All around me people are embarking on new adventures. New dreams are being realized, and I sort of feel like I am being left behind.

It was about 5 o'clock this morning when I heard Zoe crying. I was dead asleep and the idea of getting out of my cozy bed was not appealing, not in the least. I was warm. The blankets were molded just right. Everything was optimal.

It feels so much later than it really is, and the day has just flown by...but I need to take a few moments and really reflect, really see, really savor the last dozen or so hours.

It's not strange to think a birthday would have you start to reflect on the life you are living. Who and how you serve, parent, friend, and think.

It's been a wild few years, as I've said over and over again. I'm not going to lie, I haven't always dealt with it all with grace or humility. I haven't always adjusted my focus tpo the eternal and away from the spiritual...but more often than not I have. I have striven to see god when I felt blind, and listen to the whisper of His small voice. I have wanted to live out who He was calling me to be and walk the path I felt was the one He placed me on.

I fell, I got pretty beat up along the way, but mt great big God always waited next to me, with His hand outstretched to lift me up.

Today was fun and amazing, with nothing particular spectacular. A rare midweek breakfast and movie date with the one person on this earth who loves me beyond measure, the joy of a stolen day together. A relaxing dinner and a casual conversation in patio chairs on display at Kohl's with a dear friend. Nothing spectacular but a day marked with the profound.

Today, in messages that were unexpected, in gifts that were small tokens or grand gestures, in cards from other countries...in all of these things...an assurance that I was loved for simply being me. That I was valuable to people whom I love. That God gave me a life to live with great relationship and joy.

Today I saw myself through the eyes of God as special and called for purpose. Today I knew who i was more clearly than I have in ages.

Today petty disputes and profound disagreements ceased to define or darken the great love that I have been blessed with.

Today God met me and spoke with me in a voice as loud as thunder. Spoke to me a language of deep, unimaginable love.

Today I was freed. Again.

I'm just saying...

Today is one of those days that makes me long for summer. For long, warm, lazy days. For barbecues and beach days.

The weather is not crisp like autumn today, it's warm and the pool looks inviting. And it seems far too long since my family has had time to just lounge.

So here I am, longing for swimsuits and knowing Christmas is just around the corner.

It is just after 10pm and my sweet baby boy is running around the living room, a full 2 1/2 hours after his bedtime...with no sign of slowing down.

We had a long after noon at his grandmothers house and a hard nap in the car on the hour drive home... so now his internal clock is all wonky.

Before I had children, and especially before I had 4, I never imagined that this would be okay with me. That I would give in to a child who clearly didn't understand what his little body needs.

But here I am.

Is this my ideal? No. The best choice? Probably not.

I am doing what is best for us now with the resources I have available.

I know I am far from the perfect parent and sometimes I'm not even on the same planet as that ideal. But I try. I try everyday to do the best I can and reevaluate when I'm not doing so well...

In short, I am working really hard at being honest with my goals, motivations, and failures.

Isn't that the best any of us can do?

Look at what the truth is and correct where life's not working?

In looking through some old rough drafts on my blog and found this in a post that never got finished :

Every single morning that I consent to get out of bed and live my life is a step I take in faith. A step I take in the true hope and belief that my God, my Father, my Abba will meet with me, strengthen me, and carry me. I understand why people throw in the towel after something difficult. Why they let the darkness win. It takes a lot to keep going and the world is rarely ready to slow down and meet my pace. There are days that just staying in bed looks like a pretty good plan. If I did that though, if I just stayed in bed I'd miss everything that matters. So I say to God that I will serve him and honor him by living.

Wow.

It amazes me how quickly and completely life can change in a matter of weeks or months. I remember feeling this. Being overwhelmed by it. Nearly being suffocated by it...

And now? While this day, in and of itself, hasn't really been terrific and has had it's own upsets that led to a pretty decent temper tantrum, I am in a wholly different place.

In embracing what God has to offer, in looking to Him to guide each step or carry me when I just couldn't walk anymore, I have seen more of Him. Of His beauty, grace, and strength.

I have seen the gift of friendships, old and new.Of helping lead someone nearer a relationship with God. Of living my faith, and living who God created me to be, out loud.

I can even say I am grateful for the struggle, though I hope it lets up soon.

Today is a day where I really struggle with the point, the idea, and the reason to blog in the first place. It's hard when I know so many of the people I really love and care about will be reading because it leads me to a need to censor so as not to put anyone else's "stuff" out there.

That's why my blog has been so quiet. I have some big stuff going on in my heart and in my head, but it's stuff that could either be construed as gossip or passive aggressive if I wrote about it. And in my deepest heart of hearts, I don't want to be either of those things...even when it's easy to be.

I have been looking a lot at who I am. I have been doing it in light of some negative messages that I have gotten lately. More of the ugly tapes I have played for years and felt like I finally managed to, at the very least, mute. I knew they weren't destroyed but I hoped they had been edited sufficiently... But then from an unexpected and influential source...blam! Same ugly messages.

So I have been doing a good bit of self examination...and examination of relationships I have.

