Happy 4th Birthday To My Little Monkey!

My little ray of sunshine turned 4 today. FOUR. 

Four going on fifteen. 

I got stickered this morning. I wore them all day in honor of her birthday. I got a lot of weird looks...
I think at first glance it looked like I had a sleeve of tattoos.
Deep down I thought they were cool. 

We had a lovely Easter party at Abby's house,
and she made the most amazing  cupcakes to celebrate Audrey's birthday. 

I told her she should start a business doing this.
She has such style... these were classy cupcakes!!

New birthday sunglasses! Her last two pair didn't last more than a day. Let's hope these last.. they are super cute and she LOVES them. 

Happy birthday girl!

All in all we had a wonderful day. I think (I hope) she really enjoyed her 4th birthday. There is so much I want to do for her, so many things I want to take her to see, so much I want to buy for her, but with the way our finances are, there wasn't a lot we could do this year. We did, however, have a fun day of mommy/daughter shopping with what money we could spend. She picked out her own gifts, and we even got to buy a few pairs of new sandals for the upcoming warm weather. Check these out (terrible picture I know. SORRY! I'm sure you'll see more pics of her in them soon.)

Then we met daddy at Rita's for a yummy frozen treat. All in all, a good day. :) Love my girl so much.

So, if anyone actually reads this or has checked lately, you'll know I'm back to blog slacking again. I can't help it. I have been so busy and out of the house so much that when I am home, all I want to do is sit around, play my computer games, or clean up my house which has somehow turned into a tornado zone while we have been out. Blogging is TIME CONSUMING. At least for me. I want to blog about stuff that people might actually enjoy reading, so I try to put some decent time in. But anyway... something else that has been eating up my time (in a good way) is writing. I am FINALLY back to writing. I am deliriously happy bout it too. Hopefully someday soon I will be finished with my rough draft and can really get to editing, and then one day, I'll get to send it to an agent or publisher. Dreams. I can dream, people. Grand, beautiful dreams. Insanely wonderful, out of this world dreams.. okay you get it.

Hopefully I'll blog again soon. Until then - PEACE!! Love ya'll!!

We don't automatically go to God with everything or react to life the way Jesus would simply because we are Christians, saved and transformed by the blood of Jesus. Right? I mean, that's the goal. But the initial act of being saved doesn't suddenly cause us to become as close to humanly and spiritually perfect as we can possibly be on this earth. We have to TRAIN ourselves, consciously and with perseverance. Whaaaaat, you mean God doesn't do all the work? Well yeah, Jesus died on the cross to save us once and for all. And He helps us a ton on the way thereafter. But we have to do our part.

The above excerpt, which I read a few days ago from my favorite devotional ever, (My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers) struck a chord with me particularly because I was born with a vivid, busy imagination. This is such an amazing reminder to me to continue giving glory to God for each and every thing I see.. to TRAIN myself so that my initial reaction is to go to God. I literally find myself stopping in my tracks on a daily basis to admire His creation... the sky, a flower, an amusing conversation or person, a Starbucks.... you name it. What would happen if I consciously praised God for all of these things, more and more often until it happened naturally all the time? Well, I'd certainly be better trained to go to God when things go south - the second I get angry or am presented with something difficult. This same lesson was confirmed to me again at church this weekend, where pastor Steve talked about training ourselves so that our initial reaction to everything is prayer. When Paul says "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess 5:17), he doesn't mean to be on your knees, with your hands folded and eyes closed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. CLEARLY being on our knees before is a good thing and something we should do, but literally impossible to do all day long. You've gotta pee and eat, for real. He means - have a constant dialogue with God in your heart and mind. Talk to God, bring all things to God.

I love Chambers' "old time" language. He was around in Scotland during the early 1900's, after all. "Then put a stiletto in the place where you have gone to sleep." A stiletto is a type of dagger (I know this because I am a nerd. Don't judge. Nerds are people too. Cool people. Cool, nerdy people.). So, he's basically saying, WAKE UP. GET UP. LIFT YOUR EYES TO HEAVEN. Don't let yourself become complacent and possibly even miserable if you can't hear God speaking. Remember what God has done in the past. Remember how you have seen Him work in your life and/or those around you. More importantly, remember that you serve the Almighty God and that you BELONG to Him. Remember that He can do anything. Ask Him to prove it to you.

