Gideon

When I think of the things that my family has been through in the last year I can see how easy it would have been to just give up.  How easy it would have been to turn my back on the Lord.  To just stop trying. 

I am not going to lie and say there were not hours, days and even weeks that I thought that I would just give up.  There were days I could not get out of bed as I was paralyzed with sadness.  I remember one particular day I was laying on my couch sobbing.  I began to breath really heavy and fast.  The next thing I know I was waking up.  I had been sleeping for over 2 hours.  I believe I passed out from the intense crying. I was emotionally and physically drained.  I decided early on in my trials that I would give my self a deadline to grieve.  On that day I turned my trials and pain over to God.  People who know my in real life often ask me how I am handling myself so well and I can honestly say if not for the Lord I would not be doing as well as I am.  

The last 4 weeks I have been going to a Bible study with two of my dearest friends Julie and Sarah.  Between the 3 of us we have 12 children, we all homeschool and we are all stay at home moms.  When Julie mentioned the Bible study was on Gideon I was not sure.  I like bible studies that are girlie.  Bible studies by great women like Beth Moore and Lysa Terkeurst.  This study on Gideon by Priscilla Shirer did not seem like my cup of tea.  But, I wanted to go with my girls.  So, I  bought the book and showed up.  This Bible study is AMAZING! I can not even begin to tell you everything I have learned from Priscilla.  I LOVE doing the homework.  I love pulling out my Bible and my Ipad and searching the scripture.  It is so filling.  Please click the links above and listen to some of the video clips.  Even they will bless you. 

There are a few things I have been praying on and trying to apply to my life this week is...

There is beauty in the "normal".  I often times get caught up in the "normal" of my life.  The mundane things like laundry, dishes, cleaning, driving kids all around, homeschooling etc...  I get bored and I just mechanically go through the paces everyday.  Like clock work, I get up and make breakfast, get the girls to school, start the boys on their school, start a load of laundry, clean the breakfast dishes....  I do it because I have to, because these things need done.  There is no joy, no thankfulness.  What does that teach my children?  The last few weeks I have been taking joy in these everyday tasks.  I often text Julie or Lisa or Sarah as I am washing dishes or homeschooling something like "I am so blessed I CAN homeschool" or "I am so thankful I CAN wash dishes today".  As I go about these mundane tasks, the normal things I do everyday, day in and day out, I thank God, I "get to do" them.  I am thankful I can turn on my sink and water comes out so we can drink or clean.  I am thankful I have a washing machine a few feet from my kitchen where I can wash my clothes.  I am thankful I can go to the store and buy the groceries I need to cook meals for my family.  I am finally seeing the beauty in the normal.

God doesn't call us to do hard things.  He calls us to impossible things.  I know this so well in my current situation.  I never thought I would be a single mom.  I never thought I would be divorced.  I didn't think I could do many of the things I am doing now.  BUT I AM! He is not calling me to do hard things.  He is calling me to do things that in my previous life I thought were impossible.  Thankfully he is not calling me to do them alone.  He has surrounded me with the most amazing support system of friends and family.  Not only has he surrounded me with friends and family he has made his presence known.  ">I am not alone!  He is with me.  He is patient.  He is my comfort.  For that I am most thankful.  I am so excited to see what this week has in store for me.

October Unprocessed

My bloggy friend Lori is taking the October Unprocessed challenge.  It should not be too hard for her since she makes amazing healthy meals for her family all the time.  I have also decided to take this challenge.  For me it will be a little harder. 

I tend to go in waves of cooking.  I will be super into cooking and making healthy meals.  Then I get bored, errr.... busy and start hitting the Golden Arches a little to often.  Let's be real here.  It is much easier to run through the drive through and grab a $.99 burger between piano, gymnastics, cheer, tutoring, homeschool classes, school drop off and pick ups, than it is to cook an entire meal.  However I am spending way too much money on food.  I still grocery shop and while the food I bought at the store is wasting in the refrigerator, I am spending even more money on fast food.  And can I ask when fast food got so expensive?  I took Leanne and Cameron to Chip*otle and it was $30 for the three of us to eat.  Seriously!?  So, I am taking this as a challenge to not only eat better, but to save money as well.

