she's full of piss and vinegar!!

Ok, so the point of the crass (but funny) title is for two reasons! Today I am full of vigor! I am attacking my home in the best way possible. Armed with baking soda and vinegar I am approaching cleaning with a new attitude. I want natural [CHECK] I want fragrant [CHECK] I want.....

   Well, I want a clean house. And I want that clean house to smell good, not chemical-ish, but just plain good. I also want to live without a nagging thought in the back of my mind that I probably shouldn't be breathing the chemicals that I normally use to clean with. Why the sudden shift?
   Baby brain :o) I need to start preparing my life for baby, as though I have said baby, so that I can get used to said life before baby decides to make his way here!! Also I have been wanting to try cleaning with vinegar for a long time. I feel like the smell of vinegar is refreshing and it just feels so CLEAN and NATURAL to have something God put on this earth covering every surface in my house rather than bleach, ammonia, etc.

*AHH* I am feeling cleaner already!

I love you Lord

And I lift my voice

To worship You

Oh my soul, rejoice

Take joy, my King

In what you hear

May it be a sweet, sweet sound

In your ear

Dear God,

    I love you. Thank you for blessing my husband and I. Thank you for this beautiful sun shine filled day and for giving me the energy to make my home a better place. God, you know my desires. You know every though I have. You tell us to ask so that we may receive, you tell us to be specific Lord. I am doing my best to be honest, specific, thankful, and dependent upon you! I love you Lord, I am thankful for your many blessings. Please continue to bless this home, please continue to bless Will's career and to touch his heart. I am praying specifically for you to cleanse our home so that only you reside here with us. I am asking you to bless our finances, that we may live without worry. I am asking you to bless our bodies, that we may live to glorify you. I am asking you to provide us with a child, so we can truly be a family. God, I am specifically asking you to make me whole, to heal what is broken within me and to perform a miracle. I know you can, and I really hope you will.
Amen

standing at the edge

Lately life seems to be continuously teetering on the edge. 

On the edge of so many different decisions, 

I find myself struggling to catch my balance. 

Feeling the constant pull

Feeling like the waves are unstopable

I stop, I try, Give everything to win the fight and then

I'm losing, not giving up or giving in

the waves are crashing in, disoriented

I feel the pull

swept down by the under tow

I don't know how not to be selfish

Can't help but think of myself first

My world is the one I see and you're only,

A figment of my imagination

Do I wish life could be easy? Sometimes. There's a piece of me that thrives in the midst of a challenge. The problem is that a lot of the challenges I've faced lately are not the kind of challenges I can win on my own. I cannot perform miracles, and that's what it would take to fix what's going on within me.

   It's not a secret that I want to be a mom some day. However, at every opportunity I am offered to embark on that journey, no matter how elated I am by the possibility of "trying", I can't help being consumed by facts. For anyone who deals with any kind of terror..... not just plain, mopey old fear, I'm talking sheer terror......you know how I feel right now.

   Have you stood, shaking, at the top of a building? You look down at the world below you, and the ground you're standing on starts to shift. You can feel your body swaying forward and suddenly you find yourself trying to find the railing that you don't realize you're already white knuckle gripping.

   For a moment you can feel the wind rush by your face while you start to fall, even though the fall is in your mind. But, for that one moment the sensation of your stomach literally rising from your abdomen up....up...up...until it slams into your throat.....in that split second you are completely immobilized. Frozen, you are frozen, frozen in the icy cold grasp of terror. And then panic sets in and you are scrambling like a lunatic to get your trembling hands onto something that isn't catapulting forward off the edge. You realize, as your forehead starts to sweat and dizziness consumes you, that you are already holding onto the railing. You realize this as your knees buckle and your legs go weak. You struggle to stand up straight and try to fight back the ugly beast called terror. As the trembling sets in, the uncontrollable violent shaking you want to cry, you sniffle......hard.....and you take a steadying breath. With legs weak from trembling you try to inch yourself backwards, you feel blind....you can't see that you're only 3 steps away from the inner wall. You fling your arm out in the desperate hope that your hand will fall upon something solid, something that isn't the railing that suddenly seems too wobbly to keep you from going over the edge. You are struggling to keep the tears at bay and suddenly you are shoving through the steel door back into the stairwell that leads to safety. You are safe. You tell yourself that you are safe and hope to God that no one was standing there watching your ordeal while you fought with everything inside of you to get away from the edge and back into the safety of the small, dark hallway.

