Report Cards

It's that time of year to give out grades to students. We've been in school for 60ish days and both parents and students want to know how they're doing. I was thinking this morning after reading Philippians 1:1-11 that everyone will be given a report card at the end of their life. Progress reports can be useful tools and I feel as though God gave me one today in my quiet time. I'm reminded to be in the word so that my love will abound more and more with knowledge and discernment so that I can approve or know what is pure and blameless. I am not always making the best choices; what I eat, thoughts I think, how i use my time. This challenges me...if i were to receive a report card today...what areas would be marked "needs improvement"?

It's been too long since I've written anything but....I do think about this blog often.  I'm pretty much blaming having a combo class for everything in my life that's not getting done so I'll blame not blogging on that too.  When I first decided to do a blog I knew this would happen but instead of giving up like I thought I would I'm coming back to my blog and nurturing it with some more words. It's liberating to me to write. Writing gets it out of my head and puts in front of me in black, white and all shades in between.  I had the best summer and my school year is up and running.  Last Friday was my first non meltdown Friday so I'm making progress.  I now have so much empathy for teachers of combo classes and my ego has been taken down a couple of notches which is always good.
Last night mike and I babysat for a young couple and their 3 adorable kids.  They were so good and it was good practice for when we hit the grandparent chapter.  It struck me that it doesn't really matter the size of a home, no matter if its a mansion or a 1 bedroom apartment, as long as the home has love, laughter, honest communication...the children will be just fine.  So often I define myself by the stuff in my life and what I do with that stuff.  I think I'm still learning I am more than stuff and what my kids got from Mike and I was more than stuff.  Stuff makes our lives more comfortable but it could also bring more complications too.  I'm thankful that we raised our kids where we did, we have the love, laughter and honest communication still in our home and I'm truly content in our home.
It's good to be back!

Whew!  It has been a busy spring.  I have neglected this space but I am always thinking about it, which is kind of what I do in a lot of areas in my life.  Today I read something along the lines of...if you are constantly ingesting good information but never digesting it, it isn't really doing anyone any good.  I am really good at ingesting information...I love it actually but the doing or digesting is more difficult for me.  I printed off a poster this week that I am putting in my creative room and it says "what you create doesn't have to be perfect".  I am not sure where this tendency of perfection comes from...I wouldn't classify my parents as being perfectionistic but they were very critical of everything around them.  Perhaps I transferred their criticalness into thinking I needed to be as perfect as I could be so I wouldn't be criticized.    I do know I H A T E criticism and will do anything to avoid it.  So now that I have ingested more insightful information, what will I do with it?  I need to put feet to my words/thoughts.  I have 5 more days of school and then I will have a good chunk of time to DO.  I want to be thinner when I start school in August, I want to have created items by knitting, embroidering, and scrap-booking, I want to continue to foster friendships by doing fun things with friends, and I want to be free to be who God has created me to be.  This is the summer of Doing!  So excited to start...but first I need to research/think a bit more! :-)

Roller coaster

Roller coasters and I have never been what you would call simpatico.  I don't like the feeling of my stomach lunging up and down and all around....don't like the feeling of falling....don't really enjoy the jerks and quick turns.  I'm more of a stay on the ground while watching others screaming their enthusiasm of riding on the roller coaster kind of girl.  These last few months have been what I would call a roller coaster in my emotions.  I haven't been able to be the steady girl I usually am and I was starting to feel somewhat crazy.  I KNOW I'm at the age of menopause but I thought it was mainly about irregular periods and hot flashes, but....oh no...it can involve more than 20 different symptoms.  Amazing!  Women's bodies are so intricate and yet so strong.  I am "feeling" better now that I am realizing I'm not crazy, or experiencing a brain tumor, or any other number of horrible physical conditions that my active imagination has been conjuring up during the last few months.  Verse 14 in Psalm 139 is my new verse for this month..."I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."  So I'm back on the ground watching others on the roller coaster and knowing that when I feel like crying non-stop, or screaming at students for not knowing fractions...this too shall pass in this wonderful world of mine.

