What ifs

My husband might get a job today... or he might not. He might find out he got a job today... or he might find out later this week... or next week or the week after... or he might not. He might get a job with another company... or he might not. We might move at christmas into a rental house... or we might not. We might move to the south side of Houston, or the east side... or not. We might enroll Ayden in a hip Hop class.. or we might not. We might celebrate Lucas's Birthday by going to Nasa...or we might not. Nothing is for sure in our lives. How grateful I am that My Lord is "I AM" He is. He was. He will be. I rest in that.

happenings

I have a new nephew and he is beautiful, and healthy. A 9.1 lbs of halthy beautiful baby boy. George Asher Barna is not yet 24 hours old and his aunt meme is sooooo sad she can't go meet him. I've been working on his Christmas stocking while I whine about not getting to smell his sweet little head or snuggle his tiny little nose. California is simply too far away.

Last night we were in the living room pining over pictures of the new little angel and my own little devil came into the room with suspiciously balckened eyes. hmm. My first thought and fear was ink. After closer inspection I realized tht no, not ink, but mascara. My two month old had applied mascara to both of his eyes, actually managing to get a good coat on one set of dainty lashes. I'm in trouble. big trouble.

because it isnt all about me...

I blog. I facebook. I write about what I eat, where I go, everything I do. I watched my wedding video the other day with my husband and on it my brother in law toasted us, or roasted me, and tease me somewhat mercilessly about my scrapbooking the tiniest details of my life. Its so true though. I think you should think its important what I saw in the street this morning or what my child said after he hit his brother or what ingredients went into my dinner. But I know it isnt. Over the past few months I felt overwhelmingly selfish. I was so excited to find a church to really plug into, to grow deeper with. (Grace has an amazing community and if you are seeking a church family here in Shreveport Bossier its so worth the drive from any part of town!) I was seriously disapointed when Lucas lost his job and suddenly the conversations returned to being all about me.. or my family. I'm tired of talking about me. So lets talk about someone else:-). Or lots of someone elses.
Lets start with all the babies born in my circle of family friends and aquaintances this week! Happy birthdays to the families of Adam, a cousin, Hudson, a friend, Gracie, a niece of a friend that we've been praying for, Harper, an aquaintance and someone who has a blog I follow because they live a fun and exciting life for Jesus.. and sometimes I need to be reminded that Jesus IS fun AND exciting (even when MY life isnt). And there are those who are expecting.... Theres my own sister Lizzie due anytime, my friend Maggie, my friend Sherri, Ayden's Aunt Kristin, and my sweet friend Becky who is the furthest away from her baby at the moment as she is in the starting stages of an adoption.
I have been reading on all these facebook pages about moms who got through labor.. lots of it.. with no pain meds. And while I am so impressed and proud of them, I think what Becky is about to go through is even more admirable. I've been preggo. Twice. It stunk. I loved the closeness of my baby, but the reality is 9 months of puking, pain and discomfort are not fun. Joyfull yes, but not fun. and then you have to give birth. not. fun. But neither is a year to two years of paperwork, sleepless nights and expectation of a baby being born accross the world. Born into a world of poverty and disease and pain. A baby who will wait while you wait for people. People who have to sign paper and pass paper and make more paper. Paper that can allow or prevent you from bringing home your child. A child you were born to love. I pray for Becky's baby. Its surreal knowing that her baby is quite probably allready conceived. Allready with a beating heart, growing every day. You are going to see lots about Becky and her jouney on here because I think its important to share. There are SO MANY babies and children around the world, and here in the US that will never know a mothers love. And most of us do nothing. My sister went through this journey to bring home my niece and learned so much. Most of all I learned how hard this is for the adoptive family and especially the mommy to be. So while I celebrate the birth of all these beautiful babies and the triumph that is the end of a pregnancy, I pray for my friend. I pray for her baby. HEREis why she is starting this journey. For as long as I have known Becky I have known that someday she would adopt. She would do for a child.. or more.. what Christ has done for His people. We are lost and broken, born into a world of spiritual poverty. There is nothing we can do to fix it. There is no health care plan we will all agree on. No president who will make us all get along. There is a rescuer. There is someone who reaches into this world where we murder infants and steal from our children. A world where women are sold to satify the lusts of men across the globe and buisness men steal from the pockets of the poor. A world where young boys are raised to hate. and to hate with bombs. A world where we cant even wait patiently at a stop light anymore. We are grafted into the branches of His vine. We are brought into His fountain of life. We are rescued. For His glory. I find so much peace in knowing that it doesnt matter what I write or what I tell you or if you care Because really, it never was all about me.

