Ya know what's hard?
When people that taught you to believe something don't even belive it anymore.
When people you want God's best for pick the slop for themselves.
When you sabotage your own success.
When you can only find one person to look up to.
When you fail someone and can't take it back.
When you are put in a situation and don't know how to react.
When you try to give the small pearls of wisdom you do have to someone and they won't accept it.
When you see people you love fall and they won't grab onto Jesus for their, or anyone else's, sake.
When you lose your patience with your child.
When you can't help someone anymore.
When you lose passion for what's important.
When you're discontent and know it's your own choosing.
When you have be go on living life and you just want to take one day out and cry and mourn, but you just can't. Not today, not tomorrow. There's too much to do.
Welcome to my November, December, and January. These months are always particularly hard for me. I fight those old feelings of depression that are my constant frenemy. This past season has been particularly hard. It seems like I get one batch of bad news that sends me reeling. And just as I recover from the shock I get a baseball bat to the knees. And it wouldn't be so bad if it was just people in the news or people I work with. But its not, its people I love. People I would sacrifice anything for. People who honestly don't really even care if I exist, if they hurt me, and don't think of me as someone of consequence in their life. I wish I wasn't a non-existent member of their lives. For once, when they made a decision, I wish for just one split second they would think about me, how its going to affect me. I know that sounds so selfish, but don't they know that I think about how my decisions will affect them? I do, I promise. I wonder how they would feel if I made the choices they did. Would they be shocked, hurt, or indifferent to the fact that I'm hurting myself, them, and their family members? Or would it not hurt them, would they not care at all?
I wish these past few months would just go away. I wish I didn't feel and look like I've aged 10 years. I wish I could be someone they care about. But I can't make that decision for them. That seems to be one of the hardest parts. That they will probably never choose that and that I have to learn to be okay with that. But I don't know how to be okay with that.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Warning- Potty Training Post!
Can I get a round of applause for the little girl that lives with us?
She is officially potty trained! And in one single soliltary week, I tell you!
I had planned to potty train Faith over Christmas break, but I foolishly let someone talk me out of it. They told me she was too young and that it wouldn't work and blah, blah, blah. And being the young mother that I am I decided to listen to the nitwit. After we started back into school I regretted listening to the lady because Faith was showing all the signs of being ready. She would tell us when she needed to go, she knew to go to the bathroom, and had successfully gone #1 and #2 on occasion. I knew we had to get it done while the getting was good. So I took my 3 day weekend last week to do "Potty Training in Less Than A Day!"
First of all, I saw HA! to the "less than a day" part. Maybe with a less strong-willed child, but Faith was not having some of the practices they recommend. She would go boneless on the second or third time of practicing getting to the bathroom quickly and TJ and I just couldn't force her to practice it anymore. We also did switch back to diapers at sleep time, now just overnight. Faith was waking up from naps so sad because she'd had an accident. I felt so bad for her, she kept telling us sorry eventhough we told her it was okay and she was just learning. We couldn't handle her being so pitiful and thought it was sending a message for her to be perfect at something she was just learning. NOT okay with me.
It was annoying and frusturaing at times. We gave her too many M&Ms the first day as rewards and she woke up with a killer stomach ache. We sometimes woudl forget to set the timer and she would run to the playroom and pee on the floor or on her stuffed animals. Or on my paperwork. At any rate, we trained the whole three day weekend and she's doing great. We've gone to restaurants, shopping around town, school events, and church with no accidents. She has accidents at home occasionally, but only wears a diaper over night now. Today she even woke up out of her nap to go "pee pee."
Let me tell you, getting the supplies for potty training is an annoyance. We bought 3 packages of panties, a plastic sheet cover, and a child potty and it cost a pretty penny. But it pales in comparison to having to buy diapers and worse, CHANGE THEM, when your child's excrement could rival a man in his 50's.
