The Colors of Spring

The girls and I were coloring at our kitchen table one morning several weeks ago. Crayons slowly emerged from the hard plastic pencil case into piles all over the table. One coloring book offered images of rabbits and ducks and frogs, another Elmo and Zoe and Big Bird. The pages were white and gray and slowly emerged to life as the girls added scribbles of color; pink, brown, green, yellow...

Spring is feeling a little bit that way... like God is slowly adding color back to the earth. Here in Buffalo anyway, we have lived for months under a blanket of gray and white clouds seemingly mirroring the white ground, bare trees and icy concrete streets. A dreary sight after many months if I do say so myself.

As I look out my window this morning the grass is lush and green (it needs to be cut actually!), there are buds on the trees, and the bush directly outside of my window is pushing forth purple stems.

Yesterday seemed to be the day when yellow was popping forth everywhere and I enjoyed enjoying it with the girls. On our way home from Playschool yesterday we passed many, many forsythia bushes (a favorite of mine) and I had a lot of fun teaching the girls how to say FOR-SYTH-I-A...kind of funny actually.

Forsythia have always been one of my favorite springtime flowers (bushes). While there are plenty of them here in Buffalo, the little town we lived in in New England seemed to the epicenter of Forsythia bushes. It was like a 4th of July grand finale of yellow buds, wildly splaying from bushes everywhere you drove or walked or looked.


In case you are not sure what I am talking about, here is a picture so that you can identify them for yourselves and take great pleasure in trying to get your kids to pronounce the proper name...

Other representatives of yellow in our yard; the several small patches of daffodils near our driveway (planted by the previous owners and left as little gifts to us!), and the dandedions popping up all over our yard...my husband, for the record wants to spray the grass but I am currently in moral opposition. In part, because we have young kids who play outside, in part, because the few weeds we have don't bother me that much, and in part because Ava loves to pick the dandelions...she brought me a beautiful bouquet yesterday....

I did try to explain that she needed to pick the entire flower (not just the head) in order for me to put them in a vase, but she deftly explained that many of them "did not have strings" so she did what she could.

...A treasure none the less from the hands of a four year old.

I think we may attempt to make a paper bouquet of daffodils today...here is a picture one such bouquet from the website alphamom.com  if you are looking for a craft to bide some time at your own house...

And lastly, the two little flowers that keep me busiest watering, nurturing, feeding and cultivating all year around...

Happy Spring!!

Contemplating God

Just wanted to post a quick link to a friend's most recent blog post. I think we can all relate--that  an attempt at "grasping" who God is can be quite confusing and mind boggling.  It sometimes leaves us wondering "Really? Is it all true?"

Yes. Even Christians, Christians who have known God all of their lives, ask those questions sometimes.

But, instead of living in doubt we continue to press into the mystery, and each time God reveals a new little bit of himself...a  bit that seems so hard to deny, a bit that soothes our souls so fully in some way, that though we do not completely understand it all, and although we sometimes wonder how we can fully believe some of the history recounted to us in the Bible, that it doesn't matter. That the bit of truth, the bit of faith we have, the bit of God's self that he has revealed to us in our prayers, in our questions, in our journey, is enough to keep moving on and pressing further into the mystery.

It's a wonderful thing to think about two days before Easter.

Please check out Sara's post "He Makes Beautiful Things"... I think it will get you thinking too!

Happy Easter!

My Little Busy Bee

Today's post will be dedicated to my daughter Ella. As I was looking through some recent photos I realized how many of them were quite funny and completely telling of this little one's personality.

When people ask me about the girls I often describe them in this way:

 "Ava, my oldest, is VERY emotional. She is very sweet, very smart, very engaging,  but perhaps one of the most emotional children on the planet."

"Ella, well, Ella is probably one of the busiest children you will ever meet. She NEVER sits still and is ALWAYS getting into something."

Most people nod with a knowing glance and yet I can see that they're thinking..."Oh, normal toddlers. ALL toddlers are emotional and/or busy."

And then...

And then they see my girls in action.

"Wow!" they say, "She really NEVER sits still does she?"

Nope.

Their eyes get big. They smile. They look at me with both humor and compassion. Then, and only then, do I know that they REALLY get it.

