loving the rain...

After yesterday's heat (90 degrees), today's rain is welcome and refreshing. Right now if you looked at a weather map for central New York State, you would see the yellows and reds, indicating the downpour we are having. It is wonderful and cozy. It was only sprinkling when I went on my walk this morning, thankfully. A few of the kids remarked yesterday that they didn't want to complain about the heat, since Benjamin is having much hotter weather on his Afghanistan vacation.

I mostly managed to stay home yesterday, but had to pick Jonathan up from school at 5:15 because he had a pizza party. As I pulled in the driveway, I was greeted by Suzanne who reminded me for the millionth time that she needed some poster paper for her school project, which was due yesterday. Okay, I said, get in and we will just go now. We went to the small town a few miles down the road....we also stopped at the little grocery store and got two bags of cherries. Cherries are SO good, they disapear almost instantly here. I enjoy having something so good I can eat without feeling guilty.

Benjamin has been gone long enough now, in my humble opinion. I pray for my boy day and night, and I know that God is watching over him. I pray that he is safe, but I also pray that Ben stays in faith, no matter what. Then he will also be a blessing to those around him.

Almost forgot the weekly weigh-in results, probably because I would like to forget. I gained one half a pound. blah. I do have a good reason though, and no, I am not pregnant. The monthly curse does cause a little bit of weight gain, right? It certainly makes me feel miserable! I am glad that I am still getting it for this reason though: it helps me have mercy on my girls. And of course we all get on the same schedule, so it COULD get horrendously witchy around here, you know, with a capitol "B". But thanks be to God for His mercy and goodness, that I can be awake and aware and battle my own sin, and be good to my girls when they are moody. I can be patient when I am tempted to scream. And sometimes, when I can just say I am sorry when I have snapped back at one of them.

Anyway, I am pretty motivated to work harder at this weight loss thing. Half hearted efforts get no results. I work, but just not hard enough. Yes, it could be worse, but why live like that? It feels good to work really hard, so I am revving myself up to do that. I did take two walks yesterday, and exercised for 20 minutes in the heat during the day. I eat healthily, but have to watch the little cheats. Like chocolate chips. Yesterday was a really good day for me, eating wise. I see that I tend to do really well, see the scale inching down, and feel like it is okay to have a little something. When I say it could be worse, it really could. But that is like saving money at the store. I still spent the amount I spent. What I saved is rather invisible.

So next time I go to the store, I am stocking up on my green veggies, and I am going to get that scale going DOWN. We have lots of lettuce and spinach coming up in the garden, which has been yummy....

Rosie stinks again. She just had a bath the other day, and she looks so spiffy when she is all clean. Well, she went and rolled in something...she smells like pee. nice, right? So one of my jobs today is obvious, bathing the dog, again. She is more trouble that a two year old. Not that two year olds are trouble...in fact, I would take one.

One thing I find myself doing is longing for "down" time. Peace and quiet. There is nothing wrong with enjoying that, but I really want to grow where I am planted. I want to get what I can out of the situations I am in NOW. I don't want to wish my life away. My life is busy. We have this thing around here where everyone wants to talk to me, the mom. A few of the girls really have the gift of gab, wonder where they got that, right? It seems mean, but I don't always have the time to listen to these whole tirades, these detailed stories, especially when I am trying to get things straightened out about who is going where or what we are doing or trying to get a meal together. If someone comes in to ask me a question and one of the girls is telling me something, there can be hurt feelings when I interrupt them to listen to another....I feel like I need a whistle and a traffic cop stick, and I just need to hold my hand up to one child after like 45 seconds, and then wave the next child to talk...one thing I have noticed is that I need to learn to give my full attention to the one I am talking to, and forget about myself. I can't always solve all their problems, but I can listen better.

After a certain time at night, I feel like I am DONE with listening, DONE with solving problems and figuring things out. When I sit down and put my feet up, for some of the kids, that means, "it is a good time to talk to Mom.". So there you have it, a really really good place for me to learn the meaning of sacrifice....to love when I don't feel like it.

I could sit here all day and write, it is so pleasant with the dark clouds and the rain pouring down. Camille is playing dollhouse. All of the kids went to school today. I have to take Mali to get her phone fixed again, and to get her license which is still at the phone store, which is a long story. I would like to just sit here all day and write, and then perhaps read my book...and eat chocolate chip cookies, don't they sound good? But I won't.