Movie, Soccer and the rest of this week

Friday night, Adam and I went to see the movie "Fireproof". It was amazing. The story was so moving and I think anyone who is married or thinking about getting married one day should go see it. The longer you are married, the easier it is to let things creep in and get between you and your spouse. Sometimes they are very little things that can totally destroy your relationship. At the very least, this movie reminds you to intentionally love your spouse, even when you don't "feel" like it. It is so easy to take them for granted...that they'll always be there, that you're both so confident in your relationship that you don't ever need to work on it. So not true...marriages are crumbling all around us and we have to fight to protect our marriages! I can remember when I first got married and I heard people getting divorced over money. I truly couldn't understand. I thought it meant they were fighting about how to spend their money or how to save their money. While that might sometimes be the case, now after 11 years of marriage (in November) I have learned that sometimes the marriage crumbles due to the stress of money issues. We all go into marriage with preconceived ideas and some marriages end simply because the marriage can't live up to the expectations. When you couple the stress of money and kids with the influences in the outside world, it takes both people truly committed to keep the marriage in tact. Not too long ago, one of my friends was celebrating their 16th wedding anniversary. She told me it was her anniversary by saying, "God in His great mercy has helped us stay married for 16 years." What a true statement. It takes both people and God to make a marriage work like it is supposed to. And, if you truly study the role of a wife and the role of a husband in the Bible, it is pretty much contrary to the way the world views men and women and their roles in the home. But, I have also found that my marriage only runs smoothly when both of us are aware of our duties as man and wife and trying and praying to follow those roles. (Okay, here is where everyone says DUH! God's plan is God's plan because it protects us and makes our lives so much easier! But, while His plan is always simple, it's not always easy!) Anyway, Adam and I ordered the Love Dare books from the movie and I cannot wait to get started. The movie alone had an impact on our marriage, so I'm looking forward to seeing what 40 days will do.
Onto a much more shallow subject...On Saturday, Zoe had a soccer game. She is doing so well this year! It's like something has just clicked and everything is coming together with her game. Her foot work has improved greatly - she kicks with both feet! And, she is getting faster too. She is also a lot better at anticipating things during the game. Last week, she scored three goals and this week she scored two goals! She really enjoys it too and she has a good coach this season. Also, her Daddy works with her just about everyday outside. It's so neat to see her play and play well!
This will probably be my last blog entry this week. Starting tomorrow, my week goes into hyperdrive. Tomorrow night is church. Thursday night, I have the Ladies Extravaganza at the church. This is where some of the ladies host a table and decorate it and we get together and have dinner and a speaker. I'm hosting a table with my friend, who is coming in from Alabama. During the dinner, Adam has to meet with our new prospective pastor who is coming in for the weekend. Then, Friday during the day I will be decorating a cake for a friend's marriage recommitment ceremony. That night, I will go to one building at the church to set up the cake, then go to another building to meet the prospective pastor for a few minutes. Then, we go back to the other building and go to the recommitment ceremony. Saturday morning, we have the big service day at the church. Then a soccer game. Then from 2-5, we have the big fundraiser at Zoe and Sebastian's school. Then, Sunday morning the prospective pastor is preaching in view of a call. At four o'clock, I have a meeting with the music ministry and the new pastor. Sunday night, we will vote on the pastor and then head to AWANA with the new pastor to await the vote. So, we are pretty busy this weekend, but I am looking forward to every bit of it!
Then, next weekend - we're going on our first family camping trip!!

