Changes

My husband wants to go into ministry.

It was a path that we as a couple were on years ago. It developed while he was deployed. And it slowly faded when he came back; somewhere between trouble reintegrating as a couple and home life and counting the burnt out light bulbs of our current church of attendance after a painful series of trouble with our previous church and a long and tedious search for a new church.

And now that plan is back.

I put it away. I gave up on it. I gave up on understanding my husband's spirituality and hoping that he would lead our marriage to develop more spiritually.

I fell into a different plan of work hard, take care of your family and house and hopefully we'll end up with a nest egg and a nicer and larger house out in the country a bit and we'll live out our days together.

I'm struggling to lay down the current path and pick back up the new/old one that is being brought back up again. I fought for that path. I tried to lead that path. I tried to remind that path. I tried to lead us as a couple spiritually. And I gave up. I couldn't tell for a while if my husband was even following God any more. There was no clear signs either way. After so long it just felt like we were meandering wildly through the woods with no real direction or purpose - just that typical American way of life. I accepted it. I accepted the new path.

Now I'm being stubborn and I don't want to go back. It's too hard in so many ways. I want the easy way. 

Ugh.... Need to look deeper.

I am bored. And I am boring. Being bored is a choice. How do I choose differently? Here I am saying I'm bored as my husband is feeling the burden of too much on his plate. What is wrong with me? Why aren't I doing more. It's not like there's nothing to do around the house. My house has plenty that can be done. I'm not bored, I feel like I'm missing out. I need more socialization. I need more connection with other people. more meaningful connection. I need more meaning in my life.

I love being mom. But I am so much more than mom. What exactly that means I don't really know for sure, but I know I need to figure that out before I lose it.

I need to get out more. I would really like to do things during the day because of my husband's schedule. It would really maximize my use of time. Get out during the day and still have time with the hubby at night. I don't know of anything going on during the day regularly. Maybe I should organize something. Would anyone come to something that I organize? I don't really have the strong network of people to invite. That's the whole point is to get to know people better and develop that network. Seems like a catch 22.

I must find a way. I must find time for socializing and getting out of the house and finding who I really am. I must find time for the things that I really need.

Finding Motivation

Had a beautiful baby boy back in October. Everyone's happy and healthy and wonderful. He's now 7 months old. And growing more independent and capable by the day. He's only 7 months old, so he does need me a lot still, but really nothing compared to when he was first born of course.

This leaves a lot of time on my hands where I'm caring for him, but I'm not actively doing anything.

This brings me back to a previous conclusion. I am a terrible housewife.

I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing on a regular basis. I just make it up as a go. The house is in a general state of moderate chaos. With 8,000 things half done, I regularly meander about in my pajamas in a poor attempt to entertain myself and my babe through the course of the day. The apparent lack of direction and purpose is obvious to any onlooker.

I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to be doing at any given moment. I don't have a clue. And as far as what is my passion and purpose, other than raising this amazing little dude, I again have no clue. Wasting all my time on facebook and games isn't getting me any closer to understanding that. I'm freaking 31 years old. As a kid, I thought by now I'd have this part of me together - at least the knowing what it is I want to do when I grow up - heck I'm already "grown up". Yet, still, no clue.

I don't know what I want. Or why I should want something. Or how to really live my life.

This sounds so depressing. Perhaps maybe that is my problem.

My weight is out of control, it's effecting my ability to get around through previous heel and knee issues flaring up under the stress of the extra weight. My house is a disaster. My relationship with my husband is essentially roommates or coworkers. I'm convinced that everything I do or don't do with my son is wrong.

I know I need to do something to change, well, everything, but I don't know what to do or where to start.

In the midst of all of this confusion, all I know is that God is big enough to see through it all. Perhaps by drawing closer to him, he will clear the fog enough that I might be able to have a glimpse of  direction, purpose, passion.

Now if I can just stay focused enough to draw a little closer to God each day.

Confessions - Going Back to Square One

I have realized that I am a lousy housewife.

I was a great employee, but I am lousy housewife.

When I worked all the time I would go to another place. I would get up in the morning, prepare and leave my house. I would walk into my place of business. And I would work. I would do what was required of me. Then I would go home and do only what was necessary to get by. I would then spend the rest of my time "relaxing", also known as wasting on facebook, pinterest, and other various websites.

Then came pregnancy. I quit my job because it the requirements couldn't be modified to accommodate my needs. There wasn't another position open in my office for me to take, so I quit. My husband and I have always planned on me being a stay at home mom after we had children, I just started it a little earlier than originally expected.

I just assumed (you know what happens when you assume something right?!) that with having all of this extra time at home I would naturally be a good housewife. I had all this drive and energy to go a good job at work, that would have to translate to working around the house, right?

Wrong.

Seems to be that I still had the same attitude about housework and how time at home should be spent. Just quitting my job did nothing to change my attitude at home. I had more time, yes. I chose to not use it very well. I continued to spend much of my time wasting it on facebook, pinterest, and other various websites. I watched tons of television.  I knitted from time to time. With being pregnant, I napped a lot and went to doctors appointments.