   Can you feel it? Have you been there? I'm willing to bet that you have. If it wasn't heights, it was a large, black dog. He was running after you while you were riding your bike home from school. He was so close to you, you could feel the hot steamy breath from his snarling mouth against the back of your legs as you tried to pedal faster than humanly possible. Not the dog? Maybe a spider, you woke up in the middle of the night, it's too dark to see. Something tickles your forehead and you untangle your arm from the blanket, you're so sleepy, you reach your hand up to scratch your forehead and are startled by the feel of something there. Something that feels foreign, then the something starts to move. 

   Whatever your fear is, whatever it is that brings you -instantly- to the brink of a nervous breakdown, you know the feeling I am talking about. The point? 

   I am there. Teetering on the edge, not realizing it's an optical illusion. The building is not tipping, the building is so tall that because you can't see the bottom your brain tricks you into thinking that you are leaning forward. I am leaning forward. I am immobilized by the fear inside my mind.

The reason I get so churned up inside lately when I think about someone else, every one else, who is expecting the birth of their child right now.......

   At first, while struggling to put a name to the "face" of my emotions, I called it jealousy. The term didn't sit well with me. I have watched so many women go through the why not me phase. However, I wasn't feeling that. I wasn't sitting around crying and thinking "when will it be my turn?" 

   In my struggle to identify what I was feeling it was easy to use that as an out because we've all seen it. It makes sense. But what I was feeling didn't make any sense. I felt sad, not jealous. I felt hurt, not bitter or angry or envious. I felt confused.

   I finally figured out what has been causing the highly emotional and irrational reaction. It took hours and hours of trying to write a blog the other day. When I finally decided to scrap the entire thing and simply write about my frustration I got my answer. 

   Other people in my life are not spending their time lamenting over the decision on whether or not they should have a baby. It's happening, the baby is on its way and the decision is made. No more trying to decide, no more torturing yourself with the details. Can we afford it? Well, for these people the question is a moot point because they'll have to figure it out. Can we handle it? Again, I guess you'll find out won't you? The questioning is over for you. You are in the thick of it and no matter what your insecurity or doubt is, you will have to figure it out because the fear can no longer hold you back from making a decision. 

   In my situation, I don't have the freedom to just happen to get pregnant. I can't just see what happens. In my situation, each step of the way is going to be a life altering decision just to be prepared to TRY and get pregnant. I am terrified. I don't know what is going to happen if I throw myself into the challenge this time. Failure is not the only consequence I face for making the necessary changes I'll need to make in my life if I want to carry a child.

  It's not the want, the possibility of being pregnant, that scares me. It's the before. It's the possibility of what may happen if I really decide to go for it. It's the change...

  I have decided that if I continue to wait, to let my fear shackle my feet to this spot in the ground, I will be standing here forever. Standing at the railing, feeling the wind rushing around me, with my stomach trying to force itself through my throat. Waiting, indefinitely, for the world to stop tipping. 

  There will never be a "right" time. Life will never be perfect enough for the child who I've waited for a lifetime to meet. I have wanted to be a Mamma since I could form a cognitive thought. I can't ever remember NOT wanting it. Aside from the lie that I honestly thought I believed for a short time over the last couple of years. But I want it. And the part that made me so sad....

   I was the only one holding myself back from that dream. Me. 

All I can do is use the tools I was given in this life, the tools that work for me because they were made for me by the God who created me, and try to make something good. The point that I must emphasize is TRY. If I don't try, I have not failed or succeeded. I have simply managed to exist. And that's just not good enough. 

Dear God,

    You are the only one who truly understands me. You are the one who created me with a purpose and a plan. You have promised me that you will provide, that you will supply everything I need. You are all I need. And I really do need you. I need your help, I need your blessing, I need you to hold me and my little family in your hands. I know I can't keep it together on my own, that's part of the reason I am so scared to let go. But you can keep it all together God. So I am asking you to keep it together. Please watch over me, and Will, and our families. Please help us stay on a good path, even with the changes to come. I want to be a Mamma. If I could put aside all of the facts that make that decision so difficult for me, I wouldn't hesitate for a second. So God I am asking for your help.

Amen

adoptioncy (dear Amelia)

Adoptioncy is a word i just made up to express what an expectant Mamma -to-be goes through during the pregnancy of her soon to be child. The Mamma who is waiting for her baby to be born, the Mamma who googles "stork" to see where this mythical creature lives so she can knock on his door and say "Excuse me, I believe you have my baby? I want her now please." The Mamma who can not carry a child for her own unique reason, everyone has a different one, so she waits for the day when someone else delivers the child that she has been growing in her heart since day one.