Life, in boxes

We now have 75 percent of our stuff in boxes, including most of the kitchen. Needless to say meals are quite creative. Tonight dinner was so creative as to involve driving to TaMollys for some 5 dollar taco plates.

Lucas had his big big big phone interview today. The job would move us to Denver (Centennial area). He would get to be an engineer! There are tons of other pluses, but I'll leave it at that for now.

The boys are both getting really stressed. They're having breakdowns and getting frustrated with the whole changing life thing. I understand. I keep reminding Ayden that God is the same God who made the universe. The same God that paints every flower. He will get us "home" wherever that might be. Until then, we have one another. And boxes. lots and lots of boxes.

Conflicted.

School. Not an easy discussion around here. Between me, my husband, my parents, my mother in law, my sister, my friends, my church I get so much input. The question is what do I do with my output? We Homeschooled Ayden from January of last year until the end of school. We tried public school for an entire semester. I hated it. Ayden hated it. His teacher didn't care. Ayden was labeled a "problem". The principal refused to help. Ayden wasn't learning anything except that he was "bad" or a "fool" as his teacher liked to tell him. So we decided to homeschool. I used to be 100 percent anti homeschool. There was no way around it, I thought kids who are homeschooled turn out wierd and stupid. Nope. I've met some amazing people lately who are kind and generous and normal (whatever that means.) I'll tell them I homeschool and they tell me "oh yeah, I was homeschooled my entire life" really? I don't know why I'm surprised. But I was. Thats honest. This was not Ayden's first time to try public school either. He entered a pre-k public program and it was three months before the teacher stopped calling me in every day after class to talk about Ayden's behavior. I know maturity has a ton to do with how well public school kids do. Personality and nature as well. I know some kids do awesome in public school and thrive and have a great experience. So why am I so hesitant to put Ayden ito school this year? Why does the idea of packing up his school supplies make my stomach turn? Is it because I'm afraid he isn't mature enough yet? maybe... or maybe its something more. We LOVE homeschooling. not every day of course, but in general it has been amazing to watch him learn and grow. To know what he is learning, and know what he is accomplishing. So why am I not convinced?? Why is not such an easy question to answer. I have lesson plans written, curriculum purchased, pencils sharpened. I'm ready. We started this morning and it was great. He did 25 minutes of phonics on a computer driven program that gives me great feedback. We reviewed the dolch sightword list (which he seems to have forgotten most of in the past month.) We took a spelling pre-test which he aced. We read two chapters from Stuart Little and learned about title pages and words such as "perspiration", "emerged" and "louse". We read scripture and talked about how God wants us to follow the ways of the wise and not the wicked, and that He wants us to love our neighbors, and yes that includes the snotty girls a building over. We made bookmarks and a title page for our portfolio. We read Danny and the Dinosaur and Biscuit Goes to School. And he was happy. There were no tears. There was no complaining. We even rode his bike around the block and visited some friends too. When little brother wakes us we are going to the library to get books on archeaology and the red river. We love homeschooling.

So the problem is this: we have no clue what God is doing with out life. There are two potentioal jobs at the moment, both of which stand as equal a chance of falling through as coming to fruition. A. We end up in North Dakota in a job that will most certainly require me to return to work. (in a town with less than 16,000 people and limited work ability)or B. We end up in Colorado somewhere, most likely Grand Junction in a job where I could certainly stay home or work part time. Neither of these jobs seems to be happening very quickly. Both would start after the beginning of school in Conroe. Conroe starts on August 25th.

As of this week. I'm homeschooling. I have my husbands support on this. I guess if by the time School starts we havent heard anything about either of these jobs or if we know these jobs won't happen I'll be forced to enroll him in school. I'll have to get a job while we wait for Luas to get a job.

I know God has a plan here. I pray for all grownups in Ayden's life to be on the same ground and have the same goals for him. I pray that we will all know accept and understand what I as Mom am supposed to do. I pray for discernment. Quickly. I pray for motivation in whatever direction we are supposed to go. Lord, answer us soon..


I would love to get feedback on this. Any ideas or impressions you would like to share are welcome. I know people read this blog... i have a sitemeter:-). I don't know who you are, but I know there are people from all over the country who check in and lurk here. Give me your thoughts. ..