Thursday, August 30, 2012

Learning something new

I do not always like to admit that I have just learned a lesson, especially when someone is there to point that whole thing out to me. Today my son had a hard day, those days where they wake up fussy and no one knows why, that's what today was! By the end of the day I resorted to taking S on a walk just so he was entertained and I didn't have to deal with anything. As we came back home I thought we'd sit on the front porch and play with rocks and empty flower pots, S loves putting the rocks in one and taking them out. All of a sudden, brilliance, I'll find something to put water in!! I found his baby bath tub!! He played supper hard, ate a huge dinner, did great for bed time and is peacefully sleeping!!!
Dear hubby decided to point out why I already had learned, our little man needs to get out and play, everyday! We had stated at home and inside today, I thought it would be fun and relaxing, I have never been wrong!! I love that J and I think a like and he had just realized this new stage as well. I just feel so humbled as a mom, everyday I learn a new lesson, some are great and some are not. Today was hard for all of us, but it ended in giggles because I learned something new.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Readjusting

My husband recently got home from a 10 day field training exercise. S and I have been adjusting to life with J back in the house, it seems to get both easier and harder each time we go through this.  Sometimes I feel like J has just been gone for one really long day and other times I feel as if he's been gone for ages!  Either way I am always excited when he is back home, I feel like my life is back to where it should be!!
I have so much fun watching my boys interact with each other! S is only 17 months old and he is so expressive and vocal and has such a funny little personality and he does somethings so differently with his dad!  Before J would do something I would tell him how Shad been acting with me and without fail, S would turn around and so the exact opposite with J?! It seems to crazy to me that at such a young age he does things so differently!
The other benefit to having both parents around is that you help each other notice things which you might not have seen otherwise.  J has been teaching S animal noises, I could only ever get S to make a dog sound and i fish sound (yes, its amazing but fish do have a sound) but J can get S to make horse, and chicken and duck sounds?!
My boys are amazing and I love having them in the same house!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Dreams vs. Vision

This morning I read a FB post from an old friend of mine, he will be teaching history at LMU, the post was a very very brief overview of his outline for a Western Civ. Course. I had to read it twice to understand exactly what he was saying.  I majored in History.  In that moment I realized that I need to give up my dream of becoming a historian.

The pastor on Sunday preached on Abraham and Vision.  One of the lines that struck me was "Dreams are not bad, however they are based on hope and the future, Vision is now and the present."

Ever since I was a little girl, my dream has been to have my PHD in History.  However, it always remained a dream, even while I was in college I never really did anything proactive to make the dream become a reality.  I never had a vision, I never knew what it would look like or how to get there.  In my mind it was only ever the answer to a question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and for me, the "grow up" part was a mystical date in the future when things would just happen.  I would like to say that I blame my husband for distracting me in college and I would like to blame my son for taking all my time away, but the reality is that J was supper supportive and S, well, the dream was gone long before he showed up.  I lost out on the dream, me and only me.
Please don't take this the wrong way! I love my life!!! I love being a stay at home mom and watching my son grow up and planning what our future will look like, I have a vision for our family!  But until today the dream was always in the back of my mind.  But thats all it ever stayed, a dream, something to fuel grumpy about on mornings when i read about other people living out the dream I wish I had.  Does this mean I can never have my PHD? Heck No!!  Lately I have been trying to figure out a vision for the future and this time will be different because I understand that for a dream to become reality you need a vision!  You need to see where you are going, see where the end is, see the steps you will take to get there and you need to do them today! I need to act, because that is what you do with a vision! Will things change along the way? Possibly, but the point is that you are working toward a goal and not sitting waiting for something to happen to you, you are making it happen for your self.

I am sure that countless friends and family have tried to explain this to me and I apologize for not understanding, because now I totally get it! If you have always struggled with this and want me to help we can work on it together!! I want people to really understand that Dreams are great but for the dream to become a reality you need a Vision!

Sadly, and I think I may be ok with it now, one of my Dreams has been shelved.  But it has taught me so much that hopefully other dreams will escape its fate!

