I will NOT be the HULK!

I am tired.  I am sleep deprived.  I have 5 kids.  I home school.  I live in a tiny house with 7 people. I have a newborn baby.  I have a house I don't like.  I have a yard without a fence.  I have a monkey of a 2 year old that is my ever constant demise.  I can go blah, blah, blah of excuses.  But what it comes down to, I am not acting like a mom should.

I am tired.  When I have a stress trigger pulled, I yell and have a temper tantrum like the worst of an ill behaved 3 year old. I am ashamed and yet, I haven't stopped it. I do apologize is my only redeeming quality.

I feel like I am missing some key important parenting tools in my tool box.  Unfortunately, I have some really bad ones that I haven't been able to stop from using.  The HULK tool.  I was handed the Hulk tool for my tool box from my own mom.  The Hulk tool resembles flying off the handle over every little thing.  Shaming.  Looking to always find a guilty party to blame with the constant who did this yell. Threats, threats, threats of doing some over the top things for not pleasing me.  Distracted while interacting.  My triggers go off and I turn into a monster.  I really think in my childish fits, I could flip a car!

I know that if I was not so exhausted, I wouldn't come close to using or considering the Hulk tool.  In fact, up until a year or two ago, I did not even know I owned it.  Well, 5 children in 8 years with a husband over working himself to feed and roof the clan, well I just got tired.  And when I mean tired, I mean not a sense left in me.  In the past few years, I have had passing by glimpses of my once vibrant self, but shortly later I would find myself in the trials of morning sickness.  I wouldn't take a day back, if it meant not having a single one of my blessed children.

But I am tired and I act like a monster.  Head down in shame, I am even known for throwing things.  Hmmm, great thing I want to teach my children.

First step is acknowledging it!  So my mantra is, "Lord, please do not let me be the Hulk" when I begin getting aggravated   At this time I might not be able to get my energy back and I might not get the stress triggers to go either, but I can pray that I can react in a more nurturing way than an aggressive child like manner.  Will you pray for me too?

~trish, a recovering HULK parent tool user!

Christmas Apron

I feel bad that I haven’t really been able to share great things with you.  Mostly it is because, I have no time to spare.  I am still doing some great things here and there, but mostly I am driving aimlessly around, unsure where my next direction is.   This school thing is making my head foggy! 

I drive them here and there and then turn around to be right back to where I left them.  I can’t even get a grocery list finished, much less a meal plan.  At this point, I just grab the sales and coupons from www.southernsavers.com and make due with what I have. 

I did start making Christmas gifts early November, so I have a huge lead on that.  But I am also helping my mom out with a new craft studio that my cause a bit of distraction with www.craftincow.blogspot.com. I really need to be posting stuff on craigslist.  See, here I am again rambling.  Let me show you what I made this last time.

This is a little apron I made out of a pair of jeans for the Christmas.  I grabbed the 3D flower from Make it and Love it blog.  The stamping is done with Stazon Ink, it showed up the best.  I did get the bedazzler out for the gem stones. 

Of course, I got this great idea from mimi at Paper Rose studio!   I added tulle thanks to the bright ideas of Barb from dinner in a pinch!

I love how cute it comes together.  I have so many more to make as gifts and also a baseball snuggi.  I can’t wait to show you that.

I did find a great new cooking/frugal/pantry resource: http://everydayfoodstorage.net/

 

I feel a bit lost with out keeping you in the loop of my creations.  It gives me some steadiness to know that I am able to share the little things I figure out each day!

 

Keep warm!

~trish

Ketchup!

I really hate that I need to give you a ketchup post!  Or catch up!  I can not figure out where the days go!  They fly by and I am whooped after wards and the day is not even over!

So the kids!  Kids are good!

#1 is loving school!  She is learning her sight words and loves the social of school. I make her lunch every bento style.  I have taken a few pictures. But not like I was.  I am still picking up cool containers, between the dollar Tree and Marshalls.

#2 is speaking a lot better with his speech class 2 times a week.  He seems to have really calmed down and his tantrums have almost ceased.  I am almost astonished by it.  He gets to be in a class with mostly boys.  Since he is surrounded by girls at home, this is great!

#3 is showing her true 2 yr old colors.  I am realizing there is a lot she does just to aggravate the other 2.  She is quiet, until they are in the car, and then she will sing and chatter nonsense just to talk over them.  Trouble!  She is calmer though.

#4 is growing!

This is #3 and #4!

Me.  Hmm, the dreaded 4 letter word, BUSY!  I run all day long and drop of exhaustion.  I started selling stamps again and love the fact that I am getting out and about because of it.  I am also cooking at church for Awanas. I am barely sewing.  I am planning a birthday party.  I am planning a scrapbook crop to benefit the children camp this summer.  I am raising money for another youth group this weekend and then a relay for life and Susan G Anthony.  So I am busy. Yuk!  I feel like all I do is drive around and hardly have a moment to sit.