So yeah, I'm a lousy housewife.

Now to change. And I better change now, because it sure isn't going be getting easier to change once the baby is born.

I need to get up in the morning and get ready for my day just as if I am heading to work. Take a shower, brush my hair and teeth (different brushes of course), get out of my PJs and prepare for my day.

I need to take care of myself and not become a frumpy housewife. I need to go outside and go for a walk, work in the yard. Or when winter comes I need to go out and shovel the snow and turn on an exercise DVD and keep moving.

I need to spend time studying my Bible, and reading all the books I've accumulated and never finished. I need to be doing all of those things that I've always said that I would do if I had more time. Because the truth is, I have the time, I just need to spend it better.

Facebook and Pinterest are not bad in small doses, but when I let them consume my life they become a problem.

So all of this is find and dandy. But how do I become a better housewife? All of the things I've mentioned above are good, and they'll help to make me a better person and not a lazy slob.

I always thought that being a good housewife would come naturally to me. My mom was a housewife and stay-at-home-mom until I was 11 years old. You think I would have learned something. My grandmother worked as a nurse up until she retired. She was never a true housewife, but her house keeping skills puts most people I know to shame.

So where did mine go? Maybe I just don't have the genetics. Maybe this is just another set of skills that I need to learn. Any skill set takes time.

Now I'm off to do some research and learn what skills make a good housewife, how to do some of those fancy housewife things, like freezing meals to eat another day, baking breads and such, cleaning schedules to make the whole house keeping thing not so crazy overwhelming.

Focus

I'm pregnant. I'm 12w5d pregnant with my first. So far the majority of my time has been spent with pregnancy books and articles and websites. Doing research on pregnancy and reading other peoples stories and responding to message boards. Some house cleaning. Some time with friends. Some goofing off on facebook games. But my life has become defined by this pregnancy.

We had tried for 20 months. So to finally find out that I'm pregnant was amazing, exciting and overwhelming.

So out of that excitement and feeling of being overwhelmed by all the changes I started obsessing over everything pregnancy related. I'm signed up for like eight different pregnancy website mailings, it's ridiculous honestly. I spend just hours of time on these sites.

I had to quit my job because my job wasn't pregnancy friendly and my little company didn't have more friendly position available. Thankfully, it is tight, but we can afford me to be home.

So now I have even more time to obsess.

My life has to be more than just pregnancy and baby. I can't completely let go of my life. Maybe I didn't have a whole lot more going on than work and wasting my time on facebook. But I've got to figure out something more to my life than just my new job - expectant mom. 

I have this beautiful wonderful friend who is just amazing. She gave birth to her 3rd child in December. She manages her husband's music lessons and shop. She owns her own photography business. She's also a consultant for an in home sales business called Thirty-One, they do bags and home organization. And she's also taking care of her grandmother. She's also starting the process of finding and working with general contractors designing and building her home. She sings and plays guitar and hosts an open mic night once a week in the studio. And she knits blankets for all her children and they grow in her spare time. I don't know how she has any spare time at all. Seriously she is super woman.

I want to be more like her. I know I have tons of things that I'm good at and tons of things that I enjoy doing. I tend to lack two things - patience and confidence; the patience to learn and develop and advance new skills when it gets difficult, and the confidence that my skills are good enough for anything worth while.

I don't expect to go out and create a business of my own or anything. But I need more hobbies than knitting and facebook - and I don't even knit that much. And guess what's on my needles right now - a baby blanket - big surprise.

Things I want to do:
Get better at playing guitar
Learn to play piano comfortably
Create crafts - like wall art, and organizers for jewelry
Learn to sew better - like way better
Become a better household CFO
Become a gardener - clean up, research and design a beautiful back yard oasis.
Get organized - so needed.
Fitness! Oh how I miss being healthy and fit!
Become an amazing healthy cook!
Plan meals and organize the kitchen.
Be more decisive - make the plans and keep with them and don't worry about every little thing.

Alright. That's a good start. Now these are the things that I need to be focusing on instead of obsessing over everything pregnancy, every little possible change in me, and facebook games.

Lets see how good I can do with this.

Statements To Evaluate

So after a work review gone very wrong, I am left with questions about myself, my motivations, my goals, my desires.

Some of the ones that are most pressing questions on my mind and statements that I find myself repeating are:

Why bother?
I'm never going to be unique enough to do anything great.
Its too hard.
You quit too quickly.
What do I believe in?
What do I want enough that I'm willing to work for?
I can't do it.
It's just boring.
I'm not getting any kind of reward out of it.
It's just not worth it.
Is there anything worth it?
What am I passionate about?
Am I passionate about anything?
Am I content with just floating through life on the waves of the sea?
Or is there some place that I want to go?

What do I want?

These thoughts and these statements need to be evaluated. Where did they come from? Why do I struggle with them? How can I change them to  lead the most productive and valuable life possible for myself?

Have I really become a self centered, lazy person expecting the world to do for me and provide for me?

If I have, I find that disgusting and it needs to change. I need to be more than that. I need to find my passions and desires and pursue them. I need to live my life.