If you're in the market for a potty training technique, I would consider reading this blog post. TJ and I did not buy the actual book because of this post. http://www.thenaturalmommy.com/2009/07/31/potty-training-in-a-day/ Good luck!
She is officially potty trained! And in one single soliltary week, I tell you!
I had planned to potty train Faith over Christmas break, but I foolishly let someone talk me out of it. They told me she was too young and that it wouldn't work and blah, blah, blah. And being the young mother that I am I decided to listen to the nitwit. After we started back into school I regretted listening to the lady because Faith was showing all the signs of being ready. She would tell us when she needed to go, she knew to go to the bathroom, and had successfully gone #1 and #2 on occasion. I knew we had to get it done while the getting was good. So I took my 3 day weekend last week to do "Potty Training in Less Than A Day!"
First of all, I saw HA! to the "less than a day" part. Maybe with a less strong-willed child, but Faith was not having some of the practices they recommend. She would go boneless on the second or third time of practicing getting to the bathroom quickly and TJ and I just couldn't force her to practice it anymore. We also did switch back to diapers at sleep time, now just overnight. Faith was waking up from naps so sad because she'd had an accident. I felt so bad for her, she kept telling us sorry eventhough we told her it was okay and she was just learning. We couldn't handle her being so pitiful and thought it was sending a message for her to be perfect at something she was just learning. NOT okay with me.
It was annoying and frusturaing at times. We gave her too many M&Ms the first day as rewards and she woke up with a killer stomach ache. We sometimes woudl forget to set the timer and she would run to the playroom and pee on the floor or on her stuffed animals. Or on my paperwork. At any rate, we trained the whole three day weekend and she's doing great. We've gone to restaurants, shopping around town, school events, and church with no accidents. She has accidents at home occasionally, but only wears a diaper over night now. Today she even woke up out of her nap to go "pee pee."
Let me tell you, getting the supplies for potty training is an annoyance. We bought 3 packages of panties, a plastic sheet cover, and a child potty and it cost a pretty penny. But it pales in comparison to having to buy diapers and worse, CHANGE THEM, when your child's excrement could rival a man in his 50's.
If you're in the market for a potty training technique, I would consider reading this blog post. TJ and I did not buy the actual book because of this post. http://www.thenaturalmommy.com/2009/07/31/potty-training-in-a-day/ Good luck!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Mommy Guilt
I like her.
I mean, honestly, there have been times that I've really screwed up with Faith and I thankful God forgives those times and has kept her safe. Once upon a time when she was like, LESS THAN A MONTH OLD, TJ and I totally gave her the wrong amount of medicine (4mL instead of .4mL) and had to call poison control and the ER to make sure we didn't hurt her forever. (That's 10x the amount- kill me, please.) Those are the days you think surely God didn't mean to give you a child to raise and you should return this little being immediately to the rightful owner. I'm not talking about those times. I'm talking crazy, ridiculous things that drive you batty about parenting. For example:
Scenario: You don't wash the dishes immediately after dinner.
Mommy guilt: You must want you kids to get germs from those horrible dishes, you disgusting pig.
Scenario: You didn't put away the diapers immediately after unloading the car.
Mommy guilt: What if they were to trip over the box, or worse, what if you had to leave them unattended for .38 seconds to retrieve said diaper? How dare you?!?!?!
Scenario: You don't fold the towels the same way each time.
Mommy guilt: How dare you not be consistent for one minute? How are you going to teach and discipline your child without consistently, you mongruel.
Scenario: You have to pee and kinda want to shut the door.
Mommy guilt: Don't you even care about your children? What if they want to ask you what you're doing 37 times while you're peeing? You're stunting their development in some way, for sure.
Who gives a rip about those things really? But for some crazy reason when we become moms we start doing these silly things to ourselves, really beat ourselves up over being human.
I'm reading a book and this prayer was in it for moms who expect themselves to be perfect. It struck me in several places and I really felt like God gives us so much more grace than we could ever imagine. It's kinda long, but it might be for you today...
