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Here I am at my grandparent's farm in Danville. I am playing with light here. I am learning a lot. Light has so much to do with your shots. I wish I would have gotten there 15 minutes earlier and my camera battery would not have died.

About the location: I am sitting on the roots of a tree that is over one hundred years old. My mom and her siblings, me and my cousins, and my own children have played on these roots and imagined all kinds of great things on these beautiful natural roots. We used to find pieces of old coke bottle glass, tractor parts, and arrow heads when we were kids. I can just imagine my grandfather getting frustrated with his broken tractor parts and just chunking them out in the ditch beside this tree. I know that probably gave my grandmother fits!

This is such a special place for me. We moved around a lot as kids and this was one of the places that I always could come back to and it never changed. I had a lot of life lessons here. Just a few feet away from where I am seated, there is a concrete patio that my grandparents got in the 1990s, my name is written in the concrete there! That is what home is all about. The small things that I can hold on to. I wonder what will happen to that farm when my grandparents are no longer there to occupy it? I would live there now if my hubby would let me. There is a house down the road that I could easily call home! Everyone needs a place like this. I wonder if I will want to go there after my grandparents are gone? They truly do make it home.

Memories: I used to come and stay with them in the summer for several weeks on end and I am flooded right now with memories that are making my heart swell.

What I remember...

~One time a cow got loose from the pasture and charged up to my grandparents door and we were standing in the yard, taking a summer dip in a big old stainless steele wash tub, and my grandmother appeared out of no where and scooped my brother and I up and dashed into the house. I actually have not thought about that in years.

~The smell of their house is so welcoming and I can still smell it right now as I think about it.

~Another time I remember is when all of us cousins were there in the summertime, a family get-together, and we were all running through the house one right after the other out of my grandmother's storm door. Smack! Right into the three smallest of us. I have scars today on my head and hands from where the glass shattered into a million pieces all over us. This actually happened more than once! One time my cousin Jason received some really bad cuts, he was so sweet and was the most cut up of us all, he and I were favorite cousins with each other, and he sang the song, "My Ding-a-ling" by Hank Williams the whole way to the hospital. Too funny what you remember.

~I also remember my grandmother giving us "sink baths" and that was the biggest of all the things she could do for us. Her hands would glide over our prickly, naked skin with such caring and kindness and would always reak of Dove soap. My own son, Tristan actually got a sink bath by mamaw when he was a baby. I think he was the last of us to be honored by that privilege.

I wonder if he will remember it?

Sammy Cade, the guinea pig...

I am working on some things with my new Nikon D40 camera. It has so many options and I am trying to get creative!

This would be an awesome pic in my book, if Sam did not have cookie crumbs all over his sweet little mouth!

Putting faith in man

So, I do the unthinkable everyday of my life, I put my faith in human beings and actually have the audacity to get mad when they disappoint me. I mean come on self, get over it.

It never fails that I put someone on a pedastal and then when they fall, I get angry. It was my own fault to begin with, I did it to myself.

In the Bible, it states the following about our faith:

Matthew 17:14-20 (New American Standard Bible)

20 And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

It goes on to say in Acts 3:16:

16By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.

I have so little faith. I need more. We all do. Please pray for me to discern when I am being a fool and when I am in the right.

Time and time again I find myself sliding like this song says and I am drowning...but I always get back up, with HIM beside me:

Casting Crowns: East to West

Here I am Lord, and I'm drowning in your sea of forgetfulness

the chains of yesterday surround me, I yearn for peace and rest

I dont want to end up where you found me and it echoes in my mind,keeps me awake tonight

I know you cast my sin as far as the east is from the west

and I stand before you now,

as if I've never sinned

but today I feel like I'm just one mistake away

from you leaving me this way
and Jesus can you show me just how far the east is from the west

cause I can't bear to see the man I've been rising up in me again

in the arms of your mercy I find rest,cause you know just how far the East is from the West from one scarred hand to the other.

I start the day the war begins

endless reminding of my sin

time and time again your truth is drowned out by the storm I'm in

today I feel like I'm just one mistake away,from you leaving me this way and Jesus can you show me, just how far the East is from the West

I know you've washed me white,turned my darkness into light I need your peace to get me through,to get me through this night can't live by what I feel but by the Truth your Word reveals,I'm not holding on to you but you're holding on to me,you're holding on to me
Jesus you know just how far the East is from the WestI don't have to see the man I've been, rising up in me again in the arms of your mercy I find rest'cause you know just how far the East is from the West, just how far,from one scarred hand to the other.

