Christmas Lack Of Sleep And Continuing With Boundary Issues

Hmmm, I wonder if I'm going to suddenly get really consistent about this blogging thing? I doubt it! I wouldn't count on it if I were you! It was nice that it didn't take like 5 hours to read something from each of the blogs I'm following though! You know, since I did this yesterday before I blogged. Well, two nights ago really, even though it was technically morning by the time I posted. That was actually a really good day. I was exhausted by the end of it and couldn't sleep for the wind banging things around, but I had a good day and didn't feel the need for a nap during the day, although, I didn't get out of bed until 11, so I don't know if that really counts. I woke up close to 11 again today. I woke up a few times earlier, but didn't feel like getting up and quickly went back to sleep. So, yes, my sleeping patterns are messed up as usual! What else is new?!

Well, my two oldest still fight like cats and dogs. More like a ferocious(sp?) lion and a rabid wolf, but okay. And I'm not sure which one is which! We had a nice Christmas at home. I didn't burn the turkey and I even made sweet potatoes (from a can), gravy (from packages), Stove Top Stuffing, mashed potatoes (from dehydrated potato flakes in a bag), and green beans, which I almost forgot, also from a can. I think that's all. Oh, yeah, then there was the store bought Pumpkin and Apple Pies. I never even got to touch the Apple Pie, and barely got any Pumpkin Pie. This is the thanks I get for actually doing something in the kitchen besides stick a frozen burrito in the microwave. Josh said, "If you snooze, you lose, literally." He said this because I discovered the empty Apple Pie tin after I had taken a nap on Sunday afternoon, so yes, I was snoozing! But seriously, after being awake all night Friday night worrying about messing up the turkey or any other part of Christmas dinner, and then dragging the kids to the Candlelight service at our church, and then taking care of the stockings and all that night and being so excited to see the kids expressions I couldn't sleep for the second night in a row! And then them opening their presents Christmas morning, getting ready and going to Sunday service, coming home, playing Angela at air hockey, and kicking her rear, I might add, then getting my rear kicked by my son, so that I could experience some humbling. Then, helping Angela figure out how to set her password for her new voice activated password journal.....I think I deserved a nap!!!!

It was a crazy Christmas! But totally fun, and I'm looking forward to hopefully doing it again next year, unless of course, we can convince my parents to get control of my sister and older brother, not to mention getting all porn completely out of the house, where there will be no way my children would have access to it! It seems like there was another condition I will have, but I can't remember it right now. Oh, yeah, something will have to be done about the cats and dogs, but they already know that, with Chloe's allergies. That, I don't have to argue with anyone about. No one will disagree with that. Bringing up the porn will be very awkward, if the time comes for that. Talk about a pink elephant in the room! It's one of those things we NEVER mention! You don't even hear the word "PlayBoy" said outloud in my parents house or around them, but everyone knows it's there. It's right in the drawers underneath the towel cupboard in the bathroom! Always!! But it's never been mentioned, except by my husband, who was the first person to point out to me that most families don't have PlayBoy magazines in their bathrooms. I had no idea that wasn't normal. How would I know that wasn't normal? I mean, I knew that for a Christian home it's unacceptable, but for a non-Christian home? I just figured everyone had them! And even when he brought it up, it was only to me, in private. Anyway, if my family never gets real about the abuse in our home, then it will never have to be brought up, but I'm hoping and praying that my parents will, first and foremost, come to know Christ, and that then they will put a stop to the abuse and pornography. It has to stop or I can't bring my kids. Of course, the porn will be an issue even when my siblings aren't there, so yeah, it will probably have to be brought up eventually. I fear my children have probably already seen it and who knows how it's effected them. I know how it affected me, but that's a whole 'nother subject for another time.

Totally Random!

I had about a zillion things on my mind that I really thought I should blog about earlier today and all during Christmas, but they all disappeared (I really should take notes on these things!) as soon as I discovered that I can now comment on my own blog again! Yay!!! Yes, simple things delight me! And it's a good thing, too, considering that I live in a falling apart trailer house that we don't have the funds to keep up. I have 3 children with more "needs" than any one person (or even two) could possibly keep up with! And we often have to get help in aquiring things for all of their needs. School needs, which are increasing all the time! And other needs as well! They are 3 very busy people who continually keep me hopping! I can't afford to have latte's on a daily basis, and I really don't understand how ANYONE can! Seriously, we're in a recession and latte's are EXPENSIVE!!! And yet, I'm going to Houston next month! Crazy! Well, we all set our priorities and make sacrifices for certain luxuries every now and then! I haven't really gone anywhere in YEARS!!! No, I'm not kidding! I haven't left the northwest since my 13 year old was a baby! I think I'm overdue! I did feel a little guilty about that the other day when my daughter, Angela, and I were talking about something we couldn't afford (I don't remember what) and I said that we needed to save our money, since I was going to Houston. She commented, "Why do you have to go to Houston?" Oh, well, she's young. She'll understand why mommies and daddies need to get away sometimes when she's older. I really hope this Houston trip turns out to be worth it and I don't have some kind of a nervous breakdown during the whole travelling alone thing and never make it to the actual event I'm supposed to be going to! I'm sure all will go well, and I'll come home even more confident in my abilities to do things on my own, without my husband there to catch me when I totally screw up once again. It's all good, and it's way past my bedtime!

For The Love Of BROWN! (and other Christmas delights)

Oh, how we love BROWN! Yep! The UPS man showed up at our house today! Poor man! I thought my kids would ATTACK him! They were at the door like vultures! I told them grandma was sending their Christmas presents UPS, so they KNEW what was coming!!! He really just smiled as he came up the steps and said, "Hey! You sound like you're having too much fun around here!" in a mock stern voice! So fun! I bet they love their job this time of year! Everybody's so happy to see them! Of course, I always love BROWN! I just don't always like the mail man. He brings the bills. The UPS man just brings the good stuff!!!!!

So. Our Christmas tree now looks like a Christmas tree ought to look, with lots of packages underneath the tree, because Josh also bought all the kids their main gifts yesterday, so we wrapped them before our argument and put them under the tree. They are going to LOVE their gifts. Angela isn't getting the one thing she really wanted, but I think she'll like what she's getting. I asked Josh to take back the earrings he bought Angela, cause I know she won't wear them and I know of something that's on sale that she'll really LOVE that I want to get for a stocking stuffer. He's left most of the stocking stuffer shopping to me. So, that's not done. I also have to buy stuff for Christmas dinner. I think I'm going to do an afternoon dinner on Christmas Eve, so I can just play with the kids and their new toys and things on Christmas Day. I've decided everything but the turkey is going to be from a box or a can. We'll have to build up through the years with the cooking part. I've never even done a turkey, so I think even the gravy will come from a can this year. Or a jar. I'm hoping they have some in a jar or something, cause I don't really like the package one's. They're too thin. I like thick gravy. We'll see what we can do. Next year, if we still do Christmas at home we'll look at getting what I need to make real gravy from the turkey drippings. I love gravy, so I'm a little unsure about not doing the real thing this year, but I'll see what's available. Of course, only Chloe and I will eat the gravy, and only I will eat the stuffing, which is why I'm not going to bother with real stuffing. Probably not ever, although I learned at Thanksgiving with our friends that I could probably have Isaac Leidenfrost over and he'd help me eat the leftovers! :) That boy likes his stuffing!!!

Oh, yes, and the reason why I'm thinking we'll have dinner so early is because I'm pretty sure our church does a Christmas Eve service and we'll probably go to that. I certainly would want to if they're having one. I'm pretty sure they do one every year. We just haven't ever gone, cause we're never here on Christmas Eve.

Avoid Conflict

Avoid conflict: Yep, that's how my husband handles things. He would've just sucked it up, gone down to my mom's house, avoided everybody, done what he was told, and returned and then gone back to being ourselves and having fun. I've tried that. I'm not very good at not interacting. It really doesn't work for me. Plus, I have this problem. I'm the mom. So while he can ignore people children treating his children cruelly or really honestly claim ignorance, because he wasn't paying any attention, just disappearing into his own little world where he doesn't notice the chaos all around him. SOMEBODY still has to be the parent, though, and that always falls to me. So while he can just avoid everybody, I have to make sure my children's needs are met, so that requires me to be involved with my family. I remember so many times asking him if he could help with the kids and as always he says, "Your doing just fine." Avoidance. It works for him. He just sits back, while my kids get hurt and I get hurt and pretends nothing is happening. I probably won't even post this, because I realize I'm sort of bashing my husband and I'm trying not to do that kind of thing on here. Only deal with my stuff and not bash anyone else, but he's been doing this for years and I'm SICK of it! He says he would have just gone with it, but that's okay, he supports me! Funny! I don't feel very supported!

So, I let him read this before posting, and he still doesn't see what the problem is, so I don't care anymore! Hate me for bashing my husband, but I already know what everyone here would say if I personally went to them. "This is something the two of you are going to have to work out." "You should just go down and see your family for Christmas. You need to show them the love of Christ!" NO ONE here really supports me and understands me. Not entirely their fault, but they just don't get it! They don't understand when I describe the way I grew up or the way my parents and siblings behave now! Mostly because they've never experienced anything like that, and the one's who have...well, they're in the same shape I'm in. Or, they've managed to repress their feelings so much that they don't feel the pain of those things anymore. I used to be like that, but I decided to let my feelings resurface and not be so cold and now I can't seem to turn them off! I hate being treated like trash, because I know it's not right! And I REALLY hate my children being treated like trash! The reason I post these things? Because God doesn't care enough to get me out of this place, so I can be around people who understand me, and for now, this IS my support!!! My online community, through blogging, and tweeting is my only real support!!! Others here have tried, but they don't understand. The one's who do understand don't have the gifting, training or calling to help me! Actually, I'm not sure healthy people who are anything like me exist in this town, because they've all been in the same boat I'm in for all of their lives!

I'm sorry if anyone thinks this is slandering anyone, because I don't think it is. I have given the people involved their due respect. I understand that we just don't connect or understand each other well, and that they are doing the best they can, so please don't take this as slander. I even understand that my husband doesn't understand and doesn't see what the problem is, because he doesn't know or understand anything about boundaries either. There are none in his family of origin really, either. You can't understand what you've never been taught!