  When a woman knows her child is on her way, she goes through "nesting" and anxiety. She experiences joy, fear, excitement, a sense of urgency to prepare her nest for the precious gift that will soon arrive. This sense is no different for a pregnancy than it is for an adoptioncy. I have witnessed this preparation recently and I feel a similar sense of nesting in honor of the home that my niece will soon occupy.
  I have only ever finished one handmade project as a gift for someone else. I made a welcome banner for my Mom a few years ago. With a small mirical and the help of my MIL it was finished by Christmas so I could give this to my Mom. Usually, I get this sense of pride when I make something. It is mine, it is a part of me, and if I actually was able to FINISH something it is because I was moved enough to make it. This is not a mistake, I don't mean motivated (i don't have lack of that!), I mean moved. It has to be important enough to me to actually take the time to focus on it.
  If you remember from a previous post I have ADHD, it takes a lot of energy and will power for me to focus on one thing, especially to be able to finish it. So most of the time I am content to float along life's river and bounce from one bank to the other.
  So where I am going with all of this is that in my own honorary nesting period I felt moved to make something for my baby niece. Knowing that this new precious addition to our family is going to live 27 hours away, and that she may not get the chance to know me as well as my Mass. nieces and nephews know me, I felt moved to create something out of love for her. I want her to know that I love her just as equally as my other nieces and nephews and that she is every ounce as important to me! I want to give her a piece of myself to keep forever. Something I haven't done for anyone else besides my Mamma.
  Lately I have been crocheting again. I started a project several years ago (around 6?) and then put it away in my craft drawer. I pulled it out a few weeks ago and started making a baby blanket for my hope chest. The reason I thought of it was because in reading the blog of my SIL I saw a pic she posted of a hudson bay blanket that she made during her adoptioncy for my soon to be niece! Well, the closer we get to the birth of my newest niece, the more I felt drawn to blessing her parents and doing something special for her too. I decided to make her a travel sized blanky, that can easily be stashed in a diaper bag, car seat, or any other small space. I am making it with yarn that my DH and I spent hours searching for. Up and down the aisle, up and down the shelves, picking, sorting, touching, hugging, and attempting to visualize for this precious bundle. I had to have 100% cotton with a tight weave. I didn't want acrylic or angora or wool or anything of the sort. I didn't want small fibers detatching and getting her all fuzzy and linty, or end up in her mouth! I didn't want a yarn that would cause her newborn skin to become irratated. I didn't want her to have an allergic reaction to wool or alpaca fibers. I wanted pure, American grown and spun, cotton.
  The yarn my DH found is called "Guacamole" how cool is that? It is a gorgeous blend of green, off white, and mustardy/greenish colors. I found a pretty yarn called "Desert rising" that complimets the guacamole colors so wonderfully. I had asked my SIL, mamma to be, what her theme was for her baby. I knew she wouldn't fit the stereotype, she's too creative for that! Her answer was mustard. If you saw all the pretty vintage items in this baby's nursery you would see just how beautiful and girly a vintage mustard can look in a baby girl's room.
  So I have been "yarning" as my little friend Hannah likes to call it (crocheting for real) for a few days. I can't stop thinking about it. I don't want to put it down. I am excited. I can't wait for Amelia to come home to her Mamma and Pappa and forever be my niece :o) This will be the first gift I have made for anyone in a few years and only the second ever that I have made and given away.
  That's how important you are to me Amelia, important enough to give a piece of my heart to. Because everything I make with my hands is just that important to me. And you are more.

Love Aunty JJ

Dear God,
   Thank you for the amazing gift of love you have blessed my family with. Thank you for the blessing of putting each member, birth or in-law, on this earth to knit us together. Thank you for blessing my brother and his wife with the most amazing gift we could all ask for, a baby girl to be our very own. Lord you know my heart, you know the hearts of each member of our family. You know how much we love this girl and she hasn't even taken her first breath yet. I am asking you, pleading with you, to help this girl come into the world healthy and strong. I am asking for your will Lord, and asking that your hand would be in every moment of Amelia's life. I ask that you would fall heavily upon the hearts of each person in the birthing room, each person involved in this pregnancy and adoption God. I ask that you will guide each heart and mind and that your hand would not lift from the life of each person involved. God I pray that Amelia would go safely home with Adam and Janel and that she will be blessed with the home that her birth mother wants for her. I ask that Amelia would always know how very much she is loved and how very real and important YOU are God. I pray for your guidance and for your mercy on all of us. Thank you Lord.
Amen.

