reflection...

What started out to be a lazy Saturday actually became quite productive.  Sunday, however, was a different story.  Today, I'm setting out to be another day of getting things done.  Here lately, I've been taking a look at myself...at my life...at my goals and am trying to assess everything.  I'm in my thirties and am trying to determine what it is that I've accomplished so far and what it is that I'm meant to accomplish in the future.  I think that each of us can do so much more and make a stronger impact if we allow ourselves to let go and let God take control.  I tend to be one of those that has a problem relinquishing control, so this is a challenge for me.  I just listened this morning to a message by Joel Osteen on this subject, and it really hit me.  How often do I try to accomplish everything on my own?  Do I consult with God?  Couldn't I do so much more if I would take everything to him in prayer?  I'm always one to talk about everything.  I am truly an open book.  I always talk to my friends, but I tend to forget the greatest friend that I have...that we all have....Jesus.  Joseph Scriven wrote these words in 1855, and they are still significant today.

What a friend we have in Jesus, 

all our sins and griefs to bear! 

What a privilege to carry 

everything to God in prayer! 

O what peace we often forfeit, 

O what needless pain we bear, 

all because we do not carry 

everything to God in prayer.

If you can't tell, I'm doing a lot of reflecting today.  I'm trying to find that balance that I need.  I'm trying to fix things about myself that I know need some fixing, yet I know that if they are never fixed, I will still be happy.  I will just continue to do the best that I can.  I am a work in progress and will continue to work to be a better me each day.

My thing to make me a better me today...exercise.

I've sat in my chair and thought about exercising for quite some time.  I've thought about running.  I've thought about getting a treadmill, and then one of my boys tells me, "What's wrong with running outside?"  Great question!  Do I really need another piece of equipment that may or may not motivate me to do something?  The answer is no.  I have an ab circle, an ab lounge, the 10 minute trainer, among countless other things that have not motivated me regardless of the money that I've spent on them and the "guarantee" that I'm given on the informercial.  So, today, I did it.  I went outside and jogged.  Well, I walked and jogged.  I walked down to the mailbox and jogged back.  After the first jog back, I didn't know if I was up to it, so I walked three and jogged one.  I continued to do that until I had completed about a mile.  Not bad for the first day of exercising in quite some time.

I still have a goal of losing 40 pounds by September.  I need to lose some before I leave for Las Vegas over spring break, too.  I don't have the funds to buy a new wardrobe, and I'd hate to go with tight clothes, so I guess my only option is losing some weight.

Here's to a new and improved, staying motivated me!

a lazy Saturday...

I love mornings like this!  It was one of those mornings when I didn't have to get up for anything.  Even though I was awake, I could just stay snuggled under the covers for a bit longer.  So nice...until one of the boys comes running through the room into our bathroom yelling that he has a bloody nose.  Never in my life have I had a bloody nose, but this kiddo gets them often.  My first question is normally, "Were you picking it when it started bleeding?"  More often than not, the answer is yes.  This morning he told me that he had just done it once.  If he'd keep his fingers out of his nose, he wouldn't have near as many nose bleeds.  At least he's not eating anything from his nose after he's had his finger up there.  Nope.  That would be the other one.  Although, I think I might have solved that problem yesterday.  He doesn't do it often, but yesterday I caught my little Brick stick his finger in his mouth and slurp something off.  (Sorry if you're weak stomached.)  I give him a look and he has wide eyes and a little grin that knows he's been caught.  I ask if he just had himself a juicy, boogery snack.  I can tell he's mulling things over in his mind of whether or not to tell the truth, but just having the talk about lying, he decides to come out and tell me that he's guilty.  So I ask him about other things that come from inside the body.  Do you lick your sweat?  Do you drink your pee?  Do you eat your...  Okay, I'll stop there.  Things that come out of our body are not meant to go back in.  They come out for a reason.  I think he got the point.  He rushed in the bathroom spitting out his little green snack and washed his mouth out with mouthwash.  It grossed him out a bit.  Is that a tactful way to solve the little problem?  Maybe not, but it worked.

One of my best friends and her family came over for a visit last night.  It's been almost a year (way too long!) since they've been out here for dinner, but we finally made a point to make it happen.  Jerad grilled steak (delicious!) and we had lots of fixings to go along with it.  My friend made the most amazing dessert, too.  Yum!  The dinner was great, but the time afterwards was even better.  I really enjoyed just sitting back, relaxing and talking while our little munchkins ran around and played.  I hope they had as good of a time as we did.  We're definitely going to have to schedule things like this more often.

