I’ve always had a hard time writing about things that don’t make me look like a person who has it all together. My whole life I’ve been concerned about peoples perception of me. I wanted to be percieved as a great student – but I didn’t care about my school work. I wanted to be perceived as a great Christian – and while God is the cornerstone of my life, many times my words and actions were what I thought a Good Christian Girl should be saying and doing. God hates lip service. I don’t think that God is trying to fit us each into a little Christian shaped box, he made us who we are and that’s who he expects us to be.

I think that every parent wants to be perceived as being great at what they do, as never having a difficult time with their children, as always loving their job – and it’s hard, you never want someone to think that you’re not great at parenting because your children become the core of who you are. I have a harder time being a mom than some people do.

I think perhaps money is the hardest thing to be honest about. I think everyone wants to appear that they are financially All That. It’s some sort of mega status symbol – and why? It could be gone tomorrow. It’s more than that, money is how you survive, it’s how you define your lifestyle. It’s how you send your kids to swimming lessons or your husband to the doctor. It’s what decides what kind of house you live in, what kind of car you drive, what kind of clothes you wear. It determines your success in life. Everyone wants to appear to have it, and nobody does. We can get to the point in our life where we’re honest about every other aspect of life, but never money. Why? Why can’t I say, I’m more worried about how we’re going to pay for Jim to go to the doctor than finding out what’s actually wrong with him?

Maybe it’s because we fear judgment more than failure.

And I’m tired of it. I can only be myself and I am not going to apologize for that anymore. I can only live MY life, and I’m not going to try and look like it’s something different than what it is. I think in life when you come to terms with WHO you are, you take a stand on that person. That is the point where you cannot change the way you are perceived, because you’re committed to being yourself. I think I’m nearing that point. And it’s a good thing.

I’ve always been amazed by how well advertising effects kids. Eden will watch a commercial one time and be talking about how she wants a Sky Dancer for the next month. As our business becomes more of a marketing company, we’re realizing that traditional forms of advertising are becoming less and less effective. But the one market that will always be susceptible to traditional advertising is children.

Which leads me to my little kiddos. They are, already, children of the 21st century. Eden can recognize most fast food restaurants from a mile away, especially “The Ice Cream Store” (Dairy Queen), My mom is proud… and probably at fault. Even Honor knows Taco Bell, honestly, we don’t eat there THAT much. The other day, as we drove past Taco Bell, he said, “See it! Taco Bell!”

They can point out most technology, Honor sees my iPod and says, “mama, iPod’ (emphasis on the “d”). Eden can work the TV and she’s always telling me to “record it.” Recently Eden has taken to playing a Dora Matching Game on the computer. Now every single time one of us is on the computer she asks, “Can I play the Dora Dame?” There’s only so many times you can click on little cards and watch them flip over to reveal swiper before you get bored, so I thought I’d let her try and play herself. She’s perfect with a mouse. She’s only 3 years old! So she now has her very own computer (a turd slow Apple running 9.1) with Dora set to the home page. And while Honor enjoys clicking on “his” mouse, he’s much rather be destroying a computer. No amount of cool technology can keep destruct-o-con down.

Hey, it’s free who cares if you’ll ever use it right?

FREE YARN

Honor usually wakes up and yells “WAKE.” But this morning I was a little slow to get him out of bed and instead of yelling “WAKE” he was crying, “No want night night, no want night night.”

*Remember, we’re still pretending that posting about Honor’s messes isn’t getting old.*

Yesterday after reading Looloo’s post I remembered that Honor had spilled clear nail polish on the bedroom carpet this weekend. This was entirely my fault, even though he knows he’s not supposed to be in there, because I left the polish on my night stand.

But very shortly after reading Loo’s post, just has I was getting my long awaited return phone call from Avon so I could chew them out for over charging me, I found that Honor, somehow, figured out how to get into the hall closet where my 500 bottles of fingernail polish are stored. I found a large puddle of metallic pink polish on the hallway carpet and this:

I didn’t bother to try to clean up the carpet, it needs to be ripped out anyway. And I worried that it wouldn’t be good to use fingernail polish remover so close to Honor’s eyes, so as much as I scrubbed in the bath tub, he still has a metallic pink nose. Serves him right I say.

