2AM

2AM.

Me. 

Hot Constant Comment Decaf Bigelow Tea.

What does that tell you?

Just give it a guess.  We’ll see how well my bloggers know me.

UPDATE:  Some of you chickened out on this one!  Here’s the answer…altogether, the comments would have just about gotten to it, with the exception of A and D, which no one got!

• I love to get my laundry room in order in the middle of the night.  That way, the time does not take up a perfectly good day.  Generally, I’m too brain dead to do anything else productive, so it feels like not so much a waste of time.
• Yes, my heart was too full to sleep.
• My back was hurting from stress (I love my huge YOGA ball! $1 at a yard sale!)
• My kitchen was a MESS!  from napping in the early evening

Why Your House Needs To Get Messy

I love  Pottery Barn’s colors and ads…they just make me so happy.  I’ve never bought a thing and find them overpriced as a whole, but the colors and patterns just make me go “Ahh”.

I don’t like business situations.  They drain a house and a family and…I’m just really getting cranky with the added stresses.  So cranky today it is not even funny.  I was going to fast about it, and pray, get on top of it.  But, I decided that fasting would make me even more cranky, and I do NOT need to be one iota more cranky.  So, Golden Grahams and I sat on the porch and enjoyed the cool day.

Sigh.

I suppose a clean house might cheer me up.  Which, in my world, is the whole reason for house cleaning, to cheer you up from the chaos when life gets too chaotic.  Dang it!  I can’t control anything else, but I can sure control my house.  It will look FINE!  All ordered and neat and tidy for as long as I need to leash it  (which is why a house should not be clean all the time, because then you would have nothing easy to change and improve when life is out of control).

Tell that to Mrs. FlyLady!

How to Find Hope, Rest, Focus

These were three verses from my time with the Lord yesterday.  They hit me immediately where I was stuck.

“Trust in the Lord and do good.”  (Psalm 37:3 NIV)

 

“I have told you these things, so that you may have [perfect] peace and confidence.  In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration;  but BE OF GOOD CHEER [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]!  For I have overcome the world [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you].”John 16:33 AMP 

“Lean on {emotionally}, trust in {mentally}, and be confident in the Lord {outward expression of trust} with all your heart {emotions} and mind {thoughts} and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.  {Instead}In all your ways {thoughts, actions, presentation, feelings}, know {know Jesus}, recognize {look for Him }, and acknowledge Him {say “hello!  I see you!  Thank you!”}, and {then} He will direct, and make straight, and plain your paths.”  (Proverbs 3:5-6) {brackets mine}

Joyce Meyer’s  Seven Things that Steal Your Joy :  Chapter, ”Excessive Reasoning” was for me yesterday:

“If you want to have joy, you must stop trying to figure out everything.  You must stop rolling your problems around in your mind.  You have to quit anxiously searching for an answer to your situation, trying to figure out what you should do about it…you will not enjoy your life because there are too many things you will never figure out.  You can decide to move on without knowing the details.  If God wants to tell you, He will tell you.  But don’t drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out…”

Jesus said to the disciples {worrying about feeding the crowd},  ‘ O ye of little faith, why reason among yourselves?’ (Matthew 16:8 KJV)”

Such joy and peace and blessing and direction invaded my world yesterday after a good, focused, quiet time.  Such a great shift.  

Blessings,

 

Ode to Summer-ness

It’s June and I’m just entering summer…what it needs to be, for me.

What it is not, for many people.

Some keep working, keep going, dip a few times in the pool, and they’ve had summer.

I need to sit on the beach, in the sun, in my chair, think some reflective and deep thoughts, read some profound ones, think my thoughts from a bit of a different slant, not think at all, get too hot, get my feet in the water, get too hot again, get my legs in the water, get very hot and wish my head was wet, but not really want to get my hair all wet for fear I will look gross, it will smell like water, and I will need a shower, which would have cooled me off cleanly, inside, much more effeciently, but eventually decide that the water is warm enough and I am desperate enough to dive in, and not really care about my hair anymore, before or after.

Yesterday, my daughter had a little friend over, and I was supervising them VERY closely on the pool slide (not stitches on Red last Sunday).  I got REALLY sleepy before the slide was inflated, had napped some, off and on, laid out, without sunscreen, not because I don’t fear cancer very much, but just because I was too tired and feeling too risky to apply it with my usual diligence.  And it was HOT.

But, I needed to be near Red, so I rested outside in the sun rather than in the cool, artificial air conditioning of the inside.

And after four trial “dips” cooling various bodily regions of marginal effectiveness, I decided that the water was warm enough that I needed to dive in and get cool…and if it was too cold, I’d just hop back out until it was too hot and I’d be okay.

I dove in, three times, yesterday.  And to find that the water was not shockingly cold anymore, and that it was refreshing, and that I could get too hot and too cold and be okay and refreshed was…somehow refreshing.

I napped probably four times off and on yesterday…Father’s Day turned out to be busy and filled with plans for everyone…without me…thankfully.  And I rested.  I slept, and slept and slept.  Thought a bit about rest and only got confused and napped some more.

