I'm going home

The kids and I are headed to my parents this afternoon...for 18 days! Allen will be coming up for the weekend as it is the town's Good Ol Days festival. This is one of our favorite weekends. They get it off with a parade on Friday night and then the entire downtown area is blocked off for a chicken dinner and dancing with live bands. Saturday there are 3 blocks of craft booths, the car show, sometimes a bed race, the kids rides, entertainment and and old fashion red garter saloon. When I get back I'll post a picture of the summer I was a saloon girl. Not to mention the food...funnel cake, homemade pies and ice cream, kettle corn.

I plan to shopping with one sister on Friday and then we are having a girls night with my sisters and cousin. After the festival we've made it a little tradition now that the kids and I stay for 2 weeks following and all the cousins have sorta cousin camp at my mom's. We take the kids to swimming lessons in the morning and then the community center offers all sorts of other classes for $5 a class. Where we live now it is $45 a kid and that just gets a little pricey. One summer I actually stayed 6 weeks. During that time the kids took every class they were interested in and it was so much fun and really wore them out...day camp, swimming, flag, pom pon, cheerleading, cooking, tumbling, ballet. Most classes only ran an hour and were either M/W or T/TH. Of course we had a beautiful 15 passenger church van (I'll post a pic of that too).

Allen comes up and visits, but summer is his busy time so we don't see much of him anyway. I did help prepare for my absence by shopping for him yesterday. Wow, are convenience foods expensive! Probably still cheaper than eating out though.

All that to say, I probably won't be posting for a while. I'm so thankful and excited that I get to go home. I haven't lived there since just weeks after I graduated high school 17 years ago, but it still feels like home. And there is nothing better than to rest in my mom's nest. She is the most serving and giving person. I just want to walk in the house, hand over the baby and cry in gratefulness as to how much relieve it will be to have her give me a break for a little while.

There's A Stranger In My House.

As I sat nursing 8 week old Wyatt, that unmistakable gurgle hit my gut. As the evening progressed so did the seriousness of my ailment. As I sat on my porcelain throne trembling and worried with trash can dumped out on the floor for a make shift bucket, I debated whether to call someone for help to watch the kids. They hadn't read the manual of how to act when momma is sick. Instead they were running in to tell me "Brian changed the channel on the TV" and me saying "I don't care". Them running in to ask "Are you done yet? We have to go potty", me saying "I DON'T care, go upstairs". Them running in to tell me, "Brian dumped out the bottle of glue on the chair in the office" Me yelling, "I DON'T CARE!"

I summoned my oldest, Makensie age 7, and asked her to call daddy and tell him to pick up the pace and get home that I was really sick. Unfortunately Allen was still about 30 minutes away. I also asked her for a wet washcloth because at this point, I was thinking I was going to pass out. I told her that if I did pass out, NOT to call 911! She could however, go to our sweet elderly neighbors house and ask Miss Virginia to come and sit with the baby until daddy got home. After all, the last thing I want on my record of humiliating experiences, is to be passed out on the floor with my panties around my ankles.

Then the door bell rang. Since it is so late, it only made sense that it had to be someone we knew. The kids all start yelling, "Go to the back door!" Now our front door hasn't opened from the inside for about a year now, yet somehow appears to be #131 on someone's honeydo list. Then I hear the stampede to the kitchen. How is it possible that 3 kids that weigh less than 40lbs each sound as if a fleet of octopus wearing work boots rose up and were trampling through the house?

I hear the back door open and knew it had to be a close friend because the rule is to never ever ever ever open the door to a stranger. At this point I am not mustering up the energy to be moving anywhere. I was thinking to myself, "Thank you Lord! Please let them be able to stay with the baby just until Allen gets home. "

Then I hear the stampede heading my direction. Makensie and Gabby come in and shout excitedly, "mom, it's one of your friends." I ask of course, "Which one?" You have to imagine this next part as if viewing it thru a slow motion camera... Makensie gestures to the bathroom door as she says, "Thiiiiiissssss oooonnnne." And now joining me in the bathroom is a complete stranger. I sat looking up at her, my mouth wide open, sounds in my head I didn't know existed. Gabby helped explain the slightly awkward situation by letting her know, "momma's sick. She has diarrhea." As she wrinkled up and pinched her nose and fanned the air.

Ya think? She had to have guessed that when she walked into our bedroom! But wait! It gets better, as she stood there and went ahead to tell me that she had stopped by to see if I had a playpen to get rid of.

Well, I shouldn't’t have said she was a complete stranger, I had met her at my yard sale a couple of days previous. And a couple of days previous I would have gladly in my yard, dressed have discussed the sale of the playpen.

At this point my head is whirling, partly from the embarrassment and partly from the shock that I had to then ask her if I could finish going to the bathroom, then we could talk. I wanted to scream "IS THIS SERIOUSLY HAPPENING?! AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN SEE I'M ON THE TOILET?!"

I am having a complete lack of understanding of what in the world my children were thinking! I didn’t even want to leave the bathroom. I splash my face with cold water, lean over the sink and glance into the mirror and tell myself "This is it. This is THE most embarrassing moment of my life." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But not laugh like funny haha, laugh like crazy insane then burst into tears and then back into laughing, they're-coming-to-take-me-away laughing. I bravely step foot into Wyatt's room to see Makensie folding up MY pack and play and I tell her and the gal that I'm not giving my pack and play away that I still use it, "that's why it is set up - Makensie" said in my best I'm trying to keep my composure here although I really want to scream voice.

