wisdom from my ranting

so yesterday I'm trying to teach math to my 12 year old. I know, that's really funny, but my math has improved greatly through teaching! I swear! ANYWAYS....

I give him a problem, he comes up with an answer that is no where NEAR the answer, so I ask him how he got there. He shows me a really convoluted process that is nothing like what I taught him, but it's at least consistent, as he uses the same process every time (and consequently gets the wrong answer almost every time). So I sweetly rant at him: Son, I don't know why you insist on doing it differently than I taught you and I don't know how to teach you to get the right answer that way. There's only a couple of ways to do this, and your way is neither of them. So when you are ready to get the right answer, I'll teach you how to get there the right way. Hrmph......

And then there it is. This is how God feels with me, almost daily. He's taught me how to do this life: put Him first, love others, be kind, be honest, be a servant, check my motives, take care of myself, do what you are made to do, etc. Then I sit and play Baby Blimp for 2 hours instead of doing something that would feed my soul or take care of my family and wonder why it's not working for me. Or I am dishonest with my husband about my feelings and wonder why I suddenly resent him. Or I lose my vision for motherhood by comparing myself to others and I wonder why I'm resistant to serving my family. Or I do a good thing, but only so others will think I'm good, and wonder why they see me as proud.

I do it my way, over and over again, wonder why I keep getting the wrong answer and then get mad at God cause it's SO HARD. I want to do it my way and get the right answer. I'm 12. Hey, I aged 10 years! At this rate I'll die at 18.

Dogs have it good

Because we've all wanted to at times, especially lately:

Barney Bite Back

Go Barney! Serves em right for getting in his face....

This is.....

Something I was surprised I liked

My husband. I was going to marry a tall cowboy who loved to dance, could ride, lived on a ranch, and wanted to have a million kids. It'd be nice if he loved God, but that was just icing on the cake. To my surprise, I married a tall computer programming jazz musician who hates to dance, has never been on a horse and only wanted 4 kids. So how'd we end up with 8? Well, he decided that 3 and 4 were so much fun, lets go for 5! Then number 5 got here and it still just didn't seem like all that many, so we ended up with 6 and 7, which suddenly made it seem like a million. I talked him into #8 though. Turns out it was the best thing we ever did.

He not only loves God, but is passionate about Jesus. And that's really what is core in our marriage. Weird, the one thing I could care less about about and it's what is now the sexiest thing about him.

He learned to dance and I learned to love jazz, except for modern, :0P. We're looking for an acre or so, but no bigger, and NO horses, which is fine with me, turns out they are a lot of work. I've learned to decorate around all the computers and not make too much fun of him for being a nerd(I actually greatly appreciate his nerdness, it keeps our family very well), he's learned that not all country music is awful.

I really like him. I look at him some days and am still surprised and a little overwhelmed how much I like him.

This post is part of a game called This Is which I found at Three Buttons, through my friend at Sum of Mum. This weeks This Is topic brought to you by Earl and Cookie .

I've been tagged!

My friend Kerrie, over at Life At Number 14, tagged me on my kids blog! How fun! Since I try to keep that one strictly for them (and my in laws read it LOL), I decided to do it over here.

1. I live in Texas and hate cold weather, but I LOVE jackets and boots.
2. I really admire people who are really good at what they do, even if I don't like them. For instance, I had a grudging admiration for Bill Clinton for being an amazing politician, even though he was pretty much a dog as a person.
3. I love to roller blade. I don't get to do it but I love it and I can even do a couple of tricks.
   
4. I've never been stung by a bee. I used to sit in flower patches and let them crawl all over me, but never was stung.
5. I want to adopt. Preferably from Africa.
   
6. I worked at 6 Flags Over Texas and can probably still say the train speech.
7. My kids are 4th generation Texans. I married a non-Texan but it's ok, his mom was born in Dallas.

Hmmmmm, now must tag 7 people. The only problem with that is I don't really have 7 people to tag LOL. I don't know that many people with blogs that haven't already done this.

Oh well. If you have a blog and read mine and wouldn't mind being tagged, please let me know and I'll link to you. If you don't have a blog, you can leave your seven random facts in the comments.

Thanks Kerrie! That was fun!

I made this!

I got the shirts done. A while ago. But then I started school with the kids again and it got crazy around here and there ya go. The tea dying was definitely the way to go. I really really like the way they turned out.

