Pen’sieve

I’m angry again. No, maybe not so much angry as I am frustrated. One of my husband’s cousins pretty much attacked me online a few weeks ago. I know, I know, it was on Facebook, and that’s a tool of the devil. I get it. Every Sunday morning when my alarm goes off, there’s a preacher on the radio telling me how evil the internet is and how satan uses Facebook and MySpace and Twitter to defeat the will of God. I don’t know where this guy preaches, but hello, you’re on the RADIO. That’s only a few steps away from TELEVISION! Heaven forbid! And TELEVISION is only a few steps away from….wait for it….PODCASTS!

So anyway, I had posted one of my favorite verses: “He rescued me because He delighted in me”. I’ve posted that here before, it’s from Psalms 18, it also has the verse “He drew me out of the deep waters”.  It’s just one of those Psalms that always brings me comfort, not only because it reminds me of he deep deep love of my Savior, but also because it reminds me that God will protect His own.  “⁶ In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice; my cry came before Him, into His ears. ⁷ The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because He was angry.”

And since I’ve reread the whole thing, now I feel sorry for her. She doesn’t have that promise of an eternity with the same God that gets angry when someone hurts my feelings.  So instead of venting, I’ll pray. That’s what I should be doing anyway, huh? Ok, glad that’s all out of my system for now, maybe I can get some sleep. Good night, sweet dreams!

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Yeah, I guess you could call it a struggle. I’m mad. Angry. Furious. Livid. And I have no one to blame but my own self. How impotent is that? To be angry at myself? And why am I so angry? Even the reason is stupid. I cared. About a problem, about a person, about a hurt, it doesn’t matter what it was, just that I cared. I deliberately let this problem get under my skin and actually affect my life. I worried about this problem. I prayed about this person. I tried to soothe this hurt. I honestly thought I could help. I thought I could solve this problem. I thought I could reach this person. I thought God would heal this hurt. So maybe my struggle isn’t anger. Maybe my struggle is vanity. No. Let’s call it pride.  I was proud of myself for thinking I could solve this problem. I was proud to say I’m praying for this person. I was even proud to add this hurt to myself. Turns out I only created a bigger problem, alienated the person, and caused more hurt for more than myself. So here I am again, at the foot of the Cross, begging for forgiveness. I give up, Lord. You have moved me out of the way, please, work in spite of me.

One good thing about anger, though, it makes my workouts easier. I’ll talk more later, I’ve got a sick little boy who wants to go take a nap.

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First of all, let me just say, it’s not my fault. I don’t know where he learned it, or where he saw it, but my son runs with scissors.  I do know why he did it, he had just cut his sister’s hair and she was chasing him. From the look on her face I’d've run with the scissors, too. The good news is he didn’t fall. The other good news is he didn’t do much damage to her hair. He also talks in his sleep. Or rather, he yells and cusses in his sleep. The other night, he was in our bed (of course) and he yells out “I hate you you stupid doo-doo face”. I have no idea who he was talking about but I didn’t want to wake him up to ask, I was laughing so hard I’m suprised I didn’t wake the whole house up. I have to admit that raising a boy is a huge learning experience for me.  “Why are you pulling at your body, is there a problem?” “No Mom, my penis is long.” Ok, sorry I asked. “Look Mom!! There’s a hole in my boxers for my penis!!!” Oh yeah, penis is his favourite word right now. That and doo-doo. “Mom, this wii-mote is NOT working, I need the hammer.” “I can’t put my pants on because they button and zip so forget it!” (usually as he’s throwing them as far as he can across the room) Life is never dull here.

The girl is doing great, too. She did get her hand smashed in the window the other day and we took off to the hospital for x-rays and a splint. It wasn’t broken but it was black and blue and swollen. The line where it hit was right across the back between her thumb and forefinger so that she couldn’t make the “OK” sign or make a fist. A few days later she was much better and said “Look Mom, I can make a fist now. Watch.” Wham. She punched little J in the stomach. She’s such a lady.

J’s doing well, still has a job, which is a good thing. We’re both going to be doing more with KidFusion at church in the fall, or even before that if they ask. His “side” company is doing well, too, he just doesn’t have as much time to work on it as he’d like.