Friends

Sometimes I look around at my friends and I am amazed at all of my friendships! God has truly blessed me with some of the greatest friends and I love how different they all are. God uses each one of them to teach me new things and stretch me, most of the time without me even realizing it! I am going to talk about two of them. I have other friends, but these two are the ones I have regular communication with and the ones that know me best.
The first one - this friend lives five hours away from me, but we talk very often. She is a working mother of two and loves being a professional. She is the friend who drove the three hours to visitation when Adam's mom passed away and just hung out with me for like four hours. I didn't even ask her. She just called and said she was on her way, dropped her kids off at her in-laws house and came. It was so touching and meant so much. We were friends in college, but not that close. In 1998, I moved to Mississippi, away from everyone I knew, for Adam to go to law school and she moved to Tunnel Hill, IL for her husband to go to school. Our friendship deepened and grew through that experience. We talked on the phone for hours and our friendship grew. She now lives in Memphis and we only get to see each other about twice a year, but we continue to email and call each other and I love her like a sister.
The second one - this friend is a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom of five (with probably more coming in the future). She is the most organized and creative person I know. She convicts me daily with how she cares for her family and home. She is my "natural" friend - if she saw how much processed food was in my home, she would probably faint. Well, not really, because she knows me very well. She is the opposite of me in so many ways. She nurses her babies for at least a year, I count down the days when I can put a bottle with formula in my baby's mouth! (judge me if you want to, I don't care...I've had four babies and they all have felt loved and are healthy, so I can confidently say that I absolutely hate nursing without feeling like a bad mother) She soaks beans during the day to cook for her family for supper. Me, well...I'm all about frozen beans and peas. Just the other day she was talking about how long brown rice takes to cook and my response was, "It takes no time in the boil-in-a-bag!" She homeschools and I am enjoying my two big kids school experience. (It works for us right now. I've stopped making definitive statements. The quickest way for me to guarantee that God will call me to homeschool is to say something stupid like, "I'll NEVER homeschool." Nope. I think I'll stick with "School is working for us right now.") She has her kids on a chore schedule. I get my kids to help out with housework, but it is definitely not organized at all. They watch almost no TV, we watch some TV. She is so creative. She makes clothes and purses and does neat stuff to teach her kids. Not to mention that she has their family finances in such order that I think she could probably fix just about any financial crisis a fortune 500 company faced. She is the person (apart from Adam) that I have been completely transparent with. She knows all my personality flaws and still loves me! She never judges me. She responds with love and with practical things to try to solve the problem. She is the one who came immediately to my house just to sit with me when Adam's mom passed away and he had already headed home. She showed up at my house with chocolate (always a necessity) and things to do in the car for the kids since I would be driving the three hours alone with the three big kids. Then she kept Annabelle from Friday to Monday so I could go to the funeral without having to worry about a 2 1/2 year old. Then, when Adam and I went to Texas, she kept Annabelle from Thursday to Monday and even kept the boys as well that Sunday night because our flight got delayed and I didn't have anyone to keep the boys! (remember she already has 5 kids of her own!) I know I can call her with any crisis and she will come running. She and I are so different, but it makes our friendship so much fun!
BUT, one thing I have in common with each of these ladies is our love for Jesus Christ and our determination to instill Christian values in our children. We strive to love our husbands and our children so that they see Christ in us. We all love a great Christian praise song and can always talk about how a particular sermon impacted us. Or how something we read in the Bible taught us something new. I love these women as sisters (and we are sisters in Christ!) and I am thankful to God each day that He has brought these amazing women in my life. I am thankful that He loves me enough to bless me with such friends.

Information for Shoppers

So, I have now worked in retail for a year. (I never thought I would be there a year) Well, I actually worked retail while I was in college, but it was at a very small Christian bookstore, which was a completely different experience than this year at Target. So, I have done lots of different jobs while at the great big bullseye, and I am now ready to write about some of it. I realize that not everyone has had a job in retail, so there may be somethings that the average shopper doesn't know. Well, I am judging by some of the people who came through my line during my 5 1/2 hour cashier shift the other night.

1. Get off the phone. I understand there are emergency situations where this is not possible. But, please don't stand there and have a personal conversation while checking out. You can't possibly pay attention to what is going on and talk at the same time. It is so much easier to fix a mistake before the transaction is closed. Once you hang up and look at your receipt and realize that the item you thought was 29.99 rang up for 49.99, it is much harder to fix and involves more people.

