Take The Time

One question I get asked a lot since I started my journey in this new life is this:

"How do you have the time to work out and do all of the things you are doing?"

The answer to that is simple.  I am making the time.  Yes, I am blessed to be a Stay At Home Mom, so my schedule is a little more flexible that some.  But, I still have 3 kids and a husband to wrangle and 2 of those kids in a soccer schedule that I have to keep straight.  That is not always an easy thing to do.  I also volunteer a lot at church, I am on the leadership team for my MOPS group, in a Bible Study, and I volunteer as much as I can at the girls' school.  I also am in a knitting group and am a Mary Kay Beauty Consultant.  I am on the go a lot.  I am also very blessed to have a husband who is EXTREMELY supportive of me and helps me make the time to do what I need to do.

But, again, the answer to the original question is simple.  I make the time.

I write my time in the gym into my calendar.  I write it in ink so it is a permanent part of my schedule.  When I see it there and I can't erase it, I know I need to go.  If it means that I go at 9 o'clock at night, that that is when I go.  If I absolutely can not get to the gym, then I work out at home.  I do a video, I find something on Pinterest to do, or I just make it up as I go.  But I do SOMETHING.

I take my kids with me to the gym.  I am lucky to belong to a gym that has child-care so they can play while I work out.  I explain everything I am doing on this journey to my children.  They understand that Mommy wants to be healthy so I can do more things with them and be around for a very long time.  A healthier mommy means a healthier life for them and I am working very hard to make them see that.  I do not want any of them (especially my daughters) to think that I am doing this to be skinny or anything like that.  I want to be healthy, happy, and strong.  That is one of the best lessons I can teach them.

If I go to soccer practice, we take the bikes so the kids can ride their bikes and I can walk.  They get exercise and so do I.  Win Win.

I'm sure that there are people out there that think I am not being fair to my kids when I make them go play at the gym.  I know that there are Moms out there that feel a lot of guilt anytime they take the time to do something for themselves.  I'm going to say this simply.  Get over it.  What good are you doing anyone if you aren't taking care of yourself?  I ask that as someone who spent a long time not taking care of myself.

One day at MOPS, we had a speaker.  It was my sweet friend Natalie Snapp and you can read her wonderful writing at Embracing Life Just South Of Perfect.  Natalie was telling us why we needed to take care of ourselves.  It makes our lives at home much easier.  It makes us less angry and much more patient.  Sometimes just 5 minutes of peace and quiet and relaxation will make us a new woman.  I won't go into everything Natalie talked about, mainly because I think you should really listen to her speak it if you have the chance, but also because there is no way I can do her wonderful wisdom justice.  But, the main thing that I want to share with you that she spoke about that really struck a cord in me was this: Your body is a temple.

Have you heard that before?  I have.  I never truly understood what that phrase meant until Natalie explained it.  Again, her words are much more eloquent than my own, but I will do my best.  I have opened my heart to the Lord Jesus.  He resides in my heart.  Therefore, my earthly body which holds the heart that Jesus resides in is in fact a temple, as real a temple as any church.  It is my responsibility to treat this temple body with as much respect as I would a church.  I would never desecrate a church, why on earth would I do so to my body?  But, that is exactly what I was doing.  By filling my body with junk, by sitting on the couch and never trying to keep my body healthy, I was NOT honoring the temple God gave me.

I pray I am honoring Him now.

Blessings.

I Must Be Out Of My Mind

Seven Kiddos

Four 7 year olds

Two 5 year olds

One 3 year old.

YIKES! What a fun slumber party for my girls!  Poor M is a little outnumbered!!

Hope your day and night are half this exciting!

Blessings,
Theresa

White & Nerdy

I have a confession.  Well, not sure if it is really a confession since most people that know me as an adult already know this about me, but I'm going to put it out there.  Hoo, okay, here it goes.  I am a NERD.  Yes, you read that right, I am a Nerd.  

I grew up on a farm in the country and went to a very small school.  Now, like most kids in middle school, I tried my best to fit in.  I didn't want to stick out or be unlike anyone else.  I was afraid of being made fun of.  I was afraid of what other people would think of me.  High school proved to be more of the same.  I was just scared to be different.

I remember some guys I went to school with and they were not afraid to be different.  They were who they were and were proud of that.  There was one guy who would occasionally wear a Star Trek uniform to school, even on a normal non-dress-up day.  I remember hearing people make fun of him behind his back (I don't remember that I made fun of him.  If I did, I blocked that out.  For privacy reasons, I am not going to use his name, but if you are reading this, and I did make fun of you, please PLEASE please accept my biggest apologies...I was an idiot!).  Why make fun of someone who was different?  He was bold and courageous, but in reality, he was just being himself.  I envied that.

Well now, let me fill you in on who I was in High School.  I was an obsessively good student, I was an athlete, I was an Honor Student.  I was involved in just about every club or activity I could be.  I didn't party, I didn't drink, I didn't have sex.  I enjoyed hanging out with my parents on Friday nights and watching Star Wars.  Looking back, what does that make me?  Yes, you guessed it, a nerd, different, diverse from most others; the one thing I did NOT want to be.  I just didn't know how to accept that part of myself and own it.