A Short Unfinished Hello And Preparations For Houston

Well, I've missed all of you. I'm getting nervous, because I'll be in Houston a month from today. I'm also excited, but I'm nervous. I have never travelled by myself, having to navigate my own way through airports and then a HUGE city! I hope there's only one OMNI hotel, because if I don't run into any siestas at the airport that I can ride with I'm going to have to take a taxi to get to the hotel, and that's all I know is it's the OMNI. Of course, I'm sure my husband, who made the reservations and all, for me, will give me more information before I leave. In fact, I'm a little worried he might be more nervous than me. He's asked me before if there is someone to meet me at the airport in Houston. I know it bothers him a little that I'm travelling alone, but he most definitely does not want to go with me. What's he going to do in Houston, Texas while I hang with the ladies all weekend?! Anyway, that's all I have time for, for now. I have to get ready to take the kids to the dentist. I'm running late. Tell you more about my life, later.

My Kids And Their Accomplishments (Or beginning to be accomplishments!)

Well, basketball season has officially ended for Jeremiah. However, I still have to pick him up in the afternoons, cause he plans to spend some time in the weight room. He's got to keep up his manly figure I guess! LOL! The things I do for my children!! There is a parent meeting for Wrestling on Tuesday. I'm kind of guessing, since it's so close to Winter Break, that wrestling won't actually start until after the Break. I sure hope so!!! Of course, they may need to practice through the break to be ready, I don't know. This will be the first time we've entered the world of wrestling with our kids. I know, shocking, since my husband was a wrestler, even in college for a brief time!!! Jeremiah's just never seemed interested until now, and it wasn't exactly something we've encouraged the girls to try. I have no doubt both of them would! Angela has actually asked if she can wrestle, which I'm sure is quite surprising to all of you (sarcasm)! We haven't let her up to this point, largely because of finances and because she's been so inconsistent with the things we have gotten her involved with that we don't want to spend that kind of money on her. She would love Hockey, but that's the most expensive sport out there!!!! She was consistent with that when she played on a scholarship, so if I was made of money, I'd absolutely fork over the bucks for her to play!!! Her music teacher heard her singing the other day, and told her that she has a beautiful voice, but could use some help with the notes. She offered 10 dollars for a half-hour of voice lessons! So we'll be looking into that, probably after Winter Break! We do want her to be active in something. Of course, she wants to be a pop star! What young girl who's told she can sing doesn't?! I'm certainly not going discourage her by telling her that it's highly unlikely to happen!!! What if Justin Bieber's mom had told him that!!!?! Talk about an unlikely candidate. Small town boy in Canada with a single, teenage mother!!!! Yeah, not happening! And look at him now!!!! I personally would not have encouraged my son to enter that world at the tender age of 15, but he's not my kid, so I'll let his parents raise him as they see fit! Angela does have a beautiful voice. My other two can sing, also, but Jeremiah, at least, has other interests. Chloe, on the other hand, I am told is one of the best dancers, maybe THE best dancer in her dance class after school on Mondays and Tuesdays! I can't remember what kind of dance it is. Some hispanic type of dance, but she's very good at it, which is nice. I like that she's found something she does well. Her teacher, who is also her third grade homeroom teacher this year, tells me their are 7 different types of intelligences and based on what she sees in dance class, she would have what they call Kinesthetic intelligence, so while she may not be as strong academically as others (she works consistently at a 1st grade level, beginning to be more consistent at a 2nd grade level) she is smart, just in a different way. I knew this all along, but it's nice to have others notice as well. Maybe she's not "book smart" but she is smart! Not that we're not going to continue to work on her classroom work! We will, of course! Speaking of which.....

She just had her 3 year reasessment and the school psychologist decided to use a different type of IQ test on her this time and she tested in the normal range, at a 90 IQ!!! It's still slightly below average, but puts her in the normal range, which after working with her for some time, she felt more accurately reflects Chloe's true capabilities! This is why she chose to use this test instead of the one they did three years ago! It's so nice to see her testing in the normal range! They also said they have seen a significant change in her attentiveness, so they no longer consider her to be attention deficit! That was good news also, although, I do wonder if it's the coffee I've been giving her in the morning! That's okay if it is! She loves her coffee and obviously there seems to be no reason to change anything! She's progressing well as we hoped she would! Once again, this year's teacher has commented on her incredible work ethic and how self-motivated she is! She says she's not worried about her succeeding in life, because she's the type that will try anything and works hard at whatever she does, and will just keep trying until she gets it! She loves to learn, and you don't have to fight her to get her to do her work! In fact, while I was meeting with her SPED teachers, and other faculty that work with her, she was doing her homework, and was almost done before we even got home! And I hadn't even told her to do that. I had bought her an A&W Root Beer on my way to the appointment (her favorite beverage) to keep her happy while I met with her educators. She did drink all of her root beer, but she also did her homework. Her sister played basketball instead. Quite a difference between those two! I love them both! I had bought Angela a Pepsi which she also devoured! Of course, I couldn't leave myself out. I got one of my many favorite beverages, a Wild Cherry Pepsi:) It was fun!

And then, we went to what has turned out to be the last basketball game of Jeremiah's I would make it, too. I was not able to make the last two night's games :( It was the closest game I've seen them play, but I think they pissed off the other team when at the half it was 13-12 Moscow! They were proving that they are not pushovers! That they are truly becoming a force to be recconed (sp?) with! I think many of these boys, like my son, are playing competitive basketball for the very first time, so they are just learning the skills! Jeremiah has improved quite a bit, and just like in football has shown his athletic capability and aggressiveness. He has been known for his aggressive playing in baseball as well, as he loves to steal bases. That is one of his specialties with those quick legs of his! He did meet his match at one point this basketball season, as I watched him play against a boy he was supposed to be blocking, who at one point, flew past Jeremiah like he was standing still!!! And Jeremiah's pretty stinkin' fast, let me tell ya!!!! There's a reason I had to put him on a leash as a toddler! That kid could MOVE from day one! His uncle had him pegged as a running back in football from the moment he learned to stand steady enough on those little legs to run!!! He called it! That's for sure! Anyway, the second half of that last game didn't go so well. They were pushing those boys all over the court, and the refs were only calling about a third of the fouls that should have been called and nothing on the kids fouling Jeremiah!!! They were literally SHOVING him! He hit the floor so hard, even if you didn't see it, you could hear it at least 3 times! Jeremiah says there were about five times he should've gotten free throws! At one point when he was pushed I did hear the whistle blow, and thought, "It's about time!" but no! They didn't blow the whistle on that kid! They actually called it against someone on our team somewhere else on the court!!! It was ridiculous! He was pretty sore that night and came off the gym floor limping, cause he kept landing on that hard gym floor on his knee!!! It was awful! I hope he had a better time last night! They still lost, but hopefully, he got some good, positive playing time in! The whole team has improved a ton during this season! Pullman slaughtered them in their first game! I'm very proud of the boys! They've come a long way!

Oh, yes! And I can't believe I forgot to mention that Chloe tested out of Speech Therapy!!!! Go Chloe!!! She's still considered to have a learning disability, but she's improved so much in so many areas!!!!

Christmas Is Coming!!!!!

I know many of you are probably wondering, at least a little bit, maybe, occasionally, in your busy lives, how my parents have responded to me. And the reason you haven't heard anything is because they haven't. I'm wondering if my mom's even going to buy my kids Christmas presents or if she is going to return the ones she's already gotten and forget about us. I guess I'll find out if she sends Christmas presents or drops them by or something, not that she really has much reason to be going through here anymore. Although, her brother's still live a little ways to the north of us. Her parents are gone now, though, which I mentioned briefly in my last post. I miss having grandparents. No one spoils me anymore :) Of course, I may have just erased the only grandparent my kids had that ever spoiled them, from their lives. Josh's mom hardly ever even buys them anything, let alone come to their events or anything like that and when she does, she doesn't really do anything special for them. I'm sure she would more often if she could. She has a lot of grandchildren, so it's harder for her.

Jeremiah's last basketball game was tonight and my mom never made it up for one of his games. She always makes it a point to come to at least one of his games for whatever season he happens to be in. I think she's done. Of course, there could be other reasons she couldn't come all the way up here for a basketball game. My kids are very excited about establishing new traditions for just our family. Angela, my baker girl (she's been baking like crazy!) is already planning what she's going to do for a birthday cake for Jesus! I was really surprised at how happy they were that we're staying home for Christmas! They told me they have not had fun the last couple of Christmases either, and they just want to spend it with their goofy, fun-loving parents. They don't really care about all the fancy packages and the fancy dinner. If we can't afford to do all that, it's fine with them. I'm thinking of doing it like a real birthday party, complete with streamers, noise makers, and a birthday banner, but of course, with a Christmas tree in the mix, and presents for everyone, even if they are small presents, and stockings!!! Josh informed me he already bought a little something for their stockings. Of course, I can't tell you on here, cause they read my blog :) You'll have to wait, too!

Jeremiah got me the newest Casting Crowns cd. I'd tell you the name of it, but I'd have to get up for that :) Something about a Well. It, of course, has the theme song from the movie Courageous on it, as well as several others that have nearly brought me to tears of gratefulness! I love Casting Crowns music so much! He got this as a pre-Christmas gift. For some reason he's not telling me what he's got coming for me for Christmas :) He got Amazon Gift Cards for the popcorn he sold for Boy Scouts. He's only spent a little of it on himself. The rest he's using to buy Christmas gifts! What an awesome kid, huh?! Angela's planning to do the same with her money from her job cleaning the neighbor's houses. She's also already gotten started. Jeremiah did tell me he has the new Travis Cottrell cd coming for me, but that from his tracking it looks like that one won't be here before Christmas. That's okay. He said he also has something else coming that will be here before Christmas, so I will have at least one surprise package under the tree this year :) After he told me about the Casting Crowns cd, I decided to not ask for hints on any other gifts, cause he's obviously a sucker and I do love surprises!!! And I'm loving that someone in this family obviously speaks my love language :) which is receiving gifts in case you were wondering :) Wow! I've been grinning a lot in this post! I just can't wait for Christmas!!!!!! Well, okay, I haven't done any shopping. I'm still waiting on some money we're supposed to receive, so it can't come toooooo quickly! I have no idea what I'm getting the kids this year!