2. Get ready. It should come as no surprise to you after you have stood in a check out line that at the end of it, the cashier is going to expect some sort of payment. If you're paying cash, get it out. Unwad the dollar bills and, if you absolutely have to make exact change, get it out of the bottom of your purse. (By the way, there is not actually an award for paying with exact change or getting an even amount back, I promise.) If you are paying with a check, write out what you can. The name of the store, the date, your signed name, etc. If you're paying with a card, get it out. If it's a debit card, know your PIN. If you aren't sure of your PIN, run it as credit card, don't try different PINs, it slows everything down and I am being scored on the speed of the transaction.

3. Keep your children out of my space. I too shop with multiple children and I seem to be able to keep mine out of the cashier's area. So can you. I'm pretty sure you can keep them from jumping up on my conveyer belt and scanner area too. If they jump up there, I at least expect you to make an attempt to get them down. I don't think that's unreasonable.

4. If I offer you a store credit card, please realize that it is only because the computer has prompted me to do so. I don't personally want you to have one. Feel free not to share your credit history with me or why you think the card that earns you points at Disney World is a better idea. A simple, "No thank you" or "Not right now" will suffice. I am secretly hoping you say no anyway, because it takes more time to fill out the application. But I have to ask, because there are secret shoppers and I got in trouble for not asking before.

5. Just because I have on the appropriate colored shirt and a nametag does not mean I have been thoroughly trained in every area of the store. I will do my best to help you or try to find someone who knows the answer to your question, but you cannot look annoyed if I don't know the answer right away and you for sure cannot be rude. Do you really think I am going to try to move quicker if you are rude and insulting?

6. Sales Tax is more in Tennessee than it is in Georgia. We don't have an income tax. If you purchase a dress for $19.99, it's going to cost you $21.84 in Tennessee or $21.19 in Georgia. I have no control over it. Do you want the dress or not?

7. Any kind of return policy that we have implemented (which, is implemented at the corporate level and the girl making $6.50 an hour at the guest service desk is not just being unreasonable) is that way because people try to cheat and steal no matter what you have in place and it is the best system that corporate could come up with to keep the least amount of people to steal and cheat. Please take the online survey and complain to corporate, but no amount of cursing at me and calling me names that I've never even heard before will override my computer system.

8. Last, but not least, the check out line is not the appropriate venue to share your political views with me. I don't want to hear your views on McCain/Palin, Obama/Biden, the environment, abortion, creation vs. evolution, what the US should do about their dependence on foreign oil, etc. Just because I am a cashier does not mean I am not educated and am not informed on all of these issues. I don't have time to actually teach you why you are wrong or to discuss why I agree with you if you are right, so it's best just not to share.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but it hits the highlights. In the movie "Men In Black", Tommy Lee Jones makes a great statement. "A person is smart. People are stupid." There is some definite truth in that statement!

The Cake I Made Today

This is the cake I just finished for a surprise 40th birthday party tonight! It's just white cake with buttercream icing. She wanted a lot of black on it...Hope they like it!

To entertain Annabelle and Jude during the decorating, I gave them each their own icing to play with. Don't worry, it's not the same icing I used on the cake! :) They had fun squeezing it onto their plates and, obviously eating it as well.

