Archive for the Family Category

Just let it go?

Here’s a little something I’m dragging out of the drafts hole. It was written over a span of about 5 months from Sep 2011 – Jan 2012.

I had this little running “joke” with our former pastor on Sunday mornings:

Pastor: “How are you?”
Me: “Self-righteous and bitter.”
Pastor: “Alrighty then.” (or something to that effect)

I always answered it in a joking kind of way, but really, I was/am dead serious. I think he knew it. The result of being self-righteous and bitter is being angry…often. Combine that with out of control (or out of sync) hormones (that’s a story in itself, which my doc thinks is more likely linked to my diet and somewhat addressed here), and you have a volatile mix. I’m going off at the least little thing, nit-picking over insignificant things, and emotionally collapsing into tears either from sheer anger or guilt from getting so angry over something stupid. Did I mention I was never much of a cryer? But I digress.

The self-righteousness and the bitterness have been there for years, but I never really noticed them for what they were. Generally speaking, I filed them away under a blanket of righteous indignation. After all, I was right to be angry because I was being wronged, or someone I loved was being wronged.

The anger wouldn’t be such an issue if it was just anger, albeit justified anger and not getting mad over something stupid. But, even if it is “justifiable” anger, it becomes an issue when it is something I’m not letting go of.

I keep dwelling on issues when they pop up in my head. The longer I stew on them, the angrier I get, and the angrier I get the more I want to go off on a self-righteous rant letting the “offender” know just how ate up they are. I have finally realized that the things that piss me off the most are things I do myself, and more often than not involve pride.

But at the heart of the matter, it boils down to a lack of forgiveness on my part. This lack of forgiveness is most blatantly on display towards my husband. Of all the people/situations I’ve stewed over and held grudges over, I have mostly held grudges against him, and not well held under control. But it is no more or no less venomous and vile. Sheer poison. It isn’t as if he is blameless. Even he will tell people there is only one thing that I have ever adamantly put my foot down about. It’s that one hot button trigger that holds the potential to split us up. I’ve threatened divorce (with every intention of backing it up), and I’ve wished all kinds of calamity on him from arrest to death. Yes, you read that right. I have wished he would die.

That’s cold-hearted right there. Completely unloving.

I know that my response is every bit as wrong as what he does that prompts it. I can see it coming, and I pray for grace to “shut up and pray”, and I quote scripture to myself and swear I will be quiet and let it go. But more often than not, I succumb to the voice that tells me I don’t deserve be treated like that, lied to, messed with, etc, and it all goes downhill from there. But then a day or two later, it’s over, we pick up and try again or just avoid any mention of what went down…pretending nothing ever happened and all is well. But it’s not. The hurt is still there. The broken promises still there. The “I want what I want and I want it on my terms” is still there, even when we confess and apologize to each other afterward. It’s a vicious cycle.

I’m left with questions. Why can’t I let go of the bitterness and resentment, and just forgive? Why do I insist on hanging on to it when I really don’t want it and know that it just eats me up?

Just to bring this up to date, my diet wasn’t the issue with my out of control emotions. In many ways it was a result, and that still remains an issue. Also divorce has been taken off the table as an option. I will add that once that no longer became an option, things got worse. WAY worse. I also have answered those 2 questions, and well, I pretty much had answered it within the original post. Self-righteousness for one, but victimhood also.

The solution is constant prayer. Constant preaching the gospel to myself. Constant reminder that the old me died with Jesus, and I’ve been set free from the bondage of self-gratification. Constant reminder that I am not God, that He sees what I can’t, and that He is in control. Constant reminder that He never promised ease and comfort in this life. Constant reminder of 1 Corinthians love. Constant reminder that I live in a broken and fallen world, and I am still a work in progress. Constant reminder to be thankful always.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in meβ€”practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9, ESV)

Get a hold of yourself

I heard that a lot growing up. I’m pretty sure my dad was the one who would say it to me, but it could have been my mom or both of them. It was a warning when I would get either too excited and was starting to get too “rambunctious” or was working up to a meltdown over something. It was a long way of saying “calm down” or “chill out.” Without that outside discipline, I would have been wide-open, full-throttle all the time. I just never really developed that as a self-discipline whether happy, sad, angry, or whatever so that out on my own, there was little restraint in acting out.

Slowly, I have come to understand that acting out rather than taking a moment or so to “get a hold of myself” results in destructive behavior one way or another. No matter the circumstances I tend to speak or act without thinking about the effect on others. Or I sit and stew on it internalizing until I end up metaphorically vomiting on someone who probably didn’t have anything to do with what I was stewing on. Or I just act out without knowing all the facts and/or giving the benefit of the doubt and then find out I was completely wrong about the whole situation.

