Tuesday, March 05, 2013
why cashews are so expensive
Apparently we have a cashew tree in our yard. I wasn't aware of this until a couple of weeks ago when it started dropping these little suckers all over our yard. It is amazing to me that the tree has to produce this whole fruit just to come up with one little nut. It explains why cashews are so expensive.
back but not home
A month before we got the e-mail inviting us to the Philippines we put an offer in on a new house.
We love our little house in Spokane, but there are times that it indeed seems well, little.
We've committed to adding to our family through adoption and our little house just can't handle a family of 6, plus company that is always rolling through, plus trying to have our door open to Moody students and events.
We could barely fit 6 around our table. It sits in a nook. I call it our dinning nook. It makes is sound cute and cozy, don't you think? Our nook has one end of our table against the wall and if we have more than 5-6 people around it we have to pull it out from the wall which leaves half of it hanging into the living room and then the light that used to hang over the middle of the table hangs over the head of the person sitting between the table and the wall.
And Kellan's room. Well lets just say that we know lots of people that have a bigger master closet than Kellan's room. It makes me claustrophobic just thinking of putting bunk beds in there.
It was a God thing that the offer fell through on the house we were intending to buy. There is no way we would have packed up a brand new-to-us house and moved halfway around the world.
We did pack up our house though before we left Spokane. Down to the last washcloth and toothpick. We decided that if God used this year to move us back overseas then we would be ready to go and if He used this year to move us back to Spokane we would be ready to look for houses again. It sounded like such a great plan back then. It's back to Spokane we go.
So while a piece of me is excited to be heading back, the fact that as of this time we have no where to physically go back to can cause me just a tiny bit of stress. Right now our house is being rented out and we'd like to keep it that way if at all possible. So when we pull into town we go.......where? A hotel, an apartment, a friend's basement?? As excited as we are to get "home" it feels like we're not going home, we're just going back.
I started looking at houses online in an effort to torture myself. I of course found one I liked and had already mentally hung our pictures on the wall and last week the house listed as pending. As in almost sold. Punch to the gut. After a week or so I realized that I wasn't so much in LOVE with the house, but I needed a place for my mind to go when it pictured us back in Spokane.
Right now when I picture us stepping out of our car, the picture in my mind just goes blank. When I picture getting out of bed, it goes blank. When I picture walking through the front door, it's just blank. It feels like such an exercise of faith to just let it be blank and not fill it up with what I want to make happen for our family.
I know God has a plan for where He wants us to live, just like He had a plan for that house to fall through. It's just having the patience to wait and see what He gifts us with.
We love our little house in Spokane, but there are times that it indeed seems well, little.
We've committed to adding to our family through adoption and our little house just can't handle a family of 6, plus company that is always rolling through, plus trying to have our door open to Moody students and events.
We could barely fit 6 around our table. It sits in a nook. I call it our dinning nook. It makes is sound cute and cozy, don't you think? Our nook has one end of our table against the wall and if we have more than 5-6 people around it we have to pull it out from the wall which leaves half of it hanging into the living room and then the light that used to hang over the middle of the table hangs over the head of the person sitting between the table and the wall.
And Kellan's room. Well lets just say that we know lots of people that have a bigger master closet than Kellan's room. It makes me claustrophobic just thinking of putting bunk beds in there.
It was a God thing that the offer fell through on the house we were intending to buy. There is no way we would have packed up a brand new-to-us house and moved halfway around the world.
We did pack up our house though before we left Spokane. Down to the last washcloth and toothpick. We decided that if God used this year to move us back overseas then we would be ready to go and if He used this year to move us back to Spokane we would be ready to look for houses again. It sounded like such a great plan back then. It's back to Spokane we go.
So while a piece of me is excited to be heading back, the fact that as of this time we have no where to physically go back to can cause me just a tiny bit of stress. Right now our house is being rented out and we'd like to keep it that way if at all possible. So when we pull into town we go.......where? A hotel, an apartment, a friend's basement?? As excited as we are to get "home" it feels like we're not going home, we're just going back.
I started looking at houses online in an effort to torture myself. I of course found one I liked and had already mentally hung our pictures on the wall and last week the house listed as pending. As in almost sold. Punch to the gut. After a week or so I realized that I wasn't so much in LOVE with the house, but I needed a place for my mind to go when it pictured us back in Spokane.
Right now when I picture us stepping out of our car, the picture in my mind just goes blank. When I picture getting out of bed, it goes blank. When I picture walking through the front door, it's just blank. It feels like such an exercise of faith to just let it be blank and not fill it up with what I want to make happen for our family.
