The Pressure Cooker Called Motherhood

How is it that the most rewarding job possible is also the most stressful!  I guess with great responsibility comes great reward, but this mamma could use a break!  

What do I need a break from though?

ME!!

(Me after a day of stamping our concrete patio we put in this spring)

Yep!  Me.  I am the worst boss possible.  I expect nothing but perfection and when not delivered I seem to dwell in the shallow pool of discontentment instead of doing laps in the empty Olympic size pool of accomplishment right next to me. I know I am not an isolated case either.  On those rare occasions I get to sit and chat with other moms it is clear this is an epidemic!  

The summer projects, the finances, teaching the children, keeping the house presentable for our many guests a week, exercising, husbands work schedule, keeping up with my work schedule (which I am completely in control of, but LOVE what I get to do), three meals a day (Seriously!  Who decided we needed THREE meals a day?!), the shopping, volunteering, deadlines (both self inflicted and third party), QUALITY time with husband and children, Lions and Tigers and Bears!  Oh My!

But, everything all rolled into one kamikaze ball...  I love my life!  There isn't anything I would trade in for an upgrade.  I just need to be able to poke my head out and take a good look around more often.  

So, today fellow crusader moms with insane self management expectations, lets grasp onto some reality, give ourselves a pat on the back and go splash in that great pool of accomplishment with those we love. 

The Choice to Look at a Life That is Beautifully Full

I really can't complain.  Seriously.  I was reading this morning and found Ephesians 4:29 jump out at me.

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen"

I could get on here and talk about how the end of the year school crazy has left me struggling for a breathe of life.  How I desperately miss writing this blog every few days and is life is complicated and all so encompassing these days that I do not have time to write about it.  I can write about the overwhelming abundance of life, it's stresses and obstacles.  But, complaints do not grow you and especially not me.  I really needed a mental flip-flop.  We all face adversity in some form everyday and we all have to find ways to overcome it.  Focusing on the overcoming, instead of the seeming downward spiral of chaos, can, and will, do wonders for our mental playground.

My chaos has been abundant as of late, but every fragile, almost break me, chaotic string really has been producing a pretty remarkably strong rope of experience, independence  self confidence and awareness.  I read somewhere else that "Character develops itself in the full stream of life."

So true!


    

Three Day Emotional Melting Pot

Some animals on this great blue earth we live on only live about three days.  How do they fit it all in?  It really is all relative though, isn't it.  Last weekend we got a taste of nearly everything life has to offer in just three days.

The same week of my dad's one year anniversary of his passing, the same Monday, I get another phone call that my sister in law had passed.  She was young, not seemingly sick and gone far too soon.  It was a shock and gave way to a week not clear in focus or productivity.  The funeral arrangements were set and happen to lie over the exact time we were headed to Michigan to be with my family for the year anniversary and for a family wedding celebration for my cousin I grew up with side by side.  With prayer and guidance we found the only thing we could do was to divide and conquer and be with everyone that needed us.  That is just what you need to do sometimes, isn't it?

Thursday afternoon I picked up my oldest from school and the five of us girls head up to Michigan only to get there in time for bed.  Grandma read them a story and they felt so special.  It was nice to see my mom so invested into the girls and they into her.

The next day we spent time together, played, talked and Grandma treated the girls to Easter manicures in preparation for the wedding celebration that evening.

It was nice spending time unscripted and to see all these little girls with their grandma.  My sister joined us for part of the day and we talked and the girls gravitated toward her as well.  

~FAMILY~

During trials and triumphs, no matter the strains or comforts it can be beautiful to see family together.  

The wedding celebration was beautiful and fun!

The Castle in Michigan was the perfect setting for every little girl's imagination and the fact that they had an entire wing of this grandeos place to run around in and explore with other little girl cousins and friends made it a perfect place for them.  Thrones, knights, spiral staircases and tapestries.  What more could four Cinderella loving girls ask for?

~FUN~

Nothing is better than casting everything else to the side and just having good fun.  

The wedding was beautiful.  The dancing was fun and Lana ruled the floor with her patented twirl AND learned the Chicken Dance (which hasn't stopped)!  Fun pictures, family I hadn't seen in a year, my little ladies, yummy treats! 

Happy couple!

By the way, this picture epitomizes my daily life!  

My beautiful cousin with Trinity.  The girls thought she was a real princess all night!  

Every bride is a princess!

It was beautiful, fun, and joyous.  I cried because I always cry at the happy and the triumph and her story is of triumph.  The girls could have stayed all night, but at 10:30pm I put everyone in pajamas and headed 5 hours home.  My husband was surprised to see me at 3am and realized I was came home to be with him and the family for his step sisters funeral and burial the next morning.  It was the only thing I could do that felt right.  After a literal few hours of sleep we went to be with our family.  

Elizabeth went home to be with the Father so early.  It was hard to see her mom, whom she talked with everyday, say goodbye and to see the pain in so many.  The songs that were written for her, her niece that adored her, her big brother that grew up with her and her so, so many friends.  I am sorry we will not be able to see Elizabeth at the family gatherings and see her smile while we are still on this earth.  I am sorry her parents will not have her in their physical lives any longer and I pray she fit everything she wanted to into her short life. 

~SORROW~

Accepting those things we do not understand is the truest test of our faith.

In Three Days we lived out a spectrum of emotions and it reminded me how relative and mishandled TIME really is.