I suppose I should get up and be productive today.  At this point I've done very little...slept in, cleaned up the bloody nose, loaded last night's dishes and made french toast for the boys (which is now their favorite), perused the internet, drank a cup of coffee.  Did I mention get dressed?  Nope, because it hasn't been done yet.  It's a lazy Saturday.  I'm loving it.

a rude awakening...again

We had another rude awakening this morning.  Not quite as rude as the fire that appeared in our kitchen a couple of weeks ago.  Rather, it was a six year old in the bed, sitting up to tell us that he didn't think he could go to school today because...insert gagging noises here.  There's nothing like the risk of someone puking on you to wake you up in the morning.  I know...gross!  If you know my husband at all, you'll know that he has a very sensitive gag reflex.  I actually find humor in that fact; however, not at 6:45 in the morning when he's shoving our six year old who has been lying between us and is now gagging toward me.  Keep in mind that the closest way to the bathroom would be off his side of the bed, but that wasn't going to work for him.  Not at the risk of something coming from that gag on him.  Now, I apologize if this is a little too graphic.  I promise I won't get too descriptive.  I'm going to digress for just a moment.  One of the things that I dislike about our house is the carpet.  The 1970's shag carpet that covers the majority of our house.  Ugh!  With the knowledge of our flooring, you can imagine how much fun it is to clean up messes from it.  I would rather him have gotten sick on the bed than on the floor, but he had already been pushed off of the bed onto his feet.  Is he going to make it?  My quick thinking (I actually had quick thinking that early in the morning!) led me to grab a pillow.  That would be much easier to clean or even throw out if necessary.  I throw it into his hands and rush him into the bathroom.  Thank goodness he made it to the designated spot!  Wahoo!  No cleaning up for me.  I gave him instructions not to move out of the spot until I had the bucket ready.  When they're sick, I don't like to risk it, so I make them carry a bucket lined with multiple plastic shopping bags (that's my form of recycling) everywhere they go.  Since then, he's been from the couch watching television to the office playing on the computer.  At one point, he amused himself by making weird noises.  Does that sound like a sick child?  I don't think so, but I don't think he's learned to make himself sick just so he can stay home from school.  Although, I'm not sure that I would put it past him later on.  When his brother was sick a couple of days ago, it wasn't nearly as dramatic.  Thank goodness!  It's days like these that I'm thankful that I work from home.  Not only do I get to set my own hours, but I don't have to ask off because my kiddos are sick or rely on someone else to watch them at the risk of them catching what the kiddos have.  I certainly am blessed!

a visit from the tooth fairy

Yesterday morning, I woke up a bit squished.  In the middle of the night, Brickman ended up in the bed  which normally happens when he has a bad dream or a sleep walking episode.  Our king sized bed is not big enough for the three of us.  I'm just glad Braylon sleeps through the night without finding his way to our bed.  Anyway, Brickman awoke first and quickly woke me up to tell me how much his tooth was hurting.  He had finally developed a loose tooth and has been working on it for a few weeks now.  He's been upset that he's the last one in his class to lose a tooth but also extremely scared to lose one.  It was time.  Each time he took a bite of something, I heard, "Ouch!"  Each time another tooth brushed up against it, "Ouch!"  I talked to him about pulling it, and although he was hesitant, he wanted me to check.  I touched it, and I heard it again.  "Ouch!"  He started crying, not so much because I had hurt him (I had barely touched the tooth), but more out of fear.  He didn't know what to expect.  I explained that it would feel better once it was out, so after some convincing, he let me try again.  We sat on the floor of his room as I reach into his mouth and tug on his little tooth.  Those little suckers can be a bit slippery, but I pulled it enough to make it start bleeding.  Terrific!  Braylon started yelling that he's bleeding, so Brickman totally freaked out.  We jolted up the steps to the bathroom and all he can do is look at himself crying in the mirror while spitting out blood.  He finally allowed me one more try, so I grabbed a tissue and took hold.  His eyes became wider the more that I pulled, and as the final root of the tooth finally let go, he screamed like a little girl.  He went to the sink and watched in the mirror as the blood came pouring out.  He finally calmed down when I mentioned a popsicle for breakfast to help stop the bleeding.  He couldn't wait to run in and show Jerad the open spot in his mouth.  He insisted on taking his tooth to school to show all of his classmates.  I let him take it in a plastic baggie and his tooth fairy pillow with instructions that if it's lost, the tooth fairy won't have any reason to come.  During the day, he had a poetry reading at the Senior Citizen's Center, so we went to watch him.  Half of the time, he had his bottom lip pulled down for everyone to see the missing tooth.  He was so proud that he had finally lost one.