I know God has a plan for where He wants us to live, just like He had a plan for that house to fall through. It's just having the patience to wait and see what He gifts us with.
i can
This year has definitely thrown things into my path that I thought I could not do. And I've had to get over telling myself that I couldn't do them.
For example, either my children repeat a grade or I quit telling myself that I can't do the home school thing, put my big girl pants on, get my act together and carry on. I had to find a way to make it happen.
Quite honestly, I don't think this happens to me very often at home. There are so many ways to get around doing things that I don't really want to do. Or think I can't do. There are so many supports that are just not available over here.
This year has been a real challenge to the CAN'Ts that I have set up in my mind. It has completely amazed me how different things are when I realize that I don't have to repeat "I can't" over and over in my mind and instead tell myself "I can" and then figure out how to make it happen.
I can be my child's advocate. I can deal with her reading disability. I can help unlock her dyslexic brain.
I can take care of myself and push myself in new ways. I never thought I would EVER be a runner, here I am. It's been slow going, but at least it's going.
For example, either my children repeat a grade or I quit telling myself that I can't do the home school thing, put my big girl pants on, get my act together and carry on. I had to find a way to make it happen.
Quite honestly, I don't think this happens to me very often at home. There are so many ways to get around doing things that I don't really want to do. Or think I can't do. There are so many supports that are just not available over here.
This year has been a real challenge to the CAN'Ts that I have set up in my mind. It has completely amazed me how different things are when I realize that I don't have to repeat "I can't" over and over in my mind and instead tell myself "I can" and then figure out how to make it happen.
I can be my child's advocate. I can deal with her reading disability. I can help unlock her dyslexic brain.
I can take care of myself and push myself in new ways. I never thought I would EVER be a runner, here I am. It's been slow going, but at least it's going.
done
My child has a split personality. Her student personality and her daughter personality. They are two completely different beings.
The school personality flips out, yells, rants and raves, stomps around. I bet you're getting the picture.
The daughter personality snuggles up, wants to paint nails and then make cookies and just can't get enough time together with me.
The differences are like night and day.
Recently I've realized how much I struggle with the two. Not so much in the fact that they both exist. My struggle comes in how fast one personality can flip to the other. In how they are so completely separate. In how one personality has no bearing on the other.
There are days when I have had student personality yelling and me and less that 5 minutes later daughter personality asking me if I want to cuddle up on the couch and watch Little House on the Prairie with her. I think, "Don't you get it? You have to PAY for the way you have been misbehaving. I don't want to see you or be around you. I am still trying to bandage up the wounds you just inflicted upon me. You can't just pretend like the last 2 hours of hell didn't happen." But that isn't how she works. When student personality is done, she is gone and the new daughter appears. Done.
There is part of me that thinks that the daughter personality should pay for the sins of the student personality. I think, if the student personality is going to give me a run for her money and see how far she can push me before I snap and kill her, the daughter personality should know that she needs to clean her room, talk to me real sweet, kiss my feet and generally steer clear of me for at least a couple of hours to make it up to me for all of the ugliness previously displayed before she even considers approaching me again. I guess in my mind, that would show me that she GOT IT. That she messed up and she was sorry. I know, I maybe need counseling.
This had been bothering me for weeks. Every time she would flip, I would get mad. Here is sweet daughter personality trying to love on me and I'm steaming mad that she is being so sweet. I was really struggling with the concept of her having to PAY for her bad behavior.
Granted, we do have consequences for bad behavior. There has been lots of puzzle setting going on around here because after a warning you loose your electronics for the day. And that is only consequence #2, the list goes on. Consequences were fine and good, but I wanted to know that she KNEW she had done me wrong. I wanted her to cry and tell me how horrible she was and how wonderful a mother I was and how she would never be so mean again, and on and on. Wake up from the dream, right?
However, the Lord is good and helped me put this in a spiritual perspective. I guess the student personality could be like when I walk in the flesh and the daughter personality could be like when I walk in the Spirit. I know. This is getting deep. Hang on.
It really made me question whether or not I believe and act like I have to make it up to God when I mess up. Or can I confess, be done with it and move on. Not move on like it never happened, but move on as in not sit in a pile of guilt and shame for days or weeks or years. Not sit and grovel at God's feet for something that is already done and paid for. Forgiven. As far as East from West. Can I be DONE, like my daughter is DONE? Hmmm.....