Oh, and I thought I'd make a correction from a previous post. The book I'm reading is Changes That Heal by Dr. Henry Cloud, not Healing Choices. I'm used to Healing Choices because that's the John Baker book used in Celebrate Recovery, or one of the books anyway! I've never actually read it. Just the step study books, which are great also!

Finally Establishing Boundaries With My Family Of Origin

As you all know by now, I am one big, huge, humongous (could I have another adjective please?!) issue!!!! Particularly where boundaries are concerned. I read Boundaries With Teens since I have not been able to get my hands on the original Boundaries book. And to be honest with you I have no idea what the guy is talking about. He just kept talking about teaching your kids boundaries, and I'm like, "What boundaries? Nobody ever taught me about boundaries and I have no idea exactly all the boundaries they need." I'd already set a few without even knowing that's what I was doing, like I recently told a friend that I never go out with an individual guy anywhere other than my husband. She informed me that's a boundary and a good one, that I've established for myself, cause someone suggested I talk to a certain guy over coffee and I said, "Not without someone else going with me I'm not." I realize coffee shops are public and it's not like I would be tempted anyway, but it just looks and feels too much like a "date" to me, so I don't do it. That was an obvious boundary that I hadn't really thought about much, because as a married, Christian woman, it seemed like a no-brainer to me. Obviously shouldn't do that. Maybe not everyone feels that way, I guess. I've made an exception occasionally with my pastor, only because he's like old enough to be my father!!! And he's my pastor for crying out loud! But then, I might feel differently if I had a pastor who was closer to my age. Never really had that experience. They've always been much older, or older enough for me to know I'd never be interested and no one would ever suspect anything.

Anyhoo, I've gone a little off the subject. I've realized that a major area where I haven't established good boundaries or really any boundaries at all is with my family of origin. I had to make yet another very tough decision this week and since this is my first time establishing boundaries in this case, I'm sure I'm going to botch it up, if I haven't already. I just knew I had to do something about Christmas. For the last 2 years, since my grandfather passed away I've gone to Oregon to my parents house for Christmas and allowed my family to push us all around, even to the point of being downright abusive towards me and my children. They love to play with our emotions, making us mad or scared. They think it's funny and it's not! It's cruel. They did this to me my entire life and they do it to my more sensitive kids as well. I don't notice them doing it as much with Jeremiah, but the girls have much more dramatic emotional reactions, especially Angela, so that's really fun for them. They always did this to me, as I was very much like Angela, and also tend to feel things deeply and express emotions very dramatically if I get upset enough. They like that, and like I said, it's cruel and abusive. Last year my older brother even put Angela outside in only a t-shirt and her pajama pants and tried to shut the door on her. He almost got away with it until I threw a hissy fit and insisted that mom make him let her back in. She was terrified! I'd hate to see how far he'd go if someone didn't stop him!!! My dad is very mean and uncaring in the way he talks to everyone and even made a comment when I got upset with him at one point, that he could see why Dave likes to do that. It's fun. Yeah, fun for who? Not me. Not my family. We're done and so yesterday I called my mom and left a message at the house that we're not coming for Christmas and not just because of Chloe's allergies (they live on a ranch and she's allergic to most animals) but because I am not going to take the bullying. That was yesterday mid-morning and I still haven't heard back from them. I'm sure they've called a family meeting to discuss what they're going to do about me. They've always had a problem with me seeking help and I can see why. Anyone could see they are not healthy people and that some changes needed to be made in our home and they would totally mess with their perfect little world, as they see it. I was their guinea pig and nobody was going to mess with that. The problem is I'm not a guinea pig and neither are my children, we're human beings and for the first time in my life I am going to insist that we be treated like human beings.

My Public Apology To CR Moscow And the Hope Center

Since I've sort of slandered a couple of ministries in my small town on here, publicly, I now need to make a public apology to those ministries on here as well. Those ministries, more specifically being, CR Moscow, and the Hope Center and the ministry it has to the community, particularly Resource Ministries. There was a lot of misunderstanding on my part, of what there purpose really is, that I should have investigated myself, before talking about it on here. Resource Ministries only helps those who are able to work and want to work, not those just looking for a handout or permanently on disability. Those people will be sent elsewhere for help. There are government programs for them. It's not that they want them to be left out in the cold, they just have to choose with their limited resources the particular people they are going to serve. They are human and can't help everyone. No one ministry or person can do that. That is why we have a world-wide body of believers. That is also why there are food banks, food stamps, unemployment, and disability,as well as many other government sponsored programs for those who need it.

Also, Celebrate Recovery is an awesome program for addicts and as they say, people looking for "freedom for life's hurts, habits, and hang-ups." And really, who does that not include? I can't think of a single person I know who couldn't use a little of that!!! I'm pretty sure it's the human condition!!! Everyone has them, if they're alive, breathing, and living on planet Earth!!!! While, I have not personally found anyone there that I connect with well on a personal level, that's not to say that you won't find exactly what you need there. I still very much appreciate them for what they do provide for me. A safe place to hang out and be myself and share my struggles, knowing it will never leave the room unless I, myself, take it outside the room, which, as you know, I often do, but that's my business, not anyone else's, and as far as I can tell, no one's ever shared anything outside the group without my permission. I may not have found all the support I need there. God has provided that in other ways, and in some very unusual ways, through social media, I have met some people who have helped me. Quite unusual but it works for now. With my limited resources in this small town, I have to do what I have to do, but there are wonderful people at Celebrate Recovery, who, even if you don't relate well with them, like I haven't, they will love you, and who knows? You might find someone you do connect with. We all have different personalities, and different things that work for us, so don't be afraid to try it and give them a chance. I still may yet find someone I connect with, personally, there. You never know!!! Have a beautiful, God-filled day!!!!

A Sick Day!

I'm home today, with my oldest daughter, Angela, who is sick with the cold that I had. We no longer have any snow. It all got rained away. Yuck! No fun. Now it's really windy, and I'm probably going to have to go out in it and get some groceries. Hopefully, she'll be up to coming with me, although I know she is rather stuffed up. She's plenty old enough to stay home for me to take a quick trip to the grocery store, but she hates to stay alone and ends up calling me and talking to me on the cell phone the whole time which makes it hard to shop, since I don't have bluetooth of any kind. She just got out of the tub, so we'll probably be going soon, since it's past lunchtime and there isn't much in the house to eat. Besides, the chicken noodle soup is all gone, between me and my chicken noodle soup loving kids, we ate it all! And it's just wrong to have a cold with no chicken noodle soup in the house. I'm hoping the Robitussin I buy for the kids works for me, too, because I really don't want to spend the money to buy more Nyquil. I probly will anyway. Cause nothing touches this throat so I can sleep at night, so the only option I have is to take something that will knock me out! Anyway, a grocery shopping day it is then! Sorry, to be so unfun, but I'm still under the influence of the last of the Nyquil which should wear off soon, so I can drive, and eat!

An Alien Has Invaded And...Justin Bieber? What's He Doing On My Blog?!

Well, once again it's super-duper late, and I don't have much to say, but wanted to check in. I finally decided to get a real cold, not just that little itchy throat, and a little bit of fatique I was having there for a while. Not to mention, my toe flairing up again, my eyes hurting like I might be getting an infection there as well, and my ears plugged up. That sucked! But no, the kids had another 4 day weekend for parent-teacher conferences, which I got out of the way on Wednesday afternoon, so I could just relax and enjoy having my kids home for the rest of their long break. Well, I woke up from a nap on Thursday afternoon with what felt like much more than a scratchy throat. Sure enough, soon I was sneezing, and my nose was getting stuffy, and my head started to feel to big! This was not good. Angela and Jeremiah got a bunch of stuff in the mail for their birthdays. Cards and money. So, of course, Angela wanted me to take her out. I refused, and her dad said she could wait till tomorrow. It worked out well, cause Jeremiah would be going hunting with his daddy, for his 13th birthday! Yes, we now officially have a teenager!!! Not that we weren't dealing with hormones already! The kid's a hormone crazed....I don't know what he is? He's an alien, I think! That's it! The aliens came down one night, took the sweet little boy out of him, and put one of their aliens inside of him, so now he's all alien. He just looks human! That's it! That explains everything! Even the little glimpses I get of that little boy, because surely they missed a few parts, right?

Anyway, yeah, so now I've spent the entire vacation sick! I did take Angela to the grocery store, so she could buy a magazine full of posters. Mostly Justin Bieber posters, and then I helped her download some songs onto the iPad. Mostly Justin Bieber songs there as well. I was at one point going to make my kids only listen to Christian music, but I've decided that as long as it's not really evil they can listen to it. JB's okay. Nothing too immoral in his music. I've decided if I push her too hard, she'll really revolt on me and that could get ugly. The Bieber Fever ends, I do believe. Like I got over my mad crush on Donnie Wahlberg in the nineties, she'll get over Justin Bieber. (Did I just admit to being in love with Donnie Wahlberg on my blog! OMG!) Someday! Here's hoping! And praying, of course. That always helps. Anyway, after that I just stayed drugged on Nyquil, which I should go into my Nyquil induced coma right now, but I'm talking to you all. Anyway, wish my babies happy birthday! And good night!