Starting and Stopping

Starting and stopping...could be a title of my book.  I start so many things and then I stop them and I feel compelled to stop this cycle as it is really starting to annoy me.  I start eating right and then I stop, I start many projects and then I stop, I start thinking a new way then I stop and slip back into my worry-fear prone thinking, and so my pattern continues.  I am doing some spring cleaning and I want to start with my mind.  I believe that what I think about, what I fill myself up with in terms of my thought life, that is what my actions are going to reflect.  If I think worry-fear thoughts then my actions will reflect that.  When I am with a large group or even a small group when I am filled with those thoughts then I am withdrawn, quiet, not confident at all but when I am full of the right way of thinking then I contribute, I am confident that what I am saying is worth something.  Worrying whether someone will like me or accept me, I stop.  Worrying whether or not my project is good, I stop.  Worrying that I won't achieve my goal, I stop.  By coming out of this messy closet called my mind, I want to start the process of cleaning my thinking.  But the fear that I'll fail keeps my closet closed...it is truly a battle.  Let the battle begin!

Molly

Tomorrow is the day I take Molly in for a consultation to determine why she's not been her usual self. I'm afraid it may be a tumor and I'll have a decision to make. She's been a pure delight the last 11 years. I love her and she's still my puppy so I'll find out the facts tomorrow and hopefully make the right choice.

Saturday

Today is my day to go do something I've been excited about since I signed up...learning to make cheese. Yesterday I went to Stitches and felt inspired to keep creating with yarn, fabric and today I'm enlarging my knowledge base of creating something that is edible. I'm taking the class from Happy Girl Kitchens which is an organic food preservation based business. I'm going to Pacific Grove which should be beautiful today. I'm thinking about this quote from Lysa Terkeurst and she said "Indeed, what we fix our attention, heart, and mind on is what we'll worship. What we worship becomes magnified. And what is magnified will consume us and perpetuate more and more worship." I want to fix my attention on the Creator of creativity. Today is the day, this is the moment...let's get started.

Journey Musings

Today I was reading in Romans and this scripture popped out at me..."What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?  Those things result in death." Romans 6:21  The day before that I had a Chinese proverb tell me (after completing a rousing game of mahjongg) that "Hard work has a future payoff.  Laziness pays off now." For quite some time I have been pondering the question of Who am I? and I have discovered my view of myself has been skewed for as long as I can remember.  I am sensing this is the core issue of my struggle with my weight.  I've started focusing on not just who am I but who am I in Jesus and I have noticed my struggles aren't lasting as long, they aren't as deep as they once were.  I am super hopeful that this is the last time I have to lose the weight and that I am then ready to keep it off.
So in my pondering I have discovered that I have always been performance based in order to get approval, love and acceptance. As a young child through adulthood I have firmly established in my mind that doing well = approval, love, acceptance and doing bad = disapproval, unloved, unaccepted.  I have also noticed that for me doing well means I try to please everyone around me so everyone is happy thus making them feel good which then in turn makes me feel loved.  Thus I have created a false sense of security because it's based on trying to make everyone feel something when in reality that isn't what God has called me to do...He has called me to be the woman He wants me to be and to please Him.  The second thing about doing well is that I have a perfectionistic tendency when it comes to my standard for myself.  If I don't succeed in being perfect then I disapprove of myself and I show that by the things I say to myself, the way I take care of myself, and it is paralyzing me.  My fear of disapproval from God, others, and even myself paralyzes me.  This is so cemented in me and I am so thankful that I see it.   When reading scriptures that tell me that God loves me for me, not for what I do...it's so foreign to my thinking.  I am hopeful that now that I see this way of thinking, the Holy Spirit is going to start showing me how to crack this cemented thinking into freedom.  When stress comes, instead of going to food which always results in feeling ashamed and death, I want to go to scriptures to have freedom and life.  I have bought the lies of the world, Satan, and even my own thinking, and it's time for change.  Dare... to believe that God loves me, He's for me, He created me, and He has every detail laid out for me.
"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26  Let the cement be broken in my thinking so that God's ways can go deeper in me.