Father, please forgive me for my idealistic approach to mothering. I confess I wanted to be "supermom" and judged myself harshly when I didn't measure up. Please forgive me for comparing myself to other moms. It seems I could always find someone better. I accept that you made me uniquely who I am and entrusted my children to me knowing me full well. You knew my children before they were born and must have known that I was/am able to do my part to help them fulfill their unique purpose on this earth. I accept my shortcomings and failures as a mother and thank you for graciously covering me. In Jesus' name.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Coupons and OU Royalty
I've been inspired to try my hand at couponing for the following reasons:
1. I blog stalk this girl (yes, I stalk you. sorry.) and she is around my age and coupons very successfully.
2. I want to buy furninture for my living room and REFUSE to put it on credit.
3. My friend at school does it and she saves crazy money.
4. It's my little way of sticking it to the man.
Let me tell you that I'm a dork about this couponing business. And I don't really mind it so much because the girls I work with are too and we love being dorks together, Money-saving dorks, that is. We got together today and made our little envelopes and got our buckets ready to go shopping and went on our way to save the big bucks.
So tonight was my night to go out and buy the whole shebang of groceries. It ended up that TJ is working at the firestation and so Faith had to come along with me. I was going to try to go tomorrow (my usual shopping day) without her the first time, but we are potty training tomorrow hard core and I didn't want to leave TJ flying solo. She was wonderful and I love taking her along, but she was sitting right where my coupon box was supposed to go. (Yes, I have a coupon box. I told you I was a dork about it.) So I was juggling coupons, shopping lists, and Faith's granola bar trying to save the most money possible. I guess I was blocking the entire aisle with my shenanigans because a guy said "excuse me." I let him through not paying much attention, but when I looked over it was Sam Bradford. Did you hear me? SAM FRIGGIN' BRADFORD!!!!!
I will be honest. I got flustered and a smidge twitterpated. He's hot, he's a pro football player, and I'm in a CAT hoodie with a handful of tampon coupons in my hand! Kill me!!!! I kept glancing over trying to decide if I should politely ask him to take a picture with Faith for TJ. I decided against it because I honestly just didn't want to get that close to him looking like a ragamuffin. I got ahold of myself and walked over to the checkout line. I had all my groceries scanned and guess who gets in line behind me? Sam Bradford. DID YOU HEAR ME THIS TIME? SAM "I'M SO DANG HOT" BRADFORD!!!!! I seriously was so embarassed I thought I would die. My armpits started itching, I felt myself getting red and my hands started shaking. Some of my coupons weren't scanning and I wanted to say something, but I was so embarassed I couldn't say a word. Here I am, my one chance to see Sam Bradford and I'm standing there with my coupon box! KILL ME, I SAY! KILL ME!
I'm not saying that I expected him to grab me in an embrace, tell me to leave my husband and ask me run away with him. But the one time in your life you get to see him you would at least like him to be a normal guy, do the scan over, and not want to gag. Or worse, think your Friday evenings consist of couponing. Even if your Friday nights do consist of couponing.
So that was my first official coupon shopping trip. I don't think I even saved enough to be a "success." It would have been at least $5 more if I would have asked the guy about the unscanned coupons, but I just couldn't do it. Not with a millionaire on my heels in line. TJ said I should've just played it the whole way and acted dirt poor and maybe he would've picked up my entire ticket. Ha!
1. I blog stalk this girl (yes, I stalk you. sorry.) and she is around my age and coupons very successfully.
2. I want to buy furninture for my living room and REFUSE to put it on credit.
3. My friend at school does it and she saves crazy money.
4. It's my little way of sticking it to the man.
Let me tell you that I'm a dork about this couponing business. And I don't really mind it so much because the girls I work with are too and we love being dorks together, Money-saving dorks, that is. We got together today and made our little envelopes and got our buckets ready to go shopping and went on our way to save the big bucks.
