New Year

I feel like I've blogged about this before but checked quickly and couldn't find what I was looking for so maybe I really AM losing my mind. Feels like it lately.

If you're here for pics... you might be disappointed. This is one of those "won't she ever just shut up" posts because... oh, you guessed it... It's MY blog.

Which, while we are on the subject I have a love/hate relationship with as of late. I LOVE to blog. I love to document my (OUR) life via pictures, I love looking back on what we were doing "when" and for all intensive purposes (since I don't actually have others) this is my girl's "baby book". I HATE when people THINK they know what's going on because they "check the blog" :) FYI ~ my life is not all smiles, sunny days and sweetness. I mean... MOST of it is :) but not all of it.

So... back to the brain dump aka "swirling around in my head"... does this not feel like the start of a NEW year? I posed the question to my "Bible study girls" and they assure me that it does and a lot of it has to do with being married to a teacher. Who the heck cares about January 1st? Bring on September. After spending lazy days, enjoying my family, gardening (Husband) picking berries, playing with kiddos, beachin' it, camping (OK only one time but wasn't it enough?) campfires, visits from friends and family and suntans I'm ready for a little structure.

I'm looking FORWARD even, to getting up in time to have a cup of coffee while Husband gets ready for work (even if it means I have 1-2 babies in my bed climbing all over me). I am anxiously excited to start my gentle workout routine :) and crossing things off a project list before winter. There are ideas spinning around in my mind for table time with Minnie so that she learns her letters and numbers inside and out. Spells her name and commits Scripture to heart.

I'm even KINDA looking forward to our gonna-take-us-9-months-to-dig-into Bible study of James. Twice a month, digging WITH my girls while spending time at home learning all I can about how the LORD wants me to grow during this study. I'm excited to spend every other Wednesday in prayer for the little ones I know that the Lord puts on my heart to pray for in the public school system. These little soldiers are on the battlefield every.single.day. and they are the "salt and light" He's called us to be right there at their schools.

In the meantime, I'm navigating Husband coaching Varsity Golf ~ sorry to leave you all hanging on that one :) What that means is...matches at public golf courses instead of soccer games at the middle school and then getting home to have a nice meal on the table :) I've got some joint pain in my feet that I'm going to a specialist for, Husband is still dealing with a geneticist now in conjunction with SIL Bets... who is BTW still going for chemo every other week and doing better than I've seen but still not GREAT after they shoot her body up with poison. I'm losing an uncle to ALS and therefore have a Mum who's losing a brother, cousins that are losing their Daddy and an Aunt who's losing her best friend... And I have thoughts spinning around about ministry opportunities I think maybe I need to be looking at in my little church home. Oh yeah... and raising babies which includes chasing toddlers.

HOWEVER (DON'T MISS THIS PART NOW...)At the foundation of all this though is a chapter from our "quick little easy" summer Bible study (those that were there know ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THAT!?!?! IT WAS NONE OF THOSE THINGS! :) STUCK. The chapter was Overwhelmed and what I got out of it was looking to the Lord for EVERYTHING each day. What does HE want me to do? How can I not WASTE MY LIFE, when do I need to schedule, when do I need to "hunker down and protect my bubble"? ~

“God created me---and you---to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion----namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism. But if we claim to enjoy his excellence and do not display it for others to see and admire, we deceive ourselves, because the mark of God-enthralled joy is to overflow and expand by extending itself into the hearts of others. The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.”
― John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life "

I took the chapter in STUCK to mean ask the Lord what HE wants from me each day, don't OVER schedule, take a minute in prayer to consider those things that come my way, find the JOY (this has been hard for me as of late) and understand there needs to be a balance in organized and spontaneous.

So...maybe I'll be doing more of this "chatting" or maybe this is something you'll need to pick up the phone or connect with me another way to see how things are going...but I'm EXCITED that it is the fall, that structure is coming and oh yeah....fair season. :)

P.S. if you made it all the way through...here's a little reward for yah... I mean how can you RESIST a teething baby as evidenced by the double fisting 1) homemade popsicle and 2) frozen teething ring.