| Home movies |
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| 10:35am 10/04/2015 |
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The girls always want to watch home movies, but then they leave and I can't stop watching. They were so cute! |
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| Spring break, woo! |
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| 09:33am 07/04/2015 |
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I am celebrating Spring Break (woo!) by never getting out of bed before 10am:)
That is all. |
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Read 1 - Post |
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| Uh oh |
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| 10:28am 17/02/2015 |
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My sponsor wants to have a talk with me about my never calling to check-in with her.
I'm too busy. Something's gotta give. |
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| Lazy |
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| 11:06am 16/02/2015 |
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I recently admitted that I'm violently judgemental of laziness. According to my emotions there are absolutely zero excuses to not be as busy as me. I obviously don't actually believe this--I know everyone's different, that there is no way I will ever know all the deciding factors going into someone's actions (even most of my own and Jeff's) and that even if I perfectly understood someone it wouldn't be my place to tell them what is right for them. However, because of my upbringing (overbooked and chaotic) my emotions value busy over calm; Too much over freedom; Achievement over fun. I am actively fighting against this inclination.
I don't think I need to stop doing all the things that I love--just that I need to stop feeling like I am (and others are) only as valuable as my accompliments. The idea that my accomplishments have anything to do with my value is a disgusting lie. I'm a human first, teacher second. Child of God first, Girl Scout leader second. Mother first, housekeeper/cook/chauffeur second. Beloved wife first, PTA board member second.
All the things I need to get done clutter out the fun and freedom in my mind and life. I don't even know what's fun for me anymore. Honestly, I haven't known in a decade. I guess I like sleeping-in. Watching movies. Snuggling. Good food, painted nails, sunshine, friends, animals, laughter and BOOKS. Ask me how long it's been since I read? Like a month. Ew. Brain, get your priorities strait. |
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| teaching |
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| 11:14pm 02/02/2015 |
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So, I've been thinking about trying to get my own classroom. This is the first time I have had any kind of desire to be an actual teacher since college. With everything that happened in 2005 I am seriously surprised I survived. I came out of it with severe anxiety, mild depression and mild OCD--although it took me about a decade to pull-it together enough to actually go get diagnosed... So who knows what the diagnosis would have been then. |
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| Shackles |
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| 02:54pm 16/03/2014 |
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I wrote this during my time with God today. I realized in my prayers afterword that my newest tattoos (forget and remember) are on my wrists where shackles would be if I was bound. I don't usually share my prayer journal, but I wanted to put this here so my bff (with matching wrist tattoos) could read it and anyone else that fights the daily fight between the spirit and the flesh. I keep taking back up my yolk.
I keep wrestling it from Your hands
Digging through the trash pile
The burn pile
Sneaking from Your presence
And picking it back up to comfort me
Falling back into old patterns
Into old anxieties
Old behaviors
Old habits
Old sins
Sins that call me away from You My heart wants nothing but You, my God My body will not submit
My mind, my will, my sin nature
They pull at my heart
They reforge the chains you broke
And clap them back
Onto the places they were
The places that still have scars of shackles Free me again
My Savior
Free me again today |
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| Oi |
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| 12:22am 10/08/2013 |
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That's twice now that I've written for an hour or more and then my phone dies and lost it all. Is there anything more frustrating?!? |
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| Worship |
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| 11:06am 04/08/2013 |
