Reasonable Resilience

I have been alone for the night. Eric went up north with the highschool kids to kick off their new season. I was supposed to go because I'm hoping to be involved with more youth events this year and in the years to come. Eric and I both think that my involvement will help me deal with the long hours and the emotionally charged conversations we have about his job. I hope it works. Anyway, I wasn't able to go because we have children. Let me restate that. We have children and no family or friends nearby who can or will care for them. I understand our friends who have kids and cannot really add two more for good measure, I wouldn't want to impose on them anyway. I hate living away from family. Let me restate that too. I hate feeling like I'm just getting used to living away from family. Eric said the other day that when he's done with his schooling that anything can happen. Other churches out of state can start calling and you never know where we might end up. What? ...

Have you thought of this? Do you live IN the world, or do you live OF the world? Have you succumed to the ways of the world and feel like you can't pull yourself back? OR Do you live in this world and see what goes on and know that's not what you want for you or your family and CHOOSE to be an example for you children and set an example for the rest of the world. And are there moments where you may think, ummmm, why am I doing this? sure, you'll have that, but COME BACK!!. Know that you are placed here for a reason and that reason may only be seen by one person or maybe two little sets of eyes and ears that hear and see everything, but those little sets can learn from you and be IN this world and not OF it. They need to know, they need to see and LIVE! I hope God doesn't smite me for my words, and I know I could be a bit "liberal" for some (I would have never thought that of myself)but why wouldn't I want to be outside of my "community" making di...

BE NICE! I'm sick of saying this and I don't see the end in site.

When life gives you blueberries... make yummy blueberry coffee cake... and then a blueberry pie... I wish it was always so easy, right? I'm sitting in the kitchen with my 1 year old at 2:20am thinking about what I'm going to do with all these berries, not just the blue ones. Lifes berries, God's berries. You know, the ones He hands you and says, "take good care". Or that good one about not eating it, or else... Deciding what to do with my "berries" has me in a pickle. We've been doing God's work, or at least we think we have and I'm feeling like we've given up on making pies and coffee cake out of our OWN berries, the ones we picked ourselves. (let me know if you're lost) What I mean is that our life has become somewhat of a struggle for me, and Eric too. Where will He send us, how much of this is for learning purposes, why here? Eric is doing class work to finish up his schooling hopfully by next April and I've been hel...

You're there. I have words but am scared to use them at times. Am I "free" to say what I want? I had a dream last night and I told two people. I would like to tell all of you, but I geta funny sick feeling whenever I think about it. I thought maybe talking about it would help. I think I was wrong. This is Eric, he caught 5 of those fish. It's really the first time he's ever been fishing to catch something. He spent $28 on a fishing license and thinks he may have caught enough to cover the cost. I asked him if he'll go again in the next year and he doesn't think he will. Let's find this man a hobby! Anyone have any salmon recipes? I don't have any opinions today, oh wait, yes I do. Why is it that you can tell someone that you don't want to be a part of something but they always come back and you always end up doing it anyway? People tell me and I tell Eric all the time that we need to learn to "say no". Why would I say no when I ...

I was reading this blog last night and I really couldn't say it any better myself so, go here .

I'm taking a break. I've been cleaning because people are coming over. How do you train yourself to got motivation to KEEP your house clean? I'm up for any ideas. I would love to have a routine or something that allows me to do a little everyday and not a lot one day. I guess I just answered my own question. But with two kids, lots of laundry, even more dishes and a job it seems daunting. In other news, this weekend is the big camping to Manistee! We are preparing to leave on saturday morning and return home on wednesday afternoon. Eric's going to be fishing, although he informed me that he might not get up at 5 am every morning to fish the day away. Ha Ha, I think the "fun" of it will wear off about 5:15 sunday morning. We'll see.

What was I thinking? Leonardo, Kate. Titanic was a hit right? So I rented this movie, Revolutionary Road. We hadn't rented in a very long time and I thought, hey it's cheaper than going to see a movie, getting babysitters are expensive these days. Well, I knew it would be rough but I got it anyway. Eric was not happy. At one point he asked if he could have my headphones to listen to his laptop instead of the movie. I'll just say this. If you're at a point in your marriage were you could go one of two directions, one good, one bad, don't rent this flick! It's real, it's hard to watch. Luckily for Eric and I, we aren't at that place, we never have been and I hope we won't ever get there. Now, it's 4am and I'm sitting at the kitchen table with my little boy thinking, I really shouldn't have watched that movie because I could have gone to bed earlier in preperation for this night. If you have seen it, or you do let me know what you think.

So, yesterday I found out that there are people out there that think that MckMama is a fraud. I found out as much info as I could and decided they are all jerks. I'm going to keep reading and take from it what I want. I don't care where she lives, what car she drives if her house is in forclosure or how she decides to spend her money. Also, what's the big deal with people sending her family money and gifts. She says flat out in her blog that they don't want the gifts and would rather people send them to children other than Stellan even if he really is sick in the hospital and they could use help with money. Some people are just out to start an argument and I don't see the good in it. If you don't want to read, then don't. Leave them ALONE!

Sister, Brother, friends

So, we had our small group tonight and we had fun. I feel like it's been awhile since we relaxed as we did tonight. I felt like it took some time to get the house in order, we did travel down to Gregory (Ann Arbor) for a little boy birthday party, and we didn't get to use our new picmic table as Grace refers to it. Our family here in Saginaw isn't like our relatives, or even our friends elsewhere, but we can laugh, and we can talk about "deep" issues that we wouldn't otherwise discuss. I love this family And finally we learned that we love Guitar Hero