I’m doing well, too, getting B12 shots about every other week. I missed the whole month of April and boy could I tell. I’ve been draggy and cranky all month. It is such an effort to remember to take all my vitamins every day, morning and night, and get the shots at least twice a month. And exercise. And eat. And tan. When on earth would I have time to go back to work?  Although we’ve gotten both kids enrolled at Lenawee Christian School for the fall. I can’t believe S will be in 1st grade and little J will be in Pre-K. Are they really that grown? Yes, yes they are. Goodness.

Ok, the little monsters have gone outside and it’s really very quiet so I need to go check. I’ll post more later. I’ll I’ll put up a new picture, soon, too.

Love ya’ll!

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I’ll keep my God, my Freedom, my Guns, and my Money. You can keep the Change.

Last week, actually I think it might have been the week before, God called me a jackass. Seriously. And he used a Bible verse to do it. Don’t believe me? look it up. Psalms 32:8-9. Don’t have your bible right there? Don’t know about Biblegateway.com? Here you go.

Psalm 32:8-9 (King James Version)

I must confess. I only ate one of my Brussels sprouts today. Last night I made roasted pork chops, roasted broccoli, and steamed Brussels sprouts. (Oh yeah, we’re in the Zone). I fixed plates for everyone and put mine in the fridge cause the only time I had to go to the gym yesterday was when J got home. The kids, of course, didn’t eat all their vegetables. Little J ate most of his broccoli but S only ate meat. So I told them they would have them for breakfast. And they did. That’s all they were allowed to have this morning. There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and screaming and gagging and threatening to duct tape them to their chairs. But finally in the end S ate most of her veggies and so did Little J. I gave in and allowed them to go to little roots. (that’s their summer camp.) Afterwards, we came home to eat lunch. They had hamburgers with pickles. I heated up my dinner from last night. I love broccoli so that’s not a problem at all for me. I thought I loved Brussels sprouts. Not so, said the gag reflex. I managed to eat one. I snuck into the kitchen to toss the 3 remaining vomit balls into the trash before the kids saw me. As God is my witness, I’ll never cook Brussels sprouts again.

Next I’ll have to tell you the story about the chicken in a wine-press. But that’s more involved than I have time for right now. More later…

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Outdoor……..oh, this doesn’t end well. Nevermind.

Actually it’s the 7th of May and all is right with my world. Kids are fighting, house is messy, the garbage can is too full, yep, all is normal. We’ve had three beautiful days this week and I got the grass cut in record time yesterday thinking it was about to start storming and of course it never did. But hey, now I have the prettiest yard on the block, except for those few lines on the one side that are a little crooked. Oh well.

So kids are good, we’re getting ready for S’s graduation from preschool, it’s Wednesday May 28th at 6:30 at Ogden Church if anyone’s interested in going. That is, if she survives that long. I swear the girl has the attitude of a 13 year old. One more “why should I?” or “that’s not fair” or “I don’t want to” or “you like J more than me” and I’m probably just going to lock her in her room till she’s married. She hates sharing. She is mean to little J, but then again, she doesn’t lie. Yesterday afternoon they were outside and little J started crying. They both came in and I asked S what she had done and she answered, quite matter of factly, “I punched him in the face”. So, after a bad spanking, she had to apologize to him. Normally, when one apologizes, we have them kiss or hug each other. But, not being a dummy, little J wasn’t letting her get anywhere near him so she had to apologize from across the room. But before you feel too bad for either one of them, ask yourself. What did e do to deserve being punched in the face? Because anyone that has had a little brother knows he had to have done something. He took her bike away. Oh, no, he pushed her down and took her bike away. But since he had been punched in the face, he only had to sit in the chair and apologize for pushing her down and taking her bike. There was no blood, no bruises, obviously I need to teach S how to punch. Not yet, though, I’ll wait till she starts dating.

