Blessed by A Dirty House

Today is house cleaning day. Everyday around here needs to be house cleaning day. It's the job that's never done, or in my case, never even close. Cleaning is not one of my gift. I don't enjoy it, and struggle to keep up with the daily chores around here. Today though, I decided to be blessed by my dirty house. I see the faces in the picture below and know I have blessed far beyond measure. Those faces cause the dirty house, but if that's the price to pay for having them, every mess is more than worth it.

After lunch, I gave the high chair a good scrubbing even though it will need it again after supper. It's a gross job since my Sweet Caroline is quite messy. Today I decided to be blessed that there is a sweet child in the chair throwing food and making messes. A dirty high chair is proof of blessings because of the child that uses it. Many people would love to have messes to clean from a little one. Thank you God for the dirty high chair. Beside that high chair is a pile of black beans from a quesidilla that Miss Abigail begged to have for lunch. More mess and more blessings. We have more than enough food to eat. We get to make choices about what we eat. We have fresh, nutritious food available. Never once have I worried that my children wouldn't have enough to eat. Greasy fingerprints cover that section of the table. Oh those little prints that are quickly growing into big prints. Those small hands spill and drop so much, but are connected to one of the sweetest hearts I have ever known.

For once I gave our bathroom a deep cleaning while reminding myself to be thankful for a dirty shower with clean, hot water. Thank you God for a toilet that needs to be cleaned because it means we have one. For my work, I had cleaning products, a dustbuster, and a steam mop to use. Together those made the jobs easy. Blessed to have them.

Charlie is working a super long shift today. He left before we got up, and he won't be home til after we are sleeping. Thank you, God for a hardworking husband who gives so much to take care of us and allow me to be at home with our girls. As I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing baseboards (See, I really did clean.) I was thanking God that I am here and can clean my house. Since I know what it's like to work while having small kids and to be at home, I treasure even more this time with my girls. The quiet time timer is about to go off. I have a little girl just waiting to do something fun with me. Help me, Father to never take that for granted and to not waste those opportunities to build memories and a stronger realtionship with my daughter.

Today, I choose to be blessed by this house. It's a blessing just to have a home that needs cleaning. So for a few minutes my house looks good. Tomorrow family is coming over to watch a football game. No promises that it will still be clean by then, but for right now, my house is clean, so I will sit back and soak in the blessings God has chosen to pour down on me.

The Problem of Pinterest

In looking through my old posts on blogger, I found this one about Pinterest written not long after I discovered the treasure that is Pinterest. SInce then, I have canged some opinions and not others. I still think that it has the power to breed discontentment. There are billion dollar houses, super skinny women, outfits with $200 sandals. Those things are not gonna be part of my life, ever. But I have also cooked several yummy recipes including some new favorites. The no bake energy bites, or balls as we call them are a hit and have become a staple snack in our house.

We have done several fun projects based on ideas seen on Pinterest. I am not a super creative Mom with a million ideas of ways to keep Abigail creative and happy. With Pinterest though, I have so many ideas at my fingertips. I love to do these fun things with her, I just needed help finding the ideas. So overall, Pinterest is good in my opinion. My danger now is just wasting too much time playing.

Last week I got crazy and signed up for Pinterest. Wowsers, I was hooked immediately. There were so many cool right things at my fingertips. I love having a way to save recipes and such that I find. There have been many times that I have lost recipes that I wanted to try because I forgot the link or didn't print. Now I can save them easily. Now the problem will be finding time to cook them all. Another great thing are the teaching ideas. I'm not in the classroom anymore, but I have a sponge like mind at home and I tutor. I have found ideas for Abigail and for my tutoring student through Pinterest friends. Those are the good things about this new pin board craze.

The problems though are time and contentment. In the short time that I have been signed up, I have spent way too much time looking at it, including putting the app on my phone. My down time is precious to me, and I need to be careful not to waste it. But just browsing around at fun things is good relaxation for me. The biggest problem I have felt so far is with my personal contentment and comparing myself to others. When I see people's crafts, I think I could never do that which gets me down on me. I'm not a crafty person, it's just not a gift that God gave me. When I see all the beautiful designs for houses, I think well if my house were bigger, I could do that. If we had more... more.. more. I am incredibly blessed. It's not good for me to spend my time thinking about more. I have everything I need plus much more. Looking at the possibilities of "stuff" has me wanting.

I'm not giving up Pinterest yet, I'm enjoying the benefits. I've actually made two recipes so far. The no bake energy bites are fantastic. My promise to myself though is to watch what I look at and what I want. If I let it make me discontent with my own blessed life, it's out. Happy Pinning.