So tonight was my night to go out and buy the whole shebang of groceries. It ended up that TJ is working at the firestation and so Faith had to come along with me. I was going to try to go tomorrow (my usual shopping day) without her the first time, but we are potty training tomorrow hard core and I didn't want to leave TJ flying solo. She was wonderful and I love taking her along, but she was sitting right where my coupon box was supposed to go. (Yes, I have a coupon box. I told you I was a dork about it.) So I was juggling coupons, shopping lists, and Faith's granola bar trying to save the most money possible. I guess I was blocking the entire aisle with my shenanigans because a guy said "excuse me." I let him through not paying much attention, but when I looked over it was Sam Bradford. Did you hear me? SAM FRIGGIN' BRADFORD!!!!!
I will be honest. I got flustered and a smidge twitterpated. He's hot, he's a pro football player, and I'm in a CAT hoodie with a handful of tampon coupons in my hand! Kill me!!!! I kept glancing over trying to decide if I should politely ask him to take a picture with Faith for TJ. I decided against it because I honestly just didn't want to get that close to him looking like a ragamuffin. I got ahold of myself and walked over to the checkout line. I had all my groceries scanned and guess who gets in line behind me? Sam Bradford. DID YOU HEAR ME THIS TIME? SAM "I'M SO DANG HOT" BRADFORD!!!!! I seriously was so embarassed I thought I would die. My armpits started itching, I felt myself getting red and my hands started shaking. Some of my coupons weren't scanning and I wanted to say something, but I was so embarassed I couldn't say a word. Here I am, my one chance to see Sam Bradford and I'm standing there with my coupon box! KILL ME, I SAY! KILL ME!
I'm not saying that I expected him to grab me in an embrace, tell me to leave my husband and ask me run away with him. But the one time in your life you get to see him you would at least like him to be a normal guy, do the scan over, and not want to gag. Or worse, think your Friday evenings consist of couponing. Even if your Friday nights do consist of couponing.
So that was my first official coupon shopping trip. I don't think I even saved enough to be a "success." It would have been at least $5 more if I would have asked the guy about the unscanned coupons, but I just couldn't do it. Not with a millionaire on my heels in line. TJ said I should've just played it the whole way and acted dirt poor and maybe he would've picked up my entire ticket. Ha!
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Birth Week
No, birth week is not another series special on the Discover Channel.This week my husband turned 30 years old!!! So I decided instead of just celebrating his birthday, we would celebrate his birthday all week long. Here is a run-down of the festivities:
Monday-don't remember
Tuesday- special dinner of steak and baked potatoes
Wednesday- triple chocolate cakeballs with sprinkles sent to the fire station
Thursday (actual day)- TWO birthday cakes, chicken fried steak dinner with all the fixins
Friday- SURPRISE BIRTHDAY DINNER with TJ's friends
Yes, I said surprise! I worked so hard to make it a surprise for him and I really think he didn't know. Old friends and fire station friends got together for dinner at Toby Keith's in OKC and then we went and listened to Doc Blues at the Biting Sow! It was a lot of fun and I hope that TJ really loved it. He deserves to be celebrated. He's pretty great.
In other news, I have realized I am not that funny of a person. My posts are mostly too serious. And I'm trying to work on that. Ha! Can you make yourself more funny? I don't really think so, but a girl can try, can't she?
Monday-don't remember
Tuesday- special dinner of steak and baked potatoes
Wednesday- triple chocolate cakeballs with sprinkles sent to the fire station
Thursday (actual day)- TWO birthday cakes, chicken fried steak dinner with all the fixins
Friday- SURPRISE BIRTHDAY DINNER with TJ's friends
Yes, I said surprise! I worked so hard to make it a surprise for him and I really think he didn't know. Old friends and fire station friends got together for dinner at Toby Keith's in OKC and then we went and listened to Doc Blues at the Biting Sow! It was a lot of fun and I hope that TJ really loved it. He deserves to be celebrated. He's pretty great.