Okay, back to the subject. Someone was supposed to smack me if I started getting preachy. Geesh. Bottom line? I want my reflexive instinct to things on the full spectrum of wonderful and ridiculously difficult to be to GO TO GOD, immediately. Will I ever be perfect? Not on this earth. Faaaar from it. Pathetically far from it. You get the point. I wanted to share this because it was exciting to me to hear of an applicable way to train my instincts away from self, stress, and anger. God is good - I'm thankful on a daily basis that He knows our hearts and has mercy on us! I don't know about you, but I could use a healthy dose of "inexpressibly bright hope", more often than I'd like to admit!

Hope ya'll are having a good week so far! I'm LOVING the sunshine today!

Good Day Sunshine!

Mr. sun decided to bring the warm weather again yesterday, which was SO lovely. We got outside toward the end of the day, and this time I took a few pictures. 

She made a "train track" of chalk. 

"You're not drawing mommy... here's the chalk! DON'T YOU WANT TO USE THE CHALK MOMMY!?"

Of course I did. I just like taking pictures more. Eventually I made alphabet art.

The sky looked cool. 

We had a little spy peeking at us on and off. 

He was very chirpy and curious. Methinks his nest is in that bush.

Hope ya'll enjoyed the sunshine!! Now go put a coat on... the cold is back!

60 Degrees in January? YES PLEASE.

I totally wore my rainbows today. It would have been WRONG not to.

Today was a very nice day. A. VERY. NICE. DAY. This day was such a boost to this sunshine-loving-California-girl's spirits. It got up to 62 degrees or so here in central Ohio, quite unusual for the middle of winter. I think everyone around here capitalized on it. Audrey and I descended on the park with some good friends and enjoyed the heck out of it. I should have been snapping pictures right and left, but the kids had runny noses which doesn't make for awesome pictures. Plus, quite frankly, in my excitement to spend time outside, I forgot my camera. GREAT.

I did have my phone with me, so I snapped a couple of me in the SUNSHINE. I just love the word. I could say it all day long. SUNSHINE SUNSHINE SUNSHINE. Ahhh. It was windy too.

SUNSHINE. SUNSHINE! And wind blown hair. 

Thank God for this day. I doubt we will see many more days like this before spring actually rolls around. But here's to hoping!!!!!!!!

Snow Days!

It's COLD, Mommy!!

She LOVES it though. 

 

"Stir Crazy" personified. These long winters drive us crazy. COME ON SPRING! We want to play outside!

Sometimes we contemplate shipping ourselves to somewhere with a warmer climate. 

As I was rereading my prior post, it occurred to me that my ultra-positive tenacity to motivate myself this year may come across as offensive or unfair. Let's face it, life is hard and we must often trudge through difficulties we didn't ask for and don't want. Often it is impossible to dig oneself out of discouragement or a bad spot. Trust me, I know. Thank God for His grace with us and His faithfulness to come to our rescue should we ask. With that said, I apologize if I came across too strongly or put anyone off who actually reads this blog. While it's good to be motivated and to have goals, I can be awfully blunt sometimes, regardless of how well meaning I am. Love ya'll!

My schedule today is quite open. Therefore I am going to try to get some writing done. We'll see if I actually get anywhere! I found a fun frame in which to share a fun quote, after which I decided I must go make more coffee. *nod*

Have a good day all! I hope to post again soon! Time for more pictures eh?

Realizations, Reactions, Resolutions.

While on my recent family road trip, I did some thinking. Possibly even some reprioritizing and mental rearranging. I learned some things about myself. Realization dawned in regards to the way I have been doing certain things and motivation to change appeared in it's wake. Additionally, I was inspired by my own family and the families we stayed with. I could expound on this stuff for a few dozen pages (and I know I'm being vague, but I'll go into more detail below. Relax! :p), but I will summarize my epiphanies thusly: 1) Don't sweat the small stuff. 2) It's never too late to change or make things better, within the realm of your ability. And 3) it's unbelievably easy to be lazily (or stubbornly) complacent without even realizing it, chalking it up to our current circumstances or attitude being "where God wants me". God is certainly the ultimate Authority, but not to blame for bad attitudes or moods or for not making the most of the situation He has put us in.

With that said, here are my goals for 2012 in no specific order, in response to what I have learned recently.

