Not ME! Monday returns - or so I thought

After a small hiatus from blogging, (ok I took almost a month off, SUE ME!) Not Me! Monday has returned!! Check out the totally cute new logo!!



So I started this post as a "Not Me! Monday" post, but when I went to MckMama's page to phish off this logo, I was shocked to see little Stellan in the hospital again. He's been doing so well and their life has been so "normal" for so long that I was very surprised. Her "tweet" in the side bar quotes Dr. B saying, "He's in bad shape." I just read her blog post seconds after I wrote this and their family is coming in to the hospital. This is as bad a shape as this baby has ever been in. Please pray for this sweet little boy and his family.

Overwhelmed

I'm a bad bad blogger. A lot of stuff that has been on my mind lately I don't feel comfortable blogging about just yet, so I've avoided my blog altogether.

Since I last blogged, Matt had his 27th birthday. He reminds me often that he turned the age I was when we met. Thanks hunny, I remember. I got ZERO pics of his birthday, bad wife. I did buy him an awesome ukulele for his birthday. It's an authentic ukulele from a maker in Hawaii. He loved it. I still don't have any pictures of him playing it, but hopefully when things calm down I can get some.

Matt has been working an insane amount of hours trying to get a job out on time. They were supposed to post July 15th, then the deadline was Friday, July 24th. Today they were told that it's been extended to Sunday night and they are expected to work this weekend. BTW, my 30th birthday is tomorrow (more on that later). So, he's wrestling with doing a good job, giving me time, properly celebrating my birthday, etc. We thought after they extended the deadline once that we would at least (FINALLY) get to sleep-in together, enjoy the day and have my birthday party in peace. Not so much. Oh well. I know he feels horrible about it, so I try not to complain and make it worse. At least we will have 5 or 6 hours on Saturday to celebrate.

Matt being gone so much lately is starting to really affect me. By the end of the day Sunday (the 19th) he had crammed 6 weeks worth of hours into 4 weeks at work. Monday and yesterday I think he worked about 21 hours in 2 days. My love languages are Physical Touch and Quality Time (I'm bilingual), so obviously I am affected by this.

Last night I lost it (again, this seems to be a regular cyclical occurrence). I feel so overwhelmed and I can't break out of it. I will have a good week or two, then a bad. I never can seem to time my counseling sessions with bad weeks, so we've yet to address it. UGH. Anyway, there are a lot of things that are important to me as a wife.

1. I love Jesus and want to have a close relationship with him, so I need and want to spend time studying the Word.
2. I love my husband, so I need and want to spend lots of quality time with him.
   
3. I want to be healthy and feel good about myself, so I need and want to exercise regularly.
   
4. I want us to eat healthy, nutritious foods, so I need and want to cook good meals often.
5. Clutter stresses me the heck out, so I need and want to keep up with housework.
6. I want to take care of myself, so I need and want to get to bed in time to get a good night's sleep.

These are all things that are of the absolute highest importance to me, and they are ALL things that are daily or nearly daily things that need taking care of. BTW, I work a full-time job too. I am stuck in this vicious cycle of setting goals for all of these things, FAILING MISERABLY, flipping the heck out about it, trying to do better, setting more goals, FAIL, flip out/ rant, and so on. This has been going on for 3 freakin' months now and I have NO IDEA how to do any better.

THEN I start to think if just keeping up with life is hard now, what happens when we are ready for kids??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!??!!

OH, and BTW I turn 30 tomorrow, chubby, childless, and totally overwhelmed. AWESOME.

Praise and Trust

A couple of girls in my small group have adopted this motto in the last month or so, and I think it's my turn. I've got a couple of things in the hopper and I'm feeling better about life in general. At least things are MOVING instead of me feeling STUCK like I did here.

So that's what I'm going to give my God, praise and trust.

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you and watch over you."

Psalm 32:8

Health, Love and Wealth...

And Time to Enjoy It. That's what the pewter plate reads that was given to us for our wedding by GP and Grandy (Matt's grandparents). It sits in a plate holder on top of our refrigerator. The same plate spent many years in GP and Grandy's kitchen, and it meant so much to us when we received it. And now, today, I realized how much more I treasure the gift and the blessing inscribed on it.

My friend Karson faces a very long battle ahead of her, that started this morning with the first of her INDEFINITE chemo treatments (that's right, indefinite, straight from her doctor's mouth). I noticed our plate this morning, and it rocked me to the core. It sits beside the bananas, and I get a banana for breakfast every morning, but today I really noticed it and read it for the first time in a while.

Life, love, family, friends, time are such precious gifts from God. Brian preached about it Sunday. The way we choose to spend our TIME each day, each task, are the most important decisions we make. No one is ever faced with their own mortality wishing that they spent more time at the office getting work done, or the gym trying to perfect our physical appearance, or in the yard trying to have the greenest lawn on the block. When faced with the big stuff, life or the end of it, we want more TIME with the ones we LOVE.

I am possibly facing an opportunity that may take more TIME from me than I am willing to give. Even though I've been waiting a while on an opportunity, this opportunity just may not be worth it. I can wait a little more, I guess. In the end, I will thank me for it. Right now, I have HEALTH (thank you Jesus); I have LOVE from an amazing man and so many family and friends; I have enough WEALTH to be comfortable. In light of all of that, I choose to spend the TIME I do have enjoying it!