Reflections on 36 years

So I had a birthday yesterday, and it got me reflecting. I seem to be more inspired by my birthdays, than I am by New Years. Probably because every year on my birthday, my dad would take me out to breakfast and ask about my goals for the year. So on my birthdays, I'm always thinking about my new year, and what I can do better or different - or what I want to learn.

I really have two very simple goals this year:

1. To stop living in shame over my appearance, and get with it! I realized that for our entire marriage, I've felt embarrassed about my body. At first, it was just the natural shyness that comes with being a newlywed. But two months into marriage, I was pregnant. Obiviously things changed a lot and kept changing between four pregnancies, etc. Now, at 36, I sometimes don't know who I'm looking at in the mirror. Many of my friends are disgusted when I insinuate that I need to lose weight, but I know that I'm not taking care of myself and that I'm ashamed of what it has resulted in. The devil has used that to defeat me in many ways, and I'm not going to let him win anymore!
2. To stop coming up with goals for myself! I realize that I'm in a stage of life where goals are simply frustrating, because I am powerless towards their pursuit. I really want this to be the year that I really *learn* (not just know I should) how to give my day to God each morning and ask for His action plan.

I also spent a little time reflecting on how birthdays change. When you're a kid, you wake up somehow knowing that the day is to revolve around you. We used to get to pick our favorite box of cereal from the store for our birthday morning - so all the cereals we weren't allowed to have the rest of the year, was the breakfast of choice. We also got to pick what mom would make for dinner and what kind of cake and what it would look like. It seamed that every detail of the day revolved around you - the birthday girl!

Yesterday, I made myself my routine bowl of cholestoral-reducing oatmeal and worked a full eight hours. The kids kept running in with baby birds they had rescued and were giving them flying lessons in the living room. One flew onto my shoulder and then pooped on my chair. My oldest asked my why I didn't want to do something, I said, "Cause its my birthday, and I don't feel like it." "It's your birthday?" he asked. "YA!"

Times change. But don't think it wasn't good. I had a great day!

For some reason, my 28th birthday stood out to me yesterday. I'm not sure why. I think it was the first birthday I really felt like an adult. Baby #3 was on the way. I spent the day with my little family at Downtown Disney watching my boys be enamoured with the giant lego creations. We took a great family photo with Tigger and Winnie the Pooh and went home for Peach Pie. It was a terrific day.

I was wondering if eight years ago, I even thought about what life would be like in eight years. But I can say, I sure think about what life will be like eight years from now.

Eight years ago, I had red hair (by accident). Today, I'm plucking single grey ones. In eight years, I will probably be coloring it on purpose.

Eight years ago, I was a tanned Floridian. Today, I'm a pasty-white Idahoan. In eight years, I will probably be wrinkly.

Eight years ago, I had two preschool boys. Today, I have four very active boys! In eight years, my oldest will be 2o!...and my baby a teenager.

Eight years ago, I was living on dreams. Today, I'm working hard to get by each day. Eight years from now, I pray those dreams will become reality because of the hard work.

Eight years ago, I didn't know if I would hear from any friends on my birthday. Today, I have 375 friends from all phases of my life, who I connect with on Facebook. They all knew it was my birthday, and I got tons of good wishes! Eight years from now, I'll probably be able to host a virtual birthday party.

Anyway...the picture above is of is Karin and I after Bible study. Her birthday is the day after mine.

...and here are some pics of the baby birds.

Playlist

I was adding some new songs for Faith. wink. wink.

....and I thought I would take a minute to explain the playlist on the side for those that may not understand it. You can press pause anytime if you are tired of listening. I went ahead and arranged the songs a little better according to theme/style. You can skip down and select any song, and it will start playing there. Capeesh?

A New Business

When Bill was in Phoenix this last winter, he met another Christian golf pro that he got to spend a lot of time with and found out that he came up here to Coeur d'Alene every summer to contract teach for Black Rock. Now that Bill is at Black Rock, they are once again enjoying some good time together.

