Thoughts Before Leaving - A Thursday 13

*This has been the easiest prep yet. Woot for organization.

*Totally excited about traveling with no back seat. No luggage worries.

*Seeing the dumb dog in a life jacket may be the highlight of my summer.

*My books are packed in a suitcase. They are the only thing in the suitcase. Pathetic, I know.

*Hoping to get throught the trip with no puking

*or dogs running away in an Atlanta suburb

*Gas is almost $1 less/ gallon this year than last.

*I can't wait to visit Miss Jane in Indiana!!!

*And Bedky and Ashley on the way back!

*I also plan to keep exercising with by walking and swimming.

*I plan to eat lots of yummy food as well.

*I have quite a bit of yarn traveling with me. It travels light.

*Books, yarn, art supplies and a hot man by the lake. Who needs more?

Very tired. Leaving at 3am because it is so FREAKING HOT here all the time. I want to be somewhere before the afternoon heat slays us.

See you on the flip side.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR - Wordless Wednesday

Because in Pirate language, it's "ARRRRRR" not "arrrrrrrG"!

Making Progress

I suppose it was inevitable that a day of blogging would be missed this month. Maybe even two days. With the Hunky home priorities shift and change. Things are forgotten or delayed or sometimes just ignored, but then inevitably most things tumble back into their normal routines and we move forward again. So, I am returning to write. Letting go of days gone and continuing to record my days and my ways as though no time were missed.

That's progress.

I did manage to have my annual total meltdown. Hunky is less fun to fight with anymore, which is good as I never liked fighting anyway. He also raises the accurate point that no matter what he does, I will always be somewhat at odds with his job. Also true. In the end, no angry words were exchanged, and we've left the angst in the dust with only a modicum of uncomfortable moments, and both, I believe, feeling heard and understood. There isn't always a right and wrong side. Sometimes life is frustrating. It's better to have a partner to share with rather than a combatant to vanquish,

That's progress.

Vacation time looms. We're at the 72 hour mark for departure, and I am strangely calm. I tend to mark progress on all things homemaking by how I prepare for long departures and guest arrivals. I had guests in last week for a dinner and there was very little sound or fury in having the house presentable for their arrival. By the same token, Friday's departure is immenent, but my main concern is putting clothes in suicases. For all intents and purposes, once we mow the grass we can move on outta here. Not spending an entire week working sun-up to sundown cleaning house and organizing is nice.

That's progress.

I bought a bathing suit - quite literally the most hated and uncomfortable thing I have to do each year. It's another set of moments where I am not quite as manly as I claim to be and in fact, am very stereotypically female. I'm tired of being that way and hating the mirror. Too much energy is lost lamenting something that only I can do something about. I've been exercising regularly for about three weeks now and have determined that in one year I am going to LIKE the person I see in the mirror. One year is very, very reasonable. My scale is still in the garage.

That's progress

Most of my school items are ordered for the fall. I have skeleton plans in place for the entire school year. I'm excited. The kids are actually excited (they are more excited about getting to the lake, but then, so am I ). When we return from Naked Week at the condo, we'll be ready to launch into next year with very little angst or anxiety. I love that. I also decided to lengthen two items rather than cram them in before we leave. We have worked hard this summer.

That's progress

As a recovering perfectionist it's hard not to become impatient when the finished product isn't finished..or perfect. I commented on my soul sistah's blog earlier that one of life's greatest rewards was fast visual progress. And so it is for me. But I am finding that many of life's great battles simply don't resolve themselves in instant picture perfect solutions. In fact, the only way to track any movement whatsoever is to note the small steps taken. Added up over time it is these steps that make great journeys.

That's progress

Other Stuff I've Been Reading

I spent a fair amount of time last week weeding through the ol' Google reader. I;ve been trying to do a better job of connecting with the people I do read and being distracted by blogs that aren't part of a personal relationship, just go unread for weeks on end (something I would never do), aren't pertinent, or weren't even active anymore. The end result is that I have spent a good deal of time reading, learning and enjoying blogs again. I thought I would share some of them with you:

*Ann Voskamp writes a wonderful series on spiritual journaling. I see my drawing and better journaling practice joining together very soon

*Unconventional Living and chasing your passion are subjects that are very pertinent to my life right now. I love these stories.

*Kris climbed into my head and wrote my heart in her blog entry about words

*Beth talked about the common misconception of Lost Time

*Rhonda captured my thoughts about my own home better than I ever could myself

*Ann discussed the pro's and con's of super speed "relationships" on twitter

All these and so many more good things are out there on the web, I'll never read it all, but it's fun to share the really good stuff.