That is such an awesome song, the words just hit me square in the face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUkTenwz_mw

Here is the link if you need to hear it performed to take the full effect.

I struggle to overcome my ignorant self.

More cheerful!

I had a great day today! Micaela and I took the boys to Point Mallard and Sammy and Tristan had a blast!

Tristan is all into the waterslides. He cannot get enough. He wants to do it again, and again, and again...

It was so good to watch Sammy finally relax and at least let us get his feet wet. He freaked out on Thursday and we had to take turns holding him. For a little daredevil, he sure is a scaredy-cat at the water park.

WE will be spending lots of time there this summer. We have season passes. I am thankful that I have Micaela, she has really been helpful this past week.

We ended the day by having dinner and watching National Treasury 2 with Matt and Ju-Ju!

That movie is okay, the first one was much better~

But, it was action packed and kept you wondering at the end what the darn page 47 was all about!

Can we say National Treasury 3 in the making? All about timing!

Enjoy the pics of the boys at Point Mallard, I am sure there will be more to come!

Day two...

Okay, so today is day two of no daycare and no work and it has been a bit hectic.
Again, the rain falling has caused me to be creative with what to do...

So far today, I have had to spank T-man for sticking his tounge out at me and then my mom comes over in the middle of all of that!

We are having drama in our family which really makes me grumpy.

My grandmother is coming back home today after going in for a routine procedure two weeks ago and problems arose from that. She has spent over a week in the hospital and a week with my aunt. Our family has things constantly going on in the middle of all of this which makes things even more hectic. I want so bad to go and help my grandparents out. I know that my presence at their house would be just one more burden. My grandmother would feel like she had to take care of us and she just wears herself out. I spent a lot of my maternity leave with Samuel out there helping out. It is much harder with the two active boys wanting their great-grandparents every attention. My grandparents are just holding on. My grandmother has lost 17 pounds in two weeks. I know that is not good.

Pray for us. We, like so many others, need it.

My first day

Today was the first official no daycare, no work day and it went great!

The rain that fell all morning was a bit of a challenge but, it made me get creative!

My boys are so amazing. They do these little querky things ALL DAY LONG!

I watched Sammy shadow his big brother all day. Sammy wants to be like him sooo bad. If Tristan jumped and skipped around the house, so did Sam. If Tristan put his hands on his head and said, "Goodness," so did Sam.



The coolest thing I watched about them today is that they are so in love with me and each other. They were so proud not to have to rush around and be left at pre-school. I was even more glad to just relax and know that I did not have to perform or be "on" for the people that I work with.

Did I say that I love my job? Well, I do. Especially now that I don't have to go to it. And the even better thing about it that I love is that it allows me to be with my kids in the summer. That is my "blessing" thought of the day. I love my kids, I just can't say it enough. I love them.

Sammy's big thing today was saying "POOP" all day long he said this and it was hilarious because he says it like "PEWP." I love my boys. My heart is so full today. I literally have this swelling in it from all the lovin' I got from T-man and Sam.

Tristan likes to pick every dandelion in the yard and give it to me (even though I am extremely allergic to them) "because he loves me that much." That is so awesome.

Uncle Matt also came by and hung out for a while, he always keeps T-man laughing and having a great time. Tristan looks up to him so much!

My old friend

So, I did something tonight that I have not done in probably several years, I took a bubble bath in my big whirl pool tub. (For my smart aleck friends, you are sitting there saying that was what the smell was...freaks!)

I just lay there in my own filth and soaked, it was wonderful~



It was great. I was acutally relaxed for about a good solid 8 or 9 minutes. I need to do more of that. Maybe I would be less stressed and more charged.



Something to ponder.

Rainy memorial day

It rained today not two minutes after we got to my parents camping spot. We had like the hollering and screaming 20 month old on the way there having to stop and uhummmm, "redirect" his behavior with lots of love and really ticked off banter. (We pulled over and spanked his little behind) The crying stopped...

Temper tantrums stink. I hated them when my oldest son had them and they appear even worse with my now almost two year old. Why do the temper tantrums have to happen. I mean we take this beautiful, precious, loving baby and then make them mad!