A friend and I took our 2 year old's to Panera for lunch this past winter. My friend marveled at how Ella literally never stopped moving the entire time we were in the restaurant. No matter how hard I tried she preferred climbing chairs and benches and stopping by other people's tables to look at their food and say hello. I looked in wonder as my friend's two year old sat quietly in her high chair, eating every bite of food and never saying a word. My friend eventually said to me that she thought Ella alone just might require as much mothering energy as both of her girls combined on some days.

I agree.

So, without further adieu...I present to you...Ella...the little girl we call "the cracker jack", "the tornado", "trouble", and "hurricane"... (Ava actually kindly told a librarian one afternoon (while I was chasing Ella all the way across the library as she started running and shrieking in delight), that,

"My sister is a capital "T"!!!"

"What honey?" The librarian said as she looked at her quizzically.

"A capital T." Ava repeated matter of factly.

I caught the end of the conversation and offered some explanation to the librarian.

"Ah, yes. We call her 'trouble with a capital 'T'!" I said laughing...and catching my breath...and holding a wiggling toddler who did not want to be held. I mean the library IS a place to run and scream after all.

Here are some pictures, for your viewing enjoyment of my little capital T!

Yes, yes. That would be Ella in one of our storage cubes. She goes all the way in and tries to pull the cover down over her head. 

Always cracks me up. Ella puts the sun glasses on and then cooly and confidently says, "Look mom. I got my glasses on." 

Why on earth would you put dirty laundry in a hamper when you can hide in one instead?

It's probably hard to see it here, but for a while Ella had this hilarious habit of climbing out of her bed (after I had put her in it for a nap or bedtime) and gathering books from her bookshelf, putting them in her bed and then sleeping with them. I woke her up from her nap one afternoon and counted upwards of 15 books in her bed. 

Here is the stack after I pulled it out of her bed...

That would be a pajama shirt being worn as a skirt for dancing purposes. 

Please take note of the number of band-aids my child is wearing here. When Ella is not causing her own chaos, her sister enforces chaos onto her. Ava adorned her with all of these band-aids. 

Ella is FOREVER getting into this cabinet and pulling DVD's out. One day I caught her sticking one through a tiny slat in the speaker. I'm glad I saw her putting it there...I would have never guessed! 

All dressed up!

"Mom, you can dress me up for Aunt Laurie's wedding, but I'm still going to crawl underneath the banister while the wedding party is trying to give sentimental toasts." 

"And, when I'm done crawling under, I'll crawl up!"

On the table, by herself, at 18 months. I freaked out...thinking she would fall...but first I grabbed my camera! 

Also, last summer, at 18 months old...

Hope you enjoyed the show! She certainly does bring a lot of laughs to our lives! 

Managing Momma Mondays: Some Guilt Free Thoughts on Naps and Slowing Down

     I'm going to tell you all to do something today that I don't do very well myself.


     Are you ready?


     ...slow....... down.


     There it is friends. It is not a novel notion. We hear it all the time-- that we live in an overscheduled society, that our children have lost the ability to creatively fill "free" time because they don't have any, that our running around and the stress it induces causes health problems, that we are actually less connected to one another because we spend too little time just being with one another...I think we all know these things, but it seems so hard to interrupt the frenzied cycle and simply have time to do what it takes to bring the craziness to a halt...to just be...to be o.k. with just being.


     It seems that we rush from thing to thing, event to event and then, when we are in between things and events, even though we have yearned for the precious downtime we become unsure of what to do with it. We become restless and perhaps start to feel a little uncomfortable in our restlessness. I know, for myself, that slowing down often makes me feel lazy, self-indulgent or at the very least, like I'm missing out on something.


    For the most part though, I will say of myself, that as busy as I can get I am also very deliberate about building rest time or downtime into my schedule. It feels like a necessary part of survival for me. I have been doing quite a bit of reading about the term HSP or Highly Sensitive Person. I'm not going to get into all of the details of that today (you can click on the link if you'd like to read more), but it has shed some light on some of the pieces of my life and personality that I have often wondered about.


     For example, I take a nap EVERY day. For as long as I can remember I have been taking a nap EVERY day. Before children, I would take a short nap after work, before I made dinner. Now that I have children I nap every day when they nap, usually for about 45 minutes, and then I have a short period of time in which I read or blog or just rest until they get up. Sometimes I start dinner, but usually I use the time to do things I am passionate about, things that recharge my batteries, like writing, or praying or reading. I don't clean or do laundry or tackle my to-do list...I do those things with the girls when they are awake. I use their nap time to just be. It is probably one of the most important components of my life as a mother. 


