I do miss blogging, though, big time. It is my own connection to...myself. It lets me vent or celebrate or brainstorm or be silly or be deep or anything else that strikes my fancy. I think I am healthier when I blog because I am participating in the greater world (even though not many are reading) and not holed up in my little private world. When I don't blog much, it's a sign that things are not as they should be, either they are way too busy or I'm feeling too alone to really want to share.
I've been trying to figure out how to catch my lovely readers up on the events of the past few weeks, and I decided that I will just give an overview of each person in the family and tell you what is going on in their lives right now. If I succeed in doing 8 full bios, you can consider yourself caught up! It may take 25 installments because I hear screaming in the other room already...
JON
He's a busy guy! From wearing strappy gold high heels (for a charity "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes") to bidding on property for the church (losing the bid and uncovering some fraud!) to leading a multi-million dollar capitol campaign for the St. Mark's middle school, the life of a pastor is not a dull one. He has been awesome about getting up at 6am to help with the kids before his work day begins in earnest, and I have been married to him long enough to know that he is NOT a 6am sort of person. He recently preached a great sermon series on Revelation, which gave him the opportunity to teach that there is not just one way to read that book. He got great feedback, and people are begging him to lead an in-depth study on the topic. The conference-wide youth camp this summer theme has even been changed to reflect one of the ideas in one of Jon's sermons during this series.
I'm trying to think of what Jon does in his free time, but he's living his life like there's only one life to live, and free time seems to often get left out of the equation. When he does get some time, I think he most likes to play board games with friends and family, Wii Rock Band with his kids, or some sort of computer game that I would know nothing about. He's been working to build some down time into his life, so the littlest kids were introduced to Rock Band last week. Someone has to get the little ones hooked on video games, right? I'm pretty clever, though, so we just gave them little plastic microphones so they thought they were playing along.
MELANI
Hmm, it's hard to even know where to begin. What have I been doing? Changing diapers, thinking of new and better ways to teach math, shuttling kids to too many appointments, wiping noses, and being a mom times six. It is really hard for me to find a balance to that right now, and that's OK. I know it is just a season in life, and someday I will look back and laugh at that time when I was actually parenting 6 kids, with four being 2 and under. It is crazy, and I'm surviving and actually usually enjoying it!
October, on a whole, was a really tough month for me. It marked the 2-year-anniversary of when we decided to adopt. It was hard to see that date come and go and really be pretty far from anything definitive. I am thankful that I have a house full of sweet kids to keep me company. I think I would have gone crazy by now if I was still waiting for a word from Burundi and hearing nothing. I keep up with a blog from someone else who is still waiting to adopt from there through our agency. They haven't heard a word since August, and they started the process before we did.
October was also a tough month because visits for one of our foster kiddos with his mother resumed after a 5-month break. That meant I had to get kids to six separate visits, 5 days a week. Some of the visits are 45 minutes away, too far to get home and back, which meant that we would do nap time in the van, driving around (at least gas is cheap in a giant van...) for hours. It would often be 4 hours of driving, and we would get nowhere but back home. I hated thinking that we could have gone on a nice trip with that amount of driving! It has always been tough fitting in a regular life with four family visits, and six really put me into a state of barely functioning. The kids were so sick of being in the van. It was so hard to get anything else done, and it felt like life was just completely out of my control. The only way I was able to rally on was that I knew it was temporary. I knew something would change. Either one of our kids would go back home, taking out two visits a week, or another mom would stop doing what she was supposed to be doing, taking out two visits a week. Luckily, I was right. One mom no longer gets visits, and one other visit now has a transporter, so I am only responsible for three visits a week now! I feel I have some control back in life, and that's a good thing.
We're in a good place with homeschooling. Basia and I are in Week 12, so we are right on track. It takes a lot of work and commitment to keep up with it, but we are doing good this year. We are getting to do a lot of reading together, which both of us enjoy. Brishen is doing most of his work online, with teachers other than me, which is a good thing. I know I couldn't keep up with teaching him all his subjects this year. He asked me for help with his Algebra II today, and I looked at him like he was crazy. My brain has a tough time thinking those kind of technical thoughts when most of my day is in the do-what-needs-to-be-done-right-now frame of mind. It was really, really hard to make the switch to a logical, advanced math sort of place. I am thankful he has great teachers but is still home with me!
