Busy, busy, busy

So, if you couldn't tell, i have been rather busy lately!  Last weekend, in spite of needing to relax, i picked cherries for 4 hours.  And i forgot how long it takes to pit them so i was pitting cherries for a total of about 10 hours over the next couple of days.  Only to get enough cherries for 9 pies.  Sigh.  Those pies have got to be worth MONEY, let me tell you.  I have also been extremely busy couponing!  I feel like i am really getting the hang of this so far and i have gotten some FABULOUS deals lately and i just HAVE to share cause it is so exciting!  I am saving my family money!!!!

So this trip i spent $10.96 total for 22 items.  Ten boxes of cereal, 6 marinade packets (which are so yummy!), 4 boxes of mac and cheese and 2 things of premium lunch meat.  My price per item was $.48!  With gas included I paid $.78 per item!  And now we have enough cereal to last us for awhile.

This is my all time best and favorite trip.  And i am still kicking myself for not getting more yogurt and some different granola bars, but oh well.  This trip i bought 4 bags of chips, 4 4packs of yogurt, 12 boxes of granola bars, 2 boxes mac and cheese and one bottle of baby powder.  My total after several transactions was $13.96 for 23 items.  This figures out to $.61 per item!  But it gets better!  For buying the granola bars i also received 3 free gallon milk vouchers valued at $4.50 a piece and $4 in catalinas (like store cash).  So when you factor that in i actually got PAID $3 to get all these great groceries!  YEAH!!!!!!!

This trip i got enough laundry detergent to last my family almost a year!  After several transactions my total for this trip was $26.79, not really a low number for couponing.  But you have to remember, detergent is usually not cheap!  I purchased 26 items:  9 bottles of 32 load detergent, 1 box of microwave popcorn, 2 boxes of breakfast granola, 2 pints of icecream, 2 boxes of quart freezer bags, and 10 lbs of pasta.  My price per item was $1.03!


Summer time is such a fun time, but it is also so busy!  I am finding it difficult this year to keep up with my house and all the added outdoor responsibilities while working.  But God has been slowly and quietly teaching me how to deal, and what to let go.  God is good!  I leave you with this adorable picture of our daughter playing in her new pool.  She is a little in love with it!

My Girl

She won't fit in my tummy no more
And her head's past my knee
When her feet touch the floor

Please and Thank you she says quite well
When you say the word "popscicle"
She runs Pell Mell!

She melts my heart more with each passing day
As she jabbers and sings
While reading and at play

She loves mommy's lap and daddy's style of play
With books and a snack
She'll read all the day

A fashionista girl, she's in love with my shoes
The bright pink stilettos
Are the ones she will choose

Her hat and her sheep, some of her favorite things
Bedtime prayers, swimming, helping
The part of church when we sing

She is dark as the night and her smile is gold
She loves to be snuggled
And begs for me to hold

Lord, help me treasure each moment, each day
Cause i know she is just on loan
And when Your timing is right, you will take her away

To be given such a priceless,wonderful gift

Is scary and wonderful

In the end, Oh God, may there be nothing i have missed

I know i can't do this, i will not do it right

To mold and teach, show them God

In this world is a great fight

But that fight is worth it, i won't do it alone

And i hope someday in heaven

To see my girl, coming home

July 14th, 2011  me

Me

I am strong.  I am confident.  Give me a task and i know i can do it, and do it well.  I have great self-esteem.  Unshakeable even.  I can do most things well.  I can be super woman.  I can do it all.  I have it under control.  I can maintain control.  I can be perfect or close to it.  I love myself the way i am.  I am STRONG!

And then i read "Insecurity's best cover is perfectionism.  That's where it becomes an art form" (Beth Moore in "So Long Insecurity")

It felt like a blow to the chest.

I had known that i was not what i thought of myself.  God has been slowing working at that. Peeling back the layers, chipping away at the strong facade.  Showing me that is WAS a facade, and not only that, but how damaging it was.  Destroying my friendships, my relationships, my marriage, my health, my peace, my life.  It was destroying my relationship with my Creator, stopping it dead in its tracks, my strangle-hold tight on control and perfection.  All to hide how insecure i am?  Who knew.

I have ALWAYS been strong, confident.  That was what defined me.  If asked friends would have described me as "strong".  That was me.  So with this revelation has come a bit of an identity crisis.  I am no longer strong, and have lost my confidence.  So how do i be me now without being strong?

At first i just tried to be weak in all things.  If i am weak then He is strong.  This is true, but i can't lay down and be a rug either.  I have been feeling like it is time to find that happy medium.  How can i regain my confidence, without finding my grip in that strangle-hold of strength and perfection again?  I miss feeling like i can do things.  Like I will do a good job, accomplish something worth while.  In letting go of my strength i lost my measuring stick that i used to  weigh my value.  Now i must find a new way of measuring.

So i picked up this book:  "So Long Insecurity" by Beth Moore.  I had received it last year as a gift during a bible study, and it has just sat on my shelf.  Not that i didn't want to read it, i have just had too much on my plate.  This week i finally felt compelled to pick it up.

And as i read that truthful statement, it all sort of fell into place.  I started to see the path God has put me on.  Placing me in a roll that i felt so unprepared for to break me down, ready for Women's Retreat to hear that control kills relationships, only to be prepared for Ann Voskamp's "1000 Gifts and to begin to see a new way to live. To slow down, enjoy the moments, to learn to trust God, truly trust Him.  And to bring me to realize that i DON'T trust Him for whatever reason.  That book showed me how much i needed Him in my daily life, how He is there in the hard stuff and that is our STRENGTH and our confidence.  To see that all those times i cry out "Why God?  I am not strong enough for this!" it is only to remind me of that very thing and to drive me back to Him.  To teach me to rely on Him as my strength.  All of this to break me down in preparation to learn that i am insecure.