     Highly sensitive or not, we all need time to just be. If you don't need a nap, you should feel free to garden, or journal, or sew...whatever relaxes and refreshes you.  In our society people do tend to look at you a little oddly when you tell them that you nap everyday, but I've stopped caring what they think.  They may try to make me feel lazy, like I should be more productive, or  like I am in some way inferior because I nap to get through the day. It is a pretty anti-American culture thing to do after all. But, hey, everyone has their coping mechanisms and at least I'm not damaging my lungs or my liver or my checkbook while I nap to cope with life...right?! 


     Here's the deal friends...naps RE-CHARGE me. As I am reading about those who are highly sensitive I am learning that some people are simply biologically wired in a way to become more easily overstimulated by life at a faster pace. We live in an incredibly stimulating society-- t.v., marketing, advertising, books, grocery store lights and options, internet, facebook, twitter, i-tunes, i-phones, i-pads, Target, Wal-Mart, mega toystores...there are a bazillion ways to fill our days...and those of our children for that matter.


     It is easy to become overwhelmed (highly sensitive or not!) or overstimulated by just being out in the world and running our errands. When we are mothers on top of it, the whirring circle of demands coming at us is tiring as well...My prescription for dealing with it all is my napping and the brief downtime that follows. I have joked with others that I am like a computer that only works if you shut me off for 45 minutes a day and then reboot me...all files settle into place, I can process what has happened and have energy to meet the demands inputted for the remainder of the day.


     So, in conclusion, I want to encourage you all to give yourselves permission to rest, to nap, to find time each day to just BE. Pray, read your bible, go for a walk, read a magazine. Whatever recharges your batteries, and DON'T feel guilty about it. For one, because YOU need it. Two, because your children need you to have that time so you can care for them better when they are awake and moving around. Three, because we need to set examples to our children that it is ok to just be...to cultivate who they are at home in unscheduled spaces...to simply color, or paint or dance, whatever their little hearts motivate them to do. (That is one reason I was so happy to have pulled Ava out of preschool this year...She is highly sensitive like her momma and simply needed unorganized time to just follow her creativity and whims for another year before people start dictating how she needs to use her time all day.)


    I'm going to leave you with a passage from a WONDERFUL book I'm reading. My friend Sara, who is on of the most kindred souls I know, sent it to me for Christmas because it spoke to her to eloquently so she knew it would certainly speak to me. The book is called Mitten Strings for God, Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry by Katrina Kenison. While I would love to excerpt the entire first chapter here I will settle for the last few paragraphs...

     We have all fallen victim at one time or another to the relentless cycle of our children's playdates and after-school lessons, to push for their academic and athletic accomplishments, and to their endless desires...The adage of our age seems to be "Get more out of life!"...

     ...But in our efforts to make each moment "count," we seem to have lost the knack of appreciating the ordinary. We provide our children with so much that the extraordinary isn't special anymore, and the subtle rhythms of daily life elude us altogether. We do too much and savor too little. We mistake activity for happiness, and so we stuff our children's days with activities, and their heads with information, when we ought to be feeding their souls instead...

     ...Over the years I have learned to quit speeding through life, but it is a lesson I must take up and learn again every day, for the world conspires to keep us all moving fast. I have found that it is much easier for me to stay busy than to make a commitment to empty time-- not surprising, perhaps, in a culture that seems to equate being busy with being alive. Yet if we don't attend to life's small rituals, if we can't find time to savor the "dailiness" then we really are impoverished. Our agendas starve our souls.

    ..My deeper hope is that each of my sons will be able to see the sacred in the ordinary; that they, too, will grow up knowing how to "love the dailiness." So, for their sakes as well as my own, I remind myself to slow down and enjoy the day's doings. The daily rhythms of life, the humble household rituals, the nourishment I provide-- these are my offerings to my children, given with love and gratefully received.

With those words in mind, figure out what it means to slow down for you and promise yourself you'll allow time to do those very things this week.

 

Spinach Pie and Tea

This is not a post providing a recipe for Spinach Pie...sorry if you were hoping it was. 


Nope. I'm not a recipe giver. Not because I don't like to share, but mostly because I'm just an o.k. cook who copies a whole lot of other people's recipes.  


The only "recipe" you'll find here today is a "recipe" for being a good neighbor and it looks like this...


