do. like let us paint his face and dress him up and walk to the store. or if we ever asked what something was and he didn't know he would just make something up. it was always almost believable and always funny.

Thank you God for not giving up on me and loving me through it all. and now that i have You when that sunday night dread comes i know to ask You to take it away. it may be through a song, a sermon, or just one of Your people but you always take it away and for this i am thankful.

saturday mornings

when i was a little girl saturday mornings were my favorite day of the week. back in the day we didn't have cartoon network the only time cartoons came on were saturday mornings. during the summer or if you were home sick from school they also had 30 minutes of cartoons from 12:30 til 1:00 on weekdays. it was right between the 12 o'clock news and the afternoon movie.

saturday mornings were wonderful we would sit in front of the stacked tv's. you see back then just about everyone had 2 tv's. you had the old broken console tv that served as the perfect stand for the newer smaller portable tv. and the new tv didn't have a remote. the kids were the remote control. and we didn't have cable everyone had tv attennas straped to their houses and if the reception was bad all the kids were trained in the fine art of the twist and hollar. 1 child would run outside and twist the antenna and the other kids would hollar "stop!" when the reception cleared. also the new tv didn't have push-buttons. it had a turn knob and after awhile the turn knob would break so you would use the knob from the UHf channels and then when that knob would break you would use a pair of needle-nose pliers. its a wonder we didn't electrocute ourselves.

now back to my story.

saturday mornings were wonderful. we would sit and watch fat albert, scooby doo and the bugs bunny and tweety show. cartoons were different back then. they showed Wile E Coyote getting his head smashed flatter than a pancake by an acme anvil. they showed Elmer Fudd's rifle back-firing and blowing his head off after Bugs tied the barrel into a knot. we got to see the consequences of their bad decisions. and i would like to ask where did Wile get all the money to buy all those acme products? and there we would sit our brains rotting from cartoons and our teeth rotting from the extra sugar we would put on our cereal. spoonful after spoonful of extra sugar we would put on our cornflakes. after the cereal was gone there would be a glorious mound of sugar at the bottom of the bowl. you would want to eat the cereal and drink the milk as fast as you could so that it didn't erode the sugar mountain. i now know why my mom would make us go outside on saturdays. we were all hyper from the sugar and we needed to run it off. these were her exact words "go run off some of that energy, cause your driving me crazy"

good times, good times.

pressing on

God has brought me such wonderful friends. i realized this as i had a minor meltdown on thursday and i had a good friend listen to me and look me in the eyes and tell me the hard things that i needed to hear. i have a trust problem. you name it i don't trust it. mainly people and God. i'm getting better but i'm not quite there and i probably won't be there completely until Jesus comes. and when He comes i want Him to find me pressing toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

i also loved what A spoke about at the womens retreat.

Vulnerability

i don't want to be vulnerable. i associate it with weakness and i don't want to be weak. you see i've been vulnerable and people have hurt me. so i say to myself i won't be that weak person anymore. so i wall myself in. brick by brick. i retreat into myself and then i get hurt because i'm all alone. then God reminds me of words i've said to encourage others and these words have come back to encourage me. how cool is that? God's word has not returned void. isn't that written somewhere.

so here i am pressing on Lord.