1. Be more enterprising. If I see a need, fill it. Small or large scale. Don't wait for someone else to do it.
2. Get my diabetes under more strict control. I recently switched to injections from my insulin pump, which wasn't working as intended, and I have been doing better overall. (I'm a huge advocate of pumps, don't get me wrong. I had been using one for so long that scar tissue underneath my skin in many rotating site spots began to be an issue, and it was just time for my body to take a break from it.) However, for a long time I've sat back and felt discouraged or helpless about not having enough supplies to test my bloodsugar as often as I should be (2-4 times per day instead of my preferred 8-10), mostly due to financial circumstances. Someone recently reminded me that there are ways to get more supplies (legally of course - what were YOU thinking?!) and I shouldn't sacrifice my health just because I can't pay more for them. Remember what I said about it being easy to be lazily complacent? Yeah. I've often felt beaten in the game of life. And I didn't even realize it. I've gotta fix this stuff myself, no one else is going to do it. Thank you Captain Obvious! It's like I just learned how to be an adult or something.

Working on my book. :)

3. Lose 15-20 lbs or fit into a size 6, whichever comes first.
4. Finish my book and begin the heavy editing process. I've already started back to work on it. :)
5. Organize my house and get rid of or donate things we don't use. This includes cleaning out the dark, scary, unfinished basement.
6. Overhaul the master bedroom. When we first moved in, we painted the room red (Katie will remember this well, she helped me with it!), which was nice for awhile. For some reason the red feels dark to me now (it probably has something to do with the 27 layers of paint we had to do to cover the primer!), and after 5 or 6 years I am ready to change it to something bright and cheerful. If Eric will let me, HA. The overhaul would include getting rid of the old waterbed, which is dying a painful death anyway. A comfy new bed and bedspread would do WONDERS.
7. Stress less over the little things. Stuff is gonna happen. When we can't or shouldn't step in or do something about it, sometimes it is best to just let it happen. Let it go. Life goes on. Busting a blood vessel probably won't help. People stress over anything and everything, and often because of a combination of things. Sometimes for good reason. From what I have seen and experienced, there are two ways to stress. One way is caused by or experienced in a tense moment, and it dissipates after the moment passes or is worked through. The second is an underlying, ever present, elevated level of stress that is high on a daily basis. (Thank you Doctor Christy.) The second way sums me up lately. Time to change that. The combination of things causing stress for me is A) sleep deprivation (SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), B) high bloodsugar, which make me feel angry and on edge, and C) not having sufficient quiet time with the Lord.

Consequently, 

8. Sleep more. Go to bed earlier. As I type this, my inner night owl groans. But daytime Christy is happy! Don't worry, large amounts of caffeine will continue to be consumed.

9. MAKE TIME for sufficient quiet time with the Lord. This includes real prayer in which I specifically give the current and future events in my life to the Lord. This is huge because the more I am in the Word, the more peace I have as I trust the Lord. Therefore, I stress less.
10. Remember that the little moments are what count. In a recent conference at church, I was reminded that we as humans concentrate so much on the BIG moments in life but in reality, there are only a handful of them in one lifetime. The majority of our lives are made up of conversations, emotions, actions and reactions, thoughts, words, etc. etc. I want each one of those to reflect Jesus and who He has made me.
11. Spend less time on me while Audrey is awake, and when she is asleep, make the most of "me time". We have a lot of fun together. I'm just usually so caught up in what I'm trying to do that I miss out on sweet moments or things we could be doing together.

Clearly I would prefer that a vacation be taken near a beach. Any beach. :p

12. Take a family vacation. Yes, this would mean Eric would have to take a week off from church stuff as well as work stuff. But it would be the first time we go away together as a family unit.
13. Take care of my family first but make time to pour into other people. To enjoy friendships. To do my part in giving God the opportunity to be used in the lives of those around me. God can use anyone at any time really whether they wish for it or not right? But I figure it's best to do my part and give of myself so that He can use me.
14. This is more of a PS. I really really really want to get a sweet camera this year. Chances are it won't happen, but I just HAD to put this on here. I can dream!!!! :) I want to start posting amazingly beautiful, super high quality photos!! *bouncebouncebounce*
15. Another PS. I'll work on being less serious in my next blog! WHEW!

All of these things are easier said than done. But it's good to have goals and to be motivated. What's on your to-do list?