Monday, August 20, 2012

The World

I was on this blog today looking at pictures taken all over the world, and the thought occurred to me that I have seen nothing of this world.  I have never traveled, although I have my passport ready, and even within the US I have really only been a few places mostly in the midwest, and everything is similar; restaurants, shopping areas, homes, churches, culture, and the people.  The only really different place I have been to are  New York City, on a drama trip in 8th grade, and to downtown Albuquerque  for a mission trip to feed and clothe the homeless.  While I was looking at these pictures I had two thoughts, the first was of how awesome the internet is to open my eyes to the wider world, but the second was that if I am really honest with myself I don't believe the pictures.  

I sit in a very nice little home a million miles away from Lebanon, or Siria, or India and my mind can not seem to comprehend the images infront of me.  One picture was of a mother and daughter on a porch, in Lebanon, peeling potatoes, I've peeled potatoes, only the building in the background must have been either part of an explosion or earthquake because you could see into it, as in their was no outer wall on the building. And I gazed at the picture with unbelieving eyes, in my home of so many creature comforts how can that picture be telling a true story?

Have you ever traveled? I want to, but money, and life, and now a little kid seem like insurmountable barriers.  If the Military ever sends us overseas will I be able to truly handle experiencing another culture? I would like to think so, but then again a small part of me thinks I would sit in my house wishing for Target and Red Robin.  

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Greener Grass

I've been dwelling a lot lately, J pointed this out to me a few weeks ago and I have been trying to figure things out ever since.  I was talking to him about how I missed our life in Alaska and all the great friends I had and how I don't really know anyone here, at least not like my AK friends.  And J stopped me dead in my tracks and said "Andrea, you said that all the time when we were in Alaska, about people in Colorado."  This really has gotten me thinking about that old saying 'the Grass in Always greener on the other side,' as well as 'You don't know what you got till it's gone.'  These really are rather sad, but even more sad I think because of how true they are!! Today, after 16 successful months, i managed to loose not 1 but 2 pacifiers, plus the little straps they are on.  One I lost at the National Airborne Day festivities and the other is lost somewhere in my house, to be found in 20 years.  Luckily i had a spare (no strap), but i have not realized how much i had become dependent on the pacifier and the strap until they were gone.

So how does one deal with this thing?  Are we just always fated to miss what we no longer have and never truly appreciate the here and now?  I do not have the answers to this, I wish I did because we will be moving again within a year and I really really don't want to be sitting at our new home lamenting this place!  i am not having a great time here, I have good friends but overall this is really hard and I will be very ashamed of myself if it is only once I'm gone that I realize that things were not so bad here.

I would love to hear ideas you have!! How do you appreciate the here and now?
                            National Airborne Day! (before we lost the pacifier)

Friday, August 17, 2012

Reddit and KLOVE

Those two entities are probably never going to be in the same sentence every again!!

Reddit is self titled as the front page of the internet, it is a place where all sorts of people come together and post links to random things on the interent on sub-pages; example r/atheism is a sub-page where people post pictures, jokes, discussions, articles, etc about atheism.  There are many other pages; r/funny, r/cat, r/tdl (today I learned) and almost anything else you can think of!  I don't want you to think it is totally an atheist web site, but a large number of its subscribers do lean that way.

K-Love is a christian radio station, which can be heard all over the country, and is supported by its listeners.  The hosts of K-Love pray on the air, talk about all things Christian, and allow local groups to advertise their christian events.

Now I suppose you are wondering why I am telling you all about these?! Firstly, I consider myself a Christian in that I follow Christ and Biblical teachings.  Here is where things get  funky.  I do not consider myself an evangelical Christian, or any other type because frankly i think they are silly.  When we moved with a 1 month old from Alaska we lost a very good Church home and in the year we have been here we have not found a church that we really like.  So having been out-of-the-loop for a while I have had a unique vision of the Church today.  It is very interesting to sit in a church service and try to experience things through the eyes of a person who has never been, while all the time knowing what they are trying to get across.  And here is where Reddit comes in.  I will liken it to "know thy enemy" or in this case, the target audience.  I am fairly sure that if churches read what people think about them and their "tactics" they would be very saddened.

