So we got the townhouse and moved in.  We have been without a computer since my last posting. I will be updating this blog within the next day or two.  God has been blessing beyond comprehension. 

Shameful Distrust

I honestly don't want to write anything, but I haven't updated the other blogs this week and I should be able to ramble a little. I have been feeling an incredible amount of stress this last week and it is not because of busyness. We looked at a townhouse just over a week ago and it was beautiful, exactly the kind of place we would love. It is too expensive. We knew it was too expensive, but Greg is expecting a bonus in December (the company he works for gives large bonuses in December). We are also expecting a raise per his boss telling him he is planning to give him a raise by January. Neither of those things is gauranteed until it happens, but if they do I was anxious to look at this townhouse and see if we would like to apply for it when we are able. The thing that changed my 'just look' approach was that they have several townhouses available right now and we were encouraged to offer what we could. That got us hopeful and we figured out the most we can afford, but it wasn't enough. Now I can't stop thinking about it, hoping we will receive the money we are expecting, hoping they will still have a unit available like we looked at. But will it have all the south facing windows? Do we have to wait until January? There is no way we will be able to put up our tree for the holidays in this apartment and the children are disappointed about that. But, it would surely be worth the wait. We haven't found anything else in our price range so we will have to continue looking anyway. I am disappointed that I tell myself I will accept whatever God decides and then I don't. I am ashamed of myself and the way I keep looking for a way to make it work instead of resting in the Lord and waiting for him to open a door; I am not trusting Him to lead us. It isn't like I don't have anything else to think about; I just don't want to controll my thoughts. I want to think about what I want. Today is a new day and I am going to try harder, pray more, work on self discipline in other areas. I will let you know how things progress.

Look to the Lord

I'm really tired. My body wants to lay around for a day, or two. Swimming lessons started last week and they are great. We stay for the family swim afterwards which means I swim because Olivia is too young to be in the pool without an adult. I want to be in there with her; she is doing so well and having a great time. But, it is exhauting being in the pool for almost an hour. It is almost a mile from our home and we walk. It would be fine, even added to all the other lessons and biking, but this weekend was more busy than the week. I think I will include all the busyness on the Our Trail blog in a day or two so I'm not going to give you details. I just want to ramble about being so tired. We went to bed at a decent time last night so I got up this morning at my usual 4:30 and had my tea, read Psalm 105 and wrote in my journal. This is my preferred routine and I enjoy the quiet time to sit and pray and think (my favorite activity). Psalm 105 was a great place to read this morning in my weakened state. My verse today was 'Look to the Lord and his stregnth; seek his face always.' That will be the theme of my week.

I needed to wake the children at 6:00, but when I went in and turned on the closet light, none of them noticed and they went on sleeping. I didn't have the heart to wake them and Greg doesn't leave until after 8:00 today. So here I am rambling in a quiet home when I should be correcting math papers with the boys. It is a great advantage to homeschooling to be able to change our schedule at will. We have lightened our schedules for these four weeks of swimming lessons and a little extra sleep will help them fight off the colds coming into season.

I decided last week that I wanted to begin fasting again. I went through a time when I was fasting one day a week, but it was before Olivia and I felt I couldn't fast while preganant or nursing and then I've just never gotten back to it. This week I will, today. It will only be an approximate 24 hour fast, from dinner to dinner. It gives me ample time to suffer and pray and keeps the fasting more private. I don't need to talk about it with Greg or anyone; the children may notice, but it is a good example for them. It is a challenge to not say anything and keep it between me and God. Of course, I'm telling anyone reading this, but I'm sure there are not that many of you and I will consider it an example to you, as well. You will not have to see me irritable and complaining which avoiding those things is always the greatest challenge for me at any time, more so when I'm uncomfortable. I have many things to pray for and I desire that fasting will increase my focus on the One to whom I must look to for my strength and my needs and my wants.

I'm getting sleepy so it is time to get up and start working.