Last week, Craig took some clubs into have repaired at a local shop that Black Rock routinely used for repairs. However, he found that the man was retiring and selling everything and wouldn't be available for repairs any longer. Craig found out he was selling all of his supplies to do the repairs/re-gripping, etc. and started brainstorming. Long story short, Craig and Bill have bought all of his supplies and set up shop in the barn. Craig has put his finances into it and we have the space to do it. Bill has built a workbench and been busy installing equipment. Craig is going to teach Bill over the summer how to do everything, and they will work together to do repairs. By the end of the summer, Craig will be re-paid and Bill will be completely set up for business.

It has been an amazing gift from God to see something like this completely come together just days after He asked us to begin praying for deliverence. I never quit being amazed about how God intends for the body to work together and feel so blessed.

Be Pleased, O Lord, to save me!

Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned
for us no one can recount to you;
were I to speak and tell of them, they
would be too many to declare.
Psalm 40:5

Those who have known us for several years have always looked to Bill and I as some that have great faith. I'd like to believe that too. We've seen God do big things. We've trusted God with some very big things. We've laid lots of things down to step out on faith because we believed God said to.

The last two years have been completely different for us. Again, we laid some things down and stepped out on faith. Things didn't go like we thought they would. There were little fireworks. God didn't provide in the same way He had at times in the past. We have survived, but it has been slow and often torterous. We have been learning new lessons this time around....Can we keep trusting even if we don't see anything happening? Can we keep believing when God seems silent? Can we keep hoping when there seems to be nothing in store for the future? Can we keep following, daily, no matter what? Can we just be normal, ordinary, every day people that have to juggle 3-4 jobs, so they can work their way through stacks of medical bills and wonder what it is all about? Can I keep going when I feel I'm trudging through more consequences than blessings?

I'd be lying if I said I've always kept hoping, always kept believe, always kept trusting, and always felt like trudging on...and honestly, I don't like normal. But normal is where we are. Normally busy and pre-occupied and struggling to get by with our visions of God's plan for us looming so far in the distance, that we often barely recognize it.

God has been so faithful to send certain people and certain messages to us just at the right time, over and over again. This week, someone called him with a message for Bill, "Keep your chins up! I believe God has told me this is your year for fruitfulness." Bill looked like he'd been through the ringer when he came out of the bedroom. He was totally drained and confronted with the choice: Do I believe?

...and I've been confronted ever since. Do I risk letting myself hope again? Can I let myself out of the chains I've attached to my own wrists of surrendering to the mundane without hope of a brighter future?

Last night, I felt impressed to turn to the Psalms. As a kid, we would start on the Psalm for the date and then add 30 and read the next one. So last night, I opened to Psalm 10, then read Psalm 40, looking for some kind of Word from the Lord. I got to verse 11, my heart began to cry out:

Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord; may your love and your truth always
protect me. For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken
me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart
fails within me. (11-12)

When I got to verse 13, God said clearly, "PRAY THIS!"

Be pleased, O Lord, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me. May all who seek
to take my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be
turned back in disgrace. May those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!" be appalled
at their own shame. But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation always say, "The Lord be exalted!" Yet I am
poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my
God, do not delay. (vs. 13-17)

Yes, Lord! Yes...be pleased to save us! Come help us, quickly!

It was so good and so timely, so I wanted to read more. I turned to Psalm 70, and began to read ....looking for more. What else does God want me to know? to pray?

Guess what Psalm 70 says? The same thing. I'm not kidding. It is the same thing as Psalm 40: 13-17. There is only one phrase different. It is exactly what God wants our prayer to be right now.

So I ended up on my face....a very comforting position that I don't go to near as often as I should. Praying earnestly that God would be pleased to quickly come to save us.

.....and I have more to share - but Letterman is almost on and I want to see Christa! :)

Moths and Bees and Lizards! Oh, My!

