Tag: Random Ramblings

Random Ramblings- Welcome to the New Year and a New Title

Posted on by Mary

Ya know what, I cannot seem to ramble when writing.  (But I have zero trouble being random, matter of fact Hubby is amazed at my ability to be so random.). I know sometimes I might take a rabbit trail or two BUT to ramble, that’s another story entirely.  I can ramble with hubby.  And when I am nervous, or when there is awkward silence.  I HATE AWKWARD SILENCE!. So What I have decided is to pick a couple of Random topics to share with you my thoughts on.  They will be things that have been on my mind.  Things I have been pondering.  So (drumroll please) it will now be called:

Random

Random Reflection #1-Slow Starts and Being Flexible

This year has had a seemingly slow start, and I think that is a good start.  I am hungry though for a more normal schedule.  Things just keep getting cancelled and re-scheduled.  You know because of  randdom things like:

  • weather
  • sickness
  • scheduling conflicts
  • did I mention weather

Seriously though we have had two rather mild winters.  The kids had more snow days after spring started than they had the entire winter.  This winter we have already had a severe cold temps day – they missed school because it was -25 with the windchill. and it looks like something might happen tomorrow.  Im not heart-broken I LOVE snow days. after awhile though a lack of consistency starts messing with my head.  As I work through One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp last year I have learned to look at the smallest things as gifts.  and that means schedule changes too.  I kind of look at it now as if God says you need time to….(insert whatever I am currently in need of at the moment in my life.

Random Reflection #2-New Planner Setup

I am still using  the Happy Planner (and I love it) But instead of doing a full 12 months I am Using two six months together.  Now I know what you are thinking , “Mary Mary Mary clearly you cannot do Math 6+6=12”. Yes I know But The first 6 months of my 12 month planner and then a 6 month expansion pack – so each 6 month section runs January to June .  The expansion pack is a brainstorm I hadst I can keep my blog planner and regular planner all in one classic sizedHappy Planner.  It’s taking a little getting used  to but I am beginning to  really get into it.

Random Reflection #3-Goal Setting

YIKES!!  I am soooo far behind it’s crazy!  But this past year I was gifted the book Meet the New You by Elisa Pulliam.  I decided that I would work through this book and it is a “21  day plan  for embracing fresh attitudes and focused habits for real life change.”  I have used some of her other materials in the past  and loved them and I even began to use those same ones again this year.  Now I don’t really think  that there needs to be a whole lot of life change but I really wanted to be more focused in my goals, more concise if you will.  So I began this journey.  Wow can you say intense.  there is a lot of work even outside of the focused study questions.  The chapters are short BUT the work takes longer than one might think.

Thanks forechecking out my random reflections for this week.  What is something that you  have been randomly been reflections on this last week?  Share it here

Blessings.

Mary

Random Ramblings: CRAZY weekend

Posted on by Mary

Actually its been a super crazy week since I last wrote a Random Ramblings….. Crazy Crazy CRAZY!!!!

Let’s Start with last week.

J was home from school on Monday because he had a fever the night before..and the school holds to a 24 hour policy without meds. T, K, and S went to school, but we were all very aware about the storm heading our way.  Hubby had a meeting Monday night.  Snow showed up Early Tuesday morning and we quickly realized that things had changed over night…our original 12 inches was upgraded and by Tuesday evening we had 29 inches of snow.  did I mention the kids had a snow day Tuesday )YAY)…..and then Tuesday afternoon a travel ban was put into place…… so Wednesday no school….Thursday rolled around and the roads were much better excluding the drift spots, but no AWANA that night.  J’s respite care worker came Thursday and Friday instead of Tuesday and Wednesday…. Hmmm I wonder why. Hubby  was at church from 10-4-430 and then we had some errands to run and dinner out together (Are you getting tired yet, cuz I am just writing it.  THEN Friday Happened….Initially all the kids had off school for Friday but since they exceeded their 5 allotted snow days T, K, and S all had school on Friday  so it was just J home.  Hubby and J went to church to finish up the previous days project.  When they came home J’s service coordinator came for a brief meeting and his respite care worker came…we ate a quick lunch and were off to visit a church person who also had her gall bladder out last week (That is 3 of us from our church in about 3 months), then we had to pick up the kids from school (OOPS almost forgot that detail…thanks J for reminding us at lunch) had to o pick up K’s friend, whose parents are our church’s youth leaders, from her grandparents house so she could come spend the weekend with K while her parents, I and two teenagers went to a youth rally….. BREATHE!!! We drove home that night, stopped at Walmart  and came home….. slept….. then left AGAIN the next morning to head back.  We were there till 5ish and then headed home again… IN MORE SNOW.  I didn’t get to go right home though I had a meeting at church that took a while because it involved some artistic work… and you know artists, we are our own worst critics!   Yep OCD was strong!!  I came home to my children (T & K) preparing dinner for us!  What a blessing those two are!  And that leads us to Sunday with all the normal Sunday stuff for a pastor’s family.