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It's not that I'm opposed to lyrics of songs being simple. It's not that I require complicated musical arrangements or melodies that take a trained vocalist to accomplish. I think where I am feeling hollowness is when I am bidden to sing a song repeating "I'm hungry for more of you" continually for, well, a while, without feeling the hunger around me. You know when you're at a restaurant and you're sitting an waiting for the food to come. The anticipation. The longing. The distraction of it. I even have trouble keeping up a conversation; the hunger overtakes me. If it's not a conversation about how excited I am about the food I ordered. About how excited I am that we get to be out together ordering food. That, while we can't afford it often, we can afford it sometimes and we're so blessed that sometimes we can experience this feeling together. Hunger alone is boring. Hunger alone is annoying. Hunger can make me feel faint, angry, hyper-emotional, and guilty. I tend to ignore my hunger for its own sake. I think of it as a purely physical longing and, therefore, a base impulse and something I should ignore. I feel better about myself when I ignore my hunger rather than respond to it. I tend to ignore it for so long that when it overtakes my small amount of self-control it's become so urgent and overpowering that the choices that I make to address my hunger are fast & dirty as opposed to filling, nourishing and wholesome.The idea of spiritual hunger is enigmatic. Do we say "we're hungry for you, Jesus" as though we want to eat Him? I know, it sounds like I'm bring factious, but I'm not. He bade us to EAT HIM. There's a reason He called the bread His body and the cup His blood. There's a reason the writers of worship songs feel compelled to repeat "we're hungry for you" over and over. There's a longing that is meant to be experienced and fulfilled together. There is a longing that if we ignore we tend to fill in ways that are too easy or not exactly nourishing. We tend to run to the wrong places or things or people to fulfill our spiritual hunger when what we really need is eucharist. What we really need is communion. What we really need is Christ's body and blood. His church and His forgiveness. I really need to talk to the pastor about having communion every week. I know why we do it once/month--he feels it could become routine and less meaningful--but I disagree. I feel like Jesus wanted to meet us here physically every time we meet together... Or else He wouldn't have said that. |
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| Raise your hand if you're tired of everything! |
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| 11:40pm 25/08/2009 |
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No really, everything. I JUST realized that my discontent permeates and saturates every single second of my day. In every situation (save very very rare moments of clarity) I am thinking of what is wrong, what I'd rather be doing, how much this all sucks and so on.
who the hell wants to live like that?!?!
Nobody. (I totally just answered my rhetorical question... I am not content enough to let questions go unanswered sometimes).
Really. I'm really tired of it. I didn't know exactly what I was tired of until right now. I'm giving it up. (Not it, like life, don't worry, this is a really really good thing) I'm letting go of my discontent.
No, I don't expect it to happen like that, but I do believe that journeys have to be started with a single step and I'm freaking taking the step. I've always been like this and it scares the freaking crap out of me to think of moving on... being happy... not worrying about everything all the time, but it's right. I don't say "right" very often, I'm too much of a hippie... right is elusive and situational, but this is right.
I believe there is a place for discontent. Society wouldn't advance without it. I believe my brain does a good job saying "hey, this could be better." but when it eeks into relationships and tells me that no one, not myself, not my husband, not my children, not my family or friends are good enough I'm WRONG. Not wrong because everyone, or every relationship is good enough, but just because that's not the point. Love doesn't reserve itself for good enough. Love answers the questions of worth.
That's the cheesiest thing I've ever said. |
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| Really? Only 10? |
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| 04:26pm 04/07/2009 |
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mood:  excited
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I just thought I remembered having gotten a livejournal in High School. AND I JUST WENT TO MY 10 YEAR REUNION. It was fun. Weird, but fun. Note to self: Don't bring Jeff to anything ever again. I think I used to not notice what a terrible time he had when I dragged him places, but now it ruins my night. I'm hoping that means I'm shedding some of my co-dependant tendencies, but I'm still really new at all this "being complete on my own" junk, so we'll see how it all turns out.
I'm learning new things about myself every day now. I've learned that it's ok to remember everything, but if I still resent things that happened in my past that they are dragging me down. My whole life I've felt like I couldn't catch up with my life. Like I'm trying to jump on a moving train that is going just a little to fast (I know I blogged about that... the train incident... only that was fun, my life usually isn't). I haven't felt like I could do anything to make the train go slower and always felt like if only I could be a little better, a little stronger, a little more faithful I'd catch the train and be able to get on board with my life. I've always been running late. Always procrastinating. Always hoping that just one thing would be different, and then everything would be beautiful and perfect. A few times I thought I had gotten on: when I got married, graduated, bought a house, had kids... But the satisfaction was always short-lived. Something always added on and there was another train to try to catch: have a healthy marriage, be an actual teacher, have the perfect house, be a perfect mother...