The past few weeks, there has been a recurrent theme popping up in sermons I’m listening to (both at my church, and podcasts), some of the blogs I read, and a book I’m currently reading. When the same thing keeps popping up, it’s a good indication that I need to be paying close attention. And so I’ve been mulling all this over. Chewing on it, if you will. It makes perfect sense, but there was just still a little bit gnawing at me with it with regards to application. Sometimes I’m slow. For instance, years ago, I heard a sermon (I think it was more of a series of sermons) about a particular topic. I “got it,” but I wholeheartedly disagreed, and therefore didn’t believe it applied to me at all. Years later, I heard another sermon, and “got it” to the point of believing it applied to me. I even heard another teacher teach on it, fully agreeing, and later found myself chewing it all over when the light bulb went off. It was the same thing I had heard as a kid and completely rejected, and this time I really “got it.” The whole concept. Better late than never right? πŸ˜‰

Anyway, I’m now seeing a twist to this latest thing that I hadn’t expected. Since I have already put it out there once, I’ll put it out there again. Because that’s how I roll. My husband is an alcoholic/drug addict, and it is a sickness that spreads throughout the entire family. I struggle with it probably as much as he does because I think (wrongly) that it should be easier for him to give up the drugs and alcohol than it is. I fall into that thinking because I was relatively easily delivered from my porn addiction (which was just a portion of the problem). When my drinking gets to be “problem drinking,” it’s relatively easy for me to just not drink. I can carry around percocet with me 24×7 and not take it. But then I “conveniently” forget how hard it was to quit smoking and stay quit. And how many years I would still crave a cigarette. I still got an occasional craving.

But since I forget what is difficult for me, I fall into that trap of thinking I know the solution. “Just go to AA! You know it works!” Here’s the problem. He said once that at AA all they talk about is drinking, and that just makes him want to drink. That did not make a lick of sense to me despite the fact that I can spot a lit cigarette smouldering in the street as I am driving and crave so bad it takes every bit of willpower I have not to stop and buy a pack. I think it was Pastor Benji who was talking about what we concentrate on saying that for an alcoholic that’s trying to quit drinking by saying “Don’t drink! Don’t drink!” over and over to themselves is always thinking about drinking. And so, eventually, they will drink again. And now I get it.

Therefore, all the sermons, blogs, and the book are all saying the same thing. If you are always (or mostly) thinking about not committing a particular sin (or sins), your focus is on the wrong thing. It’s not merely a battle of wills. It’s like when Jesus was walking on the water toward the boat the disciples were in, and had Peter to walk out to him. Peter was walking on the water just fine as long as he was looking at Jesus. When he looked at the wind and the waves, he began to sink. He lost his focus on who was keeping him on top of the water in the storm. If any of us could overcome our sin by sheer willpower, we wouldn’t need Jesus at any point in our lives. Bottom line, we never stop needing Jesus. So instead of looking at our temptations and trying to overcome it by white-knuckling through the weakness, we need to look to Jesus and reach out to him. We will be overcome with exhaustion eventually trying to do it ourselves, but He will never let us go.

Rather than “getting a hold of myself,” I need to let go of myself. Rather than spending my energy on trying not to do what I don’t want to do, focus on doing what I know to be good, looking to Jesus to lead me where He wants me.

Maniacal Monday #22

This looks to be another busy week. 3 counseling appointments today. 2 for the kids, and 1 for me. Fun times. Since I was going to have to miss half a day of work anyway, I decided since my bed felt so good this morning, I would just take the whole day. I may or may not regret that decision. πŸ˜‰

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I lost a battle with the lawn mower yesterday. There’s just too much to describe without pics that I don’t feel like taking, so suffice to say that even though I can easily put the blade assembly back into the spindle and tighten it down, I cannot get the belt out from under another pully (that has a stripped bolt). So it’s going to probably require a new belt unless the hubs can get it out. But, after that battle was lost, I went in and showered, and by this time Jamie was the only one home besides me. She announced she was leaving shortly, and there I was left at home. Alone. In. The. Quiet. It was fabulous. So much so I had to text Petra and gloat a little about not knowing what to do with myself. She gave me a suggestion which I followed.

And then the kids came home, and I went to bed. lol

KitKat. That cat is so stupid. This is where she has been perching lately.

KitKatLedge

She sits there, falls asleep, and then falls off. Then she runs right back up there and does it again. Over and over. And Jamie won’t keep her in her room at night to prevent it. Dumb cat.