It has taken me a long time to embrace my Inner-Nerd.  You will notice that as an adult I consider myself a Nerd and not a nerd.  I now know that being a Nerd is NOT a bad thing.  It is someone that enjoys something with a passion that others might find odd.  There are Star Wars Nerds (guilty), Star Trek Nerds (guilty), and Harry Potter Nerds (guilty).  There are sports Nerds (guilty-football), craft Nerds (guilty-knitting), and book Nerds (guilty-all of them!).There are also education Nerds (SO NOT guilty!), but they have become most well known through shows like The Big Bang Theory  Someone can be a Nerd about every single facet of life, no matter now little, big, mainstream, or obscure.  And that is AWESOME!  I really think if every single person on Earth were truly honest with themselves, they would admit that they are a Nerd about SOMETHING! Here is a link to a fantastic image of Wil Wheaton (for the non Star Trek Nerds, he played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation) talking about being a Nerd:

http://themetapicture.com/wil-wheaton-explains-why-being-a-nerd-is-awesome/

*I'm not sure where this originally came from.  I went back as far from Pinterest as I could!

As an adult, well my Nerd-ness has grown and I am okay with that.  I love Superhero movies.  I get excited when any of the Jurassic Park movies are on.  When I find a great new Paranormal Fiction author, I become giddy.  I firmly believe that the original Star Wars are really the best and can not be improved upon, but that will not stop me one bit from going to see the new releases when they come out. I love to look up the little trivia facts that are at the bottom of IMDB to most movies and TV shows I watch.  I PROUDLY tell people I am a Nerd and I embrace every second of it.  And when my Nerd interests combine, like knitting while watching The Avengers, I almost combust!

Right about now, you might be asking yourself where in the world I am going with this blog post.  I promise your Honor, I have a point, don't Sustain the Objection yet!  I actually have 2 points!!  

My first point is this: DO NOT JUDGE someone just because they may be different than you.  And on the flip side of that, DO NOT BE AFRAID to be different just because someone may judge you.  God made us all different.  We all have different Stripes and Spots, and they are all beautiful.  You are loved, you can be different and it is highly encouraged!  Embrace your Nerd.  Find him or her and love every single thing about that Nerd.  

My second point?  I am turning my kids into Nerds.  I only hope and pray that I can teach them to be comfortable with themselves and love being a Nerd.  It is an awesome thing and I absolutely adore that they are following Mommy's foot prints!

Today we played Star Wars in the back yard.  We were complete with Pool Noodle Light Sabers and Water Gun Blasters.  It was the most fun I have had in a LONG time.  We laughed and laughed.  That is a memory that I will carry for the rest of my life, and I hope my 2 littlest ones do too!

Blessings,

Theresa

Please no one be offended by the Title or this Video by Weird Al, it was just too funny to not post!  Nerds come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and economic class!  No Nerd discrimination here!

Can't Stand Losing You

I have torn my house apart today.  I have misplaced a library book and can not find it ANYWHERE!!  Seriously people, I am absolutely clueless as to where this book could be.  I have looked in my car.  I have looked throughout my house.  I have even looked in the bag where the library books go.  It has disappeared.  I think that the little elf that comes in and steals one sock out of the wash machine must have taken it.  I am not giving up though.  I refuse to let a book break me.  As many books as I read and I have not lost one yet, today will not be the first.  I am on a mission.  It must be here somewhere, right?

So, as I have been tearing apart the house trying to find this book, I ended up cleaning out my yarn corner by the couch.  I am telling you reader(s), this turned in to quite the endeavor!  I ended up pulling all the balls, skeins, hanks, and messes of yarn out of the different bags that I had piled there and started winding them all up into what are called "yarn cakes".  Wow! Do I have a lot of yarn!  In reality, I know that I have a lot of yarn, I mean I have an entire closet full of it, but seeing a whole mess of it "caked" up like that was shocking! Not shocking enough to get rid of any, but shocking none the less! Oh well, at least I know that if we ever lose electricity in the middle of winter, we will not freeze as there is enough wool in the house to keep this family of 5 cozy for several
days weeks.  And, let's not forget that I can always stuff it in the walls if we need more insulation! 

M wanted to help me wind my yarn.  I let him do it a couple of times, but after I had rewound pretty much everything that he had wound, I said that he had done enough.  I took over amid a lot of very loud cries and the yelling of "You're a Mean Mommy!"  What is that about?  I let him do what he wanted for 5 minutes (even though letting him do it caused more work for me!) and then when I told him he was done, I get told that I am a mean mommy?  And even more curious to me is why I let it bother me.  Someone (probably more like someones than someone, but I do not remember who so it doesn't really matter) told me that if I wasn't being told that I was a mean mommy or that they hate me or something like that at least once a day, then I am not doing my job.  Let me just say that the payment for doing my job should be at least chocolate, wine, or at least more yarn (since you know, I don't actually get paid to be a mommy!) and not cries that my "bosses" think I suck at it.  Before anyone lectures me about how I should handle this type of situation, I did tell him that I did not appreciate him saying that too me and that it hurt my feelings.  He told me he was sorry and I know he felt bad about it (not my intent, but hopefully it will keep it from happening again), but it is just frustrating sometimes, you know?  Why can't they all just behave perfectly without having to be directed?  And, if I'm asking, why do they have to be fed and clothed every day?  I mean it, I want to get all of the laundry done one day and then have naked day the next day just so I do not have to do an extra load of laundry.  Is that too much to ask??

Blessings,

Theresa