I digress...
We get to the camping grounds and it gets stormy. We all manage to get into my parents' very luxurious RV ( I mean that, it is really cool). There were at least 12-15 people in this RV!
The kids are bouncing off the walls.

30 minutes after we arrived, we left. Jeremy had just come off of a 20 hour shift, we had the ride from Hades on the way there, and fuses were short anyway, so we are now on our way home-again a screaming child in the back. This time it is big-man wailing because he had to leave.
Happy Memorial Day!

Getting over myself

Okay, so I spent like three years in "counseling" for a good bit of any spare time that I had. I noticed that I told the counselor on many separate occassions that I just had no time to myself. I then starting seeing that maybe if I freed up the time I was spending with her figuring out my problems that I would have more free time...

So, I dropped the counseling. I felt liberated. I felt like I had all of this knowledge that would make me a better human being and I would be nicer and smarter than anyone else I knew...not so much the truth. It has now been over a year without my "counseling" and I am still broken. No human can truly "fix" another. It is not until I accepted Christ fully into my life that I started to feel "fixed."

Yes, sometimes I get really depressed. Sometimes to the point that I don't want to get out of bed or be messed with. But, I trudge on. I really have to center my focus on God. His overwhelming spirit is inside me, much deeper than that spirit of depression.

I hear a phrase from a poem that I learned while in college written by T.S. Eliot. It is from the poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and the line says:

" I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."
This line is so impacting on me. It makes me feel so rough and full of disgust about what I do to myself. Sometimes I am the junk on the bottom of the ocean that no one wants. No one wants to listen to. Sometimes I am that person. To my kids and husband, I know sometimes they wish I was silent...

I just can't be silent. The claws have arms and the body has a head and a mind. I can't just be silent. Even on my days when I feel like a pair of nasty ole' crustacean's disembodied claws. I scuttle, I scrape to make it through the day. I pinch and claw my way to the top, only to be knocked down again. Don't we all?


Eliot goes on and talks about Prufrock's life and it further depresses me thinking that I am so like this:

For I have known them all already, known them all:—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while

And turning toward the window, should say:

“That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all.”

~Sometimes I just feel like things are just not worth it. I feel like what is the point. But, then I look at those two adoring faces and it IS all worth it. God knew it was going to take something dramatic to make me be obedient to HIM and HIS way. My sons have been that drawing factor for me. I will talk more about some things relating to this later I feel like I am getting all symbolic and stuck in the poetry of it all. I love T.S. Eliot and that is not what I started out writing about!

A parental screw up

So today I was watching my two kids fight over a toy that in the schema of things did not matter and I then began to look around at the thousand other toys that they had and I just had to sigh. I mean the thing is, aren't we all like that? We have so many other things in our lives to check on or be responsible for and we just screw it up by not giving it the attention it deserves.

In the same moment, I was rushing around trying to clean up a house that my two wonderful sons would soon demolish and instead I could have been playing with them and there would be no fight btwn the two of them. Sigh........

Why can't I be a better parent? A better wife? A better daughter? A better friend? A better co-worker? Why?

I love my kids. I love my husband. I love my parents. I love my friends. I love my job.

My mind is a crazy place. I sit and watch the two wonderful, adoring human beings I squeezed out of my body ARGUE! I feel like it is all my fault!

The other morning on the way to work, my oldest son, 4, is sassing me. I was thinking to myself, just two more miles and I don't have to deal with this for a few hours, daycare can! And, then the pang of guilt hit me really hard. I chugged on my protein drink a little harder. Turned right onto Lafayette...he's still sassing me. Okay, I lose it. What is your deal little man? I warn him that if he does not watch it, he will be in the red chair (this is the major time-out chair at preschool) for the day and I will not come to his rescue. I hate myself at this time. I know, I am a parental screw up. My son then responds to me, "Mom, my future, my world."

By now, I am fuming and then cracked up all at the same time. My son has my sense of humor and my incredible smart mouth. At four he could say this to me of his own conjurings....
I turn right onto Church ST. Okay, if I reach back to slap, will I hit the stop sign, will the other moms and dads with "perfect children" see me?
Who cares....
Smack!
My four year old repeats the phrase for again, to make sure I heard him the first time.

I am a genuine parental screw up if my four year old can out smart my 28 year old smart mouth. He left me speechless..........