The Things I Want

The things I so desperatly want my husband to do to me and for me are to gently touch my hand or the small of my back when he walks past and to tell me how much he loves me and how thankful he is for me half a dozen ish times a day. My husband is GREAT and he is pretty good at sometimes doing things like this but not as often as of lately. Things are pretty tense between us. He works 3rd shift and is having a hard time sleeping during the day. He is more worried about the finances than I am. He's more frustrated about our messy house. All these things and more I'm sure are making our marriage rough. I know he loves me I just don't always know. And then it hit me...I'm so concerned about what I want FROM him, what about what he wants or needs from me. The other day he came home from work and told me he had a bad night. He talked a bit about it and then I went down to deal with the kids. When he woke up I was frustrated with the kids and with my husband about something. A few minutes later he told me that he was hurt because he had a bad day at work and then I raged on him. It was at that point that I saw that just as much as I need things from him he needs things from me. After that I listened to him and prayed for him and asked for his forgiveness. So many days I get caught up in my own problems that I don't even think about my husbands problems or heart aches let alone other peoples.
God is trying to do something in our lives, we just need to be still and trust Him.

10 Years!

This month celebrates 10 years that our youth pastor and his family have been serving in our church. This man is such a gift to our church family. He has a heart for the Lord and he has a heart for the youth of our church and county. He is real and he connects well with both students and parents. He desires to have children and their parents connect and to be able to talk with and share with each other. He desires to come along side parents and help them know their child. He loves his wife dearly and he let's it show and be known to everyone. He has this really cool t-shirt that says "I love my wife" and he wears it often. He loves his sons and desires for them to become men of God. I'm sure I could go on and on but I'm not going to. I just think...know that God has used and is using him in many great way and is impacting so many lives for the Lord and I'm so glad that God has put him here to minister to us and to serve the Lord!! Thank you Jon and Nikki for your service, friendship, love.

Ephesians 5:22 and following...

I am, have been, and probably will for the rest of my marriage struggle with these verses and all that relate to them. 'Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.' I don't want to "give up control" and I have just figured this out in only the past few weeks. For all of my married life (almost 7 1/2 years) I have really struggled with letting my husband be the head of our family. For some things I'll "let" him make the decisions, but for other things I'll be stubborn and put my foot down or I'll "let" him make the decision but have a bad attitude about it afterwards. It's so frustrating because I want him to be more of a leader but when he tries to make a decision that I don't like I'll get upset and let him know it.
Now I'm not talking about us not agreeing on bad or abusive situations or anything like that, just everyday type things. One thing is the budget. My husband is tight and strict on the budget. I on the other hand am not. So if I see a good deal on something I want for him or the kids I wanna get it but he says it can wait or we don't need it. I have a hard time sticking within the budget and he gets frustrated and I get frustrated.
My husband talks about how he's going to keep "fighting for me and my love" kinda like my knight in shining armor. I love that idea of my husband being in charge and fighting for me. Yet at the same time I don't want to give up my freedom and control. I want both but biblicaly I can't have both. I need to let him be the leader.
Now as a good leader though he has to take my needs and wants and desires into full consideration. And for the most part he's really good at that. He'll think about the good of our family or future when he tries to make some decisions when I think I only think of myself or the now when I want to make or not allow him to make certain decisions. So what that comes down to is me being selfish :( Wow, never thought of it that way before. But it's so hard to let go. Maybe because the "world" is full of "equal rights" and "a woman can do what ever a man can do". I guess what it really comes down to is the fall in the garden of eden. Genesis 3:16 ' To the women he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." '
So I know that this was kinda a long post, thanks for reading. I'm sorry if I jumped around or if this makes no sense what so ever. Just my thoughts typed out how ever they come! Thanks :)

Here's a quick note

Hi everyone. Just wanted to post a quick note so 1. You all know I'm still livin' 2. You keep checkin' my page. I want to update my page with pictures and stuff, I just don't know how and I don't wanna make the time to learn. Lots of things going on, I'll try(key word try) and post about them soon. Please be patient with me, I'm a work in progress. :)

I hate this house!