How am I going to do it?  I was talking to Lisa (my BFF) and I told her about October Unprocessed.  I may have called it "Whole Food October" because I am pretty sure I have adult ADD and could not remember the name 30 minutes after I read it.  Anyway....  I decided when talking to her and after reading the comments on the official sites post, I am not going to be rigid or I will fail.  While I plan to make as may unprocessed foods as possible I can and will use foods I have readily available and I will not be able to go totally organic.  While I think there is a huge benefit to eating all organic food and used to mostly buy organic.  I can no longer do that.  I had to let go of that guilt months ago and just be blessed I can feed my children.  Since there are so many families who go to bed worrying about where their next meal comes from, I choose to be thankful I do not have that worry.  So my October Unprocessed will really be the "We are not eating fast food, mom is cooking everything from scratch, with the best ingredients she can afford" challenge.  I am pretty happy with that!

I made a weekly menu and I plan to share that here as often as I can.

October 1st

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with spinach and fetta cheese on toast.  One kid loved it, one kid ate it, but suffered through it the entire time, one kid picked it apart pretending to eat it and stuffed it in the trash and the last kid refused to eat it and sneaked to the school cafeteria to eat sugar cereal or pancakes cooked in a bag with a friend.  That child has decided not to do that again because she was tardy to class by 3 minutes and owed that time to her teacher on recess.  Have to love natural consequences. 

Lunch: Was a mash up of things.  Two kids took sack lunches to homeschool co-op.  One kid bought a school lunch which was yogurt and a muffin and sadly I had Wend*ys with one child between appointments.  Yeap!  Day 1 and we had fast food.  The kid was starving and her mom of the year forgot to pack her a lunch to take to school after her appointment.  Epic lunch fail!

Dinner- Sesame (grilled) chicken with broccoli over steamed rice.  Two children loved it, one child liked everything but the sauce so she had plain chicken, broccoli and rice and the last child threw a fit over the broccoli making gagging noises and faces that looked like I was feeding him fried insects at the table, causing one frustrated momma to pick the broccoli out of the bowl, throw  toss it into the kitchen sink, completely miss the sink and splatter sesame chicken all over the kitchen wall, blender and side of the cabinet.  That she then had to clean up.  Joy!

All in all I call day 1 half a success.  Thankful for 31 days in October to get it together. 

No More F*cebook

I love FB.  I love keeping up with friends and family I do not see often as well as reconnecting with friends I have not seen in many years.  It is fun to get a glimpse into others lives. 

The dark side of social media is what I believe it is doing to our children.  I have seen it with my very own child.  My oldest daughter is my only child who has had access to any social media so far.  She and her friends are not active on FB.  They have Instigr*m, Tw*tter, V*ine, and Sn*p Chat.  All of which took over most of my daughters day.  She had her I*phone attached to her 24 hours a day.  She even slept with it right beside her.  I would often sneak in after she was asleep and take it.  I do not feel like she needs to be "plugged in" and accessible 24 hours a day.   I also found that is gave her and her friends a sense of anonymity making them feel safe to say and post things that are not a direct reflection of who they really are.  They were (and many still are) posting videos, pictures and words that would never say or do in "real life". 

I pulled the plug on social media this summer.  I took the I*phone, all of the passwords and then deleted the accounts on all of her social media accounts.  I have banned all social media in my home.  I tell my kids in our home:

We talk to each other.  Face to face!

It has not been easy.  There were arguments, tears, accusations of being unfair, arguing, sneaking to get on social media, more tears, more arguing....

But it was worth it!  We no longer fight about the phone.  Sure, she wants it back.  But, she is surviving.  She still gets the information she needs, she still has friends, she still got asked to homecoming, she still knows where her friends will be and I have yet to forget to pick her up.  All of these were her arguments for keeping the phone and the access to her social media accounts.  Funny how we all lived without these things and made it into adulthood.  lol!

Since I took all of these things away from my daughter I have decided that I will also give up social media.  I am saving the last of my facebook photos and I will be closing my account as well.  I think it is only fair.  I am sure I will have much more time to get things done.  Since I am deleting my f*cebook (the only social media I used) I have decided to try blogging again.  We will see if I can stick to it.