Remember me?

Oh HI!

I’m that girl that thought it would be cool to blog and set a 2017 goal to do it every week, created a list of weekly topics (not completely filled in, but started none-the-less) and wrote her last post in March never to be heard from again…

Or at least not for the last 108 days, 22 hours, 45 minutes, and 41, 42, 43 seconds.

Yeah, so I got the hankering to write tonight. But as I sat here, 2 days into a 4 day weekend of being a single parent (my husband is working. No worries, we are still happily married), I found myself wanting to write about my woes of how I am tired of…

-all 3 kids crying at the same time. Literally. Every. Time.  It usually starts with the baby as his older sister pesters him, then she ends up tripping over something and starts crying, and finally the 5 year old decides he’s unhappy about the snack options he’s been given.  So there we are, all standing at my feet, all 4 of us crying.  Yes, 4.  Sometimes I just join in too.  You know the old adage, “If you can’t beat em, join em”….well I tried it.  It usually makes all 3 of them stop. (It’s a good tactic…try it out moms!)

-being sticky, and dirty, and washing my hands 400x per day which then dries them out, and lotion doesn’t help because as soon as I put it on, I’ve gotten sticky, Again…

-my 3 year old pooping back-to-back times in her pull-up. (*With Sincerity* Dear Lord, please help her to see that there’s nothing scary about going poop in the potty.)

Anyway, you get the picture, but I hated to have been away for so long and come back with only complaints. So instead I’ll just elaborate more on why there’s been a break.

And no, it’s not writer’s block.

Really, it’s been a swarm of things…besides the fact that life is just plain busy (for everyone), let’s start with work… my counterpart at out sister plant, left the company.  My travel schedule has been insane.  Since I last posted, I have traveled at least 1 week per month, with May actually having 2 trips, 1 of which I was in Berlin.  Then personally, we’ve been busy putting the house up for sale (we so desperately need a yard and not a hill), my step-daughter got married in June (it was a beautiful barn wedding and her now husband, that’s still weird to say, is such a nice guy!)  and then we moved them at the end of June.  And lastly, but most importantly, Spiritually, there’s been a storm swirling around me.  You see, I tend to keep my feelings bottled up until I have a complete breakdown.  Well in turn, I do the same to God.  I bottle up all my heartaches, joys, pain, and overwhelming burdens.  And lately, I’d just not let myself have any breakdown and I’d gotten to the point where I really wasn’t sharing ANYTHING with ANYONE.  That’s dangerous Folks!

What saved me?

My husband. Thankfully, he’d been praying and fasting the last few weeks and he shared with me that God spoke to him about me…

“Oh Really! Did he tell you what a wonderful wife you have, and how you should give her a nightly massage due to the stress she’s under at work? Ever so slightly moving his eyes to the right, without moving his head to actually face me, he responds…“No.”

There’s a pause.

He said “you bottle things up for too long and don’t share. And you need to share those things with God”

“That’s true.” I said very openly.  My husband was slightly shocked that I was willing to be so real in that moment of truth.

Needless to say, within a week, he could tell I was bothered and one night, he told me to go pray. I knew this was “do or die” time.  Something in me said, this is the turning point.  I laid in bed next to him, not wanting to move.  My flesh wanted to stay put.  I fought.  Not with him.  With myself.  Ever have an argument with yourself? Well, I do, and this night was one of the worst.  My flesh so desperately wanted to keep pushing God away.  I wanted.  No, I needed.  Wait. Better yet, I Deserved, to stay put in my pity party and drown my sorrows in despair.  But yet, I had enough spiritual grounding from years gone by that my spiritual self knew I needed to do what my husband advised.  I prayed for God to give me the strength to get up. Finally, I wiped tears away, leaned over into my nightstand, grabbed my bible, and told my husband I was going to pray.  This was at 10pm.  2 hours later I returned to bed, with a peace I hadn’t felt in months.

Just let it out folks. His grace is enough to handle anything we need to share and His loving-kindness rebukes my wrongs but holds me in His arms like a loving father does his disciplined toddler…

So there’s that.

Then the other point that’s kept me on a break…

I want routine.

Wait. What?

What does that have to do with this blog, you may ask. Well, you see, I have this “grand plan” to have a totally awesome morning routine that involves getting up at 4am, being able to have quiet time with God, workout, and do some writing on my blog and book, then start reality of getting ready for work.  I’ve had this plan for at least the 7 years I’ve been married and not one of those things are actually happening in the morning, not consistently anyway.  So, in the midst of a breakdown last week, sharing with my husband that I wanted “to be able to do it all,” he simply said…”you can’t.”

I started to get huffy.

He stopped me. This is not a “I’m putting you down thing”.  He explained that I really just needed to pick 1 thing to focus on for 1 year, and then add the next thing.  I started to argue with him, as normal, because I said 1 year was too long.  He stopped me again, and this time posed an interesting question..

“If you had done this 5 years ago, where would you be…”

Oh.

So, while I’m actually breaking his logic now, as writing was not the “1 thing” I picked to focus on, I know that when I have a hankering to write, I need to write. So let’s just say, we’ll see what happens next.

I do plan to circle back to my blog plan and see what I can put together for the 2^nd half of 2017…after all, being half-way through the year, what better time to evaluate where you’re at in your goals.

And…McDonald’s has $1 Cokes right now.

Why are you still reading this? Go there now!

Okay, so…I said A LOT of random things, I talked about Jesus, and I just had to throw in the point of $1 Cokes (still not sure why anyone is still reading this)…so, this post is actually a true example of this blog site.

Score. I’m Back!