In some ways I welcome these opportunities because they force me to look at myself critically and that is always really good. Even when it is painful. I spent a lot of time in my life feeling like a failure who had to justify her shortcomings... now I know I am just a regular old person who screws up and needs to own that. When I am wrong, or when I have given out the perception to someone that they are undervalued by me I want to own that. Even though it hurts and it's hard to admit.

So I have been doing a lot of evaluating. Sometimes when you do that though you realize you place a lot of value on certain things that others just don't. And that's kind of hard.

To all my less -than-three girls... I value each and every one of you. It's obvious that I spend lots more time with some, or one, of you more than the others. But each and everyone of you are special and amazing and I feel absolutely honored to have each of you in my life... To have shared such the most life changing moments in my life with you. To watch each of you continue on or find the path God has laid before you excites me more than you will ever know. I pray for you all everyday...

My youngest son is spending his second night in his "big boy bed" tonight. He loves the bed though he insists "I still yittle, I just has a big boy bed."

I looked at him sleeping there yesterday and thought he looked so small, yet...not. Not anymore.

I was away for a week and in that week he went and grew up on me. His speech pattens are different and his face looks more boyish now, and less like a baby. I missed so much in that week. Yet what I missed was almost unidentifiable to anyone but his daddy and I.

I am so grateful that I am home with my kids everyday. that I see every little thing and can note the minor changes in just a week.

I have had people tell me I am "lucky" to be able to stay home, and while I am truly blessed beyond measure, there is no luck in this decision.

Way back, what feels like a million years ago, my then-fiance and I were sitting in a booth in our favorite Mexican restaurant and I said "I just want you to know, I won't put my kids in daycare." I think he agreed without fulling understanding what that meant, but he did agree and it became a tenet of our marriage from the beginning. I am so grateful.

Everyday I am grateful to have a husband who is so passionately in favor of me being the 24 hour on-call mother to our kids. The one who kisses all the boo-boos. The one who gets to deal with all the attitudes. The one who has memorized everything from Blue's Clues to Spongebob. The one who has at one point or another had just about every kind of oozy, drippy, runny, or lumpy kid secretion on me or my clothes. The one who's been embarrassed in the grocery store and filled with pride at the playground.

It hasn't always been easy, cheep, or lucrative to be here. To be home when bills piled up, or stresses did. It hasn't even always been affordable. And we do without a lot of the extras...but we never want for anything of import. God always provides. Often He even provides a little...or a lot...extra.

I don't really know the point of this blog and I certainly hope it doesn't sound all mom-against-mom. I think most parents want to do the best they can. Gosh, I hope they do anyway.

I guess, I don't know, I guess I just wanted to put it out there. Most really amazing things don't come easy or by accident. They require a lot of effort and determination. This is no different.

I wish every mother could and would stay home with her children. It's blessings times one million. I know there are mothers that can't, and I want to support them anyway I can, but sadly, I also know there are mothers that just wont, and that is heartbreaking.

I have been a fan of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strips for, well, I think for as long as they have existed.

The way Watterson uses the vivid imagination and simple, yet profound, logic of a six year old boy to impress the hearts and minds of adults amazes me.

There is one strip that has moved me as a parent, and as someone who has lost someone I love... I was reminded of it today...

The Raccoon...get your tissues.

Would I be crazy if I said I wanted to run a marathon...or more truthfully finish, even if I'm crawling, a marathon?

I don't enjoy running. I have often said you should really only run if someone is chasing you. I still believe that.

But I have this strange desire to do something really big, and really outside of myself. Something I would need to train for and endure.

I have felt this for a while, but tonight it was an object lesson during bible study...and again the spark.

A quick google just revealed a marathon in a nearby city, the day before Eden's birthday...

Hmmmm?

I'm sitting here, looking at the blank screen, my thoughts all muddled.

Ok, here's the deal. Tomorrow I will get out of bed and make it. I will do my dishes and enjoy my kids and my friend. I will do my biblestudy homework...and I will be kind and gentle with myself.

I will not sit in my dark thoughts, set up camp, and stay. I will not allow brokenness to destroy me.

I think I've been dangling my feet in the pit too long and if I keep sitting here I might just fall in.

So here's to simple steps...

I didn't blog yesterday. :(

It wasn't so much that I didn't want to or couldn't, but my typical blogging moments come when the house is quiet, so I generally put the kids in bed and wax philosophical...

Yesterday was my hubby's birthday and we spent the whole day, as a family, outside. In the 90* weather, swimming and hanging out.

This is probably my favorite way to spend a day, and always results in the best sleep ever.

So after a day in the sun and a yummy summer dinner of hot dogs and chips, Steven and I settled in for some time relaxing and watching tv...and then I fell asleep on the couch.

When I woke up I had a fleeting though about my blog but the cool bedsheets won. So I failed. At the very end...I failed.

This is hard for me. I have not been in a place to speak gently to myself and been far too aware of my shortcomings this week.

I often don't finish things. I hate not finishing things. It brings to mind a lot of things that were said over me in judgment. A lot of hurtful things I took in and allowed to grow and define me.