I can't tell you how many times this week I've said, "Careful, guys! It might be poisonous!" The boys have come in every day with something new or sometimes two or three times in a day!
In Clayton and Riley's room, there is a newt in a jar, a 10 inch night crawler in a jar, what is left of a tattered up moth on the desk, and the latest catch - an Alligator Lizard (which appearantly is native to this area) in a coffee can. Ya, that's right, we make our kids catch their own pets.

Yesterday Ian came running into the house with a ziploc bag full of wasp larva (in all different stages of development) that he had harvested from a nest he knocked down...bringing a whole new meaning to "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee!" I taught him the song. I couldn't believe he had never heard it before! He laughed all the way through and then sang it for Bill later. Very cute!

Yesterday, we ran by the grocery store to grab some food for company. The kids asked who was coming, and I told them it was daddy's friend from the golf course. "Oh, ya" said Riley "Craig!...well, if Craig is coming, why don't you just look on Craig's List and see what he likes to eat."

My most recent Mom 4 Life post:

Dirty Mirrors

Pray for Me

Most of you know how passionate I am about writing and ministering to moms of young children. I've had a dream for quite awhile about starting a website to encourage those moms specifically. As you can see, if it takes me five or six weeks to quickly post a bit of what is going on in our lives, I obviously don't have the time to really maintain such a website. But I've been given permission from the Lord to baby step the site's development on the back end. I've currently started a layout and added several pages. I did a little side job for someone recently and have half of the money to buy the web domain for a year. The step I'm working on currently is recruiting an advisory panel. I'm beyond thrilled at the two women that have already said yes!

Like everything I do, I dream big. I have lots of great ideas and vision for this site. Most of all, I don't want it to have anything to do with advertising. I want it to purely be a place for moms to meet God and be inspired to live fully in their current season of life. In order for the site to do all I want it to do, I will need to upgrade some things and take it from a site that is free for me to run, to a site that has monthly expenses. But I will only do it as the Lord leads and provides.

Would you pray with me as I wait on Him and see what He has planned?

Thank you so much!

Salute Military Moms!

We're launching something really cool next month at Mom 4 Life! We'll be honoring our military moms and promoting Made in USA products. Who is a military mom? A mom that is serving in the armed forces OR a mom who is serving her family here while her husband is defending our freedom.

So we've teamed up with BabyLegs to help encourage moms to send in photos, saluting military moms. 50 moms will win a pair of USA Flag BabyLegs, just for sending in a photo of themselves saluting military moms.

We want to put together a slide show of moms from all over the nation saluting our military moms! We're going to post it and announce a great lifetime discount for military families. We've gotten such great feedback on how wonderful of an idea this is, but hardly anyone has sent in a picture. So, even if you don't care about BabyLegs or Mom 4 Life, would you help us salute military moms? All you have to do is send a photo of yourself or you and your family, saluting! Send it to heather@mom4life.com so she can add it to our slide show. You can read the full shpeel here.

Feel free to tell everyone you know! We want our military moms to be truly honored!

May

The last six weeks have kind of been like trying to drink from a fire hose! I've been continuously scrambling to get the basics done from early in the morning to way late at night, usually still forgetting one very important thing each day. I've now downed two cups of coffee and spent about two hours uploading photos and trying to catch up this thing. So enjoy!

Here's a little peak into what we've been up to besides cleaning and watering plants and doing loads and loads of laundry and replacing the dryer motor twice and picking up dried up, dead frogs from the tile and working, etc.