About 9 months ago Ben bullied me into a 12 step program for people like me. Basically, I'm addicted to my husband, my kids, to control, to achievement... it's harder to pinpoint than externals like drugs, but every bit as insidious and destructive. I began to give up my huge issues with 12 step programs, got a sponsor and began to grow. A few weeks ago, on my way to a meeting, I had the vision of chasing the train. I was in the drudges of my 4th step "made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves" during which I was writing down all my resentments. Everyone I have ever resented for anything (it's about 10 pages long). I realized that it's not something wrong with me that keeps me from catching the train, it's all the bags I'm carrying. Hundreds of them. Heavy, rotting, festering, weighing me down.
I'm not able to let go of the bags yet. I'm not able to let go of them on my own. I need the leading and strength of God, the care and support of my friends and I need to finally believe in myself.
Which, after all this time doubting myself, is really weird. And I'm definitely not doing it quickly or gracefully, but I'm doing it. I'm changing. I'm becoming my own person, useful and happy and unfettered.
It's pretty freaking amazing. |
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| Baby Grandmother |
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| 10:59pm 26/05/2009 |
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idk if I already posted about this... but I wanted to make sure I did before she stops doing it and we all forget:)
Lavinia has some imaginary friends. Somewhere she learned the term "Grandmother" and will occasionally shuffle around, hunched over, with some sort of "cane" to support her and say "I'm a grandmother." This, in itself, was pretty hilarious, but she's gone a whole new direction with it. The other day we were having lunch and Lavinia got off her chair and started talking to the floor. I asked who she was talking to and she looked embarrassed. I got down to look at the floor with her so she would know she wasn't in trouble or going to be made fun of and asked who was there. She started telling me about "Baby Grandmother." It took me a while to figure that one out. She wanted Baby Grandmother to come eat lunch with us for a few days in a row and would tell me to talk to her and what she was doing. After a few days there was Baby Grandmother, and Mommy Grandmother. I finally figured out that Grandmother is a species... or something... and not someone's grandparent. There is a whole family. Baby Grandmother, Big Girl Grandmother, Mommy Grandmother and Daddy Grandmother.
I had Rainbow Brite as my imaginary friend... but I guess Lavinia is just more imaginative:)
Sunshine is pretty-much either plain and boring (sitting quietly playing with things or following Lavinia around) or the funniest baby you've ever seen. During "goofy time" (usually when she's tired) she'll run around bumping into things, or just runs in place, sings nonsensical songs and dances to them or shouts nonsense that sounds a bit like the Martians in "Mars Attacks." Her favorite pass time is grabbing something off of Jeff's desk and running so he will get up and chase her and then stealing his chair. We've decided that her love language is stealing people's chairs.
Lavinia's love language is singing songs over and over and over and over. She will listen to Rufus Wainright's "hallelujah" continuously and sing-along for hours. |
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| Who needs it? |
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| 02:31pm 23/05/2009 |
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I'm going to try venting here to see if it will make me feel better about my weekend. I've become some sort of a homebody since quitting starbucks and it's bothering me. I used to leave the house absolutely every day, no matter what. Now I think it's a huge blessing if I have a day to just clean my house, read, play with my kids and do whatever I want.
I've never gotten along well with Jeff's family. We just have such DRASTICALLY different families that I've never felt like I fit in with his, nor he with mine. I like his family. I just don't fit in. It's kinda like middle school all over again every time I go over there. Occasionally I try to not care and just be myself and totally embarrass myself by accidentally talking about an off-limits subject or having a left-of-normal view of something. The other option is to be really rude and bring a book to read. I'm not very good at the in-between "cordial" s***. Actually, I'd kinda rather be one or the other.
