Is this finally going to work?

I have been searching for a way to blog from my phone. I have tried using the set up they suggest on here only to send blogs out into oblivian never to return.... so here we go trying this again. Now if only I could send pictures from my phone....

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Jesus loves me and thats all I need!

Where is your smile?

"I quit!" "I give up!" I am done!" "It's too much!" You name the quit complaint and I have said it recently. I am tired, sore, frustrated, overwhelmed. Etc. Etc. Etc. I would say these are common phrases from me and my friends. I would say that at least 1 friend a day on FB says something similar. (I have 292 friends)
I feel lost. I am not sure who I am anymore. I look in the mirror and the young newly excited mom is gone. My husbands young fun loving adventurous bride is gone. What is left is a woman who frequently says the above statements. So here I am again completely self focused, crying wondering how am I gonna get out of this stuck place I am in. I pray... I pray because that is the one thing I do know how to do. God please help me! Please show me.... This is what runs through my head....I take a step back and look at me, my life from my husbands perspective.

I saw her one day wearing a red top and black jeans. I fell in love with her smile and started planning how I could keep her in my life forever. I proposed, I wed. I Promised my love forever. Then pretty soon her smile is gone. What can I do to make it come back. She wants children. She cries. So I pray with her and plan a family and God grants. Babies come but again her smile is gone. What? What is it you want my love, I will give it to you. No I don't see your stretch marks, I don't see your weight. I see your smile and its absence breaks my heart. She smiles again. Where is your smile my love? A bigger place for our children. Ok lets pray, how can I work harder and make more? Her smile returns. Wait the smile is gone again. What is it now my love? Its too much work? You can't keep up? Who are you competing with? Who is putting these pressures on you? Ok lets pray. God please strengthen me. I take on more chores, I take on more meals. Where did your smile go? You are tired you need sleep? Ok I can wake with the baby and my alarm for work. I will help more. Where is your smile my love? Ok you want a new car... something with sliding doors. ok. Where is your smile my love? You need more time, more attention from me? ok. Where is your smile my love? I tell you that you are pretty, I tell you I love you....I don't see your scars, I don't see your weight. I see how you labored with pregnancy for our children. I see your heart and I want to see your smile. Where is you smile my love? You don't know what's wrong? Where is your smile my love? I hang my head.... Nothing. Nothing I do makes that smile return. "I quit!" "I give up!" "I am done!"

It is better to live alone in the desert than with a crabby complaining wife.
Proverbs 21:19

Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
Proverbs 31:10-12

When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness. She carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness.
Proverbs 31:26-27

Well you can imagine my heart is breaking after being given a glimpse into how things appear from his side. I don't want to quit. I don't want to give up. I did pray and ask for all these things, children, the ability to home school, a bigger house to take care of. Working in the ministry etc. etc. etc.... Its all God's blessings and instead of being blessed and CONTENT I have let Satan blurr my vision. I have always been more of a realist and pessimistic and I have let my focus change from God and others to just me. Just me is all I can see. How tired I am. How hard my situation is for me. How I never get a break. How much I don't like the way I look, or the way my clothes fit. I can only see how little sleep I am getting, or how crazy my hormones are. I can only see me. Yet I am not alone in my life. I have joined my heart with another who is working his hardest to make me smile and I haven't even thought about just smiling for him because I know he loves it. If I worked that hard to love him I would be so content, so full of joy, so at peace and where God wants me rather then lost on the wrong path I have chosen.
Dear God, I am on my knees. I don't want to see me, I want to first see you, then see others. I want to praise and glorify you and love others. Thank you God for opening my eyes to see how proud and arrogant and discontent I have been. Thank you for showing me this. I love you and I give myself to you because only you can change me. I know only you can teach me and show me what true godliness with contentment is. Thank you God for new mercies.... I am beginning mine today.

Blurred Vision....