Procrasti-Nation

I can't seem to stay away lately.....and subsequently can't seem to get to the library to do research for my 4 page rough draft that's due next Wednesday. I feel a little anxiety every time I think about actually going so I keep happening to find important things that I need to do.

   I am currently a stay at home wife or, as the state prefers to call it, a "displaced worker." I am also a college student. After being out of school for many years I decided to make a change. So, last August I filled out a FAFSA and applied to my local community college. At first I had applied to an out of state school with the intention of taking online classes. Thanks to my brother, who helped me realize that most colleges now offer online courses, I realized that I could save over 50% by going to a community college. So I decided to go for it and see what happens.

  Wouldn't you know that God had a hand in that plan all along? It just happens to be a season in our (my hubby and I) life where our income is the smallest it has ever been. When I received my bill for school, if you can call it that, I was confused by what appeared to be a negative balance. Upon further investigation I realized that not only did I get approved for federal grant funding, I also got approved for state grant funding and am being covered -completely- to go to school!! God and His timing are so very impeccable. The only stipulation for these grants is that I need a GPA of at least 2.0 and I need to be taking at least 1/2 time course load. Can you imagine my delight?! I feel so blessed when I think about this :o)

  So, how does this have anything to do with surfing the net? I'm getting to that. Sooooo....now that I am a stay at home wife, AND college student, my main responsibilities are household chores and school work. Enter: Internet. It seems so much more appealing to me than writing a 4 page paper does. So I am cleaning the bathroom, looking up "how-to" videos, making very very important phone calls, and setting up a filing system for next years taxes.

   Procrasti-Nation is not a great place to live. There are just so many fun things to occupy your time with! I can't remember spending this much time on the computer in years. Life gets so busy, you have so many things to juggle, and honestly.....the internet is pretty boring to me usually. There are only so many times I can check facebook or my email, which I can also do from my phone, so there isn't usually a lot of appeal to sitting around surfing the net. Until now.

Well it's been a lot of fun thinking and sharing part of my college excitement, I guess I really should go get started on that paper......

Don't forget your hardhats ;o)

don't forget your hard hat....

I've spent just about the entire day writing. My intention at first was to respond to the blog post of a friend. When the response I was typing became increasingly long, I copied it into a blog post and deleted it from the response. I decided that since there were so many things suddenly welling up from my soul that I should continue to write, let things work out, and just "blog about it." However, I ran into a snag. A 7 hour long snag.

The original blog post was so long that when I copied it into MSWord, as I often do, it was already a few pages in length. So, for the purpose of shortening and clarifying, I decided to make revisions to it. After several hours and countless revisions I am spent.

"I struggle with feeling ashamed of my emotions. It’s hard to be so happy for other people, when everything you’re happy about is the same thing that’s making you sad." 

This is a line from one of the many paragraphs in the document I've spent the better part of my day revising. The truth is, part of what I am frustrated about is that I just don't know what I feel. I am crying, then I am numb, and the cycle continues. You see.....I've waited my whole life to be somebody's Mamma. But it seems the older I get the more complicated that dream becomes.

I think this is what's the most upsetting. The fact that it can't just be easy. We haven't been able to just make a decision and go with it, for many different reasons. But I just want the fairy tale moment where the baby just appears on the next page and we live happily-ever-after. As unrealistic as it sounds, I spent a large portion of my life believing in the possibility of that fairy tale. Obviously after the age of understand how things "work" I realized the baby doesn't just appear. But I still thought the rest could just sort of happen. But there are so many things to consider when you stop to pick apart your life. Money, time, stress ......

How do I know I will be able to handle it? I don't..... And that scares me enough to bring me to where I'm stuck today. I don't know if I can handle it. So instead of giving up, or trying to find out, I am paralyzed in the fear and unable to make a decision.

That thought is what I have spent my entire afternoon trying to put into words. Wow.

I cry, I blame it on the fact that I see other people having children and it makes me want that too. But what I'm really upset about, why I am really crying when I see these happy expectant mothers, is the fact that they are all DOING it. They aren't stuck where I'm stuck. They're just doing it. And a part of me wants to be there SO bad, I get so close to saying "let's just go for it!", and then I pull myself back again. I am afraid. And to be quite honest, that makes me really mad.

To be continued.....