What We Call Ourselves

Okay, I was just looking through my notes from that week that stuff was just leaping off the page at me, and most of it, I feel was just for me, so I won't be sharing it on here. I'm not real sure you'd get it anyway :) He is a very personal God that way, which is exactly the way I like Him....Well, most of the time. You know, sometimes when He gets up in my business I don't like it too much, but it's always for my best, so yeah, that's the way I like Him. I did think a lot about names and how they affect us. How we tend to live out what we are called even if it's a lie. I have found this to be true. My pastor has been teaching from the book of John and if I remember correctly it was John who referred to Himself as the "disciple whom Jesus loved." I was thinking and even wrote down in my notes, how much more we would trust Him, if we all thought of ourselves that way. Cause really, I'm the disciple that Jesus loves, and so are you. We all are!! So, why don't we think that way about ourselves and talk that way about ourselves? I think it starts out as something we feel would be too prideful, so we don't say it or write it, or however we communicate, we don't communicate to others that we are loved by Jesus. We say "Jesus loves YOU" but how often do we say "Jesus loves me." Not often, and I think we need to. I don't think it's arrogant to say that I'm the disciple Jesus loves. Other people might, but I think it's honest. He does. In all my imperfection, all my failures, all my sin, Jesus loves ME! Totally and completely. Pastor talked a few weeks ago about how labels define us, even when we don't want them, too. Oh, how I know that to be true! I was labelled, "stupid", "ugly", "lazy", "a failure", and all sorts of other things and I've believed them and proved them over and over again. I'm trying to replace those old lies with God's Truth. I'm trying to believe what He says about me. I'm saying His Truth from His Word out loud. I'm memorizing His Word (or trying to anyway) and studying it. Recently on Twitter, one of my followers said that I had "strength and beauty in my God", when trying to suggest people to follow. I did a double take. Wait, did that say @shellpaparazzo (my twitter name)? Why, yes, it did! What did she just call me. I went to bed that night with the thought in my head, "I am strong and beautiful," and I smiled! If my toe wasn't hurting so badly, I probably would have actually slept as well! I felt such peace and love thinking of myself that way. Did I feel arrogant? Not at all!!! I know I didn't come by strength and beauty on my own! God gave them to me! No effort of mine made me that way. I believe that in the time that person started following me, I had begun to express strength and beauty even on twitter, as God has been transforming my mind and changing my heart! I love Him so much! And I am so grateful! There is no way I would be anywhere or be able to do anything without Him! I know that to the depth of my being! I know who I was when He found me better than anyone does, and trust me when I tell you, I believe in miracles, because I AM ONE!! No doubt about it! Now, I hope this blog post can be followed somewhat. I know I mostly just spit out my thoughts! Final thought (although I think I might have mentioned it earlier): I LOVE JESUS!!!!!

Update On The Paparazzos

I would like to update you on family life! My husband got a deer on his birthday! Not a big one. It didn't even have antlers, and it was NOT a doe! It was a buck! You have never tasted such tender, delicious meat in your life! Jeremiah will be turning 13 on the 11th (God help us all!) though we've been dealing with hormones as many of you know for quite sometime. His voice is very crackly. He sounds hoarse all the time now. It's sort of weird. I hear when my nephew went through this stage, instead of crackling he just totally lost his voice and when he started talking again he sounded like a MAN! How boring!!! You didn't even get to laugh at him, I guess. (I wasn't around him at all during that time.) Jeremiah sounds hilarious when he gets upset!!! It's awesome!! I try not to point it out to much, though, cause Angela makes fun of him enough as it is! Jeremiah finished up football and is now playing basketball. He's a little disappointed because he didn't make the A team. He's on the B team. That's okay. It's his first year, and not playing as much will help him to focus on getting a couple of his grades back up. They're not bad, but he wants straight A's because he was promised some cash if that happens :) Whatever it takes to keep him motivated! This is why he'll be playing 4 sports this year. He loves sports of almost all kinds, and knows he can't play if he doesn't keep his grades up, so we let him play. If you're wondering how it's 4 sports and not 3 sports, it's because the junior high here separates basketball season from wrestling season, so he'll be wrestling in January. He'll be done with basketball by Christmas.

Angela is our newly crowned 11 year old! She is making friends left and right, had a terrible time deciding which one friend she was going to invite to go to the movies this weekend with her and her dad. This will be her birthday celebration. Her birthday was on the 1st. The weekend before, we were focused on Halloween. (I really should've dressed as a pumpkin the year she was born. I wouldn't have even needed any stuffing! My belly would do fine! I was anti-Halloween back then!) Then, of course, during the week we are too busy. Her with school and Josh with work. She and I have been shopping the last couple of days after school. She got money from her grandma (my mom). She ended up buying a couple of books with her money! She loves this new series called the Dork Diaries. I have to admit they're kind of cute! And totally remind me of the awkward middle school years! The perfect thing to make her feel she isn't alone! The author is a genious, I swear!!! Perfect for girls her age! And it's got her interested in reading, so it makes mama and her teacher's happy! She read the first two last year, cause she checked them out at the library when they first got them in!!! They have 2 more out now, and they were on sale at Wal-Mart, so she bought both of them! She's so excited and took them to school today, cause she can't wait to brag! She's only the 2nd girl in the class to get one of them, and the newest one, no one else in her class has yet, so she's super excited!!! On our budget, she isn't often the first to get anything!!! She asked me on the way back from Wal-Mart last night if I have an "inner voice" that warns me about stuff! Cause she says she does. She's been warned away from many situations and people! She's later realized some of the time, why those things were not a good idea, and sometimes not, but she figures there must be a reason! I was blown away, and nearly slammed on the brakes of my car in excitement for my baby girl!!! I told her, "Sweetie! That's the Holy Spirit!" It's just amazing to me that at 11 years old, she's that in tune with Him!!! She has taken to doing her devotionals on a daily basis within the last year, and that must be why!! Amazing!!!

Chloe's still her totally sanguine self!!! Halloween was hilarious! Everything was so exciting! Apparently her favorite candy in the whole world is smarties! Such a simple candy, and yet she jumped up and down with such joy every time she got them!!! When we went to the Harvest Festival at the Nazarene church, she got these tickets they give out at the game stations and they can turn them in for little toy type things, and she came running out of the store, jumping up and down and waving her new prize in me and Josh's faces, squealing "I got a glow stick! I got a glow stick!" The simplest things, I'm telling you, are the greatest treasures to her!!! You gotta love her!!! What else are you gonna do with that bundle of energy?!

Anyway, you mostly know what I'm up to, cause I talk about myself all the time, so that's all for now!

Peter Walking On The Water

Okay, not quite as late being on here as I have been in the past, so we're going to try to write a real post this time. I wanted to talk to you about Peter walking on the water, so let's see if I can gather my thoughts. First, I have to get out my bible! Ha! That would help!!!

Matthew 14:25-32
During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."

"Come," he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.

This is the passage I was telling you about a few weeks ago that hit me in a new way. Read this so many times, as I know many of you have as well, but something hit me that never hit me before. Now, as many of you know, I'm doing Beth Moore's Breaking Free book, not the workbook, just the book, right now. Yes, I said I'm doing it, almost as though it were a bible study, and not just a book. Sort of doing it in my own way and sometimes I go back and read a chapter or two or three over again and look up many of the scriptures again! For instance, this is actually in chapter 7 of her book, and I am currently back in chapter 5 again! I know, I'm weird! I have referred to my workbook, Breaking Free, that I did years ago, from time to time as well. In the book, Mrs. Moore talks about how the storm continues as Peter walks out onto the water, that Jesus doesn't calm the storm until after they're back in the boat, and that He may not always calm our storms either, but ask us to trust Him in the midst of the storm(loosely translated, I believe that's sort of what she was getting at.) The chapter is on enjoying the presence of God and so she was emphasizing that while we might not enjoy the storm, we can enjoy His presence in the midst of the storm, but even though that was the emphasis she was taking and yes, it did resonate with me, something else about that passage hit me that she didn't emphasize. I believe God emphasized it for me! This was particularly important to me in my situation.

As you all know, I have struggled with depression almost all of my life, and the part that really jumped out at me was when Peter cried out and Jesus "reached out his hand and caught him." This just made my heart squeeze again. Even just a minute ago when I wrote that it grabbed my heart once again, and made me love Jesus even more! I just can't get over it! I'm telling you, this was HUGE to me, and I bet you're wishing I would just hurry up and tell you instead of just telling you that it meant a lot to me. I thought about the fact that Peter doubted. I've often thought that when I doubted God in the midst of depression that He would just let me drown, but no! Peter doubted, and when he cried out to Jesus, even while doubting, "Jesus reached out his hand and caught him." Do you see where I'm going with this!!! I would have expected Him to be like, "Well, since you doubted I'm just going to let you drown!" But that's NOT what Jesus did! First He "reached out his hand...." Oh, how those words right there just grab me every time!!! When, I cry for Him, even when I doubt His ability to rescue me, to heal me, or His desire to do so, He will still reach back for me, and save me! He won't let me drown in depression! As long as I keep crying out to Him, no matter how weak my faith is, He'll reach back every single time! He rescued him and only then did He ask him why he had doubted! And he only asked him once. He didn't lecture. I love that about God. I don't think He has ever lectured me! Pastors have lectured me, counselors have lectured me, my parents (of course: insert eye roll) have lectured me, my husband may have even lectured me a time or two, but God never has!!! He doesn't need to. He knows I'm either listening or I'm not. No point in lecturing, because after all, I will just roll my eyes. I'll admit it. I'm not much less rebellious than I was as a teenager with my parents. (I can't believe I just admitted that!) I felt like God whispered sweetly to me, while holding me in His arms at that very moment, that I read that and said, "My Child. I'm. Not. Going. To let you drown!" He's not. He's going to reach back, every single time that I cry out to Him in fear that I'm going to drown. Then we'll work on increasing my faith. But only after He catches me. Oh, I love Him soooooo much! Have I mentioned that! He is My Jesus! And I wish I could say that I'll never doubt Him again, but I probably will, and He'll reach out and catch me....again!!!

Revisiting My Priorities

Wow! It's been more than a week! That is sooo sad!:( My priorities have been so screwed up lately, but I'm getting them straightened out again, as God is showing me that the times I don't spend in His Word, for the longest, are the times that my issues seem to take complete control. They're always there to test me, but they don't get the full blown control until I fail to prioritize my time with Him. That's all for now. I swear, one of these days I really will give you a real blog post!

Being At Peace With Believers Who Disagree With Me

Ya'll I have a headache and so much to catch you up on! I seriously do not have enough time for this blogging thing, but I love it! The reason I get on here so little these days, I guess, is because I have a life! Ha!! So good to have a life, but I have this thing in me that wants to tell the world all about it, and that takes time, too! Wow! Life doesn't make sense when you think about it, does it! I mean, we'd love to just write all the time, but if we did that we'd have nothing to write about, and if we have a life, we have little time to write. I have to say, I like being busy. I wish more of my time was spent writing, but that is not where God has me now. We'll have to see what the future has in store. The reason I don't do a lot of editting before I publish these, sometimes not at all, is because nothing would ever actually get on here, if I did! Do ya'll recall the devotional book I was writing last November, almost a whole year ago? I'm still studying 1Corinthians chapter 1 for the rewrite of that! Yep! Not a lot of studying time! Most of that was taken up by my little journey within my journey from this summer, and then the journey that has resulted from that journey, which is why I'm doing Breaking Free again. On my own, super slow, and going back and forth a little as God leads. I have read some chapters of the book several times, and I am considering getting out my workbook and doing some of that as well.