So I decided I'd still write today. To not just throw in the towel, defeated. I am going to accept my failing but not allow it to make me a failure.

Now four minutes I will be celebrating the birthday of my dear husband.

Actually we celebrated tonight with a lovely date...

I am tired.

Goodnight.

I have a problem.

In my kitchen, on the baker's rack, all filled out and ready to send in, I have a special subscription offer to The Crafter's Book of the Month Club.

This might not seem that bad... but... but...


And seriously, I am so excited about the numbers I filled into the little spaces I can barely contain myself.

It's the very same feeling I get in an office supply store...

I'm tired tonight...but I'm really excited to report that a few good decisions and a little self control and I have lost four pounds.

It's not that four pounds is all the weight I need to loose, or even ten percent, but it's a small reward for doing stuff that isn't easy, but is right.

So maybe when it gets hard to do the right thing elsewhere, or when it's a sacrifice to do it, I'll look at those four little pounds and remember that there is a reason, and eventual pay off.

Tonight? I'm going to talk about my husband...

This summer will mark my 15th wedding anniversary. 15 years is just under half of my life and well over half of what I remember or feel like matters in my life. So, in some respects it's hard to imagine my life before he was a part of it.

Being married isn't always the easiest thing in the world. There is an awful lot of sacrifice that goes into making a partnership of this magnitude. I mean, who wakes up everyday and looks forward to making sure someone else has clean underwear? And there are plenty of times you just have to "take one for the team" like today when I desperately wanted a nap but knew all the work my husband had to do and the kids needed tending.

The other side of those sacrifices is something I'm not even sure I can put into words. It's being loved for every unique and quirky thing you do and are. It's having a very best friend you can turn to or lean on any time and in any circumstance.

This last year has been incredibly painful in so many ways and through it we have grown closer than I ever could have imagined. I have felt love that is so close to the perfect love of Jesus that I almost cry to type it out. I have wept agonizing tears and held Him as he did the same... and with each moment I have fallen ever deeper in love with his Man of God.

In the midst of all of it I think we have laughed more and laughed harder than ever before. The flipside of so much hurt has created so much joy.

I am planning a trip out of town that I am looking forward too but that he won't be able to join me on... and I know I will have so much incredible fun, but my stomach sort of drops when I think about being apart that long.

So there ya go... nothing amazing. Just a big sappy declaration of love

I have decided it's time to buckle down and really lose the extra weight I have been carrying. It's a little harder now to decide this because I so don't want to be one of those women chained to the ever self hating cycle of weight loss and gain.

I don't want to be on a diet, obsessed with how many point are in a quarter cup of M&M's (4 by the way. Just one point shy of a slice of yummy pizza). I just want to be someone who is happy with whatever shape my body is in. Someone more concerned with my inner core than the outer package and how it weighs me down. I just want to make good food choices and let my body take it's natural shape...

But I haven't been making good choices and so much of that *is* a reflection of my inner core. Of rebellion. Of grief. Of busyness. Of bad planning. Of time not well spent... so I am going to try and use the outer tools to help me gain perspective on the inner me.

And I don't want to. I really am thinking I would like a break from all the refinement...until I get alone with my Jesus and realize I see him clearer everyday. That when I am refined I am more accurately able to reflect his image to others. So I am going to welcome the process and allow God to pick me up when I fall down instead of just lying there in the dirt.

I'm going to take care of this person God loves so very much as an offering to Him. I'm going to let Him show me true beauty. I am going to shed the pounds of baggage I know I still carry.

Well, my brain is chocked full of cluttered thoughts to share... none of which are fully formed thanks to lots of good sun and adult onset allergies.

Today I was at a local park, an old favorite from my childhood filled with tons and tons of wonderful memories. My kids were playing with friends, celebrating the birthday of one.

A regular afternoon when tragedy struck just a little too close...

A boy was missing. Not one of our boys, but a boy who was at the park with his grandfather and brother. Grandpa turned away for a second and his two and a half year old grandson was just...gone.

People from another birthday party fanned out. A few from our party...looking in trees, trashcans, bathrooms...scouring the adjacent neighborhood. Everyone seemed so calm in the midst of it, but I know that inside I was screaming.

I thought of the call to the parents, the guilt of the grandfather, of the brother who would always know they had been playing together. I made the connection to the boy being about the same age as my youngest boy. Inside I broke. Now I am sure the people with me reading this are thinking "Huh? She didn't seem all that invested actually." But inside I imagined losing another child and I just broke.

Within about 15 minutes the park was surrounded and swarming with police. It's been said before, but police in that city, they just don't mess around.

So we, at the party, gathered together and prayed. What more could we do? We didn't see the boy, there were probably 20-30 people already on foot...so we prayed.

When I spotted a mail truck I went to check with him, grateful for a few seconds alone just walking over. He'd seen nothing. But Thank You Jesus, while I was talking to the mailman, the boy was spotted just wandering a few streets over.

The police picked him up and brought him back to grandpa, we took him some water, and settled into a nice relaxing party. One where our own children were constantly counted and recounted...and told to stay just a little bit closer.