The Many Hats We Wear

I came across a very good article on yahoo about the many sides of being a mom and how despite what the 'experts" say,  we can be great moms and workers in the world by simply being who we are all the time and not compartmentalizing the different faces of who we are
 http://shine.yahoo.com/event/lifeslittlepleasures/the-10-secrets-of-one-unflappable-working-mother-2394131/  ( am still learning how to make links appear with a name rather than the entire address so please bare with me,  this goes for picture posting as well). 
One of the things that stuck out about the article was that the author used a lot of humor.   I have realized recently you cannot get through tough spots with out humor.  Hopefully you can laugh at it later if you can't during the moment.

There is a quote in the article by Philosopher John Locke.  ( I must admit at first I thought of the Lost Character John Locke).  But it makes so much sense and is a bit of good advice. " A person recognizes himself as the same being throughout his life, in different times and places. You are one person, indivisible, who just happens to wear many hats."  I understand how hard that is to recognize myself amidst all the different parts of myself.  I tend to identify myself as a mom, or a wife but those aren't the whole  of who I am.

I am going to work on being a whole me and not a part of me.  Yes I am a mom, yes I am a wife, yes I am a wanna be writer, I am an infant in Christ, I am not just those at times but ALL of the time.

soccer on a fall day

The last couple of days have been wonderful. ( I refuse to look at the negative).  We played soccer in the back yard for a while.  By the time we were done the street lights were in full effect and we couldn't see the ball if we were not under the light.   The kids hussled and tried their hardest.   I love how active soccer keeps us.   
Makes me sad that it's fall because that means cold weather and snow is on the horizon .  With snow that means no playing outside.    I hate the winter because I feel as though I am in a prison.  Not a fan of the cold, no not at all.   I love the sun light and the warms and the ability to leave the windows open and feel a gentle breeze  that ruffles the curtains and you have to add in the smell of a freshly mown lawn and the flowers.   I love the sound of the night life.   The tree frogs croaking back and forth and the crickets playing their violin legs and the buzz of the cicadas before they molt into their new forms.

Spring and summer are the seasons of life.  When its cold and gray out in the winter I look and long for the buds on the trees and the sight of the crocus flowers.  I feel rejuvinated at the rebirth and the sights of the Cardinals in the trees returning from the warm winters in the south. 

Fall is also beautifully bitter sweet as it means the sleeping season is coming. The sound of the birds fade, there are no frogs or cicadas that sing me to sleep. OH but the fall colors.  Wow they dazzle.  God surely knows how to paint beautiful and inspiring pictures.   I enjoy watching the bright red and yellow leaves float in a slow dance to the ground with their swirling and tumbling motions on the air that lifts them.  The smell of a wood stove burning that the air takes on as it grows crisp.  It always reminds me of Thanksgiving at my Grandmother's when I was little.  

Winter always comes and chills me.  It feels like I can't get warm.  The winter brings the Nothing that always tries to rob me of good moods.  It is a time when I want to be close to family and we are always so far away from our extended families that it is depressing.  The cold season makes me home sick. 

I always have the spring to look forward to and that always helps.   This spring will be a definite rebirth spring full of change and newness.  Boot Camp and AIT come in the spring.   I will be seeing how much I can accomplish for myself that I can be proud of besides being  a mother.   I will be chasing and reaching for the fruit of a dream and showing the kids that if you want it badly enough and you take the steps YOU CAN achieve it!    I know that none of this is possible with out the force of my God telling me and leading me in His time to get to the places he needs me to be.

10- 20 days

so  i finally got all the paperwork in that needed to be in at the recruiters office.  Called today to find out how long until we can really finish up.   Waiting for the police checks to come back and he said that could take ten to 20days.   are you freaking kidding?   I started this process at the end of July beginning of August.   At this rate it doesn't seem like I am ever going to get to boot camp or to AIT.   Patients is a virtue ( yes i must keep saying this to myself).   God is really wanting me to learn that I think.