Went to sleep at 10 with my lonely girl and slept on a mattress, on the floor, my head hanging off it at an unusual angle with blood falling to my head, and just kept sleeping everytime this became an rather odd acknowledgement.

And I slept until 8:30.  I got up, unusually, before everyone else…a new child in the mix now…all still sleeping, praise God. 

It was raining, unforecast.  I pulled the kids bikes into the garage, in my PJs and I got wet, only I didn’t want to be early morning wet.  But, I grabbed my super soft fluffy red robe from winter, and sat on the porch in the summer rain with a cup of OJ, a casual read book, and I read.  And I napped again.

Red got up and tried to talk to me while I was reading and I really didn’t hear much of what he was rambling in that early morning, nonsensical, kid ramble about odd things that happens in the AM.  Eventually, he came up to me and said, “Blah, Boo, Ha, Gug”, and I knew he needed something.  He looked at me.  He needed me now, now that his nonsense made more sense to me than anything he tried to describe in his deep morning thoughts all morning.  I moved my book as he snuggled in close on the short little wicker love seat.  It screaked and popped, but we were comfie.

No sooner had I thought, “This is bliss”, than he held out his arms straight out, toward the rain, spreading them wider and wider.   Then, he curdled, and his little albino back popped. 

He commentated the obvious to me, “I was just stretching”, in sort of a sleepy voice.  He laid there two more seconds, and got up.  I said, “Where are you going?”  He said, “I forgot to pee this morning.” 

Something about a verbose morning, and a hug, and a stretch, and a back pop, helped him remember what he really needed to do.

I can identify.  

I’ve needed a lot of things to “get my stretch out”, and my back pop, and my rest this week.  I’ve gone from thinking I had a lot to say to feeling like I had nothing but the “blah, ugh. eck. la, bleck” left.  And I’ve had what I’ve entered into summer rest where there are just a couple days where there was a “pause, selah”, and no new huge weights to carry.

And it feels good. 

My hair is messy, my kids friends note it. 

They say, “Your hair… is messt!”  And…I am proud of this state.

Time to shed the fuzzy red robe and the wild hair and get cleaned up to make the pancakes. 

Thank you, Lord…for a raining, wet morning when I didn’t want to get wet, but needed to.  And for the oasis of a really slow and precious morning.

Maggie

Name That Post

Last night we geared up for our annual trip to the county fair.  My children picked the chairs that they had watched and went “the most super-duper fastest of them ALL!”  Yeah!

I rode something that went in circles and threw me into the air in tossled directions in a chair called “Make Momma Scream” or something.  Okay, so that’s not it’s real name.  My son could tell you.

We rode what we affectionately call the Hurl a Whirl (Tilt a Whirl).  We rode until my every fiber of my stomach attaching it to other major organs had been disattached.

Oh, and let’s not forget the “Gravitron”…my face lift of the year.

This AM, I had to get #2 to the church for the kid’s summer program, #3 to a babysitter, and #1 to the doctor.  It came a DOWNpour, which we need, but – whew.  My one day out this week?  I had cute shoes on for the occasion.

I had two other little meetings before lunch besides that, vaccummed the van, shampoo-ed the carpet and mats, did some designing, and cleaned the seats and put protectant back on. 

Time for supper and I’m zonked!

(Midnight, I return to finish…)

And, if it had only ended there with a nice, warm, grilled, family meal.  But somehow, halfway through the grilling, we are here and here.  It’s midnight, and I’m just now getting to that broccoli…not so fresh. 

God is good, and Corrie Ten Boom could “Thank God for Fleas”.  I’m working on my attitude, about on the verge of a meltdown, but am thankful that my husband is such a huge helper yet again today!

Maggie

Taking “A Day”

I have crashed.

I have used all available energy within.

I am tired.

I am reading.

I am resting.

I am not writing.

It’s been a long winter, and spring.

I dream often of a vacation…all alone.

True, total rest…no expectations, anywhere. 

But…I’m sure I’d miss everyone.

And I love everyone.

And I’d miss the demands.

I’m just really tired.

Especially today.

~Maggie

When It’s Hard to Work a Smile

Whew.  I hate hormones sometimes.  Let’s just be honest.  They can take a day with sunshine and make us flat, unresponsive, tired, and angry with the world.  Some women say they never notice anything or struggle with them at all.  I have thoughts regarding that, but for reasons of good judgment, I will not share at this time.  {silly smile}

The good thing is…moods and hormones pass.  Perhaps they are to teach us to respond in love rather than following gut reactions.  

Do you think it is as difficult as I do to balance ”living according to truth, not feelings” with “staying real and authentic, who you really are”?   

Living according to truth says I smile anyway because of who Jesus is.  Living “authentically”, for me, today, means I cannot smile because I am just in a rotten mood, and even though I love Jesus!  I’m still feeling quite “blah”. 

Perhaps there is a time when it makes a difference to go the extra mile when we need to on these days.  Yet, there is a time and place to relax with those we know,  not stress, and just be ourselves?  

Perhaps that is what “staying real” is about.  Grace when you have it.  Rest when you don’t. 

I hope so. ‘Cause this chick still has a ways to go!

~Maggie