This Post Comes To You From A Not Proud Moment

When I was a young girl, old enough to have to sit in church, I can remember ignoring whatever the preacher was saying and peering out the long narrow windows and wondering about God and who He really is.  I would say in my head "God, if you are really real make wind blow so that I can see that tree move."  The trees would always gentle sway, if even just a tiny ripple in the leaves.  I never doubted His existence, but often I have failed to recogniz His perfect control over my circumstances.

When I flip through the pages of this blog I see beautiful pictures, of a seemingly beautiful life.  Truth be told a picture captures one moment in life, and neglects to tell you what happen before and after the picture was taken.  A picture neglects to tell you my Little rarely heads instructions.  She tries me to my very core and reminds me how very, very lacking I am in so many areas.

 A picture neglects to inform you that on the day I took these pictures, I vowed to myself that today was the day I was going do it better, today was the day I was going to be present, today was the day I was going keep it together.  Yet somehow, at the end of this day, and so many others I felt like I failed.

Raising children is the best job I have ever had, but I have to say that after the last few days I have said out loud "Am I really cut out for this."  It is the hardest thing I have ever done...I can not remember a time in my life when I have ever been pushed so close to the edge, and I don't even know what edge it is.  Anger?  Frustration? Insanity?  I'm not sure.

Today in particular I am on one of those edges.  The edge of doubt I guess.   Earlier, before we left home I had completely lost my cool with my Little...like really bad.  While I'm being honest, I completely lost my cool  with her yesterday too and the day before that.  My patience is frazzled and since I'm being honest so is my joy, love, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and my self control.  Ironically these are the very things I have been (trying)to teach her this month.

 I was driving home from running some errands. The prospect of going straight home and tackling lunch and nap time (a subject which would require its own post) was discouraging, so when Libby piped up from the back, "Hey mom, can we stop at a park" I just thought "yes, please, let's go to a park and you can run and run and wear yourself so tired that any energy you would use for disobeying me will be used up and you will go straight down with no questions asked."

I sat down on the stairs to the slide and cried.  The girls ran circles around me, they laughed and played unaware that the very person that they look to for everything was certain that she was failing them.  I started to ask God where He was in this.  Where was He in my everyday?  In my cleaning up breakfast, in my baby with a fever, in my tantrum throwing girl, in my teach them something good, volunteer for something good, love my husband, make the dinner, tame the laundry?  Where was He?  Then as if He knew I needed it, a gentle breeze moved my hair and made it stick to my face....I looked up and saw the trees swaying, only a little ripple, and I knew that He was telling me "I'm right here, where I've always been."

I'm going to be okay...I just had to get that off my chest.
Grace and Peace
xoxo

We're Not In Kansas Anymore

The other day my friend offered my free tickets to a traveling circus.  About three weeks ago we took the girls to see Barnum and Bailey's Circus and they loved it, and to be honest Kev and I really liked it too, it was very impressive.  So when my friend said she had free tickets, I thought "why not" the girls will love to see another circus.  I looked up the name of the circus on the internet and it looked pretty legit...that is until we realized that the actual show was miles and miles from town in a cow pasture.  Libby said "Mommy is this circus in a meadow?"

 In my head I kept telling myself to give it a chance...then the first thing I saw when I walked in was this sign.  Well, that was after the sign that said $32 for adult tickets...What?  If I had paid for this experience  I would have been highly disappointed.

The acts we saw included but are not limited to
1.  A clown that pretended to act drunk...at least I hope he was pretending
2.  A miniature pony act that actually got away and ran into the crowd...I'm not kidding...rainbow colored ponies mixing with the patrons
3.  A lasso wielding cowboy that got tangled in his own whip and used a small Schnauzer as his prop
4.  A man and a woman who frolicked around a white tiger in a cage that was a big as Gus's crate (this was just sad...and unnerving at the same time)  They did this for 1 minute and called it the white tiger extravaganza
5.  A lady who spun around on fabric in a costume that was a little bit like something a stripper would wear...she too got tangled up like her co-worker the cowboy
At this point I realized that I needed my camera b/c if this  experience did not land us on the evening news as witness to a circus show gone bad, I was going to need proof that we were there.
The second half had some more slightly offensive clowns, roller skaters, and our favorite an Old English Sheepdog act.   It was like Gus on parade...but literally, on Gus's dirtiest most shaggy day, he hasn't looked quite this bad ever and that is saying something.  This was a rag tag bunch...they were mildly entertaining though.

Lastly, the pinnacle of the show was the elephants.  Let me just pause here to say that my camera does not have any zoom.  It is a fixed lens so the pictures you see are pretty accurate in showing that we were sitting basically as close as you could to the ring.  

 Have you seen one of those elephant gone mad videos?  You know the ones where the elephant gets tired of living in captivity with trainers that don't treat him right and then just starts trampling everything in sight...This was the only thing I could think of as these magnificent animals preformed tricks 3ft from my babies.... 

When the show was over, I breathed a sigh of relief that the news didn't show up with angry animal rights protesters and of course that we didn't get trampled on by elephants or eaten by the white tiger.  The girls frolic in the field for a few minutes before we left and I looked back in disbelief that show I had just witnessed even existed. This is what my face looked like the whole time I watched.

I think that Libby was pretending to be the lady that spun around on the fabric in this picture...have mercy on us if this is the case.

 Maggie is wondering why I subjected her to such madness...

I had to document this experience.  It was like nothing that I have ever seen before. If I was a film maker in search of a new reality show to film I would follow these carnies around.  I think it would be fascinating in a disturbing sort of way...you know like the show "Hoarders" or "Intervention," not in a "Say Yes to the Dress" sort of way.
Happy Circus...please don't tell anyone we were there! :)
Grace and Peace

Sprout

 Spring keeps on teasing us.  I think that it is almost here, at least I did yesterday.  Then we tried to leave the house today and had to come back for coats.

I'm sewing today and ignoring normal chores in order to make our widows look pretty, so until I have time to ignore to normal chores to stop write on this blog I bid you
Grace and Peace

I wrote this last week.  I really am ignoring normal chores to type this sentence.  These pictures are from last Monday when it snowed.  Forecast for this Monday is sunny and 72, our wardrobes are so confused.