31 Days Challenge

So starting Monday, October 31st, I'll be linking up every day with the Nester for her annual 31 Days Challenge.

The idea is that you pick one topic that you can make very short points about, one each day.

My topic is "31 Days of Being Crazy Real."

I feel like God has given me a gift of being real with people. It all started with a small realization that a lot of us are thinking something, and the person we're talking to would probably love to hear it, but we're afraid of how they'd take it, so we shut up.

WHY???

So I've started practicing not shutting up. And it's going well. And people have noticed.

And appreciated it.

Some people don't care for it as much as others....but God has also gifted me with grace for those people and I don't let it bother me. (Not after a second or two, anyway.)

So every day I'll be posting something real. More than likely, it'll be something real that my kids did that day, or a very real thought or attitude I had.

I do not want this to become complaining. God forbid it. But I think all of us moms and wives are a lot more real in our homes than we'd care to admit. As my pastor said (quoting someone else), "We're comparing our Jacobs to everyone else's Israel."

Well. I'm admitting it. I'm terribly, terribly real. I find it too stressful not to be, and it's tiring having your Israel on display all the time. I'm just a Jacob that God is working on, and I think a lot of other people are, too, and would like to hear more from others like us.

See you Monday.

my alter ego

Do you know what "alter ego" means? I didn't. I still kinda don't. I mean, I had the general idea, but I wondered - is it the version of yourself that you'd most like to become? Like your dream self? Or is it the version of you that is most opposite from who you are? (In my case, this would be an extremely outgoing goth people-person. I know that seems to be a contradiction, but trust me, that would be my opposite.)

I finally looked it up and it said "the other self." Well, thank you, that's most helpful.

NOT.

Well, due to a chance meeting with a pretty little kitty outside my door tonight, I've decide who my alter ego is. It is the me that I think I'd like to be, the person that I will begin praying to become, the person I wonder what it would be like to work toward becoming.

Let it be said: I am not a cat person.

I mean it. I don't understand them. They're snobby and expect to be served and hide from people and I just can't read them and their litter boxes smell awful. They look all cute and then they'll swing around and nab ya. (I know: I've had the rabies series to prove it.) I love dogs. I get dogs. I get along very well with dogs.

But this kitty... It was like almost 11pm! I was just headed to the convenience store to buy tortilla chips for Hubby. Isn't it just like God to give us divine messages in the most mundane things?? (My last experience like that was while deep-scrubbing the bathroom. In God's defense - not that He needs it - it was a task that required much prayer and praise music.)

It was a pretty little white and orange kitty. Often when we exit our house late at night, we'll hear rustling in the leaves over by the trees, and we wait a second to make sure that the skunk/possum/giant squirrel has a chance to move on before we freak it half to death and turn it evil. But as I heard the rustling this time and paused, I glanced over and saw a lighter colored figure, and then the glow of two little cat's eyes. So I did what I, not a cat person, always does when running into a cat unexpectedly.

I said, "oh, hi, kitty!" and mowwwed at it. (For not being a cat person, I do a pretty good "moww.")

And this kitty came over to me, and looked at me, and stood with me, and I scratched the kitty, and it's hesitancy lasted about 3 and a half seconds, and then it purrrrrrred at me, and wagged incessantly at me, and arched at me as I scratched its back, and it followed me to my car.

I told it that it would make the doggies yell. I told it I had a dog and it wouldn't work out. I told it we couldn't be together, even though I was 5% worried (hoping?) it might try to get in my car with me. It almost seemed like it wanted to play (where, admittedly, my rabies vaccine experience kicks in and I decide I shouldn't find out; I don't really know how to initiate play with cats, or where their too-far point is).

But as I drove to the convenience store and back, I revisited the idea with God about who I'd love to be, and began to investigate the idea to see if it's someone that might look like me.

And I decided it didn't. Not now, at least. But the now is practice. I have a bunch of kids, one of which is a psycho teenage daughter. That's got to be training for something.

