In a Funk... walking through my thoughts and logical conclusions.

So I've been in a bit of a funk since my husband went back to Korea. I feel really ridiculous for feeling this way. I usually handle our separations more with ease than I have as of late. Even while he was here I started to feel the anxiety of our upcoming separation and it marred some of the joy that the trip should have held. I don't know why, but this second half of the separation just seems to be harder. I wish I had the words to express why it is so. Maybe it is because I'm in a part of the country where I don't know many people, and moved here after my husband left for Korea. Usually I am very involved with activities, and I just can't bring myself to be, knowing that I am moving so soon. I want to be involved, I think about it, but something just keeps me from jumping into activities head first like I usually do. Personally, I'm honestly an introvert, and I don't much like getting out and spending time with large groups of people whom I do not know. I make myself go anyway. It's the advice I always give to people when the ask for it. It's good advice... I just don't want to take it for myself. Whatever the reason. I have made one friend, and I do have family here, but my days are not filled with their normal amounts of volunteering and activity. Honestly though, I grew tired of it before the move. Maybe that's why I don't want to get involved again, maybe I'm using this time to take a break from it all. Breaks are good, but at the same time, maybe I need to end this break and move back into more involvement with my local church or other volunteer activity with a homeschool group or such. I'm not sure. I'll figure it out. Firstly I know I need to pray more. Adding more to my daily prayer life with help with my spirits, I am sure.   My personal communication with God as of late has been lacking, I know... I feel despondent and I know that while I feel this way that I need to rely more heavily on God, but there is a part of me, I know, that wants to pull back and stay wallowing. Part of me that maybe feels I deserve to feel this way. It is the irrational side of me. It is the side of me that battles with depression. It is the part of me that I fight with the most, and most often loses... but it is the part of me that I know needs help from more than just sitting at home. Many people feel that depression is a cliche topic in the church, and that we shouldn't be depressed if we are strong in our faith, or that if we just pray fervently enough our depression will go away. Some people even say that relying on medicine is not relying on God. I willingly call them out on that any day. God has helped lead people to amazing medical breakthroughs and if we are unwilling to seek out medical or mental health, how are we to get the help that we so pray for. Often times we cry out "God HELP ME" but refuse to go and GET HELP. How can God help if we are unwilling to act. If you feel the nudge to go and seek help, that is probably God giving you that nudge. Listen to it. I know that I am hearing that nudge, and that I am going to go and listen. Hopefully the next I post, I will be in a better place.  Go and listen if God is nudging you. Do not be ashamed, do not be afraid. It is ok to ask for help. It is more than ok to talk to your doctor if you feel the need to.

Just a thoughtful moment....

Homeschool, private school, public school, cloth diaper, disposables, breast fed, bottle fed, organic food, fast food, the list can go on, and the thing is it doesn't matter.

Be the best parent you can be, stop judging those that parent differently. Understand that you may be judging because of insecurities in your own parenting. Take a breath, step back and realize... if you love your children, chances are you're doing just fine, and so is that woman you just can't believe does that thing you'd never do with your own kids.

So far away...

  My husband has been in South Korea for the past 6 months. He just came home on leave a few days ago... he'll be here for a whole month. The kids are thrilled. I'm thrilled! We were not planning on this being a year of separation.. I had planned since day one how we would get over to Korea, no matter what, and stay together as a family. I researched the ways to get there Non-Command Sponsored, in the likely case that our command sponsorship was denied(which surprise, it was) I did as much as I could, I prayed hard for God's will in this(and prayed that God's will PLEASE be the same as my will PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE) but in the end... none of it worked out. I was so confident that if I just tried to stay positive, that if I told myself we WOULD get there, no matter... that it would happen... but sometimes God has other plans. Sometimes life happens. Sometimes you're needed exactly where you don't want to be.
   Regardless of the why I'm still in the states, in the states I am.
So far since he joined the army 5 and 1/2 years ago, he's been gone for his 5 month OSUT, 12 months in Iraq, and now this.. It could be a lot worse... I am so thankful for the times that we have together... but the separation is still hard... because I know it's hard for my kids. I don't mind it as much, a year isn't too bad, honestly... but then I think of what he has to miss of our children's life, and it makes me sad. Our youngest was a 6 weeks old when he deployed. By the time he gets back from his tour in Korea he will have almost spent half of our daughters life away from her.... I am sad for him because of this.... I don't let myself admit it much, nor do I let myself think on it often... because what's the use. This is military life, it's just the way it is. Like I said before, I don't mind. I also know we have been lucky compared to some...yet... since my husband has been home on leave... I've been sad. I've been extremely happy. Elated. Truely... but also sad, because I know how much it hurts my son, how much he struggles, how close he used to be with his father, and how distant he's become in comparison.
   When I told my kids their daddy was coming home on leave, my son wasn't happy... he was sad. He cried and said, "But he doesn't get to stay! It's not fair" He couldn't be happy, because he knew it was only temporary...and when you're 7 six months is such a long time....