Good Neighbor Recipe

• 1 kind Greek neighbor in her fleece pajamas, sans make-up and tousled hair with a warm and inviting smile and her 3 1/2 year old son
• one momma with 2 small children who live down the street
• some leftover homemade spinach pie
• some gingerbread tea
• a couple of unripe bananas

When momma with two small children from down the street rings your doorbell because they are looking for some company in the sometimes lonely world of stay at home motherhood, invite them in whole heartedly, warm up some leftover spinach pie in your toaster oven, make her daughter tea and then let her children eat all of your unripe bananas all without so much as batting an eye. Add in a little pleasant conversation. Mix it all together. 

Yields: A very grateful neighbor woman and two happier toddlers

This is exactly what happened to me earlier this week. My sweet, sweet, Greek neighbor (it doesn't really matter that she's Greek except that you should know that she makes the BEST Greek food, all of the time, from scratch, and then shares it with us!), unabashedly invited us in...We arrived completely unannounced. We were actually intending to take a short walk when the girls asked if they could ring the doorbell to see if said neighbor and her son were home. When she opened the door she was actually in the middle of a phone call, but never the less waved us in and invited us to stay. 

Ava, as Ava does, started asking her what she had to eat right away (I've tried to explain to Ava that this is not really the most appropriate thing to do when you arrive a guest's house, but she LOVES going over to this particular neighbor's house because she KNOWS there is always something yummy and the neighbor always goes so far as to give her tea in a ceramic teacup with a saucer and oodles of honey!)

I don't have time to go into all of the details of our visit, but what I wanted to share with you is what impressed me so much about this particular encounter. I am guilty of not inviting people over or into our house because of the perpetual mess that it is. I am also very guilty of not wanting people to see me with my bed heady hair or in my sweats or with my glasses on. I am usually not as hospitable as other people because I let my inhibitions about my cooking or hospitality skills get in the way of simply offering something from my cupboards or my fridge. If I do allow all of these things to not stand in the way, I spend the entire time apologizing about the state of my house or the state of myself, for that matter. 

My lovely neighbor didn't do any of these things. She simply invited us in, gave us some food, made us feel welcomed and never apologized. I'd like to be more like her. 

Next time you have a moment to connect with a neighbor, don't let your messy house or pajamas get in the way. Invite them in. Give them some tea and if you have nothing else in the house, offer them some apples and cheese....it's about the gesture not the food or your clothes anyway. Wouldn't you rather be known as the super nice neighbor with the inviting smile  in her pajamas than the crabby unreachable one who never opens her door? I know I would. 

Right Before My Eyes

For those of you who have met my daughter (Ava) you know she is a tall girl! She was in the 90th percentile when she was born and continues to be tall for her age. She is not yet 4 and she is in 5T clothing. She's got the longest darned legs too...I know I'm in trouble in about 8 years...I mean mercy me...big blue eyes, blond hair, long legs. Oi! And if the emotional roller coaster we are already on is any sort of tiny weeny pre-indication of what's to come...well Lordy, Lordy help me puleeaze!


Perhaps I can admit her to a convent for middle school...


It's funny, Scott and I have been joking since she was in my belly about how quickly she would likely surpass me in height...I mean at 5'1, it's not a super hard thing to accomplish, but I'm thinking she might have an inch or two on me by the time she is 8 or 9 at this rate. Her long legs were the very first thing we saw bicycling around in my belly during our very first ultrasound.


Anyways, this post isn't supposed to be about legs...I mean,  I could lament about how mine are short and I've needed to hem my pants all of my life, but that's another story entirely!


This is a post about how stinkin' quickly our kids grow right before our eyes and how I try to remember that as often as I can, especially when I'm having a hair pulling day! (meaning I want to PULL every last hair out of my head!).


Ava must be going through another growth spurt. A good deal of her pants are suddenly too short and I SWEAR I did not shrink them, though that is always the first thing that comes to mind when a pair of pants that previously fit her just fine suddenly look like capris...it always cracks me up a bit and makes me think she looks a little dorky...am I allowed to say that?! LOL.


And, everywhere we go people are telling her how big she is all of a sudden... I see it too!


Anyway, I had one of those older mom moments at Marshall's yesterday. I was buying these cute shoes for Ava for the summer. They are Crocs, which I LOVE for kids (they are flexible, durable and great for running around in!), but refuse to pay full price for...so to find them at Marshall's for 14.99 makes me very happy!