Just Another Rainy Day

I'm rather over the weather this summer. It rains and it rains and it rains and it rains. In six days we pull out of this joint, and I'm ready. Ready for a change, ready for some place new, ready for new faces, ready to shed my public persona and just stretch out in my skin for a bit. Ready, ready, ready for six weeks of school free, obligation free sometimes clothing free fun.

But first, before I count the days and make the lists and travel the miles and ..and ... and...first I have roughly one hundred and forty four hours to wallow in this

I plan to make the very most of it.

On Sacrifice

Yesterday was a day that I hate being a girl. Seriously, the mercurial hormonal status of women makes me CRAZY. I have no patience with it in dealing with other people and I absolutely abhor it when my uterine side makes itself so blatently apparent in my own attitudes. Just take the girl plumbing and slap in some testicles, and I will be a happy girl. (Somewhere Hunky is shuddering and retching and he doesn't even know why, though I have told him often that I am so ready for my "set"). Nevertheless, summer seems to be the time I struggle most. Often times in retrospect, I can see where spiritual warfare plays a big role in things. Yesterday ended with the Arizona team (including Hunky) baptizing nine Native Americans after a week at camp. Coincidentally (or, you know, NOT) I was an utter physical and emotional mess yesterday, and you know who my go-to guy is on days like that....and if I can just ruffle and distract him enough so that he is thinking of me and not his calling....well, you see where this all goes in the world of what-if. (I have mentioned I hate being a girl, right? Because man do we know the buttons to push to get the hubby off his game-stupid STUPID girl crap).

Anyway, I've blathered on about hormones and emotions and plumbing to say this. Summer is a serious sacrifice for my family. I have a very hard time not being resentful. I try very hard to focus on the spiritual aspect of the sacrifice. It's hard to whine and be selfish in light of nine souls, ya know? It's hard though. It seems mortality and the brevity of life slaps me in the face every time I turn around. I am jealous of the days and weeks that I lose with the other half of my heart. Perhaps it's selfish; I don't really know. I only know that that is the truth of my life. My Lord tells me I have to let him go; my heart tells me it's simply robbery. I am at war with myself.

I've made another "sacrifice" in my life that further complicates things. Ten years ago, Craig and I made a decision that I would stay home with our children. It was crazy then. It's crazy now. The only explanation I have for where we are now is God's provision, His faithful reward for our obedience. I am being completely honest when I say there is literally not one thing this world has to offer that would make me regret that decision. It does, however, mean that while Craig's calling may be hither and yon over the country all summer long, my calling is to be right here with the family to whom I am firmly convenanted. It doesn't make life easier when people question all summer why I don't go, why I can't go (someone actually had the nerve to say to me this summer that "It's not like I actually have a job to keep me from going" ) as though I am not only somehow shirking responsibility, but that I am doing it as a personal insult to them and their children, or whatever youth it may be that Hunky is ministering to that week. It's these thoughtless comments that accumulate over the summer months until what I want most to do is simply hide away at home with the blinds closed.

It is the hardest thing I find in dealing with people, this lack of thought or consideration of what it means to me and my children to continually be saying goodbye to the man in our life, of how much we miss him, of the hole it leaves in our lives and our hearts while he serves the very people who say these thoughtless things. I continually tell God that I think He made a mistake in putting me in this position, and so I believe it, except that I am still here. By myself. Because it is the choice I have made, and the sacrifice that is required. If it didn't hurt it wouldn't be sacrifice.

Mamma Said

Mamma said there'd be days like this. There'd be days like this my Mamma said.

I find it funny (not ha-ha funny, cruel irony funny) that days like this come WHAM out of nowhere and bite me in the... well, you get the picture.

There's so many things I am trying to do. things I want to change, and sadly all it takes is one bad day to really send me into a tailspin. So I battle. I try to carefully weigh every word to ensure the edges aren't too sharp and cut young souls. Every response is laden with a tangle of irritabilities to sort through before it reaches the surface. Everything feels hard, everything feels wearing. I second guess every word I say and every word spoken to me.

I don't like myself and everyone else is only a half step above that.

I wish I knew if it was hormones, or health, spiritual attack or emotions. I wish it were as simple a situation as pinpointing one and flipping the switch that turns it off. I hate wishing away a day because it seems so very heavy, and I can't stand myself in it.

So I carefully walk through a landmine. More often than not I fail and the fallout is yet another thing to deal with. I paste on my smile and grit my teeth. I try not to let Ought and the expectation of others be the straw that breaks my back.