In other news, I have realized I am not that funny of a person. My posts are mostly too serious. And I'm trying to work on that. Ha! Can you make yourself more funny? I don't really think so, but a girl can try, can't she?
Saturday, January 1, 2011
And Away We Go!
2011 is taking off. I mean, we're already a good 9 hours into the day and I've done nothing but sit and watch TV with Faith and eat a fiber bar. That's how I like it, though. Take off s l o w l y as to not spin myself into a dither. If I'm still sitting her tomorrow then we'll call it a problem.
My resolutions for this year were a little more thought out than last year's, I don't know if that's good or bad. We will see in a year, I guess. Here they are:
1. Make something and give it away once a month. This could be food, a thing, whatever. Something to make someone else feel loved, and to get me outside of myself.
2. Learn to knit and/or crochet. Why? I want cute hats and don’t want to pay for them because I never wear hats when I buy them. With the instructional DVD and needles my sister got me for my birthday (and through the amazing wonderment of youtube) I think I'll get it all figured out.
3. Work out 3 or 4 days a week. I feel like in my push towards being healthier, this is the next step. I have a few options I’ve been thinking over- walking on my NEW TREADMILL (thanks, Santa!) doing Couch to 5K, restarting Insanity or Hip Hop Abs.
4. Get our pictures into scrapbook/albums. This is really more for TJ. Bless his little heart, he just gets furious that our pictures aren’t in albums displayed gloriously for all to see. So I will bless his little heart and just do it.
5. Contact every immediate family member on their birthday. Birthdays in our family aren’t huge deals. But now that I have a little one, I really am rethinking that whole idea. I mean, what other day should we really celebrate to let someone know you love them? So I really want to make an effort to contact everyone on their birthdays and tell them I’m thankful for them and happy they were born. The downside is that I know I’ll inevitably forget someone and hurt someone’s feelings. I’m not going to let that stop me though, I’m going to give it a try.
6. Continue losing weight until I reach/go beyond my goal then maintain my goal for the remainder of the year. I did maintain my weight from Thanksgiving through birthday parties and Christmas. I ended up FINALLY making my 25 lb. loss. It took long enough. I hope to lose realistically another 5 or 10 lb, but we will see. I know that this is going to be something hard for me to do-maintain a weight loss. I'm gonna give it heck, though. I'm not giving up without a fight. I know it will be really hard at times, really easy othes. Life is a journey through mountains and valleys, and I’m not about to give up just because it gets hard for a while.
7. Enroll Faith in some kind of MDO. This probably should be on a to-do list and not on my resolutions, but it’s that important to me. I have ridiculously high expectations for a MDO program. And I live in the middle of nowhere.
8. Read more. I mean, I’m an adult and adults read, right? I will not read Eclipse, but if you have any other suggestions, please send them my way.
9. Engage somehow (read Bible, journal, sing praise, etc.) with Christ on a daily basis. I know, you’re thinking I’m a major sinner for not already doing that, but sometimes I just don’t. But when I do I feel like such a dork for not because God always speaks amazing things to me. I just want to fill myself up with Him, not crap.
10. Scout out and purchase some kickin’ furniture for our living room. Our furniture is a bunch of worn out hand me downs and cheap, out of necessity purchases. Our hand-me-down couch arm is broken from having 10 youth at a time sit on it. Our recliner was the cheapest in the whole store, so the quality is just second to none, and has spit up and breast milk stains (did I just say that?) that will never come out. Our glider rocker is a stylish hunter green with white star design that just screams Amanda and TJ. Our end table is one of those circle tables from Wal-Mart that is like $5 and it has a broken leg that we’ve rigged a good 10 times. The good thing is I can be patient until I find exactly what I want. That’s also a good thing because I REFUSE to put furniture on credit and need to save the money for it. I don’t like matchy-matchy things so I can get a piece at a time and be totally fine with it. I should take a before and after picture so you can see just how amazing the transformation will be.