Makensie then goes and gets my 2 month old baby out of the swing and brings him in and hands him to this lady, who by this time I'm 100% sure is not all there. And yet I'm considering sending my kids home with her. She hands him immediately back to me. Then says, "I don't like to hold them when they're that small" Although I specifically remember her having a kid, and correct me if I'm wrong, but she is wanting a pack and play. At this point my tummy is sounding off again. And for some reason I still fell the need to be polite as I usher her out apologizing for the quick visit, that I was just sick.

I will probably need to seek counseling for my post traumatic shock.

Thankful Day 7

This is my final day of posting my thankful list. I should have posted yesterday, but it was a crazy day.

Thankful for my friends in my life, whether they are family, close friends, online, of just occasional.

Thankful for the book of Proverbs and the Holy Spirit wispering wisdom from those verses when I need them most.

Thankful for when I peek in the crib and Wyatt is sweetly asleep with both hands raised over his head.

Thankful for when Makensie gives me a toothless grin. She lost 4 baby teeth all right in a row and is still working on getting the adult teeth in.

Yesterday was the day I was running errands. Nothing yesterday morning went as planned, Wyatt wanted to nurse more, the kids weren't getting their chores done and were fighting constantly which required many correction sections by the time we left he house it was 1:15 and when we got in the van all 3 of them started complaining that they were hungry. And they should be, as crazy as it sounds, I completely forgot about lunch in the midst of all the chaos. So we went grabbed tacos and they ate in the van. We finally made it to WalMart, our one stop store and while there I bumped into a lady I worked with 7 years ago. She has now adopted 2 litttle ones, is a stay home mom, here in town and I hadn't ran into her this whole time. She was always a joy. She mentioned that she has no friends with little ones and isn't involved in any mom's groups. Of course we exchanged numbers and it was a true blessing that God had us on the same isle at the same time. I need to learn to not stress out as much, had all gone smoothly and we had gotten out the door at my planned time, I wouldn't have seen her and since it has been 7 years, it could have been another 7.

Thankful Day 6

The smell of food on the grill
After shower clean feeling
The 1st peak of sun in the mornings
The sound of a Whipporwill
The taste of a cold clean water

I lost my journal and of all the things that could have happened my mentor was the one who God pointed it to and she is bringing it to me today.

Flowers or weeds

I was talking with my friend and mentor this morning. She was sharing about her garden. She has added a fountain, has flowers planted, a garden growing, a sitting area there to enjoy and admire the fruits of her labor. As I was on the phone with her I walked outside to sit and look at my own yard. Now remember that I did attend college for horticulture/floriculture. However, my yard looked as if an abandon home had it's yard mowed. My rose garden is completely overran with weeds, the English Ivy has taken over the fence and all the bushes that landscape the front porch, the birdseed feeder is gone, the naked ladies, iris' and tulips are not blooming. It is really quite a sad sight. My husband is wonderful at making sure our yard is mowed and the edges trimmed so that we aren't fined for having a pasture in town. I am not committed to following through with the little extras that turn our yard from just serving a purpose to being a delight to the senses.


I have no natural gifting in the area of gardening. And since I have accepted that I have allowed this to be an excuse for how our yard appears. I keep hoping one of our neighbors will nominate us for some HGTV special for someone who needs help, but so far neither Ty Pennington or any of his costars have rang the doorbell.


In Psalms 44:1 the writer says that he knows of God because his ears have heard about all God has done for his father. As I posted about faithbooking last week, I realized that what started out to be something tangible for me to remember and see God's works in my life, it will be equally important for my kids to be able to look through and see also. How will my children grow to know Him unless I'm talking about Him? How will my children grow to love Him unless they see us love Him and see the love He has for us? It is my responsibility to tend to the hearts of my own children so that they bear the fruits of the Spirit. Left to themselves they will develop just as my yard has. They might have the appearance of a fresh cut but there is nothing more that they are growing. The areas in their hearts that with pruning could produce beautiful flowers and delicious fruits to offer others, may eventually be choked with weeds from lack of proper feeding.


I issued a challenge last week to find 5 things a day to be thankful for, I'm going to put a little twist on that challenge. In addition to those 5 things, find one thing each day in which God showed Himself real to you that day. No matter how big or small.

For example: I was mad at my husband and was going to leave without a note just to prove my point and give him a little scare even if it was just to WalMart for a couple of hours. My van which has had no problems before, would start and then die after a second or two not allowing me to get anywhere. It eventually made it to the middle of the drive and I left it parked there. Allen got home, I let him know the van was broke. He got in, started it and drove around the block and it has been fine every since. I knew at the time it was childish behavior, but to be honest I really didn't care. God allowed me time to cool off without doing anything stupid to cause more conflict.

Many blessings to you this day as you tend your own little gardens.

Thankful Day 5

Dinner with good friends

Kids playing in the yard after dark. It reminds me of my childhood.

Someone else doing the dishes

Neck rubs

Pretty table clothes

Thankful Day 4

Our huge front porch.

Shade.

Margaritas.

That feeling of laying down after a purely exhausting day.

Soaking my feet at the end of a purely exhausting day.