Our marriage isn't broken!

Do you ever just want to get away from it all?????

I have the blessed Little L in bed right now. Early this morning he was a bad, bad boy. First of all, I hate Daylight Savings Time and what it does for little kids. They don't have a clue about the fact that they should sleep an extra hour. Their bodies are on an automatic timezone. It doesn't matter that I tried to put them to bed later last night. Well, my body is the same way - so I can't complain too much. I wake up without an alarm clock every morning at the same early time. And this morning I was not surprised when it was an hour earlier (but not realy, because, you know . . . Daylight Savings, and all that . . .)

OK, back to the bad boy.

I have to back up: Two weeks ago my husband surprised me with a new flat-top oven for our 12th wedding anniversary. It's beautiful. It was a huge surprise. We had been sort of needing a new range because the old one had a few burner problems (shorting out on me in the middle of cooking). I was down to 1 fully functioning burner. The oven worked just fine . . . but the range, not so much. I know, I know you people out there are going to say "get the range fixed, have an electrician come in and fix it" blah. Trust me when I say that by the time my husband got the Lowe's salesman down to their rock-bottom price . . . . it was well-worth the brand new entire product, rather than risking the electrician's rate.

He totally shocked me with this purchase because we barely talked about a new oven. I figured I'd put up with my shorting-out range for awhile because of a lack of funds in the budget.

He knows I love a good surprise though. So he was pretty sneaky. :-)

AHHH, BLISS.

Well, this morning I was getting ready for church and I heard a quick little noise out in the kitchen and then my husband yell "NOOOOOOO!" He came back in the room where I was and said "L just broke our oven!" He nearly had tears in his eyes. WOW.

Apparently, Little L had a homemade fishing pole (picture dowell rod, string, and magnet on the end). He was swinging it around, and it hit our oven door . . . and shattered it to pieces. I'm not a genius about such things, but I'm thinking that thing had to have hit at a pressure point or something . . . I just cannot believe that it shattered the glass door like that!! One minute before the event, my husband told Little L NOT to swing said fishing pole around . . . but what did he do? He kept swinging it . . . . BAM.

First, I wanted to call everyone I know who doesn't have kids and give them the following advice: DON'T HAVE KIDS.

But I knew that would be wrong.

The real advice is: When you have kids, realize that things will get broken . . . even things you consider precious . . . kids might even get hurt. Just don't go off the deep end and do or say anything you'll regret later. And if you do, ask for forgiveness.

I think our 2 year old knows he did something wrong. He definitely didn't understand it when his Daddy was telling him how expensive it was going to be to replace the glass . . . . that was just Daddy venting. LOL I get to stare at a broken oven for awhile. AHHH, back to the old days. I asked my husband if this was a sign of our marriage. He said, "maybe . . . . only if we looked at it that the glass may get shattered, but the oven still works!"

Can I have more hours?

I'm so tired, I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I'm sure many people can relate. I really never thought I would be one of those who would say "I need more hours in my day" . . . . but I'm about to join those ranks. It's really even hard to describe. I get some things done some of the time, but not all things done all of the time. And it's a hard thing to decide what's most important. Of course I want to always put God first, and family next . . . but what about when you have something on the calendar that is a church function, and then your family outside of the area wants you to come to their house for a special visit . . . . how do I put a priority on it all? We're supposed to build our church, build friendships, but also our family needs us . . . I guess at this point we have to decide who needs us more? Some would say "what was on the calendar first?" But that's a sticky issue as well. I think we're going to try and do both . . . but who suffers ultimately? Our little foursome - because we'll all be tuckered out and grouchy with each other when the weekend winds down and we've not connected as much as we would have liked. I know there has to be many families that struggle with the "balance of time" issue. Who do we give our time to? AHHHHH.

Today I'm watching my 5-month old nephew. My 6-year old son is home from school, and coupled with my 2-year old son, it makes for a party that reminds me that I'm pretty ok with just having two kids. That is not to offend any of you who have more children, nor is it meant to offend those who have no children and want some! I'm happy to help out my sister . . . and any additional people who seem to come a calling (yeah, the SAHM gets the calls, LOL) . . . and I try not to let my hissy attitude get the best of me. But there you have it. Honesty.

Right now the nephew is asleep, and my Little L is crying his fits of not wanting his nap, but he's in his bed, nonetheless. GRRRR. He usually goes right to sleep, but I guess today he thinks he might win a different battle. I just brewed some coffee to give me a pep . . . so ta-ta for now.

Prayer

I have a prayer request on my heart and I can't share the details with you, but if you read this, just pray for strength for a family member to share God's love to others who need to see and feel it. Also pray for darkness to be lifted. If I share more, I feel it would be seen as gossip and that is not what prayer requests should be about. But I know you true believers of Christ understand that prayer changes hearts! It's a battle out there!

Chatting and Coupons

I had nine people at my house last night for my first Coupon Chat meeting. It was a blast. I did a full presentation - Powerpoint and all! Wow. 15 minutes before kick-off time I about threw-up as reality hit me "What in the world am I doing? I'm not ready for this!! I can't speak in front of people. What will they think of me?? What if they think I'm not knowledgeable enough? What if they think I act like I know-it-all? blah, blah, blah . . . " on and on. And then the doorbell rang . . . and it was a very good friend of mine. RELIEF!! I didn't even know she was coming, and I was instantly filled with joy and a sense of confidence. Thank you, Lord!!