Brickman was concerned after school that the tooth fairy wouldn't know that his room had moved.  I told him that she probably has some sort of tracking device to find the tooth, so it shouldn't be a problem.  Before he went to bed, we put the pillow in the perfect spot, so she would be sure to find it.  It's always my concern that the tooth fairy is going to forget about the tooth.  Braylon had a tooth waiting in his pillow for a couple of days before the tooth fairy came.  She left him a tiny little note that explained that she had been under the weather and hadn't been traveling until she felt well again.  You know, she didn't want to spread her germs.  This was Brickman's first tooth, so surely the tooth fairy would remember.  Right?  Okay, maybe not.  This morning when he woke up, he asked if he could check his pillow to see if she left any money.  Thank goodness he asked!  I told him that he probably needed to get dressed first.  I quickly ran into the bedroom and whispered to Jerad, "Tooth fairy!"  He tells me left pocket.  It certainly is a good thing that the tooth fairy's husband carries cash!  I rush to the boys' room to find Braylon still sleeping, so while Brickman is doing his bathroom duties, I was able to slip in and solve what could have been a problem without being detected.  I think a reminder alarm needs to be set next time.  He went to school today a happy camper and five dollars richer.  That's right.  Five dollars.  Yes, it's a bit much, but that's what we do for the first tooth.  At least that's the trend that was set with Braylon because the tooth fairy didn't have anything smaller.

Today are the Valentine parties at school, so I'm sure the boys will come home on a sugar high.  It's going to be a busy weekend.  I have two showers to attend, one wedding and one baby.  After that it's the alumni basketball games.  Jerad will be playing in the alumni band.  He always gets so excited to play his tuba.  We'll end it with Valentine's day on Sunday.  I don't think we have anything special planned, but we'll see.

Before we took out the tooth.

Is it bad that I took pictures of this?  I couldn't help it.  He was so dramatic.

Such a good big brother helping him out.

Braylon couldn't help but laugh at the drama, too.

The tooth was out and all was well.

do you smell something funny?

Last week we had quite a scare in our house.  We went to bed on Wednesday night just like any other night.  I woke up Thursday morning to the alarm on my phone, which is actually a bit unusual.  I never wake up to my alarm on the first ring.  Since the phone was plugged in on Jerad's side of the bed, we rolled over to give it to me.  At that point, I asked him if he smelled something funny.  Both of us were essentially asleep, barely waking from consciousness.  He rolled over and yells, "A fire!"  We both had a big adrenaline rush running out the door of our bedroom, seeing a huge orange glow from the kitchen.  Just a side note, if you want someone who stays cool and calm in an emergency, I am not that person.  If you want someone to freak out and have no idea what to do, I'm the girl.  As we get closer to the kitchen, we realize that it's not the entire kitchen on fire.  Rather, it was an ice tray that was left on the glass cooktop that was in flames up to the hood.  Was the burner left on?  Definitely not.  A short developed in the cooktop causing the fire.  Jerad grabs the sprayer from the sink and shoots water at it.  Of course, it didn't work because it was an electrical fire, so flames go even higher.  I cleared off the counter, getting everything away from the stovetop.  Jerad grabbed a spatula and scraped off the melted plastic from the burner.  That did enough to put out the fire.  After a big sigh of relief and a trip to the bathroom, Jerad went back to the stovetop to try to clean up some of the mess.  As he was scraping off the melted mess of an ice tray, the lights on all of the burners started flashing.  He yelled at me, "It's not over!"  He ran around to the cabinet under it, opened the doors, and smoke billowed out.  He told me to watch it for fire while he ran out to shut off the breaker.  I, of course, am in total panic mode, seeing the smoke coming from the knobs.  As he's outside at the breaker box, I hear something inside the cabinet that sounds like a whoosh of fire.  I quickly ran outside in my bare feet and robe into a beautiful and quite cold snow, screaming at Jerad that I think a fire has started inside the cabinet.  I run back in to find the floor extremely hot which prompted me to grab the phone and call 911.  I'm in hysterics over the phone.  Did I mention I panic under pressure?  Brickman runs in asking what's going on, and I tell him there's a fire and to get his clothes on.  He starts crying, saying he's scared.  How do I tell him not to worry?  As parents, we're supposed to be the one in control, right?  I'm obviously not in control.  He asked, "Are we gonna have to move?  What about Gizmo (our dog who doesn't even stay in the house)?"  I rushed them to get their clothes on and get out to the car and turned it on so they would be in a safe, warm place.  The picture flashing through my mind was fire quickly spreading through the floors and the walls.  I was mentally preparing myself to be homeless and losing all of our earthly possessions.  What do you grab?  Pictures?  Documents?  I grabbed my camera and my computer.  They were easily accessible.  I waited outside for the fire department to show up while my husband stayed calmly inside.  I begged and pleaded with God to put out the fire while pacing up and down the driveway as the snow covered the ground and the trees.  The fire chief is the first to show up, and he quickly calls off the other emergency vehicles that weren't already on their way out.  The boys were excited to see the fire truck with its flashing lights pull up in our driveway.  They weren't the only ones that got excited.  Someone driving by saw flashing lights and began calling members of the family to see what was going on.  We had three phone calls before the firemen left the house.  So, what became of it?  Jerad checked under the house, and there were no flames.  The firemen checked and said we were in the clear.  What did I hear inside of the cabinet?  That was the breaker shutting off.  Why was the floor so hot?  I had just been standing in the snow in my bare feet to run into my nice and toasty house.  Did my imagination get carried away?  Most definitely.  Did I jump the gun in calling 911?  Quite possibly.  I like to say, though, that I'd rather be safe than sorry.  It's very possible that there could have been a fire under our house or in our walls.  I'm so thankful that there wasn't, but at least we had professionals there to take care of it if there was.  Praise the Lord that we are okay!  Praise the Lord that he has given us a sense of smell so that we could smell something out of the ordinary.  Praise the Lord that we woke up when we did.  Praise the Lord that it didn't happen at 3:00 in the morning but rather as we were waking up.  Praise the Lord that He saved our home.  It so easily could have gone so much worse.  The only damage that we had was the loss of our stovetop.  Since then, it's been removed.  The electricians have been here to check everything out, and we have a new cooktop ordered.  This experience made me very aware of some things that need to change in our house.  Smoke alarms installed, fire extinguishers bought, escape route planned, etc.  I am a strong advocate of fire safety now.  If my husband hadn't been here, I don't know what I would have done.  I also feel that we were blessed that the ice tray was there to cause the fire.  If not, the cooktop could have shorted out and just travelled through the house without us realizing there was a problem.  We were to be gone all day that day.  We might possibly could have come home to no home.  We are truly blessed.