Proverbs 16:9

I was looking at the verse in my profile: "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." I noticed an example of this in my life recently. Several weeks ago we signed the children up for various classes within the Tualatin Valley Recreation District. We wanted them all to have swimming lessons. The Beaverton Swim Center is less than a mile from our home and they allow homeschoolers in their daytime preschool classes. Their normal classes for older children are in the evenings (after school is out). We were all a little nervous on the way to the first class Tuesday. It was great. They put all four boys together with one teacher. Olivia was with three other preschoolers. Immediately after our class (10:10 - 10:40) is a Family Swim (10:45 - 11:45). The class is Tuesdays and Thursdays and so is the Family Swim. I planned our classes knowing nothing about the swim center's schedule, but God knew and he directed me to that class at that time knowing how much the children and I would enjoy the time in the pool. You may agree or disagree with my assessment of this situation and its application to this verse; I know that the experience is true and that God has often shown his lovingkindness to us, to me, in these ways of seemingly insignificant importance. These little things bring great joy and they are blessings to us for which I am grateful to Him.

Great Events, Difficult Feelings, No Pictures

This has been one of the most difficult weeks for me that I have experienced in a long time, but I'm not going to get into that. There were a couple of especially good things I will tell you about. My dad, Ray, and step-mother, Eunice, invited me over for dinner to celebrate my birthday last Sunday. My birthday was not last Sunday, that was the available date for dinner. It was an honor for me. Eunice's son (Tim and wife Heather) and daughter (Dorothy, husband Ryan, son Cash) were also there, just for my birthday. I've been to their home when all of the same people were there, but never to celebrate me. I enjoyed it tremendously. Dorothy and Heather are both teachers and I enjoy hearing about their experiences. Cash is nearing 18 months and always a joy; the other children especially enjoy interacting with him. He is calling everyone Daddy (I guess a while back everyone was Mommy) and Dorothy said it was a little embarrassing when at the toy store every man was greeted with a loud "Daddy!" I hope they don't mind my sharing that story. After a delicious dinner Eunice brought out a huge chocolate cake with candles and they all sang "Happy Birthday" to me. I can't remember the last time I had a birthday party with a crowd singing to me and I blew out candles. It was quite a treat.

Then, just a couple of nights later I went to the Pregnancy Resource Center where I lead a Parenting Class. I was visiting with the director and a couple of others that work/help on Tuesday nights when they said, "Shall we go in the back?" I figured they were having some little meeting and headed up to put my stuff away and get ready for class. They stopped me right away and called me in where they had a chocolate cake, candles and began singing Happy Birthday! I turned 40 this year. I don't think too much about age, but it was a big year, a new decade. It was nice to celebrate with so many.

Thursday was Greg's 40th birthday. He had to go into work at 3:00 AM, but he came home just after noon so we went out to lunch. We ran a couple of errands and then came home for a relaxing afternoon. Friday our nephew, Keith, came over to hang out with us. We were just finishing cleaning up the house when he got here and we began getting ready to go to the library. Greg had gone into work at 3:00 AM again (third morning in a row) and got home just a little while before we were ready to leave. I thought he would prefer a nap to a walk, but he wanted to enjoy the time with Keith also and we all went to the library together. We bought some pizza that afternoon, ate chocolate chip cookies and played some darts. We were sorry when Keith needed to leave to go back to my dad's where he was staying before heading up to Fort Lewis today. We are so glad he has transferred there from Kansas as we hope we will get to see him occasionally. We are hopeful that Evan, Keith's brother, will also be stationed at Fort Lewis when he arrives home from Iraq.

It is interesting that I had a difficult week with so many great things happening, but it was. I could hardly force myself to do anything (I didn't do much) and the depression and hopelessness was all encompassing. I allowed myself a lot more sleep, I prayed, and I hoped that some time would pull me back together. I guess it worked. I can tell that I'm feeling better and I'm looking forward to more rational feelings.

I am sorry I have no pictures of any of these great events. I will try to not let that happen again.

The Park By Our Home

When the weather is agreeable we stop by the park on our way home from the library. We miss having a yard something fierce. It is wonderful to see the children running full speed across a large open area. There is a little trail through the trees at one side with open spaces for fort/wilderness games. If you click on the picture to the right you will see Henry walking toward the trees and trails. They have taken frisbees and sticks and balls. They also play on the play structures, imagine that. The three older boys are taking classes at different recreation center (wrote a little on the Our Trail blog) so they ride about 7-8 miles on those days. The walk to the library is a couple miles round trip and swimming lessons begin in a week and a half. Occationally they will go on a long ride with Greg, but still it isn't much outside time for these growing children. I know that God is faithful and will provide for all our needs and I will continue to trust him in this area. We are hoping to move soon into a place that will have a garage and a yard. I don't think it will be easy to find a place in the budget we want/have, but I want to try. We have another month or two before we can do much besides think about it and I pray that God will direct our path to the right home for this family. Anyway, here are some pictures of the children at the park, and Louis and Otto fighting with their sticks, I mean swords.