There are no off-limits subjects in my family (well, there are subjects that make Melissa feel weird, but she's warming up to us). There is no protocol other than do whatever you want to do. The weekly dinner at my parents house is the one time every week when I know I can relax and be loved instead of be judged for whatever I do... no matter what I feel like I'm doing something wrong at my house and it's just multiplied X1000 at the Rubatino's.
We're about to leave to go to the beach house with his family for the weekend. I don't want to go. Not even a little. If it wasn't a beach house I'd just tell jeff to take the kids and leave me here, but i'm too scared of the kids running off by themselves and drowning in the water.
that's like 20 things wrong with me in like 2 paragraphs. I know there are things wrong with the other characters in this story too, but I'm learning to take responsibility for myself, my actions, my feelings and my part in my relationships.
Well, that certainly helped me figure out what's wrong... now I need to call my sponsor to figure out what to do about it. |
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| God Minute |
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| 09:58am 19/05/2009 |
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I have been reading this silly old prayer book I found when we moved. It's called the "God Minute." There is a short prayer (it's supposed to be 1 minute) for every day. Idk how long we've had it. There are a lot of thees and thous and I was about to give up on it. But then I read today's and was kinda astounded when I started crying. I had a kinda bad night. Jeff and I aren't getting along very well... I slept on the couch. I was feeling pretty useless and hopeless. But, this prayer helped remind me that God is still here, speaking to me, even if I've hardened myself to him (and everyone else for that matter). I hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me.
Father of us all, we thank Thee for life and that we live now; that our eyes have been opened to the beauties of today; that our hands have been filled with the tasks of the present. Nor do we despise the past, into whose labors we have entered; its errors warn us, its successes inform us, its sacrifices inspire us and to its brave souls we are forever debtors. We are thankful for the moral leadership of the world, for the women and men who are the road-breakers of liberty, for those prophets of the humanities who hear first the call of life, to whom bodies are more than gold and the soul of a little child of greater value than the buildings of the city. We are thankful for the friends whose faith in us makes us better than we are; for the children who call us by the holiest name men may ever know; for the tasks we are unworthy of, but rejoice in; and for Jesus of Nazareth, Thy Son and our only Saviour, in Whose Name are all our prayers and supplications. Amen.
All the prayers are based on a Scripture. This one is on Psalm 96:1-4
1-2 Sing God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing!
Sing to God—worship God!
2-3 Shout the news of his victory from sea to sea,
Take the news of his glory to the lost,
News of his wonders to one and all!
4 For God is great, and worth a thousand Hallelujahs.
His terrible beauty makes the gods look cheap; |
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| Behaviorism |
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| 10:31am 22/04/2009 |
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I'm thinking of implementing a rewards system with Lavinia. I feel as though I need reasons to be able to say "no" to her. As it is she kinda runs the house. She paints when she wants to, we go on walks when she wants to, to the park... She has to earn watching movies and stuff, but even then I'm uncomfortable with the amount of movies she earns. Also, I want a way to discipline her other than "time out." I think it's pretty rare that time-out is a logical consequence. If she needs to be removed from the situation I'd rather send her to her room.
Here's what I'm thinking. I have a bunch of lima-beans I painted in college to look like things (penguins, people, ladybugs, ect.) to use in teaching math. I was thinking she could earn those for doing things I want her to do and lose them if she needs to be disciplined. Then she could use them to "buy" things she wants to do. like this:
Earning:
Potty in the toilet
picking up all of her toys
sharing with her sister
staying dry all night
doing anything I think deserves one (or more)
Spending:
1- paint with Dot paints (less set-up and clean-up than regular paint)
2- watch show (Blues Clues, Veggie Tales...)