Procrastination

Today was a day of organizing my unit of study for Colonial Williamsburg. I've been putting it off and now it's due on Saturday. It took most of the day for me to narrow what I had thought was an already narrow topic. Periods of panic alternated with periods of frustration with this tendency I have. I've got a sub for tomorrow and it's the big push to get most of it typed up and copied onto a cd. I'm reminded to learn from my word of the year-dare- and now do! Title of my unit is "Paper + Words= Power".

Last Day of Vacation

Last day of my vacation.  I feel renewed, inspired, ready to go.  In my quiet time today I was reading about God desiring me to live in victory and not fear.  I am starting to see that I have a strong fear that has been controlling my life for far too long.  I have this strong fear of failing, making something worse, imperfect and I'm realizing how I've succumbed to this stifling fear and being stunted in so many areas of my life. Maintaining the "look" of being together perpetuated my fear of trying something, anything new.  My fear of "being rotten at it so don't try and just keep looking/thinking about it" kept me on the outside looking in.  Very lonely and small feeling.  God has been showing me His desires for me.  He desires for me to be powerful, determined, confident in who He has made me to be.  I'm tired of comparing myself and feeling inadequate.  There is no one like me, I am unique, fearfully and wonderfully made so I want to celebrate and glorify God. When I put His work down with insults, comparisons, I am doing the exact opposite.  It is being in God's presence that brings me to the best version of myself not being in the perfect/comfortable circumstances.  "Do not let my heart be troubled and do not be afraid" John 14:27b-dare to trust in Him who made me.

I have decided that my word for the year twenty twelve is DARE.
dare |de(ə)r|
verb ( 3rd sing. present usu. dare before an expressed or implied infinitive without to)1 [usu. with infinitive with or without to ] [often with negative ] have the courage to do something : a story he dare not write down | she leaned forward as far as she dared.2 [ trans. ] defy or challenge (someone) to do something : she was daringhim to disagree | [ trans. ] swap with me, I dare you.3 [ trans. ] poetic/literary take the risk of; brave : few dared his wrath.Dare to believe, dare to achieve, dare to be, dare to change...I am done with being fearful of failing or not being perfect and this is the year to dare to do.  I am excited to see what God has in mind for me this year.  Today I read that His plans are perfect and are all laid out for me.  His ways are too numerous for me to remember but I want to write down as many as I can so that I can remind myself to continue to trust.  I don't need to worry when I go through the tough times, I am being brought through those times with Him leading the way.  I want to do something, dare rather than sitting and watching...so come on 2012...let's get started doing.

Goals

Our Christmas was taken to a whole new level this year with the initiation of homemade Christmas.  It inspired me to actually see an idea and to see it come to fruition with all the opening of the gifts.  I was thrilled to see the creativity of my kids.  One of my goals for 2011 was to be more creative and sometimes I need to make myself have pressure to get myself to actually put feet to my goals hence the idea for homemade Christmas.  Now it has increased my desire to continue to explore my creativity.  I had a big aha moment before I even started doing all the Christmas gifts...I realized I was scared to start. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to produce a perfect enough product.  God has been showing me that He looks at me with acceptance without me doing anything.  I can't do anything to earn his love, his acceptance, and His desire for me is to accept who He has made me to be.  We are all wonderfully made and it is becoming more real to me that I need to have a better foundation of who I am in God's eyes.  Being creative and expressing that creativity through gifts that are made seemed to unlock a door in my heart.  I am excited to see God continue to work in me, pushing me to be free from fear.  Goals for 2012 include being free from financial burdens, weight burdens, and being free from the burden of being someone God hasn't made me to be.