A Little Venting

Sometimes I feel like I am going in twenty different directions at a hundred miles an hour. This week, on Monday after Adam got home, I got to go out to a movie with my mom for her birthday. This, of course, was fun, but involved getting supper made for the rest of the family before I left, so it was somewhat stressful. Then, Tuesday, the kids get home from school, we quickly did homework for Wednesday, get everyone dressed and head to the soccer field. Adam meets us there, then I go to work until 10:30pm. Wednesday, I met a girl at my mom's house (my oven is broken right now) to teach her to bake a cake. We had to bake actually two big cakes so it took about four hours start to finish. Then, Wednesday night, we have church. Once again, get everyone dressed and in the car and meet Adam there. Adam and Sebastian get finished before everyone else, so he takes Sebastian home and I get the other three after choir. Now, we're to Thursday. After dropping the kids at school (once again getting everyone dressed and in the car) I head to the church to take care of some choir stuff. We're there until around 11, when I'm supposed to meet Adam for lunch. I get to the restaurant and he calls and says he is stuck at the closing he was attending. Can I just wait a few minutes? Sure. It's a mexican restaurant so I'll take the kids in and we'll eat chips and salsa till he gets here in 10 minutes. So, I go in with my two kiddos and we sit down. I decided to go ahead and order the kids food so they can be eating. Forty minutes later is when Adam arrived. (Not his fault at all and he did call a couple of times in between) But, the kids were already done eating by the time he got there. I waited till he got there to order, so then we ate. The kids of course were a little restless, so the end of the meal wasn't near as fun as the beginning. Then we head home for nap/rest time. The kids get home from school, we get everyone dressed (again) and in the car (again) and head to soccer. The good news is that I didn't actually have to work so I got to stay at soccer. I told Adam that I needed to go to Sam's to pick up something for the cake I am making for tonight. Then, he says, well the kids won't eat till late if you do that. Yada, yada, yada. Fine. I'll go in the morning. Then, once I am already at home, I realize that Sam's doesn't open until TEN! UGH!!! So, now I have to try to finish the cake before tonight. This morning, Adam says he'll take the two big kids to school if I will let him work a little late tonight and meet us at Parents Night Out. Okay. So, I will get to get all four kids dressed and in the car (again!) plus the cake because it is going with us tonight. I will so enjoy Parents Night Out tonight, I cannot even begin to tell you!
Now, I realize that there are people who do way more than I do. But, I am really tired this week for some reason. And, our soccer game is at 9 am Saturday. Adam will go to work in the morning and meet us at the field. Which will mean I get to get everyone up, dressed and in the car everyday this week! And then do it all over next week! I can't wait till Fall Break!!!

My Views on My Children and the Size of My Family

Okay, I have been doing some deep soul searching and praying and discussing with my husband and now I would like to articulate my feelings on family size/number of children. My dearest friend has a "quiverfull" view of her family size and our discussion on the matter made me step back and think about what I truly believe and why I believe it. I truly admire her for her convictions on this matter and how she sticks to those convictions unashamedly in a world that doesn't share this position. Girl, our discussion really made me nail down what I believe and why and, you're so right about there being an enormous freedom in that. I will also put a disclaimer on this that these are MY thoughts and I think each family is unique. God's plan for me is not the same plan He has for everyone, so please don't think any of this is meant to be preachy or judgemental. This is just where I stand.

Okay, so I have friends who have two children who say their family is complete and they just knew their family was complete after two children. I have other friends who say the same thing after four children. Then I know people who are my mom's age who say they wish they had had more than two children, but that's just what everyone else did, so they did too. I really would like not to look back with regret when I have grown children and some grandchildren. I know I might have some regrets, but I am trying to avoid as many as possible.

Anyway, I have never felt that "my family is complete" feeling. I don't know what it feels like. I have heard it's kind of like how you knew who to marry. You just know. Okay, so I don't have that feeling. I seem to waffle between wanting another child and not really ever wanting to think about having another child. Admittedly, these moods tend to be dictated by the behavior of my four little ones, but anyway.

So, after this discussion with my friend, I began praying about this and reading the Bible trying to decide what my feelings are on this issue. I prayed that my decision would not be swayed by fear or what other people might think or anything other than what God's plan is for MY life. So here it is...

