sentimental saturday

I was already emotional Saturday when Jordan and I had a conversation about his "mommy blankey."

It was given as a gift for my oldest brother almost 36 years ago, and I used almost daily for at very least 20 years. I stopped sleeping with it on my bed shortly after Jordan was born and gave it to him. He's used it regularly for at least a couple years now.

It used to be dark blue, and full of colorful pattern on the back side. It was sewn with yellow thread and tied with yellow yarn, and though not thick, had a nice layer of filling. Now it's light blue, the only remaining patterns are hidden under the one small spot of edging still attached. I stripped it of it's tiny amount of remaining filling last year, trimmed dangling edges, folded it in half and sewed around, in hopes of helping it last a bit longer.

may flowers

Gotta catch up before Jordan turns THREE next week!
[Ironically we have some pretty "May flowers" that Jordan obsesses over, but I don't have pictures of them :)]

Umbrella crafts ushering in the sunshine after a row of rainy days!

april showers

I have been super way behind on posting on our blog more often than not this year.

Currently:

I finally... FINALLY... got myself to slow down a little. I'm feeling more alive and human most days, thank goodness! To turn the tv off more. To get off facebook (thanks StayFocused and RescueTime!) I've been reading my Bible almost every day [so close! :)]. Two weeks ago I actually started exercising again. I've been able to hang almost all laundry for weeks now [as this blog post says it: "Hanging clothes outside is a simple act, but I love it because it makes me slow down"]. I'm going to bed earlier. I'm not chasing so many deals for price matching/ couponing.

write your story

A little while back I was laying down for a rest, singing the words to "Write Your Story" by Francesca Battistelli in my head as I dozed off. I woke up within moments, with the words, "It's in the building experience that you grow," burning in my mind.

I wrote the words down, and forgot about them. Until today. When I felt a stirring in my heart.

But what am I building? Right now, I think I feel like I'm not building anything most of the time. That I'm just here, being. But I'm not. With most things, I believe we're almost always either building or tearing down. If we don't do what we need to maintain or build, things deteriorate. The problem with that deterioration is that it often goes unnoticed as things are slowly torn down. When we finally realize it, it ends up taking a lot more effort to rebuild than it would have to maintain or add on in the first place.

My life is full of things that are deteriorating before my eyes, and I think I've been choosing to ignore that fact, or cover it up somehow. My bitterness, my negative speech, and my weight are just some of the things I see causing deterioration. And I'm using my success in helping save our family money/ pay off loans as well as my "stress-induced nesting-like tendencies" to make myself feel better. [A friend posted the other day about building a life that feels good inside, not just looks good outside. yep.]

When instead I need to seek God's blueprint and restart the building process.

Keywords: need, restart, and process. It is certainly a need, but important for my type-A personality to not focus on the need for the end result, but to find a starting point, and seek the process. If nothing else, to keep the deterioration at bay. To truly seek God's will on who He needs me to be and how He needs me to live, right here, right now. To allow Him to "write His story on my heart."

I really started this post a couple months ago, and I think it's no coincidence the many ways I've realized God has "snuck in" and helped me repair the foundation for what He's growing my story into... Read more as I catch up with April and May in the next two weeks!

to be continued....

the pastor's wife.

I'm a pastor's wife, and I love it. I grew up as a pastor's kid, as did my pastor husband.

We've been through a lot on both sides of the pendulum and knew a lot of what to expect going into church ministry full time. But, being prepared with reasonable expectations does not translate to making every situation easy to encounter. 

Not that anything bad has happened or that everyone needs tips on how to better support their pastor's wives... but some do. So, either way, if you want to know some ways to best support the wives of your pastors, here are two great articles I would love for you to read:

What Not to Say (And What to Say) To Your Pastor's Wife

Common Struggles of Pastors' Wives

Next up: the pastor. :)

feelings are not dictators

I deal with a lot of emotions and feelings, being a woman and taking care of littles every day. Last week I shared an article on facebook along the same lines of many I've been sharing lately - motherhood is hard and full of imperfection, and that's ok. This one in particular was about loneliness in the long hard days of moms at home with littles. A friend commented, "Motherhood must suck." I responded, "Lol, not a chance! Somebody has to do the dirty work of raising Godly children and our next generation in general!" That is the truth from my heart. But as I spent most of the next morning overwhelmed, frustrated, and at the end of my rope, I thought, "If I really feel as I expressed in that comment, why do I have so many days like this?!" I left the boys playing in the living room just before lunch, to get things upstairs ready for nap after lunch {each in their own space, with a designated toy set, because, whew, we all needed that! :)} and I just cried out to God, venting my frustrations, wondering what to do with my feelings, and how in the world to care for the boys in love despite some negative feelings in my heart.

not perfect | obedience.

It's tempting to dream about having it all, and having it all together. I give in more than I should.

Here I Am, World, I'm Great

Recently God spoke to me through a show my sweet boy likes to watch, Wonder Pets. Seriously? Yes, indeed!

There is an episode where Ming Ming duck decides to try to save some animals on her own (instead of the usual teamwork) and while on her way she sings a sweet song, ending with the line, "Here I am, world, I'm great!" Well, in true fashion, at least one line from every show watched has to be stuck in mommy's head, and that's always the one from that episode. The thing is every time I sing it in my head I sing, "Here I am, Lord, I'm great!" As I stood doing the dishes singing the line to myself one day, I realized... There is a HUGE difference between those two lines! Then God asked me, "Do you know the difference? Do you live the difference?" Yikes. I thought about it for one moment before a little boy came toddling in the kitchen, yelling, "Mommy!" and asked me to pick him up to dance to Me Without You by Toby Mac on the radio. :D

Being the best.

After spending too much time on Pinterest and Facebook in an evening, I feel inadequate. I decided a few weeks ago to take that under control and give it to God. I'm not positive there are others that struggle in the same way, but I'm guessing so. Just like seeing a bunch of models makes the average American woman feel at least slightly unsightly, seeing all the amazing things that people do/ are able to do on my social media sites,  I feel like I should be able to do those things, too, and inadequate that I can't.

I've been that way for a long time. I always want to be the best at things. I want to be the best at way more things than I am able to. I want to be a super mommy, wife, Christian, money-saver, photographer, home-fixer-upper, sew-er, blogger, cleaner, teacher, nanny, graphic designer, and the list goes on (best ebay and craigslist-seller?). Can I be super at some of those things? Definitely! Do I need to be the best at all of them? Nope - and I don't think God wants me to be!

3 Great Blogs for Playful Mamas

Earlier this week in the morning I was [yet again] thinking about something I could post on our blog... I narrated the beginning sentences in my head, just as I always do, and "rewrote" and "edited." And then, about 10 minutes later as my son let me know I was done getting ready ;), the thoughts flew from my brain, probably never to be retrieved. This happens a lot, especially when I lay in bed at night (losing the thoughts when I drift off), or when I'm getting ready in the morning. When I do remember my thoughts at a later time I often decide, "nobody wants to read about that anyway"...

But I came across a new blog.