I am a bit bewildered by it all.  I knew that this would happen, if they went to school.  I do not want to rush the days by, but I look forward to only making a trip to one school instead of 2.

I am also studying to get licensed for my professional engineering license.  Yuk! 

I am ready for fall!  Fall will be beautiful and fast.  It will be filled with a party!  A Festival!  Costumes! The Woods!  Hunting!  Mud!  A Turkey to cook!  And the breeze that makes everything calm.  A Garden!  Oh I love Fall!

I know it is right at the door and we will be in the thick of fall!  I have so much to do before then, so I can really enjoy it!

Costumes: I am thinkin the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf!  You guess who the wolf will be!  The BOY of course!

See you soon!
~trish

The last 2 weeks of blur!

Well friends, the last 2 weeks have been rough in so many ways.  As a mom that wants to succeed at the task, I had to take inventory or my strengths and weaknesses and had to come to reality about my personal limits.  Like I said, it has been rough, a few personal meltdowns and finally coming to grips with the decisions we made.

I can imagine the “dun, dun, dun” loud eerie music playing.

Okay, no one died! But, my husband has been working some crazy hours with his second job. I feel so blessed that he is willing to work so hard.  These crazy hours are about15-17 hours each day on the weekend and 2-3 nights during the week, him working until 9 pm.  I had no idea how fragile our home is without him.  Let’s just say in no way, can this momma go it alone.  We were getting the kids fed, educated, and dressed, but this momma wasn’t getting to be the momma I want to be.

Now this side job will last like this for about 2 months.  I know we could put our school aside for that time and just focus on being mom, but then there is always another side job that will put the same schedule on him.  On top of this, I have a little test I have to study for that is a major deal. (This goes back to that professional degree I have.) 

So momma is off having day in and out with all 4, with pure exhaustion making me just want to cry when the voices are echoing off the walls to sound like I have an entire herd of hyenas in here.  So I was getting snappy with my precious babies and losing all joy in every moment and realized something needed to change.

I heard a while back on a podcast, that it is the attributes of the stay at home mom that will change the world.  It lingered in my mind as I was facing the stresses in my life at the moment.  What echoed is that it was not the homeschool mom that is changing the world, it is the stay at home mom.  SO it shook me that it is more important for me to be mom, than it is for me to school teacher.  I never thought that I would have to choose between the 2, but this is where my world is fragile without my husband being readily available in my day.

So I made the decision painfully and heartbreakingly.  And once I mourned at the loss this year of being able to school my own children, I put my big girl panties on and got to the business of enrolling my kids.  I made the decision Tuesday, enrolled them on Wednesday, and they started on Thursday!

Here they are on their first day.  Now #1 started kindergarten. #2 is going to VPK.  #3 just wants to go to school, so she totes a backpack with her all day long.  Every time we stop somewhere, she ask if this is her school.  I am using this opportunity to tell her she needs to go pee pee in a potty, so she can go to school one day.

Now we are on day 3 of them going to school and wow!  I feel like I am coming back to my old self again.  So I am embracing the change. I am also changing things with the baby! 

She has been evicted from my bed. She is thrashing around through the night and I am not getting any sleep.  I am almost dried up and have lost all desire to nurse.  SO now I am trying to get her on a schedule to take her bottle and sleep through the night.  I had to get on the phone today and find a crib that would fit in our bedroom, because she has outgrown the bassinet.  Thankfully a friend came through with the coolest port-a-crib.

It is low to the grown, so it is not overwhelming in a small room.  Against better judgement, I will show you what my room looks like.  We do not have anything fancy, it is just the nuts and bolts of real life.

 

And I didn’t clean up from my sewing project.  I even sew in my little bedroom.  Here is my $20 Janome machine I picked up at Goodwill.

I dream of grander things, but today is not the day for them and that is that.  I will make due with what I have got, because I know one day I WILL have them the way I want, so I will practice patience.  None the less, I get a lot of sewing done at this spot.

So all this craziness and meltdowns is the reason I have been lacking any real thought to my postings and why I was late on my give-away.

I do want to share my excitement for the plans to my new family order.  I am giving myself this week to catch back up on my house.  But hopefully next week, we will start back up on the unit study side of the MFW kindergarten program.  I want to continue to show them God in everything around us and the one week unit studies are perfect for that.  The nice part is, the unit studies have so many activities, I doubt they will feel like “work”.

I am also excited to have more time to devote to making my home more stream lined.  Yeah!  I hope that by the end of the school year, I will be more at a maintenance level than a purge and organize level. SO I plan to keep FLYING with the flylady!

I better post my next giveaway, toodles!

~trish

Anniversary gift

This beautiful dishcloth was crocheted by my mother in law.  I love it.  It is hard to express all the things it makes me feel and think, especially since it is such a least thought about item in our homes.  I want to say for such a simple item and tool that we use, it feels lavish and warm and comforting, like the days I would hold my great grandmother’s warm soft wrinkly hands. [That would be a whole other topic about being a child and craving those soft dish worn hands to touch my childish face.  And how I am in shock that so many women are more concerned with the youthful appearance of their hands than the tenderness and wisdom that their hands can bring to comfort a child. another day].