update on the resolutions...

I was just looking over the New Year's resolutions that I posted, and I must say, I'm doing pretty good...on most of them anyway.

I have continued to cook at home most days of the week.  I found a meal planner that works great for me, so that's really helped a lot in my planning and shopping.  I organized my cookbooks which has made it easier for me to pull one out and browse the recipes.  I've found that as long as I'm organized about it, cooking isn't so bad.  Did that thought just come out of me?  I'm proud that it's lasted this long.  I've had the plan to cook at home in the past but never had the follow through.  Now, I'm actually doing that!  And after sticking to it for a month now, the fast food in our little town doesn't sound so good anymore.  I don't know if it's from my cooking or from the knowledge that I now have about the nutritional information.  I mean, everyone knows that fast food isn't good for you, but I've ignored it for a long time.  After looking at the nutritional information, I'm disgusted.  Also, beware of those so called healthy foods, like salads, at restaurants.  The amount of sodium in a grilled chicken salad at the golden arches is about two thirds of the daily allowance.  That certainly won't help you lose weight.  Rather it would help you retain water.

Which leads me to my next resolution...weight loss.  I've lost seven pounds so far.  I'm thankful for that but, of course, wish it was more.  I had a bit of an emotional eating binge last week, but I'm back on track now. I need to incorporate exercise.  Running has been on my mind a lot lately.  I know it would be hard to start out, but it would get easier the more I did it.

Clearing out the clutter...I've actually done really well with this!  It's amazing how much more clearly I can think when my house isn't completely cluttered!  I've come to the point that I want to get everything organized and de-cluttered.  Jerad and I both cleaned out our closets and got rid of a lot of clothes.  Well, Jerad has given his away, but mine are still sitting in black bags in the closet.  I'm hoping to take them away tomorrow.  The boys' closets have been cleaned, as well.  Their clothes have been sorted but not given away yet.  I took some to the second hand children's shop in town and got $26 for about 20 shirts. That's much better than I would do at a garage sale.

In addition to cleaning out the clutter, we moved the furniture from a couple of rooms around.  We're planning to get a new dining room table to go with our new arrangement.  At the end of the evening of moving things around, Brickman told me he couldn't remember where the bathroom was.  He claimed that we had moved things so much that he felt backwards.  Silly boy!

Lastly, three Arbonne related calls per day...I haven't done so great on this.  I definitely need to work on this, as my business is very important to me.  I feel that everything else is on track, so this will now be my focus.  If I want to move up in management (which I do), I've got to make this a priority.

Overall, though, I don't think I've done too bad on the resolutions.  I've made it a month, which is further than I make it most years.  I just have to be conscious as we get closer to Valentine's Day.  That one always derails me on my weight loss endeavors.  Okay, so maybe it's not the day itself but the chocolate surrounding it.  I'm determined!  I will continue to change for the positive!