It was a good time. They are coming back next week for session two. I am only planning for two sessions at this time - just to see how it goes. But I am possibly thinking that if there is enough interest, we might turn it into a monthly meeting.

It was really cool because one of the women brought a friend with her that I had never met before. New friends are awesome. AND, one of my neighbors who came, said that she invited another neighbor, and even though she couldn't come last night, she would be interested in the future.

What is the language of love?

I find that I'm always ready for the new season whenever it's about to begin. I feel that is just as the Lord planned it. Perfect timing. Today I look outside and it's shaping up to be a beautiful, sunny fall day that started off rather brisk and breezy but will warm up with the sunshine. Tonight it will go back to it's brisk drop in temperature - just perfect for September and Ohio. I love it.

We have been reading "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. It's what our small group (aka "marriage enrichment") is studying. We took the "official test" a few weeks ago and I found out that my "love language" is QUALITY TIME. If you haven't read this book, all I know so far is that it means the most to me when I spend good, quality time with people - this shows love to me. OF course, the book is geared towards showing love to our spouses, but I have carried it further in my mind to include all peeps. :-) My spouse's "love language" is WORDS OF AFFIRMATION. I already knew this would be his . . . and I already know that I fail miserably at showing this to him. So I have my work cut out for me!! :-) I also found out (at least according to this so-called TEST) is that he doesn't actually care about RECEIVING GIFTS (another love language). You can see my cynicism creeping through about the test, I guess. It's not that I don't believe it has identified our true love languages, but I'm unsure about the secondary things it has brought to our attention. Maybe we should ignore those for now. Perhaps that is the real answer!?

In true LOVE LANGUAGE form, we have learned that whatever our love language is, usually we are showing what ours is to the other person already. For example, since my husband's is WORDS OF AFFIRMATION, he gives me compliments and/or nice emails and builds me up. However, since it is not MY love language, I do not really give much thought to those words . . . they are nice and all, but I can't say that I cherish them AS MUCH as he would cherish them if he heard them from me. The problem is, he does not hear them from me as much as he would like to. Sooooo, time for me to change!

Mine is QUALITY TIME . . . it's not that he doesn't like to spend time with ME . . . but his definition of "quality time" and my definition is probably a little bit obscure right now. Also, he is a very, very busy person. I am a stay-at-home mom. Of course I am going to desire a lot of his eye-to-eye time when he is home, but so do our two kids. Everyone wants Dad! It's a difficult balance.

So, we are in a learning curve right now. It's good . . . it can be muddy! But I wanted to share. I do say I need a place to "keep it real!"

He just got done mowing the lawn for the past 2 hours . . . time for some words of affirmation . . . wink.

WARNING: There's a 2 year old in my house

It was a crazy evening yesterday. The start of piano lessons for the year is off to a great start. I'm glad to have those students back in my life. I enjoy a summer break, but I think this year I've made the decision that it was too long of a break and next year I will incorporate some kind of summer session. It is hard to juggle family vacations (theirs and mine), and my own family's needs, but for sake of music, we must continue!!

After lessons, I went to a meeting at my local library - to learn more about couponing. A subject close to my heart! It was nice to get together with others who like the same thing. I think that's my passion. I'm thinking about starting a group at church. I don't even know what we'll do - except talk about deals. But there has to be an idea that getting together to fellowship and help people save money . . . sharing . . . hhmmm . . . I don't want it to be a "hen meeting" though. LOL

Well there is a big noise in our neighborhood today. Not sure what it is exactly, but I think our neighbors are getting a new driveway . . . perhaps they are digging up the old concrete and then maybe having new concrete put down. YIKES, it's loud. And my 2 year old is being awfully quiet, so I better go check that out. This is what happened the last time he was too quiet:




At least he was trying to clean up the eggs!! (and yes, I grabbed the camera to remember the "CAUGHT YA" moment!)

Drifting Dune, I Love Ye Not

I'm so tired! I painted one of the rooms in the house (the piano room, specifically) two days ago, and my legs hurt so bad! I guess I didn't anticipate the squatting issues involved! YEEOUCH. Last night we went to my brother's high school football game, and going up the stadium stairs wasn't too much of a problem, but when we descended, I thought I was going to D-I-E. I was whining at each and every step. Today I am still moaning. Yeah, I'm a real joy to be around. The real clincher is that I totally don't even like the paint color! I picked it out, and I went through the 8 hours of work . . . am going through day TWO of pain . . . and am not in love with the color. It will grow on me, and the bright side is that it looks a lot better than the flat painted-white walls that were the former owner's selection :-) I know that flat paint is cheaper . . . but come on, people! Especially when you have children in the house - go with semi-gloss for cleaning purposes. OK, I'm done moaning.

The brighter side of things, also, is that I can now hang a picture of my two boys that I have had for quite some time. I've been delaying it because I needed to repair the walls in the room, paint the room, and now . . . . VOILA, we are ready!

I hope you all have a good LABOR day! We're having family in, and I'm so looking forward to it because we don't get to see these folks very much. One of my favorite things in the world is "shooting the breeze". Where did that phrase come from? :-)