I have been going to church and last week as you know, was great. This week not so much. There's a young lady that has said some very hurtful things to people I love very much, at my church, and I know that somehow I have to forgive her, even though, she, in all her self-righteousness, thinks she is in the right. She is judging people based on half-truths and rumors and she has a lot of power in a particular ministry here in town. She's in charge of this particular ministry and decides who should be helped and how. I know her job is tough, and in a way she has to be judgmental, but it still bugs me. She's in a position to really either bless lives or ruin them, and I hate to see her ruining them. The crazy thing is she's a former addict, so I'd really love to remind her of who she once was, and would she really want to encounter herself now as that broken, hurting, desperate woman? Of course, she'd never listen to me, because I'm one of the people she looks down on, and always has, though she won't admit it. I had a bad feeling about her from the moment I met her, but gave her the benefit of the doubt, and tried very hard to see the good in her, and there was a lot to be seen, as she was extremely grateful for all that God has done for her, and I'm sure still is, but she's sure not showing a lot of grace or mercy to others. Particularly if they're people she just doesn't naturally like. However, the question is, how to forgive, while still protecting myself, and remaining on the side of those she's hurt. And not just her. Others have hurt people, too, amongst the counseling group she's a part of, but she's in a position of power that scares me a little. But I do know that God is bigger than all that. It just frustrates me, because I know of one person who could use some help and at times this other person is in a position to help where I can't, and she won't. So, in other words, I want to help and can't, while I see someone who could only hurting. All I can do is listen and tell her how sorry I am and that I know this isn't right. This isn't God's way of doing things. It is hard to deal with this group of counselors at my church and still have fellowship with them while disagreeing. My friend, Jeni, and I seem to handle it well, but that's because she knows me. That's because she ever bothered to get to know me. Now, I know I promised some teaching type of things, but I kind of went off on something else, so that will have to wait.

Oh, yes, one of the pastor's said this morning that he sometimes doesn't feel like going to church, but once he comes he's glad he did, and he remembers that for next time and so even though, he once had to go on faith to believe that God wanted him to go to church, then he went and experienced the blessings of that, and then he also had evidence of what can happen when you obey God. That is nice. Some of us have to go on faith with no evidence for weeks on end. I didn't feel like going back to church after we all returned from Camp Grizzly, but went anyway, and then it was miserable and very discouraging, and it made it harder to want to go. I didn't want to go and be further discouraged, and it's taken me a long time to go back again. I'm hoping I can find a good balance in standing by my convictions and continuing to heal while also being able to fellowship with people who disagree with me in where I am at and where people I love are at.

The Teacher In Me Is About To Burst!

Ya'll! I have had the neatest week in so many ways! I wish I could tell you all about it, but there's just no way!!! I went to church last Sunday for the first time in a long time! Pastor Kim preached an amazing sermon! I still think he should stick to teaching and leave the counseling to others, but don't think the situation is entirely his fault. I do not like the way this counseling group teaches them to counsel people!!! Also, while he was preaching I had some really amazing thoughts based on the passages he read that had very little to absolutely nothing to do with what he was actually preaching on!!! Weird how that happens! I swear I could have taught two whole other lessons on what popped into my head. It resonated so much with me that I jotted down some notes for a possible future blog post on it! I'd do it now, but ya'll it's after 11 at night! It happened again while I was reading Breaking Free by Beth Moore. In a passage she was teaching from something else entirely different, but related very much to my particular bondage, just sort of popped out at me. It wasn't something she had emphasized in her writing, but it hit me and it has been brewing in my brain most of the afternoon! It so relates to my situation and that is one I will definitely be blogging about! Just to give you a head's up, it came from the passage where Peter walks on the water. I know! A passage most of us have read like a zillion times and I'd never thought about it like this before!!!! I love how God does that with His Word! LIVING Word, no doubt!!!! Love it! Anyway, I just thought I'd say hey, before I check out for the night. Let ya'll know I'm still here!

One Of My Worst Days And It's Only Going To Cause More "Worst Days"

Okay, so yesterday was a horrible day. I was sad to see that Mercy Ministries has changed it's name to Resource Ministries. (I mean does that sound cold, calculating, and uncaring to anyone besides me?) And from the things they talked about in why the name change it seems that, much like my church, they are steering much more towards legalism. Also, the Resource Ministries (I hate that name!) is strongly tied to the counseling group that has been severely damaging to me in my situation, which makes me feel that this ministry is much less available to me as a human being with struggles. Also, I discovered that someone else on Twitter, who I interacted with quite a bit, actually, had blocked me. I knew why and consider it to be mostly a difference of opinion. I believe that Christians who are not really being very gracious or compassionate people need to be talked about more. Not by name, just in general. I think it's important that Christians understand that just because a Christian leader tells them something is how it is with you, doesn't make it true. Only God really knows that and constantly judging people without hearing them out is totally wrong and is what my pastor and several others have done with me here in Moscow. They just assume I'm just like everyone else they've dealt with who struggles with depression or sin issues in their lives. Even when they do let me talk, they prove by what they say later, that they didn't even hear what I said. They never bothered listening.

Then, later on in the day, after taking Angela around thrift shopping for her costume pieces for Halloween, I had to go get Jeremiah from football practice. Often his friend and neighbor, Christian, rides with me as well. Otherwise he usually has to walk home. Or chooses to, I'm not sure which. Always when I pick them up, the first words out of his mouth are "I'm hungry. Can we go to McDonald's?" And my answer is always, "No, my husband would kill me if I spent the money, and for good reason. I really can't afford it. You can eat when you get home." (For crying out loud it's not like it takes forever. We live in a town that is all of 11 square miles! It takes less than 5 minutes to get anywhere in town!) I asked, of course, if he's always hungry, which is like, well, duh, he's a 7th grade boy, of course, he's always hungry. The kids proceeded to be irritated and noisy, and Angela was even hitting her brother with a shopping bag from the backseat (he was in the front seat). I told them to settle down. They were going to cause me to get in an accident. Low a behold a few minutes later that is exactly what happened. Not that it's entirely their fault. I should have been paying more attention at the intersection. I went to make a right turn and cross into the far lane, since it was close to where I needed to make a left to get home. Another car was coming from across the road on the other side of the intersection and was already in the far lane, and I sideswiped her! Oh, boy. We both pulled into Walgreen's and got out of our cars to ask each other what we were supposed to do, as neither of us, as it turned out, had ever been in an accident before! I'm usually ultra cautious at that intersection, and am still kicking myself over this! We of course, called the cops, and did everything we were supposed to do. (The police officer helped with this, of course, and explained everything to us, and what we need to do in following up.) And of course, I was issued a citation for an improper turn. Ugh! Stupid me! So there goes 85 dollars, not to mention that, since it was my fault, our insurance will most certainly go up! Talk about a BAD day! I did go home and change out of my sweats into jeans and make it to Jeremiah's Court of Honor, albeit in a t-shirt, which I normally would never do, but oh, well. At least I wasn't wearing sweats :) He received his First Class rank, as well as a whole bunch of merit badges. I'm not sure how many. He did have six weeks of Scout camp, unlike most boys, who only get 1 week! And since I did that I still haven't called Christian's mom to get some information from her that the officer needs for his report since Christian was also in the accident. Ugh! I am so embarrassed. Angela's thrilled, because I'll be in the paper, and that qualifies for her to do her "newspaper" report next week on me, and she can add extra details that won't be in the paper, since she was there. Thrilled for you, Angela, really. (Do you sense the sarcasm.)

Of course, the money situation was already tight and now it's almost impossibly tight, and it was suggested by a friend that maybe I should get a job. Little does she know, that is one of my "issues" and at the thought, I immediately started sweating, heart started pounding...you know, all truly wonderful symptoms of an anxiety attack. I know it's ridiculous, and this whole situation is extremely distressing to me, and I have no doubt what my pastor would say about it. Ugh! Let's not go there!

Halloween Is Ridiculous And So Are My Kids

Okay, people, there is something seriously wrong about children having 5 day weekends! That's backwards. They're supposed to have school for 5 days, and then I get them for only 2 days straight! I mean, if it was Thanksgiving or Christmas it would be fine. Those are vacations, not weekends! But it's not even close. Heck, Halloween is weeks away still (I think). My kids are already asking when we're going to get their costumes. I was secretly hoping they'd forgotten their even was a dressing up, candy gorging holiday coming up, but I guess sending them to public school, and the mall or the grocery store, for that matter, kind of illiminates that possibility. What really gets me is they were selling Halloween decorations and what-not in August! Seriously? Who buys Halloween decorations in August? I buy school supplies in August! I can't afford Halloween, too. Angela wants to be a gangster, which I reluctantly agreed to. It's slightly pushing the whole "no evil costumes" stance I've gone with, but then again, so is Darth Vader, which my husband insists he's going to do when he can afford that "totally awesome" 2,000 dollar costume he saw in some catalog or online or something. No, that was not a typo. They really sell a 2,000 dollar costume for totally insane Star Wars worshipping people. Personally, I have a strict no idol worshipping mindset in my home, but what can you do?!!! Personally, I'm going to work on the guilt factor, if ever we do have an extra 2,000 dollars laying around just waiting to be spent. "Seriously, there are starving people in the world, and you're going to spend 2,000 dollars so you can wear a costume once a year?" Personally, I think it's a good point. I think I'd rather adopt a World Vision child or 2 or 3. That would be a much better use of my money.

Besides the pushing my limits on the "no evil costumes" rule, what happened to my darling little princess? I know, I know. I should have figured out when she begged to play ice hockey that "darling little princess" was out of the question! Or even before that, when she came home bragging that she'd beaten all the boys in her class and even some in the class above her at arm wrestling. In fact, she beat her own brother at arm wrestling. I'm sure he appreciates me broadcasting that to the world! Of course, I don't think she can do that now, cause now he's a big, bad football player. Oh, and he just added for me, "and I kick butt." He gained 25 percent of the yards two nights ago! That might have something to do with the 500 mile an hour moving legs he has!!!! I'm telling you that kid can MOVE!!!! He's a Running Back in case you were wondering! Okay, and then when Angela's brother joined the football team, she announced that she was not going out for boring Volleyball in junior high, thank you very much. She wants to play football cause "you get to hit people and not get in trouble for it." Not that getting in trouble for hitting people has ever stopped her!