Wow...well this wasn't what I was planning on making this post about, but I guess I just needed to get it out there.. hmm.

Am I allowed to be happy with how I look?

Sometimes I get to thinking that I'm not supposed to be happy with how I look. Or even worse, I have times like right now, where I know I'm not as healthy as I should be, and I know I've put on a good 10+ lbs since I stopped working out regularly... so I actually am NOT all that happy with how I look... but then I feel guilty for not feeling happy, because other people are making fun of me for being guess what... too skinny, or saying that they'd die to be my size.... and so hmm...maybe I SHOULD be happier with how I look... but I have had this body image issue since I was a teen... Go figure.... Anyway, I wrote this on facebook a while ago, and felt like it would be good to add to my blog, since I'm feeling like this today... so here goes:



I'm pretty sure we live in a society where we, as women, aren't supposed to be happy with our body...no matter what our size is. It's like... if we're fit or skinny we are made to feel like we should be ashamed, because other people aren't our size, and if we're bigger than an 8 we are made to feel like we should be ashamed at the fact that we're not as small as "everyone else".....
Am I the only one who thinks that's crazy?
Bigger people bash smaller people... to feel better about themselves? Smaller people make fun of bigger people to... feel better about themselves? It doesn't make sense!Why can't we as women just say "hey... you look fantastic, and d'you know what... So. Do. I."


So Remember....next time someone posts one of those awful real men memes:

Stop caring so much about what "real men like" and start caring about what you like instead...and if you don't like it for whatever reason, rather than bashing other women, work on yourself...and as long as you're healthy, that's what really matters.

Your Last Birthday

Your Last Birthday...
Did you know it was your last?
I didn't., not really.
I knew it was important.. I didn't know why.
I hadn't seen you on your birthday in years.
I felt so strongly that I should go visit
 I had no reason not to so I did.
I went down for a visit and happened to look
I saw on the calendar, that tomorrow it'd be here.
I quickly grabbed up a silly card and a present
I put them together and took you to dinner.
I took you to your favorite place to eat,
It's amazing how much I knew about you,
Even when I tried not to care.
I put on a show, and made it seem special...
I didn't know why it was important
I just felt that it was.
You cried that night, saying how special this was
It was your 55th birthday
Did you know it would be your last?
I didn't, not really.
If I had known, what would I have said?
So many words I never had a chance
So many thoughts left in their place
I heard a song the other day
I knew you'd have loved it....
I had so much anger built up against you
I didn't even always know why
I couldn't talk to you half the time or look you in the face
I wish I could go back and make it go away
I wish I could go back and say I'm sorry
I wish
I wish
I wish
But wishes I don't have... so I'll say this instead...
Happy Father's Day, Dad.
You weren't always the best
But you tried your hardest
I understand that now
I never quite got it before
How hard I know you tried
Every day was a battle for you
Every day you fought just to make it through
I didn't understand then what I now know,
The pain and struggle, the fight
I just knew how hurt I felt
I let it cloud my mind
I never let myself get past the hurt
Until you went away...
I am so thankful for that last birthday.
I don't know why I went
but every Father's Day I say a prayer
Thank you God, for sending me.
For your last birthday...
Did you know it was your last?
I didn't... not really
but I'm so glad I was there.

I did it! Year 1 of homeschooling down!

I did it! I finished my first year homeschooling my kids! Well... not the full year.. I didn't start until November... but STILL It's done!

It didn't always go smoothly. I feel that I took too many breaks(hence why school went into June, but it worked out since that's when the local schools here finished) We also went through 2 moves and a not so easy living situation(1 adult, 1 teen, and 2 kids crammed into a partially finished basement. My bedroom, school room, and living room were all the same room... It was hard) I did it though! Regardless of the difficult times, the often reluctant children, and the am-I-ever-going-to-get-a-break-again long days.

So with that being said, I compiled a list of 5 things I want to do better next year:

    1. Don't stress if I break the schedule
Well hey there that's a nice little schedule, I bet that helps keep you all nice and organized and stress  free!
Well, not really... I mean, most days we follow it...kind of...

