A Definite Rant

It is SELFISH to expect people to live in the mess you made or to expect them to clean it up. There, aw I feel better having said that. You make a mess, you clean it up, plain and simple, why is it I have to say this 300 million times... eventually I will get through, I WILL. My children will learn that love is considerate. play play PLAY all you want, just clean it up when you're done.
I have been going through basement crap after cleaning house today, I despise clutter and storing things that are of no use to us. Or storing them in trash bags. I had 5 big tubbies that I got on sale at walmart for 3.50 a piece, sale's still on if you want in on that. and I filled them all today, along with two bags for goodwill, and one for the consignment shop. All kid clothes...I could open up a store for real. And I still need about 3 more tubbies...

What Gave Me A Panic Attack

It had been SUCH a long time since I had an anxiety attack!! I had one while Mom was still here and we had been sleep deprived for a week and I was hormonal... so I kinda asked for that one, plus we were staying up playing stimulating games of Settlers.. stimulating, late nights, hormones... the perfect storm. Well yesterday, I decided to, cut Isabelle's bangs...I was about to committ my own form of heresy. Bangs we'd been growing out since she was 3, long beautiful 8 inch or so, bangs... *sigh* but for a couple of months I had been toying with the idea but chickened out. I had a picture of a little girl with bangs from Parents magazine and I thought they were adorable, I showed Isabelle and she was all for it. It took me a long time to section it out, combing, deciding.. wondering if I should just let my hairdresser do this.. but I cut my own bangs all the time... so I cut a line across, it was not straight, and I felt a heatwave go over my body, thinking oh CRAP WHAT have I DONE?!!! So as I shaped and trimmed my edginess rose and began sweating, to the point I had to towel off my face, I looked like a sweaty faced Whitney Houston back when she actually was a singer and not a crack addict. I made an apt today with my hair girl, she really didn't have to do much and told me I actually didn't do a bad job and she's seen WAY worse....It IS nice that the poor thing no longer has hair dangling in her face, her hair wants to grow forward and all day I was always redoing the clip or what not, so that she wouldn't go around like Violet off of the Incredibles. I could send her to school, to recess, or soccer,without having one encumbered hand, holding her hair out of her face. It was nice to see her playing at the play area, no hair in her face. I talked to my brother on Skype last night and showed him before the salon fix and he said it looked adorable, that helped. In a month the bangs will be more what they were intended to be in the first place... thank goodness hair grows. So I ended up feeling wiped out over my change in brain chemistry that I inflicted upon myself and had a another attack in the night after a dream of me trying to escape these weird people's house. Heart pounding away. I am thankful that at least now they don't last nearly as long, maybe 1/8 what they were, but I am feeling the tired queasy today...the only upside to this is calorie reduction and a flatter stomach.

Post Happy Kid Quotes

Things Christian has said lately.

While playing with an asian strawberry shortcake doll. " Mi Hao" ( this is funny because we don't have cable oh and I realize it's Ni but he said Mi)

While building a fort with Isabelle. " This is difficult"

While playing with my dad " Isabelle stop hogging all the grandpa"

While jumping on the trampoline " I miss my dad, he's working really hard"

While not eating his ravioli, " I'm not gonna eat it, never ever"

And for Isabelle we have many funny discussions together and while my parents were here she was learning from them about worms and centipedes. She was calling them "recipedes"

Pie, I say.

So here is my wonderful pie. Ha :) Mitch's mom has been toiling away in the evenings picking raspberries and brought us some on the 4th, I threw in a few blueberries I got from the produce area of our grocery store so here is the pie I made today so the berries would not go to waste!! This may not the be the most beautiful pie, it is by my low standards and I even took the time to put foil on the edges.. what IS my problem? :) Also the crust has no crisco a.k.a hydrogneated veg oil. So that's it, my pie, I should get a life, but I make, oh, one pie a year, so this is a big deal.

Trusting God and ...

I have slowly ever so slowly started the book Trusting God. I'm still at work to finish Holiness By Grace but I wanted to share this quote from Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.

These Two objectives are never antithetical; they are always in harmony with each other. God never pursues His glory at the expense of the good of His people, nor does He ever seek our good at the expense of His glory. He has designed His eternal purpose so that His glory and our good are inextricably bound together. What comfort and encouragement this should be to us. If we are going to learn to trust God in adversity, we must believe that just as certainly as God will allow nothing to subvert His glory, so He will allow nothing to spoil the good He is working out in us and for us.