A lady standing in front of me with her teenage daughter looked back with an "Oh my. Those are SOOOO cute. I remember when her feet were that little. Enjoy her while she still lets you dress her."


Sometimes I want to roll my eyes at those ladies when they tell me to enjoy them while they're young. I want to say, "ARE YOU SERIOUS LADY?! HAVE YOU SEEN MY HOUSE TODAY? HAVE YOU HEARD THE WHINING AND THE CRYING AND FIGHTING AND SEEN THE CRAZINESS GOING ON WITH THESE TWO LITTLE CRAZY TODDLERS?! HOW BOUT I SEND THEM TO YOUR HOUSE WHILE THEY'RE THIS LITTLE AND YOU CAN SEND THEM BACK TO ME WHEN THEY ARE SANE?!!!!"


haha. I would never really think that....really...I swear....


But, as I was standing in line and then brought those shoes home for Ava to try on and she ran across the living room in them with her long legs and her almost 4 year old personality I wanted to say, "Don't get ANY bigger my sweet girl....I like this moment."


So, here's to enjoying them while they're young and making the most of every moment!


Here is a picture of Ava when she was almost one with her little itty bitty baby feet....

It is true that the days are so long sometimes, but when we look back the years already seem short! 

Managing Momma Mondays: Your Emotions from a Biblical Perspective

     When I decided, a couple of weeks ago, that I was going to start these posts and title them "Managing Momma Mondays" my intentions were this: 1.) It would create some accountability for me to post at least one day a week and therefore 2.) It would allow you to remember, at least one day a week, that I would have a new post, but more importantly than all of that 3.) It would offer me a  platform to speak about what I feel is key to being a successful mom, and that is managing ourselves and our lives emotionally, physically, spiritually and relationally in better and more Godly ways.


    If you are anything like me, there are days, weeks, sometimes months, when you feel like you are simply going through the motions. You are cooking and cleaning, shopping and sorting, washing and folding, tending and managing, but you are not really enjoying any of it...you're just sort of surviving the chaos of life.


    Well, I KNOW that isn't how it is supposed to be, but that doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't FEEL like that is the only way to get by....survival mode.


    So, these posts are supposed to be a way for me to encourage you, and myself, that there are better ways of thinking, living and being that do not look like the ways we live when we are merely trying to survive.


    While all of that is fine and good, I feel like the LAST person on the face of the planet, well, at least on the face of my little planet, that should be giving anyone advice on how to live better...I haven't been very successful at it myself these days. I have not been "thriving" as a mother, but "surviving" the days. This isn't true ALL of the time, but it, sadly, has been true a lot of the time.


    Motherhood is gosh darned hard. I find it overwhelming, and challenging. I find it hard to not have more time in which I can have uninterrupted thoughts to do even simple things, like write a grocery list, or a "to-do" list for the day. I find it hard to have little uninterrupted time to clean my house, or even take a shower. It really is a selfless job and I've been fighting the very selflessness of it with my own selfishness...Grr.


    I hope my honesty is o.k...it's kind of the way I function...Scott and I joke that I'd be a terrible sales person because I'm so honest, and emotional and sometimes a little sappy. Good thing he's the one with the sales job that supports our family! I'll stick with my passions to write...where emotion and honesty are kind of par for the course!


     So, even though I feel like a terrible example of someone who is actually LIVING out a balanced, peaceful inner life (something God promises to us if we focus on His word and truths)...I am working on it...so I'll tell you what I'm learning and hopefully you'll learn something from it.


    As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, the MAJOR key to being peaceful and managing our emotions is simply "being" happy, in other words, changing our thought patterns. So how do you change your thoughts? Well, one at a time for starters...The more you do it, the easier it will get because the negative patterns will become less and less while the positive and encouraging thoughts will start to come more naturally.


    When we start to think on good things, we start to FEEL good about things. I promised I'd share some biblical perspective on it and am going to give you a couple of my favorite verses.

Philippians 4:6-7

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends ALL understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

    Oh my...do you know how many times I've read this verse in my life?!! Like a zillion!


    Do you know how often I actually allow its truth to seep into my heart and brain and actually transform my thought life?


   ugh.


    Maybe 10% of the time...that's a pretty bad average, huh? Especially when God is offering such an incredible promise that TRANSCENDS our worldly perspective.