I’m on the schedule for next Sunday. This time there is only 1 song that I don’t know at all. lol

I’m working on eating clean again. By clean I mean no artificial colors/flavors and minimal artificial preservative. Went grocery shopping Saturday and one of the items we needed was salt. I went after sea salt. James was with me and picked up a container of salt and said “Here.” I took it and looked at the ingredients. Then I read them to him. I picked up another container, and handed it to him saying “Read the ingredients.” “Natural sea salt.” Ok, it probably isn’t “natural,” but it claims to have been harvested from the Mediterranean. And it is one ingredient. Salt.

Now I am back after the meeting with the kids’ counselors. James looked at me and said “You look tired.” Understatement. Drained. And I still have my appointment to go to. It will be a barrel of laughs now. Not that it ever is. πŸ˜‰

Someone pooped on the floor in front of the litter box instead of IN it. KitKat has a history of that. Stupid cat.

And I rode 9.8 miles Saturday. There is a hill I am determined to conquer. I didn’t have to push my bike up it this time, but I did stop 3 times on the way up before I made it to the top. If I can ride up St Vincent street, I can ride up that hill. Ok, I probably can’t ride up St Vincent right now and since I live 900 miles away, I won’t be trying. 25 years ago I could ride up St Vincent. Anyway, I really pushed it because after about 3 miles I saw rain clouds. I then began to race against the rain. I would say that I won, except the rain went around us.

Funday Friday #21

This week. I’m glad it’s over. And I switched my “happy pills” back to morning because I think that change to evening was a bad move. And not because I was grouchy that one morning. lol It hasn’t been a bad week, just a busy one. I think I might have been busier this afternoon than I have been the past 2 weeks because at one point I had 3 different things going on at the same time.

Wednesday the hubby and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. Hard to believe it’s been 20 years. Many of those rough years. I told James weeks ago that we were going to Shucker’s for our anniversary because Petra raved about it after they went the first time. And just like the bison burger, she didn’t do it justice. I’m pretty sure I could have eaten my weight that night especially since I couldn’t eat any hush puppies or garlic bread. πŸ˜‰

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Of course last night was Halloween as if no one knew. haha. Chad asked me to take him and his friends trick or treating. I gave him the “You’re too old to still be trick or treating” look, but finally conceded that I would take him if his daddy would pick him up. Ended up taking Chad and 2 of his friends and Jamie and one of hers. 5 total. 4 teenage boys and Jamie. lol But, you know, I decided to make the most of it. So I halfway dressed up.

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Gizmo’s photobomb makes the photo. Jamie came out of her room and spent the rest of the time complaining about how I just made her life hurt. Then I spotted Chad walking up the driveway with his 2 friends, so I walked out to meet them. I wish I had captured the moment when they saw me. Chad was just about as mortified as Jamie. I was thoroughly entertained.

Heard this on the radio this morning. Took me back.

Monday Morning

Rough and stressful week leads to waking up Saturday morning with a migraine. Oh, fun times. And I ended up driving to Cary twice. Yes, twice. With that migraine. Why you may ask? Or maybe you don’t, but I will tell you anyway. lol I preordered Pokemon X and Y for the kids way back in the summer, and they were released Saturday. :sigh: Then Jamie had a birthday party invite for Saturday night and insisted on going to Hot Topic to get her friend a present. I let James have the honor of taking her to the party. πŸ˜‰

I rode 12.5 miles on my new bike yesterday. Oh, my. One of my co-workers was laughing over my John Wayne walk down the hall earlier to get coffee. There is a lot of pain today. I rode to the point of exhaustion, and one does not simply walk down stairs after a long ride until one recovers a little bit.

Jamie burned eggs again this morning. When I walked out of my bedroom, I smelled something that smelled like toast. I assumed it was Chad, but when I walked into the kitchen, I saw the pan of eggs. One exploded before I could get to the stove and turn off the fire. I was so mad. I went to her room and banged on it yelling at her to get in the kitchen. Well, Chad pops out and immediately sat down at his desk and started working on homework. I said, “That wasn’t for you. That was for Jamie.” Back I go and ripped into her. Later, after I left and cooled off, I sent her a text apologizing for yelling.

KitKat decided to puke in my room yesterday morning. While I was eating. Evie and Gizmo decided they both needed to chase Tiger and Sushi/Mako yesterday all over the house. It was funny for a while, but then it got old. I laughed at Evie because she just can’t move very quickly. But she gave it what she had.

I got a text from one of my cousins yesterday evening asking me if I joined the Air Force before I graduated from UCA. I found it to be kind of an odd question out of the blue (blue – Air Force – see what I did there? No? lol), but I have been known to text her an odd question out of the blue too. Anyway, I, of course, answered sarcastically with “Are you thinking of joining?” But then I actually answered that I joined right after graduating.