Grandma

Many things have changed since my last post. Grandma breathed her last earthly breath on September 9th. Her body had been rapidly making it harder and harder for her to get along. She fainted a few weeks ago while alone and fell. She had some bumps and bruises, but no broken bones. Still, she was unable to stay alone after that. There was a lot of thought and prayer about what to do, where she should live or who could live with her. Greg's dad (Grandma's son) showed a lot of wisdom in his slowness of decision because the move would have been so stressful for her and she was able to die in her own home. And, although I will not give details, there seemed to be no fear or pain in her passing. She felt she was going to faint and then she was gone.

I have experienced the death of the grandparents on my side of the family and my mother, but I was living far away from my mother at the time; Grandma we visited every week. I think I will feel this more. I knew it would not be much longer. I talked with the children about it and cautioned them that when we leave Grandma's house and she says goodbye to pay attention and know that it could be the last time. But, oh, how I will miss kissing that soft sweet cheek goodbye! There may have been times when I considered the time that it took in our schedule to visit Grandma, but I always absolutely loved being there, seeing her, visiting with her, listening to her thoughts. A few weeks ago I was priveledged to make her breakfast. Her coffee was weaker than my tea. She liked to dip her toast with butter and jelly into the coffee-water as she ate. She had a bowl of KIX with milk and half a banana. And she would tell me about her flowers, or the pictures she had been going through. She was pure joy. An example I have frequently given to others to describe her: Greg got one ear pierced when he was a teenager, when that was in. His parents were not thrilled. When Grandma saw him she looked at his pierced ear and then the other and asked, "Why did you only pierce one?" She was always full of grace and love.

I'll save the other changes for another post. This one is only Grandma.

Busy

Obiously I am still not on the computer regularly. In fact, it has been so long that it is hard to start again. It's embarassing to be so flakey. Life is just like that sometimes. We do enjoy hot cocoa in the mornings.

I have not been this busy for years, maybe never. For all of the time we've had children, and before, I was home with few options to leave. We have mostly had one vehicle and didn't try to find any other method of leaving. I like being home. Now things have changed. Our van is not working so we still only have the truck Greg is borrowing from his dad and he takes that to work everyday, but I can bike almost anywhere I need to go. I joined the YMCA for their cycle class (Greg wants to ride to the coast this summer) and I go 2 - 3 times a week. I began volunteering and the Pregnancy Resource Center down the street and teach their parenting class once a week. I've mentioned before that we go to the library every week (always walking now) and then to Greg's grandma's house (she's 98!) where we visit and have lunch before walking home. We buy raw milk from a farm in Washington, but I pick it up, on my bike, in Hillsboro once a week (14 miles round trip). All this between Monday and Friday.

The children are adjusting. Henry and Louis are both old enough to watch the younger children and they all hold each other accountable (maybe too accountable at times). Most often they have school work that has to be done while I'm gone so I know if they have been obedient. It is the way things are right now. I pity myself sometimes because I want to stay home all the time again, but that is not the place in which God has me. I know that I am being obedient to Him during this time of busyness; there are things we need to learn during this experience, all of us, and I'm confident that we are learning them. I've often said that God fills my life with things to do because without them I would sit around all day thinking about great things, but doing nothing. I will continue to work as I can and pray for peace as I feel a little stressed at times. I will obey and wait.

Boring Update

We are back to ordinary and it feels wonderful! The kids have begun doing a full day of school work again and, although we should probably work more diligently on our chores, the house is getting back in order slowly and surely. My focus now is to not be angry. I'm afraid I was becoming increasingly irritable and speaking harshly to everyone around me. I hope I am doing better. How easy it is to let those words out louder than necessary and with quite a bite. How rewarding it is to say the same thing in a gentle voice and with respect for those to whom we are speaking. This is my goal of late. I have also brought my diet back in line and exercising again. These probably help with the former goal.

Today is library day. My bike has been having numerous problems, flat tires and shifting difficulties. If the rain holds off we will walk rather than drive. It has been more than a month since we rode our bikes to the library and I miss it. There will be plenty of more pleasant trips when the weather changes. I think this is babbling rather than rambling and I will stop rather than voice my boring chatter.