Learning Experiences

Have you ever had so many thoughts running through your head and they are so jumbled that you just know if you try to write them down they won't make any sense? The whole month of December and into the beginning of January was like that for me. Then, there is the fact that I think too many people are way too open on the internet and some things should be kept personal. In a way to sort through some of that and still keep personal those things that really didn't need to be shared to the whole world, I haven't blogged much lately. I think I'm a little better now. I'm coming down from my sugar high, my hormones seem to be leveling out a bit, and the stress of the holidays is over.

You know, Fall and Winter are full of all kinds of stress and stress inducers. It starts with Halloween. You know what I realized, I don't like Halloween. I don't like having to find the perfect costume, I don't like taking the kids around especially since it can be very cold here, and I REALLY don't like all the candy that comes with Halloween. I believe I have an addiction to sugar. I love it, but it really doesn't love me. Halloween comes, I eat a lot of candy because my kids don't need it, right? Then, my blood sugar crashes and I feel down, so I eat more candy, and thus begins the sugar roller coaster. I tried talking the family out of Halloween this last year, but it didn't go over too well, then the flu hit our house. We really didn't end up doing much celebrating as it was. I am going to try harder next year to think of some other way to get out of this sugar orgy that we call Halloween.

Shortly after Halloween comes Thanksgiving. Now, Thanksgiving is just about my favorite holiday. The family all comes together, we eat, we play games, and we enjoy being a family. The biggest stress comes from cooking, but no matter which side of the family we are celebrating with, it seems that everyone helps out and so it isn't that much stress. However, more sugar follows in the form of pies. If your pie didn't get all the way eaten then you have leftovers to take home, too.

You better get take advantage of some rest on Thanksgiving because Christmas starts the next day. For us that means going and getting our tree, which is fun. After the fun, though, there is the stress of presents and putting up the decorations and making neighbor gifts and somewhere in there teaching your kids that Christmas isn't about Santa and presents and trees, it is about Jesus Christ. Behind all of that is again, sugar. We dip pretzels and oreo cookies into chocolate and caramel. We make almond bark and peanut butter balls. The stores are full of Santa and bell shaped chocolates and the ever present candy cane. Knowing that I don't handle sugar well, I resisted most of this, but it is so easy to have just a little more than normal since it's the holidays.

Any normal year I'd be just a little stressed, but okay, but this wasn't any normal year. The Monday after Thanksgiving Robert unexpectedly, and unfairly, lost his job. Due to some dishonesty from his employer, he was unable to collect unemployment. He began immediately looking for another job, but the fields of Landscaping and Agriculture, where he is most familiar, are not really hiring people when there is snow on the ground. I became very angry and bitter, two of the most negative emotions a person can have. Robert was angry, too, but he seemed to overcome it sooner than I did. I really had to pray a lot to let go of those bad feelings. Following that I felt empty and the word that best describes my emotional state was despair. I had never felt despair like that before. In the past I've relied a lot on the hope that the future would be better. I've had time after time where that has proven to be the case and even though I believed that things would get better, I lost hope that it would actually happen. I didn't know how we were going to pay our bills. I hated having people help us out because I didn't know what to do for them and I didn't know when things would get better. I knew even once Robert found a job, (if he found a job) we would be playing catch-up financially and I wondered how we would ever get back on top. I felt so very helpless. We didn't feel like I should get a job, and I just didn't know what to do. I knew what I really needed was a little more faith. Faith in Jesus Christ and His promised blessings. Faith that even though we made some mistakes that we were still doing what we could to follow Him and that He would not leave us comfortless. Faith that even though we didn't know why we were having this struggle, that it was really for our good. Faith to learn whatever lesson it was that we were supposed to learn from this.

I have learned a few things. I learned that just because a pair of pants get a hole in the knee does not mean they are immediately destined to become cut-offs. They can be patched, especially if you catch the hole quickly before it gets too big. With a little creativity you can even make the patches look super cute and then the pants are even more desirable than they were before you patched them. I have learned that I have a lot of resources available to me and that if I combine those with the talents I've been blessed with, I can still do good. I have a lot of yarn and it doesn't take much to make a pair of mittens which I can then pass on to school teachers who can share with those children who either don't have something to keep their hands warm, or forget. I am learning to create meals from foods that are inexpensive and have long storage lives. I WILL find a squash recipe my family likes, either that, or they will finally get used to eating it. I am learning that being the best wife and mother I can be is the most important thing I can do. That means doing the laundry, washing the dishes and sweeping the floor are not just household chores, but means of bringing me and my family closer to Christ.

Now, Robert has accepted a job offer. I really do hope I learned what I needed to because with this job I am sure that I will have many more lessons to learn.

101

Somehow over the course of time I reached 100 posts, and this is #101! What a crazy ride this life is. I know if I had posted all of the times I thought about posting I would be way past 101 by now, I'd be at like 500, but then kids wake up, or I'm in bed (I do my best thinking with my head on the pillow). So, here is to the New Year!!!!

Re-cap of my goals for the past year.

Goal #1- Take piano lessons:
Didn't happen. Mainly because our money went different places. That being said, I was called to be the pianist in Primary and so now I will be teaching myself and getting a lot of piano practice in.

Goal #2- Paint my room:
Again, didn't happen. Reason- no money for paint, at least the paint I want. I have some paint from my mom and from other projects, so I could use that, but they aren't the colors I want. In fact, no room in the house was painted this year.

Goal #3- Establish a strawberry bed:
Ummm, yeah. The bed is there, all laid out, but planting the strawberries didn't turn out so good this year. Robert and I have different ideas on gardening, both good, but both don't always match up. Somehow the location we picked for a strawberry bed gets dried out really fast. I tried to keep up with watering it, but alas, the plants shriveled up and died.

Goal #4- Finish curtains for the sliding glass door:
Nope, this didn't happen either. It wasn't that I didn't spend time at my sewing machine, it just was that I had other things I was working on, like patching the knees in pants, or turning pants into skirts. Things that kept the family clothed.

Goal #5- Refinish coffee table:
Well, this one got about half way done, so that's progress. I got it painted and a layer or resin poured in. I thought I had enough resin, but it didn't go as far as I wanted it to, so I bought a big thing on the internet and it had gelled somehow and wouldn't work, so that was a bust. I would still like to make the resin layer thicker, but it works for right now.

So yeah, not much of what I intended to do got done this year, and honestly, I don't feel too bad about it. While each of the above goals were good ones, I spent my time on things that I felt were more important, and my money also. I know that I did a lot of things that were less important, too though. This year I would like to work on that a little bit.

I don't really know what my goals for this coming year will be. A lot of things happened this past year that have made me reflect on what is important and what I really want out of my life and who I want to become. One thing that I know I want to do, though, is to simplify. I want to simplify my house and my life in a major way. I'll let you know how that goes.