I started the volunteering at the APA today.  OH MY  the sweet babies I got to love on and take care of for a while.  I loved the cats the most. They purr and you can feel their love.   The puppies were super sweet tho.  If you are in the St. Louis area please stop by and pick one up to love forever.  I love that place.  They make sure they spay and neuter all the animals before they send them home.    Don't simply think about the babies. It's the older cats and dogs that are really thankful for your love.  I wish I could take some home. BUT I know that the timing isn't great to do that as I am hoping to join the military and I don't know when I'll be in a stable environment.  Not to mention the fact I don't even live in my own home. 


I really don't have too much to say other than to update what is going on.

10 - 20 DAYS?!?!?   wow that seems like 10 million years away.   Boot Camp could be in Jan or March.   6 Months away

not much to say

Things seem to be going slowly but well.  Heard from my recruiter yesterday and my waiver was approved and now its a waiting game for my high school transcripts to come in the mail.  One would think that they could have simply faxed them to the recruiter and saved some time and money , but they didn't.  I am simply eager to get on to the next phase of life.   This eagerness is a constant battle to remind myself that everything happens in God's time and not my own.    I believe I have made it known that this is an area in my life that I struggle with fiercely, waiting on the Lord and not relying on myself.

Things at the house are stressed and tense. Not so much with A and I , but J.  She seems to be moody and depressed that A got  his appartment and that the kids and I spend time over there.  Things get taken wrong and I have come to the conclusion there isn't much I can do but pray.  I have a fear that things will escalate and I'll be out .  Can't stay at A's place because the rules say 6 people can't live in a 3 bedroom place. So I feel as though I am at the mercy of J and her moods.  One minute things seem well and then the next she seems upset and depressed and She and A are butting heads and when I talk to him about things I am "tattling my feelings'".  Not sure what that means but,  He is still my husband and I should be allowed to tell him anything I want to tell him and if it is known that I have issues with talking to him, I shouldn't be made to feel like I am not allowed to talk to him.  But it seems like that.  I will not give into it though.  I will fight the good fight and pray that emotions simmer and that  the time until boot camp goes quickly.  

I pray that the friendship can make it through this.  God is in control and I need to simply trust him in it.

ok. thats what is going on at the moment.  May God bless all who come across this posting.

boys

My 9 year old is having issues at school.  Not concentrating or paying attention , not finishing class work or home work  not sitting still.   I don't know what to do about it.  Finally a teacher is seeing what we see at home.  He doesn't pay attention for more than a few minutes at a time.  This kid is NOT stupid though.  I wonder if that is why all the teachers in the past never really said anything about his behavior at school. They always lead us to believe this was all in our heads.  Maybe it was because they are all worn out teachers that don't want to deal with military parents.   His teacher this year says he loves having him in class and that he always volunteers and is always polite and has good manners but he just keeps getting distracted and talking with the kids.   I don't know what to do about this.  I don't know how to reenforce the positive behavior.  We had a wonderful talk a week ago or so and he seemed so in control of his thoughts and his behavior but we are back to this.  It is really making me worry about him and what we can do for him.   I have never believed in ADD or ADHD before but I am seriously wondering if he has this.   I don't even know how to go about making an appointment to talk to a doctor about it?   Feeling a bit lost.

nothingness Oct32009

I feel a lack of nothingness that leads to everything
I am lacking in energy and happy mood
a sense of foreboding blossoming
on the violet and oranger horizon
lapping at the sea
that's tossing the turtles to shore

Depression sinking in the sand
grains of glass slipping into my solar skin
blue in the moon's waning light.
Cold that misses the warmth of you
curls around and calms me down.

The rain is falling, turning to icy bits
that cover the road into a morror
so I can see the things that must be changed.
Is this idea possible?
A turning point into purity snow
it never melts but never warms
because there is a war about.

Can you see the sick
the dying
I am right here
waiting for you
to release the nothingness
swinging into everything.