So I decided this new woman would look something like this:

She would lose all her icky body weight so she can easily move around her several-acre plot of land, but she would still be soft enough to give good hugs. She would be the keeper of the Orphan House - her home, where any animal or baby or child in need of love and a warm bed would find its rest. She would own a good comfy pair of cowgirl boots and a good pair of tall rainboots. She would read her Bible like it's her very breath. She would hang Bible verses around her house to remind her and those around her from whence their strength comes. She would gather her passle of girls on her bed and they'd read (and watch) Jane Austen and Anne Shirley and learn about beauty and chivalry and romance, and she'd work outside with her passle of boys, fixing trim and building lean-tos for said creatures who ambled through their lives. She'd homeschool so that she could be around to be needed, and people would show up on her doorstep - a long front porch attached to a rambling farmhouse - and say "got room for one more?" and she'd never have to say no.

I'm praying for that woman. I hope to meet her someday.

it's october

Fact: It's about quarter to twelve. (Midnight, I mean.)

Fact: I am not in bed.

Fact: It's October.

Fact: That is WAY too late to be researching homeschool curriculum!!!!

My head is spinning, y'all! I now know what some of you were going through over the summer, except that I should have already finished this and been teaching this by now!

Oh, my goodness. This company for this subject, that company for that subject, or one company for all subjects?? Spend close to $200 for almost all subjects, or spend more for the whole deal??

Well, Amazon, I think we'll be getting to know each other a whole lot better in the next couple days. (I may lose a little familiarity with my bed, though. Boo.)

what i do all day

This morning I was talking with hubby about groceries. "I will probably end up running to Walmart today if you need anything." "Why?" "Well, we're almost out of bread...we're just about out of snacks...you need deodorant..." (This last item was something he actually requested a few days ago, not a commentary on my part.)

We have recently gone from weekly pay to twice-a-month pay. Talk about nuts. It's crazy how long it's taken to get back on our feet from switching our schedule. In that process, we're also trying to go grocery shopping less. We have a BJ's membership but never use it, but are planning to now, so that we can make fewer trips. That means buying more at once (obviously), but that also comes with deeper planning.

So we sat and talked about snack foods, and how many granola bars per day we would need, etc.

My husband BUILDS LISTS at work. My husband does LEAD GENERATION. These are big words and big ideas. He throws around terms and abbreviations that I have no idea what they mean. (I also don't ask. I'm grateful I've learned how to take the context.)

Meanwhile, I throw around terms like "12-count box" and "non-fat milk powder." (This last one scared hubby, but I told him it's for the bread machine. Then he was okay. But it came with a stern warning.)

I started trying to explain to him how I feel sometimes when I have to go over this stuff with him. Not all the time, but if I'm in a particularly vulnerable mood, or if I'm quiet enough to hear my undercurrent of thoughts while talking, I can admit that I feel inferior at these times. He has stress at work, and the things he does there are miles away from any kind of home happenings. And if he needs to not think about home while working, in order to concentrate, so be it. His job is not to do both jobs at once. That's what he has me for. You'd think that would make me feel important. And I do. Still...

Sitting with me and doing the math of "how many granola bars come in a box?" "8...or 12." "Probably should go with the 12." "Yeah, I do" is not, I imagine, how he'd choose to spend his 6AM hour. I told him, I feel like he thinks that kind of conversation is pithy. boring. mundane.

And maybe it is.

But it's still important. I need to know when he won't be home for dinner. I need to know how fast we'll go through a case of toilet paper. I need to know the ratio between when the away soccer game bus says they'll get back to when they will actually get back. I need to make rules like "one granola bar per day." I need to know where the crayons are that will fit in the spiral of my 2yo's handy-dandy notebook. (Can you say crisis?!?!)

And here's a reminder to me, and anyone else who's identifying: these things ARE important.

They are vitally important to the success and smooth running of our households. The conversations might be mundane to our very hard-working hubbies. But that doesn't mean they think them unimportant. It's just not their job. So the pride is ours to take in our work. We're growing little people, after all.

What odd-to-the-world-outside-of-mommihood things do you find yourself in charge of? Is there anything you do during the day that makes you say, "you know...if I wrote a book...this would totally go in it..."?

project!

So my friend Stacie mentioned on Facebook that she has a new goal to check off one Pinterest activity per week, and asked if anyone would like to join her.

I got giddy.

I thought of all the lovely things I've pinned, and how much I want them in my house, and how this was the perfect motivation for me to make one of them become a reality!! Eeeee!

Then I started looking through my boards. Narry one of them could I make without doing some sort of shopping first.

Harumph.

Oh...but save one! BEHOLD!

Wanna play????