So that's the 10 for 2011. This should be a fun journey for me since last year was a pretty successful year, as far as resolutions go. And just like last year, I probably won't pick all of them up right away, but I WILL work on all of them throughout the year, I promise myself that. As for the 2010 resolutions that didn't exactly scream success, I will be meeting back up with those occasionally.
My resolutions for this year were a little more thought out than last year's, I don't know if that's good or bad. We will see in a year, I guess. Here they are:
1. Make something and give it away once a month. This could be food, a thing, whatever. Something to make someone else feel loved, and to get me outside of myself.
2. Learn to knit and/or crochet. Why? I want cute hats and don’t want to pay for them because I never wear hats when I buy them. With the instructional DVD and needles my sister got me for my birthday (and through the amazing wonderment of youtube) I think I'll get it all figured out.
3. Work out 3 or 4 days a week. I feel like in my push towards being healthier, this is the next step. I have a few options I’ve been thinking over- walking on my NEW TREADMILL (thanks, Santa!) doing Couch to 5K, restarting Insanity or Hip Hop Abs.
4. Get our pictures into scrapbook/albums. This is really more for TJ. Bless his little heart, he just gets furious that our pictures aren’t in albums displayed gloriously for all to see. So I will bless his little heart and just do it.
5. Contact every immediate family member on their birthday. Birthdays in our family aren’t huge deals. But now that I have a little one, I really am rethinking that whole idea. I mean, what other day should we really celebrate to let someone know you love them? So I really want to make an effort to contact everyone on their birthdays and tell them I’m thankful for them and happy they were born. The downside is that I know I’ll inevitably forget someone and hurt someone’s feelings. I’m not going to let that stop me though, I’m going to give it a try.
6. Continue losing weight until I reach/go beyond my goal then maintain my goal for the remainder of the year. I did maintain my weight from Thanksgiving through birthday parties and Christmas. I ended up FINALLY making my 25 lb. loss. It took long enough. I hope to lose realistically another 5 or 10 lb, but we will see. I know that this is going to be something hard for me to do-maintain a weight loss. I'm gonna give it heck, though. I'm not giving up without a fight. I know it will be really hard at times, really easy othes. Life is a journey through mountains and valleys, and I’m not about to give up just because it gets hard for a while.
7. Enroll Faith in some kind of MDO. This probably should be on a to-do list and not on my resolutions, but it’s that important to me. I have ridiculously high expectations for a MDO program. And I live in the middle of nowhere.
8. Read more. I mean, I’m an adult and adults read, right? I will not read Eclipse, but if you have any other suggestions, please send them my way.
9. Engage somehow (read Bible, journal, sing praise, etc.) with Christ on a daily basis. I know, you’re thinking I’m a major sinner for not already doing that, but sometimes I just don’t. But when I do I feel like such a dork for not because God always speaks amazing things to me. I just want to fill myself up with Him, not crap.
10. Scout out and purchase some kickin’ furniture for our living room. Our furniture is a bunch of worn out hand me downs and cheap, out of necessity purchases. Our hand-me-down couch arm is broken from having 10 youth at a time sit on it. Our recliner was the cheapest in the whole store, so the quality is just second to none, and has spit up and breast milk stains (did I just say that?) that will never come out. Our glider rocker is a stylish hunter green with white star design that just screams Amanda and TJ. Our end table is one of those circle tables from Wal-Mart that is like $5 and it has a broken leg that we’ve rigged a good 10 times. The good thing is I can be patient until I find exactly what I want. That’s also a good thing because I REFUSE to put furniture on credit and need to save the money for it. I don’t like matchy-matchy things so I can get a piece at a time and be totally fine with it. I should take a before and after picture so you can see just how amazing the transformation will be.
So that's the 10 for 2011. This should be a fun journey for me since last year was a pretty successful year, as far as resolutions go. And just like last year, I probably won't pick all of them up right away, but I WILL work on all of them throughout the year, I promise myself that. As for the 2010 resolutions that didn't exactly scream success, I will be meeting back up with those occasionally.
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