So, no, I don't believe that I have to walk around on egg shells before my loving and gracious God before He would restore our relationship. So maybe I shouldn't do that with my daughter. Just like with my daughter, there are often times consequences that follow my foolish behavior, but it isn't anything that breaks the unity in our relationship. Embrace the grace offered, learn the lesson and be DONE!
So then I started praying that the Lord would confirm this through His Word to me.
Enter me starting to memorize Romans 8 (thank you Ann for inspiring me even though I haven't gotten very far).
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
Wait a minute, NO condemnation, or just no condemnation when we are behaving? NO condemnation as in God doesn't hang things over my head and make me pay for my stupidity or selfishness?
because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
Free? Bring It! Let's be DONE!
The school personality flips out, yells, rants and raves, stomps around. I bet you're getting the picture.
The daughter personality snuggles up, wants to paint nails and then make cookies and just can't get enough time together with me.
The differences are like night and day.
Recently I've realized how much I struggle with the two. Not so much in the fact that they both exist. My struggle comes in how fast one personality can flip to the other. In how they are so completely separate. In how one personality has no bearing on the other.
There are days when I have had student personality yelling and me and less that 5 minutes later daughter personality asking me if I want to cuddle up on the couch and watch Little House on the Prairie with her. I think, "Don't you get it? You have to PAY for the way you have been misbehaving. I don't want to see you or be around you. I am still trying to bandage up the wounds you just inflicted upon me. You can't just pretend like the last 2 hours of hell didn't happen." But that isn't how she works. When student personality is done, she is gone and the new daughter appears. Done.
There is part of me that thinks that the daughter personality should pay for the sins of the student personality. I think, if the student personality is going to give me a run for her money and see how far she can push me before I snap and kill her, the daughter personality should know that she needs to clean her room, talk to me real sweet, kiss my feet and generally steer clear of me for at least a couple of hours to make it up to me for all of the ugliness previously displayed before she even considers approaching me again. I guess in my mind, that would show me that she GOT IT. That she messed up and she was sorry. I know, I maybe need counseling.
This had been bothering me for weeks. Every time she would flip, I would get mad. Here is sweet daughter personality trying to love on me and I'm steaming mad that she is being so sweet. I was really struggling with the concept of her having to PAY for her bad behavior.
Granted, we do have consequences for bad behavior. There has been lots of puzzle setting going on around here because after a warning you loose your electronics for the day. And that is only consequence #2, the list goes on. Consequences were fine and good, but I wanted to know that she KNEW she had done me wrong. I wanted her to cry and tell me how horrible she was and how wonderful a mother I was and how she would never be so mean again, and on and on. Wake up from the dream, right?
However, the Lord is good and helped me put this in a spiritual perspective. I guess the student personality could be like when I walk in the flesh and the daughter personality could be like when I walk in the Spirit. I know. This is getting deep. Hang on.
It really made me question whether or not I believe and act like I have to make it up to God when I mess up. Or can I confess, be done with it and move on. Not move on like it never happened, but move on as in not sit in a pile of guilt and shame for days or weeks or years. Not sit and grovel at God's feet for something that is already done and paid for. Forgiven. As far as East from West. Can I be DONE, like my daughter is DONE? Hmmm.....
So, no, I don't believe that I have to walk around on egg shells before my loving and gracious God before He would restore our relationship. So maybe I shouldn't do that with my daughter. Just like with my daughter, there are often times consequences that follow my foolish behavior, but it isn't anything that breaks the unity in our relationship. Embrace the grace offered, learn the lesson and be DONE!
So then I started praying that the Lord would confirm this through His Word to me.
Enter me starting to memorize Romans 8 (thank you Ann for inspiring me even though I haven't gotten very far).
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
Wait a minute, NO condemnation, or just no condemnation when we are behaving? NO condemnation as in God doesn't hang things over my head and make me pay for my stupidity or selfishness?
because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
Free? Bring It! Let's be DONE!
Sunday, February 10, 2013
making lemonade
Today we decided to make lemonade. From lemons. Construction was going on and it was LOUD at the house. The neighbors were burning and you would have thought the entire town was on fire and the smoke was on a direct path. There wasn't even a way we could escape it in the house. I often wonder if we had a smoke detector IN our house, how many times it would go off a week. A few, I'm guessing. We had to leave. So off we went to the hangar. We took all our school stuff, but didn't get much done. And I suppose that is okay with me.
And looking at these pictures makes me so glad that I gave Kellan a haircut a few days ago.
And looking at these pictures makes me so glad that I gave Kellan a haircut a few days ago.
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