Anyway, hopefully the sword wielding Jeremiah and Chloe had better not return to my bedroom to beat on each other on my bed, nearly hitting my laptop! And they still have two more days before school resumes!

Me, Grieving, Alone

Well, the speakers at Women of Faith were awesome as always!!!! I didn't care too much for some of the people I went with as usual. I'm not a big fan of Celebrate Recovery here in Moscow anymore. I do love a few truly wonderful people who go there. Of course, none of them are leaders. What is it with me and leaders? They always seem to misunderstand and judge me, although this time it was mostly one who's not on leadership and thinks she knows me. She doesn't. Most people I find don't even listen to me enough to actually know me. The people who judge me most at Celebrate Recovery are those that aren't even in small group with me, so not only do they not hear me talking about personal things, it's not like 3-5 minutes once a week is enough time of me talking for them to really know me, like they think they do, anyway. Wow! That was a horrifyingly awful run-on sentence! I'm famous for these, but that was really bad! Okay, ADD brain, get back on target. I only knew Lisa Whelchel by name as someone who was a speaker before I went, so she wasn't even one of the speakers I was looking forward to hearing, and yet it was her book I ended up buying, "Friendship for Grown-Ups." If you, like me, had no friends growing up, for whatever reason, I highly recommend it. I've only begun reading it, but I love it, and interestingly enough, she talks about grieving in this book, which I was not expecting. One of the problems I'm having though, is with her assessment that "it's okay to be needy." I find that I'm too needy and this is why I struggle in relationships. It's when I start sharing my struggles, even a little bit, that people either get mean, or run for their lives! This hurts very deeply. As if I didn't need counseling before, I most definitely need it now! But she did give me permission to grieve. Further confirmation for me that I need to grieve the losses in my life! Thirty-six years worth of them, that I have never been allowed to grieve over! Some of these are actual people in my life that have died. Some of these are friendships that were severed and some of it is just things I should have had growing up, like parents who loved me and were affectionate, and talked to me about the things that I was struggling through, instead of me having to go it alone. And of course, all of the abuse! I could be grieving for a while, so if you have a problem with people grieving, you probably don't want to be my friend for many, many years!!!! Hopefully, it won't take 36 years to grieve through 36 years of loss! But I don't think it's going to be overnight either. I wish it would be. It isn't fun for me either. I think the time will be even longer, because I am left alone to grieve, with no one to talk to, because most have indicated in one way or another that they disapprove, and because I've had my trust broken so much over the last several months, I'm finding myself unable to let people close to me, in. Also, there aren't really any Christian Counselors available here, and even the one's that are here, we can't afford. We are down to bare minimum, so I'm stuck. I'm not trusting anyone who is not a professional. I've also quit going to church, cause I'm tired of leaving discouraged and crying. I'm not going to bible study, cause I'm afraid of me talking to much, as usual, and getting hurt. My very personality seems to be wrong. The one I was born with. Anybody who thinks I don't have a sanguine personality, you're wrong. People who knew me when I was little tell me I was a sanguine from the beginning. Years of being torn down took there toll and I became painfully shy, but that's not really who I am! I will not be defined by the me that I became as a result of abuse and depression! I did quit going to Celebrate Recovery, but a friend threatened to kidnap me and drag me there, so I went :) I stuck to her like a leach, and totally avoided talking to certain people but I went.

I Survived!!!!

And here I had anticipated giving you a full run down of my life, but alas, after at least skimming through my friends posts from the last couple of weeks, it is almost 1 am! I'm just going to have to tell you that I'm alive still. We continued to have internet issues, though, I do believe they are solved now. I survived Women of Faith. I did have some emotional issues that involved a run-in with an old friend, who came with us. She judged me and basically, pretty much said she didn't like my personality, and tried to change me. Not entirely. Some of the things she said, she had a point, but she was also missing a lot. Anyway, it was cause for an emotional day and then an emotional couple of weeks with processing everything. Many of the speakers addressed many issues in my life. I will tell you more at a later date (hopefully not too much later!)

Internet Troubles And Me "Working"

Warning: This post may or may not discuss female hormones and the physical manifestations (periods) that are produced by said hormones. So, guys, and gals who are uncomfortable with this particular subject for whatever reason, may want to refrain from reading this post. Consider yourself warned.





Well, we seem to have survived the 3 days that we had no internet at all. Yes, since I posted last we have pretty much not had internet at all. It went out Sunday morning again, and I did not catch it on again until this morning, when, of course, we had scheduled for a tech guy from Time-Warner to come out and look at it, and, hopefully, fix it for us. I was afraid this might result in him not understanding what the problem was, but it was clear that our signal, which should have been full-strength, is very weak. He looked to see why, and figured out that the lines that are underground are pretty much done for. So, it's going to take some doing to fix it. He did remove a spacer, I think it said it was, that didn't need to be there, giving us a stronger signal for now. It's still not as strong as it should be, so they will be looking at getting a work order to come out and dig and replace that underground line. He said to call if it continues cutting out on us, cause they could put in a temporary above ground line if necessary. They like to avoid doing that, however, since it does produce a problem for things like lawn mowing and sometimes people trip over them and things like that, so hopefully, it will work okay until they can fix it more permanently.

Anyway, I will be going to Women Of Faith Over The Top, this weekend in Spokane, Washington. I'm pretty excited about it. Some really wonderful people that I know from my church are going with us. We will meet to carpool at 7 am in the Rosauer's parking lot. I haven't gotten a ride yet, so hopefully, at that point they will throw me in with somebody. I'm sure they won't leave me to fend for myself! I also do not know who I'm staying with or anything as far as hotel accomodations. I will find that out as well. I also don't know which hotel, of the two hotels, they made reservations at, that I will be staying in. I do not have to pay for my ticket or hotel. I was asked to do 4 hours of work at the Hope Center, which I know I blogged about in the past, to "pay" for my trip to Spokane. I know it's still a steal since I know I would not get paid what the ticket and accomodations cost for the work that I did, so I'm so grateful.

I'm actually really grateful for the work that I was able to do at the Hope Center as well, though. For one thing it distracted me from what I couldn't do on here this week. It also showed me that there are things I am capable of doing. I'm not totally helpless, and that people will appreciate the work I do and not consider me too slow, or just in the way, like I was always treated growing up. I fear making even the smallest of mistakes as a result of the often violent ways that my family responded when I would even make a simple mistake. I experienced the same at the one job I had in college that wasn't working for my parents. I don't like working around people for this reason. I have found myself being uncomfortable at times when I thought I didn't really like the way I was having to do something, but not seeing a better option at the time. I was worried that the workers there would have a problem with the way I organized things on the shelves or whatever. I'm sure they'll never complain, cause I'm sort of volunteer labor. Well, this time I was part of the Goods for Services program they have. Yes, they allowed women who couldn't afford to go, but wanted to go to Women Of Faith, to work 4 hours at the Hope Center as part of that program. It's one of the many ways the Hope Center serves our community. It's also a thrift store. It's really, truly, a wonderful place. I've bought many things there for my family. In fact, there are probably just as many things from there in my house as there are from Wal-Mart or any place like that at this point. Love that place, and love that my money goes to help others in need when I shop there! Sometimes, obviously, that person in need is me, although, I wouldn't really consider a desire to go to Women Of Faith a need really, but I was happy when they offered me this opportunity. It also ensured that I wouldn't feel quite so guilty about letting them pay my way while I save up for the SSMT celebration in January. I really don't have the money anyway, even if I wasn't going for that. This would be why I still have not made hotel reservations or bought plane tickets yet! But it will happen! We're doing our best to make sure it does! Well, my best I suppose might be getting a job, although, I'm not quite emotionally ready for that, yet. Like I said, the few hours I put in this week at the Hope Center produced some anxiety, even when I was working with people I know love me, and not for very long periods of time. These people are my friends, and are happy to have any help. I may continue helping there on a volunteer basis next week. I still have not had time to look for counseling. Now, since getting ready for Women of Faith, became a priority, I'll have to do that next week. It just keeps getting pushed back, but that's okay. It will be fine.

Now, my only concern with Women of Faith, and why I hadn't made that a priority to save up for or anything before, is because I went once before. It wasn't a positive experience :( I went with some people I didn't really know and I don't sleep well, so first off, I had one lady get mad at me for being up and down all night on Friday night (it is a Friday-Saturday event). She was really annoyed and talked to me very rudely. Actually, she didn't even talk directly to me. She just made rude, sarcastic remarks very loudly when I was nearby. Also, unlike the Living Proof Live conferences I enjoy so much, there are several speakers and musicians and they all have very different styles. Some are funny, some are more serious, so you find yourself laughing one minute and crying the next. I'm already quite emotional, so that was very hard for me to deal with. Of course, that was early in my recovery, when I was still pretty uncomfortable with feeling anything at all!! I think I had emotion overload, because I crashed and I crashed hard, upon returning home. I decided to risk it this time, because this opportunity was offered directly to me on facebook. I was thrilled that someone would care enough to single me out as someone who could benefit from this offer! So, how could I turn it down?! I didn't....obviously. But, given the emotional issues, you can imagine how thrilled I was when I started my period this afternoon. (Now, I'M about to get sarcastic!) Gee, thanks God. Let's add some hormones to this mix and see if we can get some drama out of her!!! How do ya like that!?! Man, oh, man. Oh, well. I'm sure it will be fine. At least this time I'm aware of how emotional it will be and how long! It's all day Friday and all day Saturday, so a lot longer than LPL! So, I'm sure we will manage and be prayed up. I hope many of you will pray for me as well. I have many other things to tell you, but alas, it will have to wait!

I Had A Few Semi-random Thoughts

Well, my internet's been in and out for a couple of weeks. Now it seems to be more in than out, so maybe we'll actually be able to accomplish something on here.

Thoughts after my first week and a a half of having a 7th grader (some related to that, others not so much.)

1. Why does my son's head turn into a tomato when you mention girls?

2....And he grins from ear to ear, showing his adorable dimples! (I can never get him to do that for school pictures?)