Holiness by Grace from the chapter Repentance that Sings

Our obedience is not the foundation or condition of God's receiving our repentance; it is the natural outflow of a heart that has experienced grace. Our new willingness to foloow Christ helps reassure us that we have experienced the transforming power of grace.....though there may be many stumbles and setbacks along the path, true repentance leads naturally to new obedience.

(the Bible) cautions against thinking that God will forgive wehre there is no real change of heart. God is not waiting for us to fix our lives before he forgives us, for then none would be forgiven; but he does not promise forgiveness where repentance is not sincere...we also should not think that God will accept repentance from a heart still in rebellion against him.

In light of God's holiness, we will perceive how awful i sthe disease of our sin and how helpless we are against it. Then we will cry out to God for the help that he alone can give. And when his mercy has made us whole , recognizing how great is our rescue we will experience overwhelming joy.

The chapter Escape from Temptation was also excellent and all encompassing. Thoroughly expands on 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Unless we ackowledge how susceptible our humanity makes us, we are far more vulnerable to wrong that we think.

Paul puts the horror of temptation beofre us so that we will not use its commonness as a rationalization for allowing it into our lives.

Temptation has terrible power. Even those with great spiritual privilege are not immune to its influence.

The images ( of the Lord's supper/crusifiction) remind us that God allowed his own Son to experience the consequences of OUR sin.... we are all participants in the wrong that required his life.

There is so SO much more in this chapter, I'm barely scratching the surface but I'll end with this John Owen quote.

Let us consider what regard we ought to have to our own duty and to the grace of God. some would separate these things as inconsistent. If holiness be our duty, they would say, there is no room for grace; and if it be the result of grace there is no place for duty. But our duty and God's grace are nowhere opposed in the matter of sanctification; for one absolutely supposes the other. We cannot perform our duty without the grace of God; nor does God give his grace for any other purpose than that we may perform our duty.

Spurgeon Quote/Mark of True Believer

THE distinguishing mark of a Christian is his confidence in the love of Christ, and the yielding of his affections to Christ in return. First, faith sets her seal upon the man by enabling the soul to say with the apostle, “Christ loved me and gave Himself for me.” Then love gives the countersign, and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in return. “We love Him because He first loved us.” In those grand old ages, which are the heroic period of the Christian religion, this double mark was clearly to be seen in all believers in Jesus; they were men who knew the love of Christ, and rested upon it as a man leaneth upon a staff whose trustiness he has tried. The love which they felt towards the Lord was not a quiet emotion which they hid within themselves in the secret chamber of their souls, and which they only spake of in their private assemblies when they met on the first day of the week, and sang hymns in honor of Christ Jesus the crucified, but it was a passion with them of such a vehement and all-consuming energy, that it was visible in all their actions, spoke in their common talk, and looked out of their eyes even in their commonest glances. Love to Jesus was a flame which fed upon the core and heart of their being; and, therefore, from its own force burned its way into the outer man, and shone there. Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark of all genuine Christians. Because of their dependence upon Christ’s love they dared much, and because of their love to Christ they did much, and it is the same now. The children of God are ruled in their inmost powers by love—the love of Christ constraineth them; they rejoice that divine love is set upon them, they feel it shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them, and then by force of gratitude they love the Saviour with a pure heart, fervently. My reader, do you love Him? Ere you sleep give an honest answer to a weighty question.

I would have condensed this more but I couldn't cut anything out. Too good.

Girl's Nights and The 4th

Our 4th consisted of a cookout at our house with Mitch's folks and sister. Then later the fireworks. The kids loved them of course and Isabelle told " It's ok Mommy, don't be scared" and patted me as I jumped at the loud ones. I can't help it! What took us 10 minutes to get there, took us almost an hour to get home. The traffic was AWFUL. The things you do for fond family memories, I tell you what... Did I mention I had to tinkle quite BAD even before getting into the van to go home???

In other news, I have gotten to have lots of fun girl outings lately. With my two sis in laws on my side when they were here and this last weekend with my other two wonderful sis in laws on Mitch's side! Soon I will get to have another night out with friends. So unlike my normal schedule, everything at once but I'll take it!! Structured schedules will take shape soon enough.