I guess when you declare to the cosmos, “BRING IT!” it takes you serious. Honor felt really terrible all weekend with a cold and Saturday night Eden puked all over my feet and continued to puke all night. At least the kids are feeling better now. Today Jim and I feel pretty sick to our stomachs, although it’s hard for me to tell exactly what’s wrong because I have cramps and a bladder infection. But! I will be starting my antibiotics as soon as I’m sure I can keep them down. Thank God for family members who can call in prescriptions.

But I’m sick of talking about everything wrong around here. Let’s look at my extremely cool new bracelet that I got last weekend.

It’s wooden and made in India and was only $9.00. There is a really cool little shop on Main Street called Pollux and my friend Brooke and I went in there, surprisingly, for the first time ever last saturday. Brooke got some great sunglasses and a really modern pink shell overlaid with cream lace with beaded straps.

I’ve got some work to do on a few websites, and I think I’m going to spend the rest of the day knitting my seventh One Skein Wonder. This one is a model for my class. I have to say, I hate purling the right way.

Here’s to a better week. For all of us.

Monday
Chicken and Rice

Tuesday
My little sisters 22nd birthday. She requested my mom make Beef Stroganoff and cheese cake for her birthday dinner.

Wednesday
Sandwiches

Thursday
Beef Enchiladas

Weekend
Red Beans and Rice
Picnic with family
Fried Chicken

I just wanted to thank you all for your kind words of support. Things are just really difficult around here and I may not have a chance to email you all. To top it all off, I’ve got a really painful bladder infection. Life is so fun!

At least the kids are cute right?

But possibly the worst news in the entire world is… I’m ashamed to even admit it… I KNIT WRONG! It seems that I twist my stitches. Instead of wrapping the yarn counter clockwise when I knit AND purl, I wrap it clockwise (which is much easier, by the way.) I taught myself out of a book, so when the yarn store owner told me over the phone that she wanted to watch me knit before I taught the class, I knew that it could be quite possible that I WAS doing it wrong. I whipped out my Stitch n Bitch book and realized the painful truth. The thing is, this was something that I thought I was really good at. I’ve taught countless people to knit and I’ve made many, many things the wrong way. It kinda breaks my heart a little. It was nice knowing I was really good at something. Even my little sister admitted that I was really good at it. (Now that’s saying something.) I hate the thought of telling her…

So today, when the thought of peeing makes me want to cry; when it seems like we’re not even wanted at our church; when there may or may not be something really wrong with my husband; when my uber hyper son takes every chance he has to make me look like a fool in public; when we’ve got a new niece that we’ll never see, now supposedly living in the SAME town as us; when the business stress could not possibly be any worse; when my relatives are being hit by tornados; when my friends are being kicked out of their bands, landing in the hospital, hating their jobs, needing stitches; and now I can’t even knit, I say BRING IT. I’m pissed and I’m ready to beat the crap out of whatever you throw at me.

Honor peed in the potty yesterday!!!

For the past week and a half Jim has been experiencing partial numbness of the whole left side of his body, at times, including the left side of his tongue. Probably for the past month, his left leg as been numb at times, but as of last Monday, it’s been all over the left side of his body and all the time. He has seen the chiropractor a few times and yesterday, the chiropractor determined, with great concern, that he could not help Jim and suggested he see the doctor right away.

Jim was able to see our family doctor yesterday and $140* later, the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He’d like Jim to have some blood tests and after that possibly see a neurologist. We’re talking some very large medical bills with no insurance. It’s hard to know what to do because it’s all scary, but the likelihood is that he’s having these problems because he sits at a desk all day and gets very little exercise. And the doctor didn’t seem too worried, which is some sort of a relief, even though he doesn’t know what’s wrong.

At this point we’re going to try to exercise every day. Jim will start taking an anti inflammatory the doctor gave him and we may hold off on the blood tests for awhile. I will try my hardest to refrain from freaking out on an hourly basis. And the hardest thing that we will do, and definitely the most important, is trust God that he will keep Jim safe and well.

*Can you believe that it was $140 to see the doctor for just a chat? They didn’t even do any tests or anything. It’s outrageous.