3. What is it with our family and death on school picture day? My grandma died on school picture day and we got the news just before. My son got the news right before(and I do mean RIGHT before) they took his pictures that his best friend's baby brother died. Still don't know waht happened. I'm guessing SIDS, but do not yet know. He was 2 months old and perfectly healthy. Jeremiah loved that kid and I know his family did, too. Please pray for them. Jeremiah's friend, Christian, is also in the 7th grade, and they have a few other kids as well.

4.In all my selfishness (am I sick or what?!) I thought, "Great, now I'm definitely not going to get a smile out of him in his pictures." In light of everything, WHO CARES!!!!!!

5. Is it really necessary for boy's to stick their hands down their pants every 20 minutes or so?

6. Why do they not care if they get hurt as long as they got to hurt someone else in the process? (Tackling in football.)

7. Why don't we just paint my car yellow and paint "Taxi Cab" on the side, cause that is what I am. I would really rather not live in my car, but alas, I am.

8. I had a whole lot of thoughts for you yesterday. Today, not so much. But then, that was before I got the above news about nearby families baby. Why must things like this happen?

A Day With My Girls And SSMT

I was planning to have a day out with my girls today. It may have to wait until Monday. After all, that is the holiday. Anyway, Chloe's coughing and sniffling like crazy from allergies, but nobody ever believes that it's just allergies, so we stayed home from Celebrate Recovery last night. Not that CR does anything for me anymore, except to remind me that no one but God gets it, and even though I know I have God and that's all I really need, it hurts to not have people to share with that understand. I have not been sleeping well, partially due to emotional pain, but mostly because I'm pretty sure I have Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). It's been driving me crazy and even can feel a sort of numb tingly feeling in my leg now. I really can't describe it to you. It's awful! I haven't slept much in days!!!!! Chloe's still coughing today, and says her stomach and throat hurt. We were going to go to the pool today if it was warm, which it is fairly warm. Or to the mall. Chloe needs to spend the 30 dollars that she got from grandma for her birthday, and I was going to get Angela a small treat, so it wasn't just about Chloe, which it has been for far too long. Chloe didn't get a real Birthday party, but she had FOUR birthday cakes! One at the family reunion, one that Angela baked for her at the neighbor's house, one we bought when we celebrated as a family last weekend at the pool, and then one that evening at Josh's mom's house, where we had a barbecue before Aunt Judy headed back to Texas. So, her birthday drug on, and on, and on, and on......You get the idea. So, I want to treat Angela a little, too.

They're all happy to be back in school with their friends. Jeremiah did well on his first day of 7th grade. He even helped another 7th grader with her locker combination. He also asked me if he could take my scripture verse magnets to put his posters up in his lockers with. He wanted some scripture in there, also. I have other magnets that are just simple magnets with no verses, but he specifically wanted the verses, to remind him that he does represent Jesus at the school. Be still, my heart! Just when I think he's morphed into totally disrespectful, obnoxious teen boy, he proves to me that he still loves Jesus and wants to live for Him! How did this messed up woman get such an amazingly faithful boy!!!!!???!!! And my girls love Jesus, too. Having a harder time convincing them that they should listen to Christian music more than secular music. I have no problem with some secular music, but Angela hardly listens to anything else! I want to fill her head with God-thoughts. I don't think she realizes how much what we listen to affects our attitudes and everything else! Oh, and now I hear Skillet playing out in the living room! Thank you, Jesus! He is awesome, how He reminds me how committed they truly are!

I just registered today for the SSMT celebration in Houston. God's going to have to do something amazing to provide for that trip, though! It was a given, but things have changed and we're not sure we can swing it. I haven't done anything fun just for me in years! Like our entire marriage! So I really feel like I need this trip! Plus, I'm having so much fun talking to the siestas on twitter, and want so much to meet the people I've gotten to know there in person!!!! I have loved scripture memory, and needed it soooooo much this year! I'm sure I have every year, but I am especially aware of it this year. Hopefully, I'll have time to look for counseling next week while the kids are in school.

Discouraging People

Apparently, I've changed this summer. You wouldn't know it from the reactions from my church, but maybe I have. I don't know. I don't really feel much different, which sucks, cause I've always felt like crap :( I'd really like that not to be the case anymore. I do trust and believe God on a whole new level than ever before. I have seen Him faithfully minister to me this summer, which only encourages me to keep going and keep seeking Him and keep looking for opportunities to serve Him, even in small ways, and to keep looking for the help that I need in healing from my past abuse. I know He will be faithful, in His time. I may not understand why He does things the way He does, but I can trust that He is on my side.

It was hard before, to even want to keep going, cause everyone around me was questioning whether or not I was truly repentant, and whether or not I was hearing God at all. From their reactions it felt like I'd never changed. Not ever, in my entire Christian walk, which, while they may have thought it motivating, after dedicating and rededicating myself to Christ for 16 years, it was actually rather discouraging. Why bother? If my life is no different than before, if I'm no different than before, what good is my seeking Him doing? It's not helping me, and it's most certainly not helping anyone else come to know Him! Don't try to motivate someone by discouraging them. Don't be skeptical of what they say God is doing or telling them. It's not helpful. Unless, you can absolutely see that what they are saying is unbiblical, don't do that! It's not motivating! It's discouraging! I am going to avoid skeptical people for a very long time, cause I REALLY don't need that! That's exactly the kind of "motivation" that my abusive mother used on me, calling me stupid when I'd mess up, or lazy, thinking that it would make me want to prove her wrong. Most people don't operate like that, and it's very hurtful. Especially to a young child. I would like to spend time around people who really do have true faith in God. And not only faith in what He can do in church leaders lives, but everyday, ordinary people, or even damaged people like myself!

Update, Family Reunion, and Counseling

Well, I am exhausted, and that is probably the understatement of the century. Last night after I finally got off of here at about 2o till 3, I got ready for bed. And then laid down to go to sleep, but I couldn't sleep. My mind was going a thousand miles an hour as always, but mostly only because I had heartburn to keep me awake, and for some reason, unlike my husband, if I'm awake I'm thinking. ALWAYS! Always thinking. Even if it's something totally insane and doesn't really matter at all, like whether or not greeks have weird sayings when they don't understand something, like when we say. "It's greek to me." I mean obviously that's not saying anything in Greece (Just an extra special glimpse into my odd mind:))! Anyway, since I had heartburn mostly I thought "this really hurts and I wish it would go away," "Please God, make it go away. I need sleep," and "this really sucks cause I actually do have to get up in the morning and be awake all day at a family reunion." I told God all about it, and got up to take a bath, cause that's what I do in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. I'm not sure why. Somehow bath's are just comforting to me. I do this a lot when I'm sick or in some sort of pain, whether it be emotional or physical. Seriously, when I'm upset and know I can't just cry a little and not talk to anyone outloud about it, I go take a bath and bawl my head off and cry out to God. He's been very faithful here as of late in comforting me. I'm sure He was before, too, but I've never really had my whole heart in it, like I have this summer. Mostly in the past I doubted whether or not He even really cared and found it necessary to help Him decide what I needed. I'm not helping Him anymore, I'm just letting Him do it, and to my amazement He's actually quite good at His job, without my help! That was truly shocking, to realize that He can handle me on His own, He really doesn't need my help. I don't think I even consciously realized I was trying to help Him do His job until this last week or so, and then started wondering what's so different about my time devoted entirely to Him (quiet time and other times that I set aside when necessary throughout the day) than ever before. And that's when I realized that the difference was quite simple actually. I quit sort of telling Him what He needed do with me, and just said, "Uh, help! I don't really know what I need exactly. Could you show me?" What a concept! Actually, in trying to help Him, I was only getting in the way! I do realize that I need to get out and seek out people to talk to and be friends with, and maybe a counselor, or something like that, but I don't need to fret about it. When I get a lead on a counselor, I'll contact them and let God take care of the rest. I actually have a couple of leads right now, but I'm waiting till school starts to deal with that. These last couple of weeks before school starts are just a little to crazy to be doing that right now.

I had a good time at the family reunion, but after only about 3 hours of sleep, I'm pretty tired this evening. Can hardly wait for bedtime, even though, knowing me I'll still stay up ridiculously late!:) I am a nightowl. Have been since I was a small child. My mom said even as young as early elementary school age, if she made me go to bed, she'd often find me staring at the ceiling until about 10 o'clock. I guess God just made me this way. Not really sure why. He just did. I finally met one of Josh's cousins that I've been talking with frequently on facebook. A really fantastic young woman, and I'm so happy to be related to her even if it is only as an outlaw :) Yes, this was my husband's family, not mine. No offense, but if it was mine, I would not be happy about it! I actually have met her before, but only formally, once every 2 years at the Judd family reunion. So, didn't really know her at all. Thanks to facebook, I feel like I know her a little, and that helped me to be much more relaxed at this reunion. I mean, obviously, I know Josh's siblings and his mom, but not the rest of them as much. Absolutely love my sis-in-law, Candy. She is one of the most amazing people I know, and I'm not just saying that because she happens to read this blog :) I really mean it! I've never met anyone who could be as content as she is, in such humble circumstances. I'm sometimes a little jealous of her enjoyment in such simplicity. I require sparkly things to be happy:) You know, very girly things. Make-up of all shorts of colors and varieties, in case I get bored with my normal shade. All sorts of wonderful, preferably sparkly nailpolish, of many colors and shades! I'm getting quite bored with having my natural haircolor, with no highlights, lowlights, streaks or anything! That is just WRONG!!! And of course, sparkly jewelry, duh!! And, I just love that even sparkly clothes are in fashion! I just love to sparkle! One can I say!? If I didn't know better, I might just light a sparkler and put it in my hair and walk around like that! LOL!

Wow! Well, I mentioned the counseling situation. This group, the NANC, is apparently quite legalistic. They do not deal with wounded hearts on any level, only sinful hearts. I had started to get that feeling. It seemed as if all of my pain was only do to my own, personal sin. None of it stemmed from my abusive childhood at all. That's why I completed believed my friend when she told me that she had found the group to be legalistic. I had not even told her of my experiences at that point. I had only been telling her about the ministries that my church was involved in and had not told her that I was in counseling at all! So, I had not prompted that in any way. In fact, I was being quite positive about how great it was that we would soon have trained, Biblical Counselors, in Moscow, again. (She was the only one, before.) But when I told her the group they were training through, she balked. She even expressed concern that people could actually be hurt even more deeply with this type of counseling. She had no idea, and still doesn't that I had experienced this exact thing. Somehow I felt too ashamed of myself, to admit to her how much I am still struggling, all these years after I had been seeing her as a counselor, before she moved away. Anyway, I'm hoping to find someone else, soon.