~ this was written almost a year ago.   Life felt complicated and more uncertain then.  Don't get me wrong, it still feels uncertain and very complicated at times but I feel hopeful and not so depressed and overtaken by the nothing.  Last year I very much felt like the never ending story's nothing was trying to eradicate my being.  There are still times when that is there, mostly when the affects of A's ptsd are rampant and raging and the floor becomes egg shells that slice the bottoms of my feet.   I feel like the war stole something from me, that man that used to be patient with me and understanding and  it stole the encouragement I used to receive from him.   Granted,  he still encourages me and is still patient but the understanding seems to be gone  or less observant, and there are times I have to fight to remember he has been through the trauma's of war and loss the likes of which I don't understand.    I forget how to be supportive and loving.   I forget that he needs the action of love and not the words of it.  He doesn't need hollow and empty but tangible and sensory love.  I don't think I can comprehend what goes through him when the thunder rattles and the dreams come.   I don't want to even compare anything that I think to what he has to fight on a daily basis yet I find myself often doing it.  We all deal with trauma differently.   The war has brought up so much from his childhood that I think has been left dormant in the dark just waiting for the time.   I need to be a better person to him: a better friend.

one with me

I was sitting in the tree
when I became
One with Me
I let it all go
I let it all go
The things you did to me
I sent them up
~to the sky
For my God to take them
away
I was sitting in a tree
when God became one
with me
He took my sin
for a ride
apart from my soul
He took yours along too
for it wasn't my burden to bare
I let it all go
I let it all go
You're free of my anger
I am free from the shame
For the things you had
done to me
I became one with me
The  day God
took it all away
Sitting in a tree
On a clear November day.

books and escapes into holiness

I have been reading a lot lately.  in this week alone I have read 3 amazing books.  there seems to be a central theme and I didn't go for this by the way but GOD did.  and that theme is GOD and the beliefs we all have.

The first book I read was the Novelist. ( don't remember the author)  but It is about a Christian woman who writes action novels and takes a job teaching a community college class about how to write a novel.  Her student challenges her to bleed into the book. She writes an allegory for her troubled son and for the class.  
She quotes my scripture.   Jer. 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you " says the Lord" plans to prosper you and not to harm you to give you hope and a future".   Yes that is my life's scripture,  keeps me grounded and remembering that this life I have isn't about me.  Yes I am going to fall on my face MANY MANY more times but he loves me and wants me to hope but he isn't afraid to let me fall so I can remember it.      ( the author of the Novelist talks about this also)

The second book I read was called Catalyst by Angela Hunt.  It is a teens book about the daughter of a minister who is struggling with accepting that things happen for a reason.   You need a million boxes of tissues for this book.  I read this book because I read and saw the movie for  the book SPEAK about rape of a 14 year old High School Freshman.   Both books are powerful and real and raw.  She writes in a way that most writers today have forgotten.  She connects to the reader in a scary kind of reality through their youth.

Lastly, I read the book Go Down To Silence.  PLEASE read this book.  It is a book about a survivor of the Holocaust and the horrors he has seen the estrangement from his youngest son and the generosity and love of God to put Christian people in the role of protecting and helping many Jewish families ( mostly children) survive.  It is about the reconciliation of the people of the world to their one true GOD.    the natural chosen people of God and those that have been cut and cultivated and brought into the fold of God's love and embrace.  There is a part of the book where the little Jewish boy looks up in his hiding and sees Jesus on the cross and is told that he too was a Jew that God sent to die on the cross by the Jews so that all can again be His chosen people.     There was a severe vivid cruelty explained and a Severe and tender Love in this book. 


I want to write so that people feel as moved as these books have made me feel.   To have the power to stand up and have the courage to meet your fears and forgive them and let them go.
 I get that feeling most from Go down to Silence because the main character Jacob faced his fear and faced the man who took his father and uncles and cousins to the death camps and instead of killing him he let him go.   I want to be able to do that to the many nameless faces that touched me and hurt me as a tiny girl.    I want to face them and tell them I forgive them for the evil they did to me.  Maybe I don't need to tell them I just need to say it out loud. 

I think a lot lately about God being my shepherd in the valley of the shadow of death and being thankful for his rod that sustains me.   I wonder if I will ever live up to that thankfulness.  There is hope that He knows I am thankful even if my actions sometimes say otherwise. How can I fathom how AWESOME my God is?

my pen has ink

again the page is blank
my feelings have no words
the well inside, once empty
slowly fills, drop by drop
yet thirst remains
like my blank page
my pen has ink
no letters does it form
only blobs form in blackened blood
for my page that is my feelings bare
no words