This life is crazy and we all go through crazy times but in the end we have choices.  As the speaker at the youth rally I attended this weekend shared as he spoke through 1 Corinthians 13, we all have a choice in being loving we can be kind or we can be rude….. So in these times of  Crazy it’s very easy to become self absorbed and rude, I mean ungrateful… and much more or we can CHOOSE  to look beyond our crazy, our horrible, our circumstances and be who God has called us to be…… LOVING!   It’s not easy and it takes a ton of practice.  I know I’m not there yet.  I’m not perfect and I most certainly DON’T have this all figured out. So start small. That’s what I am doing. I’m picking one thing….. and I’m choosing to pay attention to others rather than my crazy! How about you? What keeps you from being loving when THAT is what God calls us to do?

 

Random Ramblings: All the New Normals All wrapped into one Big Crazy

Posted on by Mary

Well I am still here, and I am still alive…and now I am well. and Every Monday I am going to post  random ramblings about our lives….this maybe one of the longer ones…it spans months but  it is to keep family and friends up to speed  on our day to day lives, from the perspective of our faith as a family intertwined as it is who we are, not what we do!

So Onto todays Ramblings….

Let’s start at the latest bit of crazy and the least unexpected of all.  Nearly two weeks ago….I found myself in the ER waiting       for emergency surgery….MY gallbladder to be exact.  Let’s just say apparently I had been a lot sicker than I realized.  It’s amazing at just how well I feel since the surgery, it has been kinda hard for my poor hubby to keep me down.  I have learned my limits though…like bending.  I gave up bending over a week ago!!    The back pain that I had been experiencing  for literally months went away as soon as the gall bladder was gone and has not been back since.  And during this time God really struck me with some new thoughts….now that I was feeling better And that I had to be resting it was the perfect time to read and write and read and write and write and read some more…and I have done just that.  It is during these moments that God and I have worked through some REALLY tough stuff….NO joke.    Part of what we have worked on is this lack of confidence thing that has haunted me for 2 1/2 years now.  but Im going to be blogging on that regularly now.

The next oddity is that this has been our absolutely sickest winter since our oldest child was in preschool…he is going to be 12 in just a few short months…we have gotten 6 illnesses that have hot almost very person in our family.  the most recent was child #3 getting the flu… yes he had the flu shot.   this has not been easy. We have not had 1 whole week since New Years without at least 1 kid home sick from school….it’s not a two and a half months I want to revisit anytime soon.

And perhaps the craziest of antics of all actually happened in October.  we had a friend and her three small children move into our home.  yeah so we grew by four…if you are keeping track that is 10 all together and 3 cats and a dog…..no exaggerations. . Their apartment (in our house) has been mostly done since just before Christmas and in just about a week and a few days they will be moving into their own place.   It has been a stretching experience but we  are glad we did it!

We also said goodbye to hubby’s Grandpa in October and then his uncle VERY unexpectedly almost a month later.

Im really sorry it has been so incredibly long since I have written.  it has not been  my intention And I will be  discussing on Mondays my struggle and explaining my journey with my word confidence, so place on jumping into that next Monday.  I can say this….God has given me the desire and gift to write…or so I am told, so I will write.  I am not going to hide any longer.  My confidence is not in men but in Christ….and I am not doing this for anyone else but HIM to bring him glory through what I have to say!  Thanks for sticking with me! and I look forward to getting to know each other in the near future.

with much love,

Mary