I'm Back! Sorry For The Long Break

Wow! I have left you guys hanging for a really long time! Since it's past 2 am and I have to get up in just a few hours to go to a family reunion, I'll just let you all know I'm still here. We're all here in fact. I did make it back for the last camp. I left that very night after that last post I wrote and spent the weekend at Camp Grizzly. I'm still hurting. I've learned a few very disappointing things about the counseling group that I've been working with. I'll explain more in a future post, but what it boils down to is legalism, which is one of my biggest pet peeves anyway. I don't need people trying to make me all perfect without any compassion whatsoever and that's basically what they're doing. However, God has been very good to me, and has been ministering to me all by Himself! Who knew? He really doesn't need any help! I know beyond a shadow of a doubt at this point that He has not failed me. Other frail human beings have failed me, but He has not, and I can trust Him to continue to lead me! And now, I better go to bed, or tomorrow (um, actually, today) is going to be horrible!

Who Says There Are Only Drama Queens?

Negative drama came into my life today, but not because of a female. Well, he would say it was because of a female, but he was the one who decided to shift gears based on that female's emotions. A certain nameless female was asked what was wrong, as she was obviously sad, by the nameless male figure and so she told him what was wrong. Nameless male then said, "Fine, you don't have to go." He then told me that she didn't want to go to Camp Grizzly and he just left. Apparently, nameless female did not even know they were leaving. No one told her. So, she then became even more upset. This certain, nameless male does this very same thing to me all the time! He asks how you're feeling and then when you tell him, he changes plans without even asking you if that's what you wanted, and does it in a very dramatic and matter of fact way, that you don't even get the chance to discuss. It's a little like I imagine it would be to live with an alcoholic, where your entire world is controlled by the drama of the moment. He seems to be offended often by the fact that I don't share my emotions with him, but this would be why. He gets all offended, takes it too personal, and decides to change his plans whether you like it or not, based on your feelings. I don't like it, and I tend to often end up feeling guilty for the changed plans, even though I didn't ask for them. He reacted! Seriously, there are a lot of things that I get emotional about! It doesn't mean I want to change our plans. I have no doubt, regardless of where we move to when Josh gets promoted, there will be some sadness involved. Of course, there will be. Our kids have lived here their whole lives. They've developped some close friendships. With all of their faults we love our church and we'll miss them. We've each invested time and attention to people in our lives that we will miss. That doesn't mean we're not excited about a new adventure, or that we would rather stay here than go where God is calling us to next. It just means that change can be painful. Moving on to the next thing means letting go of some other things, and that's never easy. It would be nice to have a safe environment to express those feelings without anyone suddenly, then, changing all the plans and throwing you into a whirlwind where you're not even sure what's up or down! Thcat's even worse! Dealing with your feelings that come about when change is about to happen is hard enough, without someone going all drama king on you! You're just trying to deal with your emotions about the current situation and then, WHOA, WHAT? What is this? Now you're going to mess with things and totally change them into something we weren't even beginning to prepare for?! And just when we were starting to deal with our feelings about the original plans. Change is inevitable. Even us emotional females know that. We just deal with it on a much more emotional level than men do, usually, but we deal with it. When someone decides to throw a wrench in the plans, while we're dealing with it, then we feel completely out of control and we can't deal with, because we don't even know what's going on! Anyone else have someone like this in their world?

End Of Summer Activities

Wow! What a wild and crazy, and FUN week it has been! Yesterday, we only did some grocery shopping and went to Jeni's for prayer meeting. Or at least Angela and I went shopping. Jeremiah and Chloe weren't interested. Then, later Chloe and I went to Jeni's for prayer meeting. Angela was with a friend she hadn't seen all summer, and Jeremiah wanted to stay at home. I forgot to go pick up their lenses at the eye doctor's yesterday, so we're going to have to do that today, then they get to go back to Camp Grizzly with their dad, for the last camp, a Cub Scout weekend camp. I may head out there for part of that myself. If I get done with my devotional book. I"m almost done, so I think that will work out just fine! I probably will miss the first official night (Friday), but will head out Saturday and be there for the weekend! Should be fun, and maybe I'll actually get in the water, since it has been rather warm here in Idaho. It finally started to be summer, not that there are no more Boy Scout camps! Boo!!!! Next, we'll shift our focus to getting ready for school to start, and with one getting ready for junior high. I'm so nervous for him, but I'm sure he'll do fine. I'm thankful for a great youth group at our church. I'm hoping that will help him adjust, having other Christian teens going through similar struggles. Hopefully, they're open about sharing that stuff, so they can support each other. See you all soon!

Shopping, Shopping, Shopping: It's A Girl's Life!

Wow! The last couple of days have been a whirlwind of activity! Mostly with my darling girls! The Cub Scout weekend camp that is coming up this weekend is having a medieval theme, so Josh has decided to dress up as a king, since he is Camp Director, and therefore, in charge of the camp. (So, he is kinda king, if you think about it.) And, of course, as always, his girls are his princesses! And they are! I mean really, they don't need to dress the part. They KNOW they are!!!! That's one of many things I love about my man! But...he wants everyone else to know it, too. So we went shopping the last couple of days. For dresses and tiara's...and we just had to slip in a few other fun things :)

Yesterday, I got busy with some stuff I do for a little extra cash, online, so it was late in the evening before I was ready to shop. We went to the Dollar Tree first, to look for tiara's. They had really cheapy cardboard ones, which we didn't want, but I needed some other things like notebook paper and journals. Things like that, so we did buy a few things. We also bought some cheap, but very colorful and sparkly make-up for the girls for the weekend. They're so excited about getting to wear make-up that they've been playing around with it all day! We also got some pretty nail polish, which they also couldn't wait to experiment with! Girls! You gotta love 'em!

We then went to Claire's at the mall, because I knew they would have some fantastic tiara's. After all that I've been through, and even though I know I've got a long ways to go from here (who doesn't, really, if you think about it?) I thought it was only appropriate that I get one for myself, too. Angela and I got actual metal ones. I don't know if they're real silver or not, but who cares! They had what looked like probably cubic zirconia that sparkle! Wow! Do I ever love me some bling! Even if it is fake! (No excuses, Josh! I still prefer the real thing :)) Chloe got a plastic one with a pink poofy thing at the bottom. (Hey, did I ever claim to be sophisticated and know what these things are called? No judging!:)) She also insisted on a wand to go with. Okay, she didn't actually insist. I never would have put up with that, but she sure wanted one, and I was having so much fun, I wasn't about to argue! So we bought the wand as well! So much fun! I asked Angela if she thought it was bad that my tiara was more expensive and had more on it than there's. She said, no way! Mine should be bigger and fancier! After all, I'm mom, and therefore the queen, even though I'm God's princess, just like them! She said it shows my "authority" (such a big word for a little girl), so I went with it! Afterwards we went to the new frozen yogurt place, "Jamms," that just recently opened up in town. Angela and I've been dying to go. As soon as the sign went up indicating what they were building there, we were excited. Not as excited as we were when we were told, originally, that IHOP was looking to build there, but excited, none the less! It was delicious, and Chloe particularly like the spinning stools at the bar! (It's not a real bar. They don't sell alcohol there.) They were pretty cool! They had the little step thing like a hair stylist's chair and adjusted heights kind of like them, as well. So cool! Yes, we're easily amused. It was self-serve and you pay by the ounce, so that was fun! They had all sorts of toppings, candy ones, and fruit! Delicious!!!! Love it! Definitely going again sometime!

So, then, today we needed to get Angela a proper princess dress. Chloe already had one, but Angela needed one, so we took off again to shop this morning! First we went to our favorite thrift store, The Hope Center, and looked around just in case. No princess dresses, but we did find Angela a "new" bike, which we've been looking for forever! We also got the girls some barbies and we got some laundry baskets for their rooms! I also bought Chloe a pair of adorable shoes, she just had to have (you know how these things work, right?:)) and we found a small and very simple sewing machine for small projects! So, of course, we had to have that, too!!!! So, then, it was off to the mall again. This time, to Ross, where we found a very frilly, white dress for Angela. It was darling! We tried on the size 12, but it didn't seem like it was quite as long as it should be, so I found one in a size 14. It fit!!! (gasp) She's growing up so fast, I can hardly stand it!

Of course, after that, we had to have a "dining" experience to go with our shopping, so we did our traditional Orange Julius run. I didn't do it the day before, because I wanted to try the new fro-yo place instead! Of course, it was great, as usual! Then, we wandered up and down the mall, sipping our Orange Julius's. So much fun! (How many times have I said that now!?!) Then, we came home.

I do have to admit, Jeremiah seems to be a bit jealous, especially last night, when he discovered me and the girls spread out over my bed in our pj's settling in to sleep. He snagged my iPhone and said rather bitterly, I think is what I heard in his tone, "Since you guys are having yourselves a little party it seems, I think I should get this." I was fine with it, and I'd actually promised him earlier when he complained about the frozen yogurts (he complained about the Orange Julius's today, too) that he and I would have a mother-son date, just the two of us, soon. He was excited about that! How blessed am I, to have an almost 13-year-old son, who's excited about the possibility of some time alone with his mama?!! Now, I just have to figure out how I'm gonna make that happen, and what we're gonna do. I mean, after all, I'm obviously not going to buy him a tiara and a princess dress :)!!!!!! I'm thinking it will mostly have to be food, considering what he was most jealous of :) I was going to take him to Bumpers (the local arcade, if you can call it that) and spend some time in the batting cages, but we discovered today that they've gone out of business!!!!! So, unfair!!!! I was even going to attempt to hit a few balls myself, and let him laugh at me!!!! I'm sure he would have loved that! Now, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. And, of course, unlike him, the girls can't stay home by themselves, so what am I gonna do with them while I hang with Jeremiah. After all, recruiting season is about to begin for Josh after school starts back up again, so I won't hardly see him at all for a few months! Trust me, this is how this works! There are certain times of the year, where it just is sun-up to sun-down with his job, and fall is one of those times!!!!