I have also crocheted a couple of blankets for my comfort boxes, a burial wrap for a full term baby who won't get to go home, a couple of bonnets for my friend Vi's baby who did get to come home (I'm also working on a car seat blanket for her) and am still working on my footprint blanket.

So here's the part where I show off my work:
one of the box blankets the burial wrap
and the bonnets and blanket for baby Evelynn!

I love crafting. Wish I had more time for it.

Have I lost my mind?

Ah, well, having it was over rated.

I have been learning to dirt dye t-shirts. Yes, I am dying t-shirts with the dirt from our yard. I figure if they're all gonna be that color anyways.....

Actually we are doing them for our Uncle Mike, who is stationed in Iraq, and for some good friends who are moving (no no no no, can't think about that). Kind of a "someone in Texas loves you" type thing, but with dirt. Dirt is a boys love language.

Turns out though, that despite the ease with which church clothes are stained between the house and the car, it's not so easy to do this on purpose. But you can find anything on the internet (that's my official motto). Turns out boiling them in a mud/tea combo is the way to go. We'll soon find out. My house smells of Almond Vanilla Tea, which I craved for about 3 seconds in my last pregnancy and was just sitting in my cupboard, and mud. The tannin in tea allows the mud to penetrate the fabric.

Uncle Mike's is gonna say "Uncle Mikes TEXAS dirt dyed shirt". I'm trying to think of something clever to put on our friends, they say they are only going for 2 years and will be back. I want to remind them of that. Strongly. That people in Texas are waiting for them. Impatiently waiting.

I'm also currently working on a crochet pattern of footprints, organizing the house, learning to make tortillas and other flat breads, getting all the high fructose corn syrup out of our diets, getting all the scrapbooks caught up, and all the other stuff I do. I need a wife.

So I'm thinking of getting arrested

Cause I get time off from cooking, a free place to sleep, and now, a free t-shirt when I make my bail.

I love this sign. It has been up for several months, but I never have my camera with me. I finally got the pic. Get Yours Today! Like getting a t-shirt would be a good reason for getting arrested. I got arrested, but I got a free t-shirt, so it's all good. My sense of the ridiculous is most amused by this.

I do realize jail is serious, maybe that's why this is so funny to me.

I used to joke that I what I really needed was a good inpatient program, it's like a vacation covered by insurance, but I'm not addicted to anything. I wonder if I could make a convincing argument for an addiction to floor cleaning devices. My husband has said I'm not allowed to bring another one into the house. I love them, whether they vacuum, mop, or sweep, I just love them. Maybe it's because with all these boys, dirt on the floors isn't so much something we clean as something we move around in hopes of having a place to sit.

Grace on Father's Day

It's Fathers Day and since the best dad I know is my sweet husband and since he is the best evidence of grace in my life besides salvation, I have been thinking a lot about grace lately. I don't know how I came to be so blessed with this guy. He has filled my home with joy and music, given my boys a role model, loved us all unconditionally, stood by my side through things I can't imagine loving someone through, fought for the dignity of our children who died before birth, encouraged me in all of my crazy ideas (lets just say home schooling is one of the more normal ones), and a million other impossibly grand things and amazingly mundane things that have made my life so much better. But if I had to tell anyone how to meet and marry a guy like him, I don't know what I'd say. I don't have a list or even really a general idea. We were talking about it last night and this is what I came up with:

Well, first you see a guy walk into church, think he's cute and convince a mutual friend to invite him to a prayer group. Then, after you get to know him, attempt suicide and refuse to see a counselor so he has to call you everyday to see if you've made the appointment yet. Once you've done that, it's time to start dating! If possible find someone who has a completely opposite fighting style. He should still be in school as a Jazz Studies major, playing gigs several nights a week, with no real idea what he wants to be when he grows up. A few months later, engagement will seem like a great idea and you should get married as quickly as possible with a lot of drama.

See what I mean? We were a mess collectively and should have destroyed each other sometime around year 2. But it's been almost 16 years and I still think he's the coolest person I know.