The people who are posting on r/atheism are not the lost souls searching for answers I was told all 'non-believers' were.  These people do not think they need anything, in fact, they believe that they have the answers the Christians are looking for.  So many have been told "The message" with words that only someone who already believes would understand, that they did not get the intended message at all.  I hope that I am not discouraging anyone here, but my point is that these two sides are speaking such a completely different language that no real communication is ever going to happen unless we can all find common ground.

I thought of all this because K-Love has an add running for a local "Extravaganza" and one of the featured events is a "Professional Illusionist."   I understand why they are saying that, but at the same time I am imagining the fun that the people on  r/atheism would have with that, and in the end would forget what the add was even about.  And the poor christian would not understand why they are laughing at it.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Grown Up Decisions

My dear friend Q dedicated a post to a conversation we had the other day, I'd love for you to check it out!! Quinn's Life After kids

       Today I had to make, what I have dubbed, a Grown Up Decision.  I do not like to make these. You would think that being a mother, having a BA and being 27 years old I would be totally cool with making Grown Up Decisions; I am not.   These are the things that cause me to stop short and realize that the decision I am about to make might possibly have lasting impact on my future and I have absolutely no clue if I am making the right choice?!  So... I promptly called my mother! I grew up with her telling me a story.  When she was a little girl my mom thought that someday, when she became a mom, in that instant, she would know everything! She was so very disappointed when I was born and that knowledge of the universe did not pour into her as a mother!  She always told me this story when I would ask a question to which she did not know the answer, and I was always appalled that she did not, she is Mom, and everyone knows that Moms know everything.  Again she would tell me the story.
         Secretly I knew she was not telling the whole truth, and I waited for the day when I was "the Mom"  all knowing, without fear, calm in scary situations, ready for anything!!! I am a Mom and I still hate when I have to make Grown Up Decisions.  Maybe 40 is the magic age?!


Friday, August 10, 2012

Spiders and Crying

If you didn't know this about me, here goes, I am terriblly arachnophobic.  Yesterday the most giant spider I have yet to see on or near our house appeared outside the kitchen window, we did not kill it.  I went to sleep terrified that spiders were going to find their way into our house and kill us all.  Spiders, to me, tend to take on movie, cereal death killer-like qualities and can do amazing things like think and stare and terrify you on purpose.  Needless to say I had a sleepless night.  Then my son woke up, S is teething, and he has a cold, and he says no words only gets very very frustrated! By the time we hit breakfast his crying was getting to me pretty bad.  After lunch I could not handle much more.  I put S in his crib for 5 minutes, went to the bathroom and went to see if my bible could help me out, using my Child Trainning Bible (I'll post on this amazing thing later, for now google it!) and looked up Impatience. This was the first verse I turned to:
           
                   Be Still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.
                                                                                               Psalm 37:7

I held S for the next few minutes just repeating those words over and over to us.  The spiders are still out there and S still had a really hard day, but I was pretty ok with it.  As the book "Unglued" says, I think I made excellent "imperfect progress."

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Not great thoughts

This is my first blog post, whew. My son, S, just turned 16 months and I'm some what at a loss for how to deal with all the new emotions that come with the adventure that is motherhood.  Frankly the last week has been a roller coaster of crying laughing and utter confusion.  I really thought that I was loosing it, going crazy or something worse.  So after days of telling my husband, J, that I didn't know how to handle this, I called two friends.  The first person I never even called, just writing her was comforting.  The second I called was Q, oh Q! She has a little girl and guess what?! She was having the same feelings as me!! That's right most moms have these feeling!  Today's lesson was "Get over your self and call a friend!" I didn't realize how much I needed my friends until I finally got over my pitty  party and called for help.

I've started reading a great book by Lysa Terkeurst, Unglued, and I'm really excited to start changing my thoughts to help change my attitude.  I'll be recording my thoughts about life,  kids, maybe politics and the normal girly things, here for your reading pleasure! I don't know where my life is headed but I have a vision of what I want it to look like!