3- regular paint
4- watch movie
5- go on a walk
6- go to the park or indoor playground
7- get something at goodwill
8- go see a movie
9- sleepover (invite her friends over or ask whoever she wants if she can sleep there)
10- buy her own movie/show
I just thought of this about 10 minutes ago, so I thought I'd blog about it to get advice from everyone. I want your input even if you don't have kids:) She might be too young for this to make sense, so I might try it for a week and realize it's totally not working. |
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| Legovore |
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| 12:42pm 20/04/2009 |
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I always knew Sunshine liked to bite the heads off of Lego men... but up until today I hadn't ever found anything interesting in a diaper...
Yesterday I went to a Mariners game with my family and Jeff took the girls to his parents. That meant that they were in his care for the entire day. Within those, oh, 12 hours Sunshine:
1) found a glass cigar tube on jeff's desk
2) broke said cigar tube
3) cut her finger on the broken glass without Jeff noticing
4) used the blood coming out of her finger as paint on some books and the ottoman
5) swallowed 2 lego heads
i just found them in her diaper...
let's take a vote. Should I:
a)throw them away like everything else that comes out of her
b)wash them very meticulously and boil them and put them in her baby book (along with the pregnancy test and belly button and first lock of hair...)
c)take a picture of them in the diaper to post
d)take the diaper around with me for a while to show people. |
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| Survival Mode |
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| 11:22pm 09/04/2009 |
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mood:  exhausted
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2 1/2 and 17 months has got to be some sort of explosive combination or something. Like mixing bleach and ammonia... nerve gas. I'd make a joke about how much my kids get on my nerves, but my husband might divorce me for a pun like that.
Brain Age says puns are good for your brain. Tony is always making puns and he's one of the cleverest people i know. proof.
We moved to a "townhome." All apartments should be townhomes. here are the pros and cons of townhomes:
Pros:
-you aren't above or below anyone
-it's easy to make shared walls sound proof, but not shared floors/celings
-I get an attached garage
-there's way more space than anywhere I've ever lived
-apartments have dumpsters 1) you don't have to remember to or go to the effort to take garbage cans out 2)you don't have to try really hard to only make enough garbage/recycling to fit in your can
-fireplaces that work (some homes have these, but not the crawfords')
Cons:
-2 flights of stairs
-i just hate the idea of rent... like burning $1400 every month
-did I mention the TWO flights of stairs?
it's also pretty weird to be back on our own. That's why I started this blog. I tried all day to get anything productive done. All I got done was cleaning. No, that's not productive... that's something that you are not going to be able to tell that I did tomorrow. We were kinda drowning in responsibility at the Crawford's, so it's nice to have a little bit less to do, but I'm so depressed about the whole moving out thing that I'm kinda paralyzed. I hate the feeling of failure... especially when it's failure to teach well. I did a good job teaching their kids, but I didn't do a good job setting limits about what I couldn't do. In the end I felt like I was doing so many things I shouldn't have been doing that I couldn't even differentiate what I wanted to do and what I didn't. I was a barrier to the growth of both of our families.
holy crap though... if you ever move in with friends DO NOT combine your stuff. We've spent like $600 restocking our stuff. I guess a lot of it was furniture, but still, we might have been able to find places to store ours instead of getting rid of it. Even a storage space would have cost less that getting all new stuff. Short of a storage space, at least don't combine your food. Buying all new everything has been such a headache.
Jeff and I need to work on our marriage. I know all marriages need work, but I've been pretty focused on working on myself for a while now which is actually making us grow apart (because he's not really working on himself). I'm at this really awkward and ungraceful stage of knowing that a lot of my ways of doing things are misguided and damaging, but not being very good at making healthy decisions yet. I can see what I'm doing wrong, but don't know what to do instead. Usually it's when I feel a certain way about something. I know my feeling is founded on unhealthy beliefs, but still can't make myself stop feeling a certain way, or really believe the truth about whatever situation I'm having feelings about. I know it's all very vague, but I don't think jeff would appreciate my going into much detail.
back to my kids: they are very cute. Lavinia likes to sing a lot. She made up this song that goes "not my heart... not my heart... not mama's heart, not pep pep's heart, not sunshine's heart..." only she likes to pronounce "heart" as hoooaaahhhhhrrrrrt and Sunshine like "gungine"
They both sing the Spongebob Squarepants themesong pretty constantly. Complete with the Doot doots at the end.