See at first I was trying so strictly to keep to this schedule. We have to spend EXACTLY THIS LONG ON MATH! and EXACTLY THIS LONG ON SCIENCE! Sometimes we need a little more time for math, it's a pretty complex subject... Sometimes though, we just breeze through it. When  I tried to stick strictly to this schedule I ended up working against myself and hindering my child's learning process.  Now we use it more as a "When we finish this subject we'll move onto this subject" type of guideline, and if we end up skipping a subject that day because I think we're a little burnt out from a rough day of math, I don't stress it.





    2. Have more FUN days!
I want to take more days to explore nature, build puzzles, play board games and HAVE FUN! Kids learn so much just by doing... Especially my rambunctious little guy! We just need to take more days to DO and less days to WORK.  Don't get me wrong, I still feel that book work is important, but so is play. Towards the end of the year I took more days to relax and have fun with the kids, and funny thing happened... I saw my son stop resisting reading! I saw him strive to learn new things that interested him... I saw how hungry he was for knowledge!  When I stopped pushing so hard, he stopped fighting. Children want to learn. So let them.








     3. Ask more Questions

I talk talk talk talk talk...well, that's what a teacher's supposed to do right? But I want to start asking more questions, and listening more intently. I want my children to know that their words have value. That what they say matters. That they have an opinion, and I care about what that is.












4. Stop being so hard on myself.
This is a hard one. Sometime I feel like I am two steps from failing my kids... but every time I feel that way, I have to stop and remember how much better my son has been doing since we started homeschooling. How much his confidence has grown, how I have seen him bloom. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. Do I have bad days? More than I'd like to admit. Am I doing what I know is the best for my children. Yes.  I can't be so hard on myself every time a day doesn't go as planned or a great project I've been working on flops. I have to pick myself up and keep going. This is what's best for my kids, and I am so thankful that I am in a position where I can do this with them.







5. Enjoy as much of it as possible.... and don't sweat the days I'm not enjoying

This one kind of encompasses all of numbers 1-4.  I have so many days where I'm just trying to get through it and then I look back and think... Wow, I could have been having fun, but instead I was just trying to get to the finish line...
   So I want to take the time to enjoy as much as possible! That being said, I'd be silly to think that I will or SHOULD enjoy every minute of homeschooling. There are going to be plenty of days ahead where I want to pull my hair out or throw in the towel! It's ok to have a hard day. I'm hoping though, that if I take more time to enjoy the fun stuff, the small stuff and the sweet moments, that the harder days will be easier to get through. Because my kids are worth every moment that I put towards homeschooling.

Biblical Submission...yeah I'm touching on that for a second....

I believe that a biblical marriage is an equal partnership. That's right... I said it. Equal. Partnership. Yes. I do believe that there is a biblical foundation for that.... Now, people seem to have the misunderstanding that because I believe that a biblical marriage can and *should* be equal, that I don't believe in biblical submission at all. That cannot be farther from the truth.

See, in Ephesians, before it says "Wives submit to your husbands" It says "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Ephesians 5:21)

And furthermore,

Galatians 5:13

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

Philippians 2:3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,

1 Peter 5:5
In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble."

And Jesus Says in Mark 10:43-45
"But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

We as Christians should always be striving to submit and humble ourselves towards others, just as we are called to love all, we are called to serve others. Every Christian, not just Christian women in reference to their husbands. That is what biblical submission is supposed to be about.

Have a little compassion...

Last year a friend of mine went through her husband deploying for the first time. I'll be honest, while I was vocally supportive, inside I was screaming "Get a grip!" Every time she posted something new about how horrible everything was on facebook, I felt like shaking her and saying "Get over it! It's military life! Deal with it! You signed up for this good or bad! Just. Suck. It. Up!"

......... How is it that I got to the point of feeling so negative towards a struggling spouse going through a deployment? Well... I could have SWORN I did not handle my husbands deployment that badly. At least... I don't remember handling that bad. You don't become an army wife and expect a normal 9-5, home every weekend type of lifestyle. It just doesn't happen... maybe for a few months here or there, but not over all. So I knew that a deployment was happening... so obviously I handled it well... right?

Well, apparently I didn't handle it as well as I remember. I found an old journal recently that I attempted to keep up with when my husband first deployed. I wrote in it pretty consistently for about 2 months. Chronicling all the ups and downs, and crazy mishaps that occurred during that time.  Let me tell you right now, the first two months of the deployment did not go well at all... nooooooooot at all! And I MISSED my husband desperately. I was a wreck.

I don't remember handling it that poorly.... but apparently I did.