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Oh, my goodness I laughed so hard. I’m still laughing over it. :rofl2:

I got caught up grading and recording Jamie’s school work Saturday. Chad is still way behind, and we didn’t get to his Algebra this weekend either. I had to change the wifi password AGAIN because Chad managed to get it. I know how, but he won’t own up to it. Or, well, let me just say that one of the kids is lying about how he got it. Anyway, until I sit down on his desktop long enough to get the mac address and specifically block him, I just have to keep my desktop locked. So, I have tweaked scheduling a little bit to have a little better handle on what they are supposed to be doing.

That hair:

Funday Friday #18

Oh, man. This has been quite the week. I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders today because I had a really hard time going to sleep last night. The cats (Tiger and Sushi/Mako) played a very large role in that until about midnight. But additionally, things that I had been trying to ride out for the last few weeks just kind of dumped on me this week, and I spent some time connecting dots. Also, I think much was easy to mask thanks to my “happy pills” so that I was reverting back into my old coping skills that quit being effective decades ago. And other stuff that is for a post of its own.

Anyway, big shout out to Petra for looking me in the eye and speaking some hard truth to me last night. And praying for me. Also, she needs to blog. πŸ˜‰

Another shout out to Molly for listening to me dump a little the other day, and then praying for me. She is running her first half marathon tomorrow. GO MOLLY!!!!

For the second time in a week I had to change the wifi password over the kids not getting their work done. :sigh: Chad and I had a pretty good talk yesterday morning about school work in which there was no belligerence or threatening. I really love it when we can sit and talk to each other rationally. Jamie and I have mainly communicated through texting this week. I got a good laugh yesterday when I texted her the new password. She replied with “Can’t you not make stupid passwords?” No. πŸ™‚ And that password got that stupid fox song out of my head finally. Until I just typed that. ugh.

I haven’t been to Al-Anon in like 3 weeks. So of course I have seen 2 people from my home group in the past week. The lack of attendance probably has a lot to do with my attitude this week. I did have a counseling appointment this week and it was terrible because I was all brain foggy and could barely make coherent sentences or say the right words. I did a lot of hand talking. I left so exhausted that I sat in my car afterword for a while recovering.

I’ve been eating and drinking like crap.

KitKat caught/killed another mouse in my office yesterday. I missed it which is fine with me.

Happy Friday!

“Like sands through the hourglass…”

And now all I can hear is the theme music from Days of our Lives. I never was a big fan. I watched it enough to know the long time characters, but I just couldn’t ever stay into soaps. Except Santa Barbara. But I dumped it when Lane Davies left. Anywho…

I’m tired. It seems all I did over the weekend was grading. I really hope the kids don’t get all behind like that again this week. :sigh:

I did clean out my car though. The back floorboard was starting to look like a dumpster. It needs to be washed, but ain’t nobody got time fo dat.

If Granny Eoff’s fresh apple cake recipe was ever a secret, it isn’t anymore. I posted it on Facebook for a couple of folks, and at least 3 people reshared. lol But, I have Aunt Cora’s Italian Cream Cake recipe now, so it’s all good. And that all came about because I shared a old picture of my then young Granny for #throwbackthursday.

I didn’t run this weekend. Don’t judge me.

I took Chad out and let him practice driving…my car. :nervous2: He did good, but I still could have used a valium. πŸ˜‰

I didn’t learn from another’s mistake and ate a Snickers Friday evening. Oh, yes, it was a mistake.

And, I’m all set to audition next week for the C.O.R.E. Worship team. By all set I mean I told Bradford I could do it next Sunday. Eek! It’s now time to get serious about learning those songs. I mean, I know them, but I need to know them without the crutch of words and chords in front of me.

Still didn’t get around to making Petra a pie. Because it’s just so hard to peel and slice apples. πŸ˜‰

The kids got their new glasses today.

Oh, and since I gave up the caffeine, I am sleeping better at night. Huh. Really, I wasn’t drinking much and rarely had any after lunch, but I am sleeping for longer than an hour or two at a time. AND I’m not having so many headaches.

Chad didn’t appreciate me playing this when his friends were over Saturday night. I enjoyed it immensely. πŸ˜‰

Adventures in homeschooling

I know it’s only been one day, and I know that I’m not the one there making sure they sit down and do their work, but I think I’m going to dig this homeschooling thing. Scheduling was a bit off yesterday, and they got started later than intended, but they finished everything in just a couple of hours letting me know that I didn’t overload them with work. Granted, they were each missing a class to work on, but still.

The other class material came in yesterday. Given how quickly they went through their work yesterday, I think they will do fine with the full load.

