The Simple Woman's Daybook

After-thought, due to the petty and trivial negativity of some of the content in this post...

I'm gonna just gripe awhile and then I'll feel better and life will return to normal. The griping and whining over such trivial and petty things could definitely be worse and I am making quite the desperate effort to stifle it and focus on how very much I have been given. But..honestly, I just don't feel like being entirely positive right now. Quite actually, I live an amazing, wonderful, quite dreamy life so this griping session can be ignored by any and all and would probably be better off skipped in its entirety. The only downside to public blogging, I suppose...the ability for everyone to read the moments absorbed in self pity and the ungratefulness. It's a moment in time that will surely pass. They all do. It's been a rough day...a rough week....a rough last 7 or so weeks and sometimes it seems as though the warfare around us and the attacks against our family do not ever cease. It seems at times as though we have lived in a crisis since last June. But, honestly and truthfully, we do not and life could be so much worse. We have just come out of one of the hardest years of our entire lives and at times it just seems that all I want to do is sit down and just breathe for awhile. So, I'm going to gripe and then turn my attention upward and onward and onto positive things...the little things that bless our daily life and how we live....how amazing my life really is. Honestly, it may be hard for this moment, this day, and the focus is easily shifted to pessimism but life is just pretty good if you strip it all down to the basics. My children are safe, my baby grows and flourishes, heartbeat can now be easily heard pounding rhythmically along, we are no longer paralyzed in grief as we try to sort through the emotions of innocence lost, violation of life, daily talking with deputies and children's advocacy centers and hospitals and we no longer mourn so deeply the loss of our 14 week pregnancy and baby boy and fight daily the fear of the diagnosis of long term infertility.....and it's a beautiful day in Texas. I have a husband desperately in love with me and 8 amazing, beautiful children that are well behaved and learning the true principles of life, the importance of relationships, character, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and learning how to be happy despite outward circumstances...true life building skills that they will carry into the relationship they have with the Lord, with family members around them, their work life, their marriage and as they parent. Life is really good.

The Simple Woman's Daybook

Outside my window......gusty southeast wind, 80 degrees and a beautiful day to go run...so I probably should but I just don't feel like it.

I am thinking.....that sometimes it is very much a definite effort and choice to be thankful and content. It is not always the bubbly emotion that comes when times are good but more the conscious decision to remain so when things are hard.

I am thankful for.......the fact that I do know that I am not forsaken or abandoned, there is a season for everything. And I am assured, as everything that has ever gone before, "this too shall pass".

I am wearing.....jeans, an old FD t-shirt and barefooted.

I am remembering......Aubrey's tonsils are still huge, she has cried non stop for days that her ear hurts, she has finished all of her medication and should not be dealing with any of this, the phone service for the town has been out for 3 months now and it is a waste of money to continue paying for service we are not getting and that they can never seem to fix, the van ran out of gas yesterday and cannot be refilled until Thurs, the van also overheated on the way home as it was running out of gas, and that I have not seen my husband in weeks...and we still have 4 1/2 more weeks of this crap until the lieutenant's test. And then he leaves after his test to be gone that entire weekend. And I'm ready for some good news.

I am going.......to not gripe anymore, to be grateful and thankful and continue to keep my head up despite the fact I am very much a single parent to 8 children right now and am still nauseated and am still so exhausted that all I can do is sleep. But, alas, I have not going to think on those things. I am going to remember that I even have a husband to begin with that loves me enough to be this dedicated and this committed and is strong enough to ignore my pleas and self pity and my yearning for him to return to me and continue on undeterred...that he can see the bigger picture even when I grow weary and no longer want to see it. And I am going to not whine anymore but focus on what I have been given in everything around me and how blessed I truly am in every way.

I am reading.......the power of positive thinking......ok, so not entirely true. More like....Pillow Talk, authored by Dr Cotton Sheets and published by Bedside Publishing Co.

I am hoping......for alot of stuff.

I am hearing.......birds chirp.

Noticing that....it is now up to Grayson and I to move our new, ugly, 25.00 swingset into our backyard.

Pondering these words....

The Roots of Violence:

Wealth without work,

Pleasure without conscience,

Knowledge without character,

Commerce without morality,

Science without humanity,

Worship without sacrifice,

Politics without principles.

From the kitchen...... carrots and celery with ranch dressing

Around the house......an old deep bathtub that I fully intend to take advantage of tonight...by mere candle light and with tons of bubbles and a leftover lime beer I found buried in the back of our shop refrigerator (maybe 1 will get rid of this insane craving???)...despite the fact that shift husband is absent and will not be here for any of it.

One of my favorite things.....date nights, Red Lobster biscuits and crab stuffed flounder, steak and sweet potatoes, the sound of my baby's heartbeat, sonograms

From my picture journal.....

Nothing like a massive, box fort. This was given to us by moving neighbor. This picture would be before windows and door were "installed".

I'm thinking the wild morning hair and peanut butter waffle face make her all the sweeter.