I look at the bible though, and that's what God does best. He takes complete disasters of lives and makes them our forefathers of faith. How do you become the father of our faith? Well first you don't have babies until you're really really old, then you get your wife's maidservant pregnant, then you lie and say your wife is really your sister to avoid trouble. How do you start a people for the Lord? You trick your dad into giving you your brother's blessing, fight with an angel, and marry your sister in law first. How do you end up as the one God uses to save a people from starvation? Brag about a dream, get sold into slavery, end up in jail for a crime you didn't commit and be forgotten there. What about if you want to lead your people out of slavery? Oh well then you have to be put into a basket as an infant to avoid being killed at birth, brought up by a heathen, kill someone in anger, and end up talking to a burning bush in the middle of no where.

I could keep on going, but you get the idea. And that's just in the first couple of books of the bible. The thing is, God loves taking what is ugly and useless and making it holy. Sort of the ultimate recycling program. Joel 2:25 "So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,". My life is proof of this. The father of my children is proof of this. I've worked hard to be a good steward of what I was given, but I have no idea how I got it in the first place. Oh wait, yeah I do,

Grace.

The Game

I got this fun game from Karin at Sum of Mum

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name

1. Golden Sunset in Tracy Arm, Alaska, 2. "I, Piórko, like Cheese!", 3. Arlington High School.jpg, 4. blue daisy, 5. Steve Burns, 6. La Margarita de Applebees, 7. Down Under, 8. Key lime pie, 9. Untitled, 10. Plus haut, 11. A big bloody Samoan storm that turned gay!, 12. i surrender!

Lots of fun. My answers were: Tracy, cheese, Arlington High, blue, Steve Burns, margarita, Australia, key lime pie, midwife, Jesus, strong, r_n_lsmom

Edited to add:
I think the best part of this game was that the pic of the high school is ACTUALLY my high school. The one I went to. I was a little surprised too, at what came up when I typed the words in. I loved the pictures that came up for Jesus, strong, and midwife. I didn't like the title for the strong pic, but loved the pic. It represented so much of what I was going for, strength through storms, hope, promises of God....wow. But the stupid title.....sheesh.

If you give The Game a try, let me know, I wanna see your mosaic!

First post

My very own place to say all the stuff I want to say! The title comes from the fact that so often in my life I realize how very like a 2yo I am, or need to be. I have had many many great spiritual truths revealed to me in the behavior of my children. It's one of the coolest parts of being a parent. And the hardest.

One of the times I was confronted with a behavior I could do well to imitate in my 2yo came from my son Asher. He was happily beating my kitchen table with a spoon. I asked him to stop, but although he had paused to consider my request, he started again. I asked him, "I need you to stop, do you need some help obeying." I have asked all my kids this, most of the time they say no and either choose to obey or not. Asher looked at me, looked at his spoon, very sadly said, "yes, I need help." and handed me the spoon. I remember thinking, wow.....what would my life look like if I did that with my heavenly Father. What if instead of either hiding my sin or pretending it's not as bad as it is or that I can totally handle it, I just said, "I can't possibly stop on my own, I need you to help." and handed it to Him?

I also frequently am confronted with my own behavior towards God. One of my sweet boys had such a bad diaper rash and had come to me with a poopy diaper asking to be changed. I started to change him, but he then realized it was going to hurt and started backing away saying no, no I don't have poop, I'm ok, really(in 2yo talk). I had to change my boy anyway, I couldn't leave him in his own mess, and it hurt both him and me to get it done. Afterwards, he sat in my lap crying, but refused to let me put my arms around him and truly comfort him. He wanted to be with me because I am a source of comfort, but he was still mad I had caused him pain. Then he got up and thanked me for changing him. How many times have I done that? I go to God, literally smelling of my sin and really wanting change and yet when He gets to going on it, I back away, saying it's fine, I'm good, no thanks, it's gonna hurt. I mean, I know it's gonna hurt to leave it, it's actually going to make it worse to leave it, but I'm ok with that. I just don't want the pain it'll take to change it. But He's not just gonna leave me in my own mess, now that I've brought it to Him, it's gotta change. Then I get mad, really mad that it hurt and don't want Him to comfort me cause after all, HE'S the one that did it. And usually, some time down the road (sometimes YEARS down the road), I'm able to thank Him for that change. Please let me always be thankful for that change.

So that's why this is my life as a two year old. I am a two year old mad cause I don't get my own way, confused because I don't understand the basics, distracted easily by pretty stuff, lost in my own world, and hopefully, never far from my Father.