There really wasn’t any complaining though Jamie didn’t seem to care too much for Algebra II. And grading her Algebra II work was like I had traveled back in time and was grading my own. Bless her heart. πŸ™‚ Chad got to a point where he was tired and not paying attention and just didn’t care anymore. :sigh: But, I had a little talk with him this morning that may or may not have done any good.

Anyway, I’m pretty enthusiastic so far about how it’s going. Again, I know it’s only been one day. I have hope. πŸ˜‰

Adventures in marathon training

Or maybe that should be misadventures. πŸ™‚ Saturday was an 18 miler. I did get 18 miles in, just not all Saturday. And my knees are yelling at me today.

I have discovered something over the past few weeks that really sunk in this weekend. I cannot do a long run with my husband. And that is why I did a little over 6 miles (about a 10k) Saturday morning, 5.4 miles Saturday evening, and 7.3 miles Sunday morning. 3 runs to get that 18 miles. Those first 2 runs were fantastic. I felt awesome. The Sunday morning run, not so much.

We had the oldest daughter of a couple of friends with us Saturday morning. I knew she wasn’t running 18 miles. I didn’t expect her to be able to and was not going to try to get her to run that much. She did a good 3. She needed to go to the bathroom and everything was closed at CCCC so the hubby took her to someplace with a bathroom and got them something to eat while I kept running. About mile 6 I decided I wasn’t going to make them sit and wait for another 2 or 3 hours on me to finish.

So I went and did 5 more that evening, or rather 5.4 because even though I was telling myself through the last 2 miles that I only had to make it back to my road, I went ahead and ran that last .4 miles because I was trying to beat the storms. Which is were I will back up and say that I looked at the radar and saw a line of storms around High Point and figured it would take them about an hour to get to us. I also thought I could finish 5 miles in about an hour. It was a little over an hour, and when I got back home and checked the radar again, that line had mostly dissipated.

The 7? Oh, man. I knew it was about 7 miles from my driveway to the other end of Lydia Perry Road and back. I ran Lydia Perry before. It sucked because it’s uphill the whole way back, but doable. Uh, nope. Not when I’ve run about 11.5 the day before. I was tired when I started, and even that whole downhill run was rough. And then the sun was beating on me for much of the way back, and I just had to suck it up and do the walk of shame. Although, there was a sprint in the middle of that walk thanks to a horsefly that decided it needed to bite my calves. I couldn’t outrun it so I decided to kill it. I failed, but I did manage to catch it twice and after the second time it eluded my foot when I threw it down on the pavement, it left me alone.

So, I now need to make myself do the weekday runs this week, and do 14 this weekend. In less than 5 weeks, this will all be over. No more long runs. Until the Tar Heel 10 Miler.

And so we will homeschool

I came up with this theme in order to talk about healthy eating primarily. I’ve been pretty focused for the last couple of years on the physical aspects of a healthy lifestyle while putting perhaps not so much on mental health. That said, this post isn’t really going to be dealing much with either exactly. But it is in a way because my kids have issues. Our family has issues.

My daughter, the firstborn, my MiniMe, failed the 9th grade then 10th grade twice. My son should have failed at least 2 grades in middle school, but scored high on EOGs and so got promoted. He failed 9th grade last year. They are both smart kids who always blew away the EOG’s and pretty much any standardized test they were given. But remember I said our family has issues.

Our daughter wanted to drop out the entire year last year. It was a year long fight to keep her in school. She has social problems that are getting worse the older she gets. And yes, she will be going to counseling. But, I realized last school year that the only way we would ever get her to graduate high school was to homeschool.

Our son liked school, but he is ADHD and hasn’t done homework since early middle school. And that was a huge fight. I told him that wouldn’t fly in high school, but he did it anyway. He had the choice of going back to public school or homeschool, and he decided (last minute) on homeschool. He was in counseling for much of the last school year. And still has counseling pending for his diversion plan. Maybe.

Now this is not going to be a rant about the public school system. Nor is it a rave about homeschooling. I had to make a choice, and this seems to be the best choice for us. Curriculum has been acquired/purchased. Filing system created. Paperwork in order. Grade recording system still pending, but really, how hard can that be, right? Seriously, I have an idea and it will likely be tweaked as the year progresses. We’re starting the day after Labor Day because I am waiting on my last minute purchase to come in.

Am I nervous? Yes. I am so afraid this will turn out worse than it already has. Attendance won’t be so much of an issue because, um, they live at school now. They don’t have to deal with other kids. There won’t be any fire alarms to pull. We can separate them in way that we can still keep an eye on them. And so this could work, or it could be an epic fail. We’ll see…