I think that children are blessings from God. He has blessed me with four precious and special children and I am grateful every day for them. (Maybe not every moment of everyday, like right now as I am arguing with my fourth grader about whether her homework answer is correct) And, three of those four times, I was not asking him for those blessings! He knew exactly what I needed and when I needed it, no matter what I had planned. There is no way for me to articulate the joy these four little ones have given me. The little things - the unprompted "I love you"s, the funny things they say, the feeling I get when I teach them something new. All of those things have intrinsic value that simply cannot be measured. I am so thankful for them and I know that God has entrusted them to me when they are still His and He is still in complete control.

I do believe in birth control. Not all forms of birth control, mind you. I am firmly against anything that causes the abortion of a fertilized egg. I believe that life begins at conception, the moment the sperm enters the egg. If I am to actually take a stand on this issue, I have already ruled out the most popular forms of birth control - pills and IUD. I realize that birth control pills have medical purposes too, so please know that I am still talking about me. There's also the little thing that two of my children came about while I was on birth control pills (this is before I knew what they did - I thought they only prevented ovulation) so I also have a teensy bit of distrust for them.

I also think that my family can be complete without any type of surgical procedure. In my small section of the world, vasectomies and tubal ligations seem to be the norm. Where is the rule that in order to be "done" having children, I have to let a doctor physically and permanently alter me or my husband? I'm not completely against these procedures or anything, but I don't understand the rush to have these done. I'm not saying I will never have one of these procedures done, but I am still very young, I think. I know someone who opted to have a hysterectomy simply because she was tired of having periods - she was 31 years old at the time! I don't understand.

I do trust God about the size of my family, but prevention does not mean that I don't trust Him. I trust Him with my life too, but I still take precautions against illness and other things that could impact my family. And right now, another baby would negatively impact my family. Right now, I am trusting God and using my practical side (which is also in His image) and deciding not to increase my family size. For me, there is such a peace with that. I am doing my part with this decision and if He decides to bless us with another baby, then He will provide everything we need. I also think that one day I will want another child. But, for now, I am resting in His promises to provide all my needs and that He always has my best at heart.

Again, I am not posting this to offend anyone in anyway. God makes families in all sizes and shapes and colors and He does this according to His will. He is such a good and merciful God and I am just trying to discern His will so I can always be right in the center of it.

Lessons from Miss Spider

As you can imagine, with four kiddos, I am very familiar with just about anything on the wonderful television channels of Nick Jr. and Noggin. One of these shows is Miss Spider's Sunny Patch. Couldn't they have come up with a longer name? Anyway, yesterday on Miss Spider, all of Miss Spider's kids had something going on at the same time. A violin recital, some sport game, web surfing, a play and a race. All at the same time. Well, the dad (don't remember his name) fell and hurt himself, so he couldn't help Miss Spider. So, Miss Spider still promised all her children that she would be at each event. Of course, in her rushing around to get every where at once, she sprained one of her ankles (don't think spiders actually have ankles, but I don't think a lesson on arachnids were what the writers were going for here) and couldn't get to all of the events. In one way or another, she actually let down each of her children because she didn't get to see any of the things they were doing. The kids learned that their mother was simply a spider and not a super mom.
But, it got me thinking...how many times do I promise my kids something and not deliver? I try really hard not to promise to do something and not follow through, but my kids are also the children of someone who is just a flawed human. I'm not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination. But, on a deeper note, how often do I promise things to God and not follow through? I think I would be embarrassed to actually type the answer! Why is it so hard to be consistent in my relationship with Him? I don't have a hard time maintaining my human relationships, why do I do it with Him? My dear husband has taught me many things, but one thing is that if I decide to do anything, I will fail. If I say, "I'm going to have my quiet time each day...or I'm going to memorize scripture..." or any number of things, I'm going to fail. I can only do it with God's help. So, to maintain a regular prayer time, I have to PRAY! God designed it so the only way to keep a relationship with Him is to depend on Him to give me the discipline to keep the relationship! He is amazing!!