I don't "hate" my house, I hate my housekeeping skills or lack there of. I went into the kitchen to make some popcorn and wanted to cry. What a mess. I thought of snapping a few pictures to post but then realized how embarrassed I'd be if people saw my mess. Heck, I'm embarrassed just writing about it. I don't know why I can't keep a clean or at least semi clean house. Paul is always tripping over something or stepping on something (usually a toy that he didn't put away even though I told him to put it away a few times already) and he says, "stupid thing! Why is this house such a mess?!?!" (He's good at never taking the blame for things, it's always someone or something else's fault)
One of the reasons my house is the way it is is because we are lazy. We come in and put things down instead of putting them where they belong. Another reason is because Dave (husband) and I (more me than him) don't make the kids pick up after themselves or put something away before taking something else out.
My mom was always good at keeping a clean house. I don't remember her ever making us help her clean, maybe every once and a while. She enjoyed cleaning, I think. I enjoy cleaning and organizing other people's houses, just not my own. Ask me to come over and help you clean and I'll be right over. But clean my own house, where do I begin? I just look at it and get overwhelmed and want to cry.
I think another problem is that I am a pack rat. I like to keep things that "I might use that" or "the kids like to play with that once and a while". I just need someone to come and get rid of everything for me when I'm not here. Isn't there a show like that?
Oh yeah, something else. Our dishwasher broke almost a month ago and I told Dave that we
didn't need to get a new one right away because we've been stressing about money lately.
There are other things that we need more than a dishwasher. Like a car. So I said I could keep up with the dishes, a dishwasher was the least of our needs. I guess it is the least of our NEEDS
but greatest right now of my WANTS!! I hate washing dishes. Especially when they are piled pretty high. Oh, pray for me. I'm having a really hard time getting this adult thing figured out. I'm 27 and I've been married for 7 years. I feel like I'm playing house and any minute my mom's gonna tell me it's time to clean up and get ready for dinner. Guess what Heather, it's not gonna happen. This is reality, this is life.

I was absent this summer

I was absent this summer from blogging and friends and everything and I didn't let any one know, sorry. I worked a lot this summer and so did my husband. I just felt so overwhelmed with everything that I stopped doing whatever I could. I've been doing just enough to slide by and not a bit more. Washing the dishes when both sides of the sink were overflowing, sweeping the floors when I got soooooooooooooooooo sick of stepping on cracker and cereal pieces, getting the kids clothes and mine each day from the mounds of clean laundry from the laundry table (I guess I at least wash the clothes, I just don't put them away).
Why was this such a bad summer? That's a good question. I feel like God is really testing our faith in Him. My husband and I have been having a hard time these past few months. Or maybe just I have. I don't know. Maybe I'll go deeper in following posts, maybe not, we'll see.
So I guess I just wanted to say, "Hey, I'm still here!" I'm really thinking this fall will be better and I'll be posting much more. Stay tuned...

summer

I know it's been a while since I've blogged... is it me or have I written this or something to this effect before. I was thinking that things this summer would slow down a bit, but they haven't. I didn't think I signed the kids up for too many activities this summer but for whatever reason we just seem extra busy. I'm still working this summer, same hours as during the school year (I am a school age child care teacher) Paul doesn't have school. Who knows. We're busy and I guess that's just the way it is. The kids don't seem to mind so I guess that's good. Annika is in gymnastics 2 times a week and she just loves it. She gets so excited when she realizes she has gymnastics the next day. She jumps up and down and yells "GYMNASTICS Yeah Yeah Yeah!!" It's cute.
So I signed up for flylady because I just can't keep up with my house anymore. Well... not anymore because that makes it sound like I used to be able to. I have never been able to keep a good house. It was a little easier BK (before kids) but now it just seems impossible. So from what I've read and heard about flylady it seems pretty easy. But I just can't do it. I am not disciplined and that's my problem. And I'm lazy too. If we'd all just put things away when we're done with them our house wouldn't look so bad. The other thing about flylady is the e-mails. I am getting a gazillion of them. I think I can change something on it so I can get them in on lump e-mail (that sounds weird) the e-mails are good reminders and testimonials, they're just overwhelming to me and my husband who shares the e-mail address with me. Oh well!!!
So that's that for now. My husband is almost done running on the treadmill that we just got. I walked on it for about 25 minutes this morning. I really hope we continue to be motivated to use it almost every day the way it is meant to be used and not as a thing to hang clothes on or something that just collects dust. Then we are going to watch a movie and fold about 5ish loads of laundry. I don't have a problem washing clothes. I just have a problem folding and putting clothes away where they belong. I think it goes back to being lazy and not disciplined. Oh well... I'm a work in progress. Good night :)