Why is it that watching someone else do something makes me want to do it? It is pathetic how suggestible people can be. And sometimes laughable. For example, while watching Julie and Julia, I was inspired to blog. Which I already do. See? Laughable.

Envy is such a silly thing. It starts off benignly and then takes over. It starts with the idea that someone else has it better than you. You see greener grass and assume that the entirety of their existence is better. The grass is greener because their everything is better, not because horses are constantly fertilizing it. We make such assumptions on such a regular basis that they become snap judgements that are automatically credible. Such is the pattern of life for many of us.

Once the thought has taken root, it is like a weed. If not pulled up and destroyed, it takes root, digs down and makes itself at home in your mind, popping up whenever it can. And then it takes over.

Well, that's all good and well. We all know how envy works. Now how do we get rid of it? Well, we can start by voicing our assumptions. It might go something like this:

You: "My what beautiful grass you have."
Neighbor: "Why thank you. Your yard smells wonderful."
You: "Doesn't your yard smell wonderful?"
Neighbor: "Heavens no. It smells like the horse manure that made it so green."

And then suddenly you no longer desire the greener grass because you learned about all the crap you would have to deal with to get grass that green.

Or we could skip a couple steps and fight the compulsion to assume that just because someone else's life has one aspect that appears better than ours, that their entire life is better and work with what we have been given rather than waste our time wishing we could work with what others have been given. Because we really have no idea what someone else is really working with unless we ask. And listen to the answer.

I thereby declare envy a ginormous waste of time and vow to do my best to stop letting it invade my thoughts, heart and life. There is one of my New Year's resolutions. Happy New Year!

The truth about boobs and other things

In case I haven't done it before, I am about to reveal myself to be a universallist. Now, I am not entirely sure that is a real word because my lovely iPhone wishes to change it into "universal list" so I should probably explain that term. I believe right is right and wrong is wrong, lovely is lovely and ugly is ugly, black is black and white is white and shades of grey are just our attempts to justify doing what we know we really shouldn't be doing anyways.

But what does this have to do with boobs, you might ask. Well, it strikes me as quite hypocritical that boobs are considered lovely when shoved in a way too small bikini, but stick a nipple in a baby's mouth and boobs can make you not only lose your appetite -- those nasty knockers are apparently gross enough to make you lose your desire to continue grocery shopping. So I guess seeing a baby eat is powerfully gross enough to make you never want to eat again. That sounds pretty weird to me, so if you are as confused as I am, you'll have to ask eligible race car driving bachelor Kasey Kayne to explain the logic behind it.

I wonder if anyone bothered to ask Mr. Kayne his opinion on boobs in bikinis or topless beaches. Or topless bars for that matter. I bet it doesn't jive with his opinion of them while breastfeeding.

The funny thing is, while God does intend a woman's body to be pleasing to the eye, I'm fairly certain that their practical purpose was to nourish babies. I guess that shows us how backwards this world is -- that boobs are prized for their aesthetical properties while being vilified for fulfilling their intended function.

Muffins

Why is it that when you're looking for a recipe, that's the one that is stuck to another page in your cook book? Probably because you spilled something on that page the last time. . .

Well, to make sure that doesn't happen again, here is my muffin recipe. . .

Ingredients:
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I prefer safflower oil with vitamin E in it)
1 large egg
1 tbsp vanilla
1 cup blueberries

2 cups all purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur's brand)
1/2 cup plus 2 heaping tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder (I prefer aluminum free)
1/2 tsp salt
cinnamon if desired

Preheat oven to 400 and spray bottom of muffin cups or line with muffin papers.
mix first 4 ingredients with a whisk, add blueberries
sift last 5 ingredients together
add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, stir just until moist (will be lumpy)
fill muffin cups about 2/3 full
bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. if in muffin papers, remove immediately. If not, let stand for 5 minutes then remove from pan.

I don't post pictures of my kids on this blog because I don't want to. I love my kids. I'm very proud of my kids. I think they are adorable and fantastic and wonderful. I sometimes post pictures of my kids on FB, but I don't do it very often for several reasons:
1. I'm pretty sure I don't have any pedophiles on my friend list, but you never know and the idea of anyone getting aroused while looking at pics of my kids is really gross.
2. I'm selfish and I like to keep the cuteness to myself. I know I should share my kids more, but I tend to think if anyone *really* wants to see them, they can see them in real life and take their own pictures to remember the occasion by. And that includes their father. Yes its a bit petty, but I am not going to provide anyone who has not seen my kids in over a year by their own choice with photos to brag about them with. If you want to play daddy of the year, start off by visiting your kids at least 1 time in that year.
3. I'm not really that great of a photographer and don't want to post examples of my shoddy work.
4. There is usually stuff cluttering up my pictures. I do my best to keep our house clean, but with 7 kids and 3 adults running around, stuff gets on the floor, on the couch, on the table. . . everywhere. Rapidly. Without ceasing. Until everyone is asleep. At which time, pictures are no longer being taken. I do my best, but if I were to post pictures online for the world to see, I would want to screen out the pictures that show clutter/messes, which wouldn't leave that many pictures to post. And that would add stress to my life that I just don't want to deal with. It would be a small amount of stress, but stress has a tendency to accumulate quickly in my experience.

I am probably not going to post pictures of my kids in this blog. Ever. Because it is a public blog and anyone can see pictures of them in it and I don't feel comfortable posting pics of my kids that anyone can see. I want my blog to be open and genuine and engaging and I feel like I can accomplish this in my posts through my words. I am not willing to post pictures of every aspect of my life because that's just not me.

Inspiring?

I read a great new blog the other day and thought "Wow, I wish I could write like that." And be open and engaging and genuine. And then, I realized I can be. . .

Well, I can try, at least.