Lavinia's favorite game is pushing someone over on the ground, pulling their limbs strait (like you're being drawn and quartered) and piling toys on top of you.
Sunshine's favorite game is asking where someone is if she can't see them (even if she saw them 2 seconds ago)
Both of their favorite things to do is make huge messes.
all day
it never ends.
When I'm really old and they're caring for me I am going to make huge messes for them to clean up...
on purpose. |
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| snapshots |
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| 12:29pm 23/11/2008 |
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I don't feel like writing in paragraphs right now. how about bullet-points of my last few weeks.
-There's the cutest little boy ever in our community called Elias (Colin and Grace's son) who is about 3 months older than Sunshine. Most of his cuteness comes from his WAY bowed legs and his habit of speaking in tongues. Anyway, the other day when we showed up at their house he went right up to sunshine and gave her the cutest baby kiss I've ever seen right on the mouth. It was very calculated and planned out. Yesterday he was feeding her parts of his chips. Later that night (or maybe the day before) they were playing "try to get the pretend hot pepper from the others' mouth with your mouth. Kinda like lady and the tramp. They're sorta betrothed.
-Yesterday morning I blew my nose and there was a dead mosquito in it.
-Our house is better than it has ever been because we all stopped trying to change each other and decided to let God change us:) I know right, duh. (but Kami still wants us to move out:)) |
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| eyes always come first |
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| 12:08am 09/11/2008 |
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Lavinia started out drawing like a normal toddler: circle, dot eyes, line mouth, line arms and legs and then one long piece of hair, but she just changed. Now when she draws she always draws the eyes first and has to stop and tell me about them after she has done them.
and she just drew 2 noses and declared "this a guy."
now it's 5 noses...
anyway, sunshine's birthday party was kinda weird and boring. I don't really know how to do kids parties yet. hopefully they'll get better. She was very cute about saying "thank you" to everyone after she opened presents. "thank you" sounds like "doo doo" so that's pretty freaking cute. She is just too cute for her own good. I can't resist her when she crawls (or toddles) up to me and puts her arms up so I can cuddle her. Hopefully we can figure out a healthy amount of distance sometime, but for now I think I might be ok with my baby being attached to me. I gave her pretty terrible feelings when she was on the inside, so she deserves a little more love on the outside. |
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| Why? |
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| 11:55pm 15/10/2008 |
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In general, I encourage the kids to ask questions...
but Lavinia just entered the "why?" stage.
I feel like dying. How many times can I answer that question in one day without losing it? I mean really. Who invented the baby stage?
and why? |
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| teaching |
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| 10:27pm 12/10/2008 |
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I guess I feel really out of touch with myself. Not that when I blogged all the time I was more sane-- way not--- but I don't really know how to deal with my new life yet. How do I just go about being what I've always wanted to be? Maybe it's so hard because I never knew THIS is what I wanted to be. I thought I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, but it turns out that I wanted to be a private teacher. I wanted to be encouraged to have real close relationships with my students without having to focus on 24 other students at the same time. idk. I like the idea of a conventional classroom, but I'm pretty sure it's because it's cleaner. I mean, i would leave it when i went home. I would get a paycheck to tell me why I'm doing this. I would get a new batch of kids at the beginning of each year and not have to worry about how the old one is turning out. Teaching 6 (or 7 or 8 or 9... we'll see when the Crawfords actually stop:)) kids for their entire lives sounds so daunting... so vivid. I mean, I'm going to know if I did a good job or not...
I'm sure that's just the perfectionist and control freak coming out in me. The most important thing I have to focus on is giving these kids to God. Seeing them as God's and not mine and it's really His job to teach them... I'm just the vessel.
btw, spelling is NOT on the curriculum:) |
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