So when I look back at how my friend handled her husband's first deployment, I wish I had been a little more compassionate in my heart.... deployments are HARD, no matter how many you've been through... but especially the first one. I'm glad I found that old journal... I have come a long way and grown a lot since then. I still miss my husband desperately when he's gone, and things are still hard, but I know how to handle things now.  Regardless though, military separations suck. 1 month, 2 weeks... 6 months... a year... all of them suck. We learn to handle them a little better with each one, but we still feel that a piece is missing every time our soldier leaves...

And let us not forget Murphy's Law for military spouses: When our spouses are away, everything that can go wrong, likely will...... and boy has that proven true over the last 6 months!

Words that mean something to me

These word and several others I try to hold close and live by.... often I fail... but I am human... All we can do is pick ourselves back up, and learn to love even stronger, more passionately, and less selfishly.

• True, whole prayer is nothing but love. -- St Augustine 

• Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life. 

• "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." Romans 12:14-18 

• “When we are generous in welcoming people and sharing something with them—some food, a place in our homes, our time—not only do we no longer remain poor: we are enriched. I am well aware that when someone needing food knocks at your door, you always find a way of sharing food; as the proverb says, one can always ‘add more water to the beans’! Is it possible to add more water to the beans?…Always?…And you do so with love, demonstrating that true riches consist not in materials things, but in the heart! - Pope Francis 

• This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children,let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:16-18 

And a bonus quote from a great author and blogger, Rachel Held Evans:

• "Among the women praised in Scripture are warriors, widows, slaves, sister wives, apostles, teachers, concubines, queens, foreigners, prostitutes, prophets, mothers, and martyrs. What makes these women's stories leap from the page is not the fact that they all conform to some kind of universal ideal, but that, regardless of the culture or context in which they found themselves, they lived their lives with valor. They lived their lives with faith. And as much as we may long for the simplicity of a single definition of "biblical womanhood," there is no one right way to be a woman, no mold into which we must each cram ourselves... "

Starting Out

  I've tried the whole blogging thing before. It never ends up working out...

  I think it's for a number of reasons... one I'm trying to write for a specific audience... I'm trying to tailor my posts for other people... and two I'm trying to make my blog about one thing. Which is probably important if I cared about an audience.... but I don't. Not really. I'm writing this blog for me. For a number of reasons. Mostly though so I can get thoughts out of my head and out in the open. Even if I'm the only one that reads them, that's ok :)

  My biggest problem is wanting to write about only one thing... because that's what a blogs supposed to do, right? But I'm not a one thing kind of person... I'm scattered, everywhere, all over the place. I have many passions and they're all very...different. Yeah, but that's who I am, so go figure.

   First of all I'm passionately Christian. I have been my whole life, but the definition of that has changed recently as I have found myself being called to the Catholic church. This rather shocked me at first and I truly tried to fight against it, because of many reasons. Mostly though because I knew how much it would hurt many people in mine and my husbands families.... I wish I could let them know that if this wasn't so important I wouldn't have done it.
      I didn't set out in this to hurt anyone...and in many ways it makes me even more sad to know that people are hurting from this, because I am still following the same God as they, and I'm still part of the same religion. It's not really seen as that though. There are so many lies and deceptions about the Catholic Church that I was even sold on, so strongly that when I felt God calling me to His church at first, I ran. As far as possible... I was panicky and freaked out. I didn't WANT to be Catholic. I was perfectly happy where I was in my walk with God.... but God called me...and eventually I listened.....

  It was after much research, much prayer, and even more research after that. Because that's what I do. I read...and read...and read. I gather as many facts and evidence as possible before I consider making any decisions. I spent a month straight every night before going to sleep staying up late on CatholicAnswers.com reading up on everything I had questions about. Then I was given the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults(Which over time I started affectionately calling the CCC for dummies, because it explained things so well and was so easy to read in comparison)
  Finally after I felt I couldn't run from it any longer, I brought it up to my husband., who was as reluctant as I was at first. I told him why. He thought on it, asked me some questions and I was able to answer them easily(again having just spent the last month asking the same questions myself!)
    Finally, even though DH was still skeptical, we decided to go to Mass one week...and after mass he just looked over at me and simply said "I really liked this."  And that was pretty much how we got to this point. We've gone through RCIA(him completely, me mostly, and then through correspondence for the last part) but we weren't able to join the church this year... See my husband is in South Korea right now, and due to a series of unfortunate events(and the realities of army life) we were not able to go with him.. but that's a story for another time... as for now, it's late... and I have children to teach in the morning!