Hanging with friends (My friend and boss, Heather and daughter Ashlyn)

Happy Spider

Sad Spider

Mowing

Playing with Taylor and Ashley

Golfing

Jonathan flipping pancakes at the annual Dive Team Fundraiser

Being Silly

Watching divers in the dive tank

Watching the deer come back out

Drooling over my relaxation station (and hoping to use it someday)

Watching butterflies and smelling lilacs

Mom 4 Life staff (minus Anica)

Silly boys with grapes

How Bill helps himself to brownies

Riley at art walk field trip

Last Day of school (Ian, Mrs. Weymouth, Danielle)

Preschool Graduation

The day I never saw coming...when the last one graduated from preschool!
Here is a tribute to Hayden!

Memorial Day

Bill and I both worked on Memorial Day, but we had friends from Phoenix (who now live in South Carolina) that were vacationing in Montana, that we REALLY wanted to see.

So...we drove to Missoula for dinner! It was great to see Avery and Laura (and Cracker Barrel is always good too)!

Coming and Going

The site of a moving truck at our barn usually means two things:

1. Our barn is getting cleaned out a little more (yeah!!)
2. Someone else is leaving (not yeah)

This month we said goodbye to Anthony. It has been so fun to have him around the last several months. He was living with Jonathan and Michelle, and we spent so much more time together. He recently bought a new scooter, enrolled at Boise State, and is headed off for new adventures.

A couple of weeks later, Taylor came home from Boise State for a short visit. He is spending his summer there working and says he is pretty much there to stay. Sniff! Sniff! He brought Ashley with him, so we got to finally meet the wonderful woman that has won his heart and taken him from the "I'm never going to have a girlfriend" stage to a "when we have a house of our own, we will..." stage.

Flower Bed

My project this month was working on a flower bed. It is so hard to know what kind of improvements to invest in when you are renting. This yard is so wild and overgrown. Part of that is fine, because it just blends into the nature of the mountain. But it would be nice if it didn't all look like that. We've been here four years now, and I was thinking that if I had started attacking one section of the huge "flower bed" every year, it would be done by now. Oh, well. No time like the present.

Before....


After...

The Guitar Cake

Clayton's Birthday

Clayton turned 12 this month! We followed the annual tradition of having 1170 boys to the house to play. Well, it wasn't really that many. But it always feels like it.

At Clayton's first birthday, we made a dinosaur cake. For 12, it was an electric guitar. For his 1st birthday, he got things like a picnic table and inflatable Tigger. For his 12th, he got things like a machete and enough money to buy his own i-touch.

When I turned 12, I got an alarm clock with a telephone that sat on top. I could plug it into the landline. With his i-touch, he can text, e-mail, get on the internet, and make calls with i-call - anywhere he can tape into Wi-fi. Gracious!

Take As Much As You Want

I started my morning with the thought provoking question: "How important is it to know that God is your Father - that although His children are vast and many, you have been singularly chosen by Him for His possession?

(Yes, I'm still working my way through the 90 day study on John, by Beth Moore, that Bill got me for Christmas.)

The first thought that came to my mind is that it is critical! It is pretty near impossible to feel secure in a relationship where you aren't sure you matter to them.

That pricked my heart pretty good, because that has been a big insecurity factor to me in many relationships in my life. I can't tell you how many times I've felt that someone else meant a whole lot more to me than I meant to them. Whether it is real or imagined, it stings and leaves you feeling less than valuable. I realized this morning, how often I allow the insecurity of earthly relationships affect the security I feel in my relationship with the Heavenly Father. I so often slap a label across my own forehead that says, "I don't matter" and assume that God reads it and pays attention. But He doesn't. I always matter to Him. That truth is the key to my confidence in life. Period. I have to live walking in the truth of how He loves me and how He sees me. It is the only thing that truly matters.

You always matter to God, too. Listen to what Beth says....

Part of the human condition means that to live in any semblance of order,
we must confront a never-ending influx of "no's." In the midst of so much we
cannot have, God says to His children, "Forsake lesser things and have as much
as you want of ....Me." While God is the owner and possessor of all things, He
freely invites us to be as possessive over Him as we desire. He is my God. And
your God. He's the only thing we can share lavishly without ever decreasing our
own supply."