Fresh Start

So, I haven't used this site in quite a while, but with the newness of a new school year upon us, I can't help but want to start over here as well. This will be our 6th year of homeschooling and for the first time since we started, I will be 100% homeschool mom :-) When we first started this journey, I was a nursing student and for the last two years, I have been working full-time. I am so excited for this coming year. I am so excited to invest in my kids and their education but most importantly to get to see their hearts and make memories that will hopefully last their entire lifetime. Through God's strength and to His glory, I wish everyone a great 2012-2013 school year!

Its Official

Well, I did it. I joined something to help me lose weight. I went with Weight Watchers for several reasons. One-cost. It is reasonable. Silly I have reached the point that I am paying someone to help me do what I know I need to and am suppossed to do but alas, that is one of my consequences. So I am glad that they offer an affordable program for me to utilize. Two-people's success at the program. I have never met anyone who did not lose on WW. They put up some incredible numbers. I was very disheartened by the number of people who gained back but I am hopeful that I am making a "habit" of eating healthy and exercising. I don't want to make all these changes and then go back. I do not want to stay this way. Finally-food choice. I like that I don't have to say no to things I want. Like yesterday, I ate Taco Bell. Normally, "dieting" I would have felt guilty and then eaten anything I wanted for the rest of the day BUT I used my allotted points didn't go over and didn't have to feel bad. So, I'll keep you all posted. As for me know, I think I am crazy because I had 5 kids who are fighting at the moment. Not really common for us but since the dynamics have been changing with who is home this summer and who isn't and what each kid is doing we have had a lot more of it going on. I'm beginning to think there is something to us being crazy ;-)

So I tried it for a month on my own and while I did stay pretty consistent with getting to the gym, vacation and eating out countered anything I tried. I feel like I did try. I even did workouts in the gym in the hotel while on vacation but then I ate everything in the city too so whatever. Today however starts the first day of the new me. I am praying it can last but honestly, I am trying just going at it one day at a time. No more when I'm skinny this or when I'm skinny that just I'm going to eat right today and I'm going to exercise today because I have to as a consequence of my historically bad choices. Friends and family have been very encouraging and supporting but I know that I need to do this for me in my way. Pray for me please.

200 Day Challenge Start Up

So, I'm not really challenging anyone else just myself and my obesity. I hate myself for letting it ever get to this point. I am huge!!!!!!! I weighed in this morning and by December 30th-200 days from now I will be a fraction of my former self. I am crazy for ever thinking that eating the way I've been eating and letting myself go were good ideas. Only God can help me now. I'd love an accountability group but I really don't know how to get one that will really work. I don't someone just being fluff with me or saying they will but not ever really doing it. I want to fix this. I have to fix this. So every 10 days I'll be weighing in. I'll be getting my exercise and I'll be making the change. Stay tuned!!!!!!!

Still Crazy After All These Years

They say that when you are upset or emotional a great activity is journaling. In this case, I am going to use blogging as a substitute. I am at work-no patients so don't worry, no one is being neglected for the making of this blog. I'd love to say that this was going to be cute or funny, but I'm devastated at the state of the world. I'm ready to declare that I'm not crazy this world is. I know we've known this for a long time and I know that is why I admitted a need for a Savior and gave my life to Christ but I'm still trying to figure out why everyone else hasn't caught on. I love that Jesus saved me. I love that I get to know Him and I love that I get to serve Him. I love that I can ask the Creator of the world to heal people, work in my life and use me to better the world I now find myself in. I HATE that I and those I love have to suffer the consequences of choices made by people that aren't willing to make the same choice about who Jesus is. It saddens and upsets me that people say and do things that they are so against the God I love and I ache for them knowing that some day they will have to stand before Him and see who He is and remember what they said about Him. I am heartbroken to read about crashed planes, molested children, dead girls who were bullied into ending their lives, starving children, sick children, abused women, a corrupt government-you name it-it is greiving me. Most of all, I am heartbroken to get a text from someone I love dearly and that I think is an amazing wife and mother and just incredible person and hear that this crazy world is turning their world upside down. That makes me crazy. . .

It's been a while

I was reminded on Wednesday that it had been a while since I last blogged. I guess it doesn't even really matter. I do this more for me than I do for attention from readers but I had to admit I missed it and it is therapeutic to make a record of where I am at or funny things going on. Wednesday, I was reminded it had been awhile when my clinical professor asked me the ever famous blog title, "Are ya'll crazy?" For her it was in relation to the fact that she asked me to tell her something interesting about myself. I gave a basic little tidbit. She asked if I was from Houston. I informed her that I was from Houston, Dallas, Spring, met my husband in St. Louis, that sort of thing. She noticed that I said I was married and asked if I had any kids. I sooooo knew this was coming. "Yes, I have 5 actually". The gasps came from the group of 20 somethings who are still amazed they have to do their own laundry if they don't live with their moms and then it came-the crazy question.

I don't know why it bothers me. It just does. Why does being blessed with 5 precious, healthy, funny, cool, and considerate children make me mentally altered? A 20 year old can forget to pay their bills for 7 months, or eat pizza for 9 days straight, or spend their last dime on a Brittney Spears concert ticket and that is just age appropriate behavior. I give birth and I've somehow experienced a break with reality. But alas, here I am.

I am able to totally recognize that I am the most blessed person on the face of the planet. Jenasis turned 6 this week. I remember the moment they told me she had a knot in her cord, membranes inhaled to her face and hadn't been "squeezed" enough to get the fluid out of her lungs and they were taking her immediately to NICU Level III. Wow-that was crazy! She is such a fighter! Sheer determination kept that girl fighting for every solid breath of air she could get. God gave her the exact personality she needs to make it in this world and I am so proud of her. I am crazy about her! Crazy in love with every little thing that makes her, Grace with a double G!

