Updates and a Confession

It made my heart grow faint when I saw this message on my dashboard "scheduled outage at 2:00 PM PDT". It says only 10 minutes. Okay - I can handle that.
An update on the FaxZero service - works like a charm. The only issue I can see is that you can only send .doc (Word) documents or .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) documents. I have used both the free fax and the $1.99 faxing options. They both went through successfully - so have at it.
And.... if you've read here more than once you know that I'm pretty upfront with things. I share my heart unabashedly; the good, the bad, the ugly, the partially processed thoughts and the thoughts with fillers (think of your brain as SPAM). So I have a wee confession of sorts to make, as they say confession is good for the soul. I have been a neglectful mother. I have been under a tremendous amount of stress because of our financial situation - which is extreme in ways I cannot express fully here out of respect for the privacy of others. That stress has led me to hole up on my computer - and while I have been busy in ways that are productive - working on my planner, writing assignments, helping friends, going way overboard with my job - because I can immerse myself there and zone out. Yep - I've kept up with the housework, cooked meals, planned things - but I haven't been really tuned in as a mom. Can anybody relate to that half-listening state and the feeling of just wanting to be left alone? It isn't them. It is totally me. I don't want to be asked for something I can't give. I can't take another expectation, question, heart to heart because I am kinda spent - and the biggest drain is stress. Please pray for us - because in the next week to 10 days, we will either have relief or our situation will increase a hundred-fold. I can feel it in my neck, my back, my head.
This evening, the kids and I are going to a local water park for a few hours reprieve. I am going to squeeze my chubby little butt into a bathing suit and go float some of my cares away on the lazy river with my kids. I will not think about anything else. I will laugh. I will enjoy their smiles. I will look them in the eye. I will remember what a privilege it is to be their mom.
Thanks for letting me spew a bit. You can wipe yourselves off now!

A Wee Confession

If somebody is handing out the bad mommy award, I earned it today. Slap it right down here and leave it for a while. I made a complete and total spectacle of myself in front of my children. I won't make excuses. I won't say how very very much I HATE the mall (yet another thing I have in common with my new dear friend, fatty), but I will suffice to say that it was an exhausting day. I think that perhaps there is something testosterone driven about shopping that I don't have - as what we did today bore a keen resemblance to hunting. We walked back and forth across the mall several times , and I was wearing sandals that were rubbing some painful spots on my feet, as the girls tried on the same dresses for the ump-teenth time. I was trying so hard to be patient, when finally, one of them made a decision. The dress was purchased and we finally went to get Chinese for lunch. It was upon returning to the mall to resume the hunt for the indecisive sister that it happened. The fit. I threw one and threw it badly. Not out loud in the mall, but when we went to the car to look for the purse that the daughter that conquered her dress (I'll never tell who is who) noticed she no longer had, I screamed in utter frustration. I feel so badly about it now - but it is the second major loss of a purse in the last 6 months (between the girls - not the same one), and we have just finally replaced some valuable items that went missing the last time around. We did retrace our steps to the dressing room - and realized it was in the excitement of the procurement of THE "perfect dress" that caused her to completely forget about her purse. Thankfully another customer had found it and returned it to the clerk, who gave it to us. However, not long after the recovery we noticed that while her cell phone was in her purse, her iPod Nano that she got for Christmas was not. I was tired, I was grouchy, I was frustrated and behaved badly. I have apologized to all three of my children who had to listen to me rant. Now it's out - I'm not perfect - in fact hopelessly flawed. Don't you hate it when you make it so obvious?
I will hopefully be able to post some pictures of our shopping trip tomorrow, minus pictures of ranting mama - you'll just have to mentally insert a picture of a PMSing Roseanne. Of course the chosen dresses cannot be revealed until the formal so you'll all just have to wait.

A True Confession

I have a confession to make: I'm a complainer. Not that I'm necessarily always grumbling to everyone around me - although there are those times too - but inside me, there is this constant struggle against a stream of thought life that would seek to make me a miserable and discontent person. Even in yesterday's post I was saying how I wish God would hurry up, when what I should be wishing for is that He, knowing He knows what is very best for me would keep the perfect timing. I know my murmuring won't move Him, but it is in the inner struggle I disquiet my own spirit.

If I can remember that He knows the issues that press on me - He knows when our mortgage is due, and He knows when the school year starts, and He knows every minute detail of every little thing that this move effects - if I could put complete trust in that I could have so much more peace. Help me Lord. Quiet this streaming feed of complaints that run through my heart and mind. I know it is from the enemy. Forgive my sin of worry Lord.

Here is a quote I read yesterday: We all carry about in our pockets His very nails. -Martin Luther
How true is that???