Wow.

Honestly i feel like i don't know where to go from here.  I am excited to see what God is going to teach me through Beth Moore's book.  I know it will be good.  And i get goosebumps to see how He has so lovingly ordained my footsteps to learn all these things about myself and Him.  Now i just have to LEARN them, to write them on my heart.

To learn a new way to live and a new way to be simply Me.

Some of "Strong Enough" by Matthew West

You must
You must think I'm strong
To give me what I'm going through

Well, forgive me
Forgive me if I'm wrong
But this looks like more than I can do
On my own

I know I'm not strong enough to be
everything that I'm supposed to be
I give up
I'm not stong enough
Hands of mercy won't you cover me
Lord right now I'm asking you to be
Strong enough
Strong enough
For the both of us

Well, maybe
Maybe that's the point
To reach the point of giving up

Cause when I'm finally
Finally at rock bottom
Well, that's when I start looking up
And reaching out

I know I'm not strong enough to be
Everything that I'm supposed to be
I give up
I'm not stong enough
Hands of mercy won't you cover me
Lord right now I'm asking you to be
Strong enough

* emphasis mine

The Great Sheep Caper

Our daughter has a most-beloved stuffed sheep.  Long ago, when she was about 4 months and not sleeping through the night, her well-informed parents read that giving your child an item to "attach" themselves to can help them to go to sleep and stay asleep.  So we started putting her down with this sheep.  Knowing we might be starting a long and fierce attachment to this stuffed mammal, we didn't really care.  We were sleep deprived and so was she and we were willing to try and risk much to solve the sleep issue.

Fast forward to present day.  Unfortunately, the sheep did not really help her sleep early on, though it seems to now.  We never could think of a good name for the sheep, so the poor thing remains named as "sheep" or "eeeeee" from Gwen.  The sheep goes everywhere with us and has been washed more times then i can count.  She is no longer white, just whitish.  Both mommy and daddy have carefully "guarded" the sheep and insured that it always stayed with us and came home with us.  For we knew, that loosing the sheep now could mean certain disaster.

So last week, we come home from vacation, successful in not loosing the sheep after traveling through two states and 3 vehicles.  One day after we get home, mommy and little girl have to go grocery shopping.  In a fortunate twist, it was the same weekend for the monthly quarter sale at Other Mothers.  This is a children's clothing sale where everything is a quarter!  It takes a lot of time and a lot of sorting through clothes as they are completely UNSORTED and just unceremoniously dumped in copious quantities on tables.  Sometimes you have to fight off rude and overzealous women who grab everything in site and sort later.  But usually it is quite civilized and i generally leave with a rather large bag of clothing for around $10!

On friday morning, we got up and hurried ourselves into town to be there right at 10 am for the start of the quarter sale.  I was excited, as i used to go to this sale monthly before i started working full time and was too busy.  But i was also EXHAUSTED from vacation and planning my shopping list the night before until 11pm.  Gwen was exhausted as well, so i knew we would be in for a long and trying day with all of our many stops.  We got to the quarter sale just in time.  I put Gwen in the stroller, grabbed my purse and keys, gave Gwen the sheep to keep her occupied while i sorted clothes, and dived in up to my elbows.  I chatted with other mommies there, helped them find things they were looking for and gradually stuffed my bag with decent and sometimes super cute clothing from sized 2T-5T.  Never once did i think about the sheep.

Gwen was being especially cooperative and was loving looking at all the clothes people dropped or pushed onto the ground.  She found shoes.  She found a jump rope.  She was happy!  I was happy!  Successful first stop for our shopping trip!

But no sooner did we make it back to the car, then i realized the error of my ways.

The sheep was not in the car.

Gwen did not have the sheep.

That meant the sheep (if we were lucky) was still at the quarter sale!

Panic set in

What was i thinking?!?  I never let Gwen bring the sheep ANYWHERE with us when shopping!  There was too much danger in loosing her!  And of all places, the quarter sale was the worst.  Everything is sold for a quarter, nothing is organized and there is merchandise and kids EVERYWHERE!  On the floor, on the tables, you drop your water bottle and it could be snatched up and sold for a quarter!

I knew our hope was dim, but i re-locked the car and sprinted, stroller and all, back into the quarter sale.  I quickly scanned the area only to realize that the sheep was not there.  My worst fears where most likely about to be realized.  My last hope was that "eeee" had not made it out the door yet.  I hurried to the counting table, where you get your finds counted and then sent to the front desk to be paid for.  I asked him "Have you counted a stuffed sheep?"  I am sure i sounded desperate!  "Yes, did it have longer arms and legs?"  He said.  And that's when i knew.  Gwen's beloved sheep was gone.

We got back to the car and i lost it.  I was exhausted and hysterics just come easily at that point.  I was a horrible mother!  How could I have let my daughter take her beloved sheep into the quarter sale and then loose it?  As my daughter was crying for her "eeeee" in the back seat I was desperately searching my mind for any possible ideas for getting a replacement.  I settled on one slim hope.  We originally got the sheep in a flower arrangement at our daughters birth.  It came from our local florists shop and if we were incredibly lucky they might just have another.

I started to call them.  Everytime i dialed i got a busy signal.  How busy can one little flower shop be ?!? So i called my husband in tears, related the sad details and asked if he could stop by the shop on his lunch and see if we could get a new sheep.

Lo and behold, he called back not 30 minutes later with a new sheep, and $13 dollars poorer.  So this time the quarter sale was not the greatest deal for me, as i "sold" my daughters sheep for 25 cents only to pay $13 for a replacement.  And i have learned my lesson about the quarter sale and sheep in general.