Awareness

A friend brought to my attention that this is National Infertility Awareness Week. I had no idea there was such a thing. I am so glad she did though. She shared her story through her blog of their journey to their two beautiful little twins. It brought tears to my eyes as I read about her struggles, pain, and faith.  Infertility is a little talked bout problem. People don't like to share about this most intimate but painful issue. When I think about it, I can quickly call to mind several couples that are currently dealing with this. That's just with a moment of thinking. Blessedly, I have not had to struggle with this issue. Before Abigail though we had a miscarriage. Also another common but not often talked about occurence. In the short time between the miscarriage and Abigail, i hurt so badly feeling like both my body and I were failures. I couldn't take care of my child. Since then much healing has taken place as well as the births of two beautiful and healthy children. I only had to deal with what ifs for a couple months. Many people have to deal with it for years. My heart hurts as I know that friends are hurting right now wanting so badly to hold their own sweet babies.

My purpose in writing this is to ask you to be aware. There are so many people struggling. Be careful before you ask questions about when people are going to "finally start that family." They may have been trying for awhile. That question might cause more pain than you can know. Be sensitive in what you say. Most of the time you won't know what's really going on. After our miscarriage, people said, "oh you KNOW you will be good parents. You are going to have kids." No one can promise me that. God didn't make that promise to us. He promised us that He loves us and knows our hearts. He promised that he cares. Just think before you speak.

KNowing the struggles of others has helped me remember how blessed I am for my two little ladies. At times they drive me crazy, and I can't wait for bedtime. Most of the time though, they are true joy. I cannot imagine life without them. Hug your babies and say a prayer for those that are still wating for theirs.

100 Things

Either last year or the year before, I saw a challenge going around either Facebook or the blog world to get rid of 100 things. It could be throwing things away, giving them away, whatever you choice. The point was just to declutter a little. I wanted to do it but never got around it. This year I am determined to make it. So far I got rid of a shirt I never wear, several dried up nail polishes, and several pair of "silly" socks that I don't wear. I'm only counting that as three. So 3 down, 97 to go. We'll see what all I find that either is trash or could find a better home somewhere else.

Simple Prayer

While reading one of Abigail's childrens' Bibles the other day I ran across this short prayer.
Dear God,
Please help me remember that you're always there. Help me know that you'll always care. When I have to do things I think are hard, help me to keep trying, keep me going Lord. Amen

What a profound prayer found in a children's book. The day I read it, those were words I needed to hear in my heart of hearts. Life with two children has been challenging. I love my girls so much. Learning to take care of them together has been tough at times. Sleep doesn't happen as much as I would like here in this house. I have been tired. Caroline refuses to take a bottle. These are just a couple of my new adventures. I desperately needed to be reminded how much God cares. He's ALWAYS here and he AlWAYS cares. God wants to help me through my daily trials not just the "big" things. This little prayer was just the reminder I needed about how much my Father loves me. He cares about me and everything in my life. Thank you Lord for loving me.

Officially Official

Today makes it truly official. I am a stay-at-home mom. The wonderful teachers of Hall county got up today and went to school. For the first time in five years, I was not one of them. This is the first time in seven years, that I have not started the school year as a teacher, and the first time in 25 years that I have not started school at all. This feels a little strange.

I feel incredibly blessed to have this time to stay home with my girls. I want to appreciate every moment, even the ones where I want to pull my hair or run screaming for the hills. This job will be hard also. Abigail is much more demanding than any principal I have ever had. But she also makes me smile and laugh more too. She gives better hugs too. For two years, I was a working mom. Yes, I know every mom is a working mom, but working away from home and away from my girl was hard and it is totally different work. It hurt to drop her off even though I knew she was very happy and well taken care of with her Nana. So to the working moms out there, my hat is off to you. It's hard. You have my prayers and respect.

I want to use this time well. I have a huge responsibility to raise my children well and teach them. I want them to learn colors, letters, and animal noises, but most importantly, I want them to learn about the love of God. I want to use this time to teach them about a God who loves them even more than I do. During this season, I want to teach them to be servants and help others. Right now things are still a little unpredictable with a newborn, but I want to help others. I want to find ways to serve that our family can do together. God has blessed me with this opportunity, and I believe that comes with responsibilty to use the opportunity well.

My life has changed. Instead of meetings and bulletin boards today, it was Barney and blocks. I wouldn't change it for all the money in the world.

Caroline Katherine Nix

Here are a few shots of my girl. I've been trying to post these for awhile, but my computer has been acting up. I'll do a post with words soon. I just wanted to showcase my new beauty to the world. (I have no idea why this is underlined and blue.)