I always wanted this blog to be a place where I could be me and share parenting tips and be genuine. And then my husband left and I felt like I had to censor every word that I typed, just in case he happened upon this blog and wanted to use it against me in court. Then I got out of the habit of posting because the idea of filtering what I posted was distasteful to me. Well, I'm divorced now and my ex has no desire to have anything to do with our kids, so I think I'm safe to be me, uncensored. Especially since me, uncensored would mostly be G or PG-13 rated anyways. . . Not sure what I thought I was censoring, anyways. Sigh.

I am trying to be a better mom. Which isn't to say I'm a bad mom, just that I think I could do better and I'm trying. And while I'm in the midst of thinking I can do better, people who admire me annoy me, mostly because I'm annoyed with myself because I think I can do better. Its a vicious cycle of annoyance that I wish I could get away from. And getting away from that vicious cycle is one of the ways I think I can do better. Which, I think, is annoying. And the start of another vicious cycle.

I am human. Limited. Finite. At the same time, I have unlimited possibilities and infinite potential. So do I do what I can and leave the rest to God (or whomever he appoints to do the leftover tasks) or do I over-extend myself and reach for the possibilities? I'm leaning towards the former due to my current sleep deficit. But I don't want to get in the habit of just doing what I can and never trying to stretch and do more because I know how hard habits can be to break. And it annoys me.

Today, my girls and I got our hair cut during Love Loud at our church. We went to the same salon our pastor gets his hair cut at and they were incredibly sweet and gracious and they did a fantastic job. And somewhere during that time, I spoke to the hair stylist about the past year of my life and she told me I was an inspiration and that just made me sad. From my perspective, all I have done this past year is take care of my kids while their father chose not to. I don't see that as being inspiring. I see that as a parent doing what a parent should do. And it saddens me to think that I live in a world where a parent acting like a parent is inspiring. It was nice of her to say. I'm sure she was trying to be encouraging, but it was a little depressing. Which is probably, at least in part, the sleep deficit talking. Which is why I am going to stop blogging right now and go to bed and hopefully reduce that deficit a bit. Goodnight :)

Wait, there's life after divorce? Weird. . .

This has been a very confusing time in my life, a time where I feel as if I am being sifted and measured. . . and typically found lacking. I've spent the past year worrying and stressing and strategizing and trying to figure out how to get here and now that I'm here, I'm not really sure what to do with myself or where to go from here.

Its a relief to no longer worry about and dread the divorce, but at the same time there is a feeling that all that time I spent worrying was a total waste. Why did I worry instead of spending that time figuring out what to do next? Did I think time would stop once I got here, that I'd be given time to think it over before time would continue? Well, it didn't. Now that I'm here, I have to figure out where to go from here and I'm not really sure how to start that process because -- well, I never really thought that I would ever be here. I guess you could say I am totally out of my element.

Time marches on, that's for sure. One thing that I have come to know (even if I haven't learned to utilize it) is that time is the one thing you must pay for everything you do. Everything takes time. And you can't undo or reverse it. You can't get a refund or a do over. Does that mean I have learned time management skills? Heck no. But it does mean that I would like to. Like yesterday ;) Sadly, though, I have also found that if you don't know what you want to do with yourself and your life, you have no destination to aim for and no measuring standard to use to determine what progress you have made toward your goal. Because you have no goal. And "getting through this" is not a goal. Its a coping mechanism. A way to encourage yourself, to tell yourself you will make it past here one day because you're "getting through this" one step at a time. As coping mechanisms go, its great, but as long-distance planning goes, it kinda sucks.

In 4 days, it will be the 1 year anniversary of the day when my life officially changed courses. When I went from a "happily married", stay at home mom, on track and expecting to spend the rest of my life with the man I loved, watching our kids and grandkids grow to being a derailed single mom of 4 -- a displaced homemaker, constantly wondering. Wondering if I'm doing enough to compensate for the fact that their dad left. Wondering if I'm being a good mom and a good dad all at the same time. Wondering how I'm ever going to support my kids when I can't even get a job that would cover the cost of daycare, much less have anything left over to use to support my kids. Wondering what I'm going to do with my life. Obviously I'll always be a mom, but now I have to be more and I have no idea what that more needs to be. Or where to find the time to be it. Or the time to become it. Or how to transform into it.

I'm floundering a little, but I'm still treading water and we'll make it. God is for me, so who can ever stop me? God is with me so what can stand against me?

I'm not really worried about the future anymore. I've seen how God has led me through this divorce to a place where I never intended to be. I've seen how He has taken care of me and walked with me. I've felt His support and love and protection all around me every step of the way. And I am excited to see where we will go next and how we will get there. At this point, I only wished I hadn't spent so much time worrying about what I've already gone through and had spent more time thinking about where to go from here. Or figuring out who I am and what I'm interested in. Its pretty sad (and a little scary) to wake up and realize that you're a 27 year old mother of 4 who doesn't know what she wants to do when she grows up. . . its sad, but I'll get over it and get through it. And I hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Last Meal

Well, in honor of breast cancer awareness month, I decided to get an adenoma on my nipple. Excellent. And tomorrow, I'm going to the hospital to have it removed then biopsied to see if it is malignant or benign. So tonight I had to stop eating and drinking 7 minutes ago. My "last meal" was a favorite of mine -- a 2 egg omelet (made from eggs my sister got from a friend who has her own chickens and yes, that does make a difference) with my own salsa in it (2 habanero peppers, 1 onion, 1 tomato and as much spinach as the liquid in the other 3 ingredients would contain) and cheese with sour cream and avocado on top with blueberries and kiwi and a cup of tea. . . I have surgery tomorrow at 4:30 pm so I'm going to be one hungry bear tomorrow. I sure hope I don't growl at the girls. . .