I miss exercising, and I know it affects me in a lot of ways. The thought of dragging myself out of bed before my baby makes me (between 4:50 and 5:30am each morning) to get in my exercise is still too much. He slept well at night for about a week, and I was about ready to conquer the world, but now he is back to waking up 2-4 times before he is ready to be up for good before the rooster even crows. If I am able to be in bed, I long to be in bed. Maybe I need to become a nighttime exerciser, but I'd often have to take the triple stroller with me.
I have been reading again, which is a lovely thing. A good nonfiction book is all it takes to inspire me and make my brain feel a bit less like the mush it is these days. I will always have a bit of time to read as long as I have a baby to bottle feed and two kiddos needing nebulizer treatments. I also have been taking a refresher course in Financial Peace University. It's good to get the budgeting back on track after a slightly crazy year. We still have no credit card debt, but we again have vehicles that we need to pay off. Stupid debt (but I don't regret getting the giant van!)!
Basically, I can sum up how I've been feeling lately (John Wesley would ask, "How is it with your soul today?") in one word: isolated. I feel physically isolated because I can't visit my extended family or attend events in Las Cruces without major prior planning and a variety of clearances. I feel like there is a giant fence separating El Paso from Las Cruces. More than that, though, I feel isolated because I'm in a weird place in life. Life has changed so much, so quickly, and I'm kind of in a tornado that doesn't stop spinning long enough for me to figure out how to relate to others any more. And you know what? I feel horrible about that. I know I should be calling and emailing and facebooking and making all sorts of efforts to stay connected. I just feel like I have so little to offer in relationships right now, like I just "do" and no longer "think" or "relate".
I worry that I complain too much or only report in when there is something bad happening, and so I'd rather say nothing than be the one who is only "why me-ing" a situation that I knowingly got myself into and would get myself into again a million times over, especially when there are a billion worse things going on in the lives of other people and I am blessed beyond measure. I feel like I am so far away from everyone and everything, and, for now, I'm not sure how to bridge the gaps.
There's the deep part, but it's part of what's going on with me, so I thought I better add that in, too.
Basically, I can sum up how I've been feeling lately (John Wesley would ask, "How is it with your soul today?") in one word: isolated. I feel physically isolated because I can't visit my extended family or attend events in Las Cruces without major prior planning and a variety of clearances. I feel like there is a giant fence separating El Paso from Las Cruces. More than that, though, I feel isolated because I'm in a weird place in life. Life has changed so much, so quickly, and I'm kind of in a tornado that doesn't stop spinning long enough for me to figure out how to relate to others any more. And you know what? I feel horrible about that. I know I should be calling and emailing and facebooking and making all sorts of efforts to stay connected. I just feel like I have so little to offer in relationships right now, like I just "do" and no longer "think" or "relate".
I worry that I complain too much or only report in when there is something bad happening, and so I'd rather say nothing than be the one who is only "why me-ing" a situation that I knowingly got myself into and would get myself into again a million times over, especially when there are a billion worse things going on in the lives of other people and I am blessed beyond measure. I feel like I am so far away from everyone and everything, and, for now, I'm not sure how to bridge the gaps.
There's the deep part, but it's part of what's going on with me, so I thought I better add that in, too.
If there's anything else going on with me, I've forgotten it. What I typed so far was interrupted by fights, dinner, baths, and election results (or non-results, so far). If there are multitudes of typos and things that make no sense, you'll have to guess what I meant.
Oh, and I'm not addicted to my morning coffee. My dear husband makes me a cup each morning, and it is a lovely way to start a day. My dad wouldn't recognize it as coffee, but, for me, it counts.
And there, in a nutshell, is me.
Oh, and I'm not addicted to my morning coffee. My dear husband makes me a cup each morning, and it is a lovely way to start a day. My dad wouldn't recognize it as coffee, but, for me, it counts.
And there, in a nutshell, is me.
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