    So, this week, I'm going type this verse on a piece of paper, and then copy and paste it 10X in the document...I'm going to print it out, cut them out and stick one everywhere I can think to do so! On the fridge, in the car, on my bathroom mirror, on the door of my washing machine! I am going to let it's truth seep in to my mind and heart this week and I'm going to report back to you on its effectiveness...hoping it's better than drugs because some days I think valium may be the only way to calm this mind down...but I'd prefer to not go there!!!


    Alright, one more favorite verse for you to take with you this week...

Philippians 4:8 

Finally [sisters], whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, lovely and admirable-- if anything is excellent and praiseworthy--think about THESE things.

    I don't know about ya'll, but if I were to follow the instructions offered in this verse, I'd need to discount like 75% of my thoughts on some days...they are NOT true, or noble, lovely or praiseworthy...they're just plain crabbiness! So...I'm going to post this one up all around the house too...God says that we are to be TRANSFORMED by the renewing of our minds...so, this will be my little social experiment...I'm going to work on transforming my mind and just see what happens, and will report back to you in my Monday posts.


    Blessings to you all for a good and healthy week. If I can figure out how to post the document with the verses on my blog I'll do so so that you can follow suit!

Nice to have Mommy Back!

How does that saying go, "If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy"?!

Ain't that the truth.

Momma needed some resuscitation this week..hence the picture here...

To say I've been "unhappy" doesn't exactly seem fitting...I've been sick as a dog is what I've been. All week. Since last Sunday night. Today was the first day I really felt "normal" again. And boy is Scott happy about that.


He walked in the house this afternoon, saw that the kitchen was picked up and that there were not stacks of dishes in the sink, or hordes of stuff sprawled across the counters and the kitchen table. The laundry was sorted in the living room, the cheerios vacuumed off the floor. Dinner was finished and hot on the stove and the girls had set the table.

"It's nice to have mommy back," he said with a grin.

It really is a compliment.

I know we can all beat ourselves up about what we are not doing right and how hard it is to keep things in order and flowing smoothly in a house with little ones, but, for the most part, for all of the moms I know, we are all trying our darned best. And our best is a really good thing.  We forget how much we actually do, how much we keep in order, how we keep the kids clean and fed and how those things are actually very important.

Until we get sick.

I'm not going to go into all of the reasons I think I got so sick-- perhaps I'll save them for my "Managing Momma Monday" post... I'll summarize by saying I had taken on WAY too much in my life outside of caring for our kids and the house and it sent me into a fast downward spiral in which I couldn't get out of bed for 3 days.

The thing is, it's easy to think "oh, it's just the house", "Oh, it's just food maintenance and preparation", "Oh, it's just taking care of two small children." But, it's not just any of those things. I had been minimizing all of those responsibilities in my mind and taking on a lot of other responsibilities I thought were more important (or at least that seemed more interesting) and that I thought I could handle because it was "just" all of those other little things I had going on in my life.

 In all sincerity, I wanted to do a lot of these other things; the workouts, the consignment sale I prepped clothes for and volunteered at, the newsletter I needed to write, the interviews completed for a couple of articles I was working on, the MOPS leadership seminar that I attended, the blogs I was trying to keep up with. I really did want to do all of those things. And, for the most part, they are all good things. The real honesty disclaimer here is that they are all non-tedious household things...non-cooking, non-cleaning, non-bum wiping things.

Unfortunately, filling your life with all of those other things doesn't mean the cooking, cleaning and bum wiping doesn't need to be done, it just means you have less energy to do it...and that sooner or later you burnout. Lesson learned.

 I've learned, the hard way, that we all have a limited supply of energy and stamina. When your kids and your house tend to occupy, oh, maybe 90% of the energy on many days it's not good to add other things into your life that require like 70% of your energy as well...it causes an energy crises...circuits go haywire, lights go out...the train falls of the track as Scott likes to say.

I say all of this in the most positive light because I really feel like God is teaching me a LOT about myself AND that I'm finally listening.

In conclusion, I'm happy to report that the train is back on track, but purposely burning a little less coal, chugging along a little slower, and carrying a few less cars and that is a very good thing.

One last note here...while it is sometimes hard to be a mom who is sick (that could be an entire post in and of itself!!!) because there are STILL kids who need to be taken care of no matter how many times you need to run to the bathroom...I did have the cutest darned doctor on the planet giving me a check-up earlier this week. She introduced herself as Dr. Ariel...and gave me the best check-up EVER!!

That's her VERY serious Doctor face. She said I was a good patient.