This past Saturday, the baby of one of my favorite families turned one. I realized how crazy it is that I have been given friends that are truly as good as family! They love my kids the way I love them. They accept us for our faults as well as our strengths. They allow us the room to grow and learn in our relationships. They celebrate with us when we celebrate and we cry together when we're hurting and no matter what we know that it will always be okay. I know that time or place doesn't matter we will stick together.

On Tuesday, my mom will celebrate her birthday. I am crazy proud of my mama! She has no clue that she is my inspiration, my Godly example and one of the people I care most about what they think. I am so blessed that God choose to make me her baby.

Unfortunately, I can never say all this to the person that asks the crazy question. I think it every time. I am disappointed that there are no words to make people get it. So I simply press on through the conversation and pray for a time when I can help them see-Crazy is a relative term.

One-Eyed Willie

Okay, so it has been a while since I posted but I needed to take a study break and I've been having that "are we crazy" question running through my head and thought this would be a great thing to add to my memories. We're getting a new dog this week. For those of you that don't know we have two already-Warner and Bonnie but we're adding a third. We couldn't resist him and that is all there is to it. Okay there is more :-) Sorry about the sun. There will be cuter pics I promise but this one is the moment that made up our minds. Ruthie is holding a dog first of all which is crazy in and of itself and second, she begged us for him. Ruthie is not known to be our animal lover and interacts as limitedly as possible with the animals we already possess. Yet, she bonded with this puppy immediately. He's a year old and he was rescued from the Love's Truck stop just outside of Katy west of I-10. Jane Hoskins, is a friend of ours and has always been super kind and special to us and especially the kids. She found him and had his eye repaired and was taking care of him when we feel in love. We went to her place to go fishing and and came back obsessed with that one-eyed dog. She had been calling him Max but that didn't seem to fit. Ruthie sat right in the chair holding him and said, "I'm putting him on my birthday list". I asked her why and she told me, "because I'm the only one in our family who really understands what it is like for him to be different, because I'm the only one who can't see like the others and can't do things the same all the time". (Mother's heart breaking at these words that reveal my child's true emotions about how she sees herself) I told her we'd have to pray about it. We went home and for two days ALL of us could not get this puppy out of our heads. EVEN JASON! Sooooo...we called Jane and asked if he could come for a "weekend visitation". We of course wanted to make sure he fit in at our house as well as he did at hers and also to make sure Warner and Bonnie wouldn't be displaced by adding another canine to the mix. It was a fun weekend and while we tossed Sammy around as a name choice after Sammy Davis Jr. of course, Jason suggested Willie after Goonies one of his and my favorites and we were all sold at once ( We have brilliant children who decided that if Daddy liked the name maybe he'd like the dog enough to let them keep it) So, he left on Sunday to go finish up his treatments with promises to return in two weeks. During these two weeks (which has stretched into three but by God's perfect design) I have often found myself thinking, "we must be crazy!"

Yet, on April 5th, God again revealed His perfect design for His provision in His way. As I mentioned earlier Ruthie is all about this dog. She counts down the days till he is suppossed to come and she talks about why she loves him and how cute he is and all that she wants to do to take care of him when he gets here. On April 5th, Ruthie had to have her appendix removed and while it is a minor surgery in my nursing brain, it is catastrophic in my mommy heart. Another surgery for her? Really, God? If only I can see the big picture that He sees for my precious unique little girl. The second she woke up, I praised God again for this one-eyed special little dog. She opened her eyes and we asked her how she did and she said, "It's over? I don't remember having surgery yet. I need to do everything they say to get better though because I need to be well enough to take care of Willie when he gets home." That just brought such joy to my heart not because it is realistic or necessary, like we won't all help take care of whatever she needs, but that Our God loves us enough to give us that one bright spot to see us through our trials. For Ruthie, it is that silly pup and for me it is my silly little Ruthie. All my kids really, but for her in that special Ruthie section of my heart, I know she wants me to be a nurse-at UT nurse. She is so proud of me and so I keep on for her and the sacrifices that they all make for me to do this. Yes, they'll benefit from it in the end but really, really, their now is a sacrfice. They do extra housework, they live in a house where mom can't keep it June Clever quality and they make no apologies, they go to 2 churches and don't complain and they entertain the littles while I can't. The night before they did surgery we had been in two ER's for 8 hours and after we signed off on the surgery consents Ruthie tells Jason and I-"It's okay if I die, because my life here is just a short part and I'll go to sleep here and wake up with Jesus". While that blesses my socks off to hear as a Christian, as a Mom I want to run and scream over my dead body!!! Yet, all I could do is let God do His will and know that Ruthie has her own testimony and her own walk, in life or in death. My greatest fear is losing one of my kiddos and this was all to close for comfort. It wasn't like we're all sitting around doing bible study and she says something like that. This was crunch time. I had just signed papers that said I understood that one of the potential complications of this surgery was DEATH!!! Yet, God is Peace and He gave the Holy Spirit that intercedes on the behalf of the Saints and we had people praying and we knew it. God was good and merciful to me and my selfish desire to keep her here with me was allowed and we REJOICED!!!!

So once again, I've been presented with that ever present question in my life, "Are ya'll crazy?" and once again I'm reminded of the verse in 2nd Corinthians that says, "If I be out of my mind, let it be for the Lord". Amen to that and thank you God for One Eyed- Willie.