I can't focus. I got a late start to my day and now I am just all out of whack. It doesn't help that my monthly friend is here and I can't eat chocolate!!!
Ok enough whine about that and back to my original problem of blurry vision. I have a vision for my home... Everything has a place and everything in its place. Yep the goal of perfection. Should a perfectionist have any other goal? I think not! Now about that goal. I have not reached it, nor am I even close. It seems to me that as I get one closet organized my garage gets thrashed. So we straighten the garage and my movie collection is somehow spread all over the house. So I sit and for hours organize my movie collection only to find every bucket of toys tossed empty into a giant pile of toys... Now are these barbie shoes, polly shoes, or mini barbie shoes.... Oh wait I know they are secret pal shoes... or whatever they are called. Yes the sorting and organizing is endless.
Oh wait did I forget to mention I had 2 wet beds over the weekend so now my laundry pile which usually accumulates at the rate of around 2 large loads a day is now some how at a staggering 8 loads to get it all done, and then by the time I finish those there will be another 2 loads waiting for me. My washer is so fancy that it takes at least an hour and my dryer takes at least 1 hour and 30 minutes so you do the math... Its just impossible now to catch up unless I work through the night. Off to the laundry mat I must go. Hmmm how does one do that in the rain with 5 kids?
Wait what did all of this have to do with blurry vision??? Oh yeah sorry... Ok so I said I was going to use my old faithful method of my card system to stay on track with family chores and house cleaning etc. Then guess what happened??? The app for my Iphone that was similar to my system but not quite what I needed now is updated to exactly what I wanted.... WHAT? Why didn't this happen 3 weeks ago. So now I am torn... do I set the card system aside and start up the system on my app Or forget the app and just stick with the cards?
Yep this is the problem of the perfectionist. I get so caught up in the details and having to do it all perfectly all at the same time that I never know where to start or what to start with so rather then at least getting 2 loads done all I can see is the 8 I didn't. Its all or nothing and my vision is so blurred right now I cant see straight.... So what did I do. I blogged HA HA HA...sigh. If I were to every list all my little OCD issues I am sure it would scare you all off. Thank God for Rob who does see them and just laughs and calls me cute.

She's a maniac maniac on the floor.....

And she's cleaning like she never cleaned before....

Well the day I set the timer... It worked. Old faithful never fails. Pretty soon I was so inspired that I just kept on working. Well I got so much done (I will list below all I did) that the next day (today) I woke up and got busy no timer needed and am just now sitting down for the first time today. WOOT WOOT. I know a lot of it has to do with I have gotten 5 hours of sleep 2 nights in a row. I am so excited about that too. I feel like with all this cleaning and organizing I am remembering who I am. I felt like the unwoman for awhile. No opinions, just doing everything to make everyone else happy. I felt like if you asked me my opinion I wouldn't even know what it was.... I know what does this have to do with cleaning... well I like to clean. I like to organize. I like to think up new and helpful systems. So for me to have every drawer, every closet in chaos it has been torture. Yet what can you do with 6 months of vomiting every day, which then turns into 9 weeks of bedrest, followed by 2 years of not sleeping through the night only to get pregnant and repeat almost the same scenario again. Yep meanwhile trying to homeschool 3 other children. Needless to say I haven't scrapbooked or chrocheted, or organized in a very long time!
Ok enough of my boring stuff.... Here is what I did.

5, 33gallon bags of Trash
7, 33 gallon bags of Give away

I completely gutted and cleaned out then put back only what I use neatly every cupboard in my master bathroom. Every closet, drawer, shelf, box, under the bed in my master bedroom. Every drawer, closet, shelf under the bed in my girls room. Every drawer, closet, shelf under the bed in my boys room. Every shelf cupboard and drawer in my hallway bathroom. My hallway closet that holds cleaning supplies. My hallway cupboard that holds my books, my hallway cupboard that holds all our medicines. I cleaned out 5 small boxes in my front dining room. I went through the families jacket racks and got rid of at least 15 jacket/sweatshirts. Cleaned off the top of my fridge. Then tidied the rest of the house that the kids had destroyed while I was busy working. So now tomorrow I am putting my feet up. I have 4.5 rooms left, some of them are huge projects until we work on the attic and garage. Rob has promised to help with those.... So I will keep you posted.

In the meantime I have set aside my cleaning/home upkeep cards because as one book I read said... "You can't organize clutter!" So until the clutter is gone and everything has its place.....

I love timers!

Today the timer is my friend..... Ever have those days where you just cannot get motivated? So you waste time all day then you finally look at the clock and are like Oh dang its 4 PM where did my day go? Well being that its monday, the first monday after a week of spring break I already know its gonna be one of those days. It started with a horrible nights sleep so that when 6 Am rolled around and I was gonna get up to get a great start on my day I couldn't move because of being up 4 times in the night. So when 9 AM rolled around I thought I better make some coffee and get a timer.

So that's what I am doing. I have this motto I can do anything for 10 minutes. So i set my timer for 10 and I goof off on my favorite computer game. Then I set my timer for 10 minutes and go to my master bathroom and start cleaning. Timer goes off, I go back to my computer and mess around. It may not sound like much, or it may sound like a lot of messing around, but I always am surprised by how much I get done. Not to mention I at the very least worked 30 minutes of every hour instead of realizing its 4PM and I have nothing done. Also somewhere in the process without fail I always find my motivation and start taking more 10 minute cleaning breaks then I take 10 minute fun breaks....

So here I come crazy Monday armed with my timer and my coffee... I will let you know who won!