So little J is riding S’s bike. She’s almost 5, will be in a month, and he’s just turned 3. This is a normal sized kid bike, not the little tiny ones. He can ride it. And obviously he can win the fight to ride it, too. He can climb the tree in the front yard. He talks as much as S does and he’s a little smarter, too, I’m afraid. But for some reason just this week he’s turned into a boy. A real, live, dirty faced, skin-kneed, bug guts touching boy. He is pestering the heck out of S and me. If I ever sit down he immediately climbs on me and gets right in my face. “Mama, look at me.” He’ll get just as close to S as he can without touching her and when she pushes him away he cries and runs to me to get her in trouble. When I ask what happened he’ll say “I didn’t touch her”. S just looks at me with this defeated look. And now all of you no siblings kids and no kids adults understand why the oldest child hates the youngest. It starts very early. Jeez.

Let’s see, what else. Oh, J and I had entertained the idea of him getting a motorcycle to drive back and forth to work, since gas is now $3.65 a gallon here and he drives 100 miles a day. But then we remembered, he has horrible allergies in the summer. Oh well, it was a nice thought. Maybe he can talk his boss into letting him work from home once a week or so. Heheh, that’s wishful thinking.

And finally, May is my month to evaluate Crossfit. I’ve been following it pretty strictly for more than a month now, meaning I’ve done Crossfit workouts at least 3 times a week for the last several weeks. My weight hasn’t changed much at all, actually, even since last summer when I found Crossfit. My size hasn’t changed all that much either, to tell the truth, but that could be the Oreos. My fitness level, though, is unheard of for me. When I first started I was fighting to do one little wimpy girl pushup. Monday I did 100. In less than 5 minutes. As a matter of fact, Monday’s workout was a personal record for me and I’m pretty damn proud of it if I do say so myself. I did a half mile run/walk, 50 Pull downs at 70lbs, 100 pushups, 150 squats, then another half mile run/walk. In less than 45 minutes. And I could move the next day. Yesterday’s workout was another hard one, and I cut more than a minute off my previous time for the same workout. Today’s workout is more running but I haven’t done it yet. We’re headed to the gym when I’m finished here.

And now I’m finished here. Hope ya’ll have a great rest of the week!

So here’s the newest addition to our family, his name is Grayson. He’s a 2 year old Neopolitan Mastiff and he’s a monster. He’s huge. But he’s so sweet and very well behaved. He obeys better than the kids and the best thing is I don’t have to wipe his tushy. Although I do wipe the drool off his mouth every so often. The only bad thing about him so far is the gas. I know it’s a change in food and water and environment but da-yam. Ok, enough about that.

I’ve not really worked out in a while. We came back from Alabama at Thanksgiving and we were all sick with a cold. Then when we were about over that we all got sick with a tummy bug. I think we’re all almost well but I don’t want to say it too loudly because the bugs are still circling the block and they just love to come in when you say “we’re all well”.

So Christmas went well, S’s school program was very cute and everytime they sang or did anything that required clapping, she took a bow. She was the only one, but she still took her bow. The full fledged, sweep your arms around, bend completely in half kind of bow. It was great. Then they both saw Santa, and nobody cried. Little J was a little hesitant, he didn’t climb up by himself but he didn’t scream when Santa picked him up. We never did get all our decorations up and didn’t even get all the decorations on the tree but the kids loved the lights and that was enough for us. I’m planing to take it all down this weekend while J is off work for a few days. With this huge creature living with us now, we’re going to have to keep our house much MUCH neater. Which I guess, isn’t a bad thing.

Speaking of which, it’s time for me to go clean a room. It doesn’t matter which room, they all need it. So I’m off. I’ll post more later. I did take Grayson for a run this morning, that was fun.

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Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at
each side.

With a 5-lb potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from
your sides and hold them there as long as you can.

Try to reach a full minute, and then relax. Each day you’ll find
that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.

After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato sacks. Then try 50-lb
potato sacks and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb
potato sack in each hand and hold your arms
straight for more than a full minute. (I’m at this level.)

After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks.

THREE ROUNDS FOR TIME OF 17:26

Run 400m

15 Wall Ball 8lbs

6 Pushups

This was actually last Thursday’s workout, I haven’t posted in a week,  oh well. Learned something this week. Don’t do Thrusters on the same day you jump rope. Ouch. More later.

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