A beautiful dishcloth can go unnoticed among a sink and counter full of dishes. Even worst, a beautiful dishcloth can be kept up for safe keeping away from the stale food that sits on those plates from the previous nights dinner.  A beautiful set of dishcloths that were made with tenderness and love can be hidden away and forgotten about by a clutter hound. A beautiful dishcloth like this can shine like a ruby at the top of a crown when it is left on a cleaned counter, next to a polished sink.

You see, I love yarned dishcloths, but I found them greatly impractical because I never wanted them to be dirty after all that time was spent on making them.  Well, I have finished about 3 weeks of Fly Lady training.  I am far from mastering a routine and a beautiful kept house!  But I have the most beautiful sink and never knew it.  My sink is a double white cast iron sink that was filled with stains from onion peels and such.  Well, working slowly to create a routine, I have managed to keep a base point of my kitchen sink cleaned and pretty much the surrounding counter top.  Well, my mother in law blessed me with this beautiful dishcloth and for once, I was excited to have it at my sink like a badge of honor.

Then the dishcloth started to linger in my heart.  Have you ever read The five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman?  Well this book was given to me a couple months after our honey moon ended.  As a side note, two head strong personalities can quite literally end the honeymoon period of their marriage on the way home from the honeymoon AND we did.

So back to the 5 love languages.  My husband’s love language is acts of service, mine quality time.  Well, in the beginning of our courtship or something like that. In retrospect I would like to think of it as courtship, in reality it was not.  Alright, I was a little too well know for my huge DISLIKE of dishes.  When I lived alone in college, I would let them pile for days and then scornfully do them, when the last dish was gone.  I just know grasped the concept that I do not have to have the dishwasher bulging and it has a button that allows it to run more than once a day, hmm!  So one day I come home and I get a strange feeling something was wrong/different.  Not a comforting notion when you live alone.  SO I look around and realize after walking from room to room, there WAS something missing, MY DISHES!  They were gone and the sink was clean?!

Wow!  It was like the tooth fairy had shown up with the money truck.  My darling husband had stopped by to find that I was not home and decided to let himself in (I believe at this time we were not dating but just friends and he was there to gain access to my fridge.)  Well with the lack of anything to do, he did my dishes.  Wow! Should have know then that he was the one I was going to marry, NO MORE DISHES!  Well, I married him anyways and during the first few year he did the dishes often. 

{{5 Love languages comes in here}} Well during a typical heated argument for my need for love, still didn’t get the whole love thing, I was a new Christian and well, new to marriage. 

I demanded that I wanted time with him because that is what people who were in love do. 

Well, he argued that he did love me, because look he did the dishes. ((enter weird scooby doo sound)). 

My ignorant response was, why do I care about that, I can hire someone for that, but I can not hire someone to LOVE ME!

Yes folks, I was that naive.  So we read the book, the light bulb turns on and my mouth makes the sound “OOooooooooo.  Wow?  Really???”  Who would have thought that one?

So this next month will be my 8th  wedding anniversary to my wonderful strong headed husband. In the last 8 years, I have learned a lot about him, but mostly me.  In fact, there are days that I realize he could have chained into an entirely different person and it really does not matter.  Now I choose to love him.  And honestly, since I am being too honest, I sometime love him, while I am on the phone telling him about why I find it ridiculous that I have to love him in “that way” (insert whatever task I am doing at the moment)  and can’t he just put his socks in the basket, instead of me stumbling onto his secret stash of dirty socks.

In the past 3 weeks as I am taking the beginning steps to become a better person, no not really, just a better help mate to my husband, a better mother, and the tick-tock of our home’s rhythm, I am embracing my role at the sink.  I know I am working on a deep change that is unlacing every bit of my internal fiber, to be woven new by only God’s hands and I am letting him.  I will be an orderly person, I will keep my home kept, and I will not live among clutter.  The eternal chant that reminds me of God’s truth, is that He is not a God of chaos. (I am an engineer, so please realize that even spell check does not work for me, when I use caios, I really mean chaos, I spell it like it sounds not by the American language change of rules policy)

oh, back to my thought, so I am using flylady to become a person of order and it is going to take everything I got to surrender to God’s will for this to happen.  But that little dishcloth and the comfort of my great grandmother’s hands reminds me that I have an ultimate love given to me and I can simply keep my home kept, to give that love to others.  To celebrate this and surround myself with this knowledge of surrender to love my husband as he needs to be loved, I plan to have about 8-10 dishcloths made by my anniversary so I have one daily (with a few backups) to keep me in constant acknowledgement.

So I made my first 2 here

 

And I am working on my next one here:

 

Then just last night I was reminded by God’s Power and how he gives to us through the love of other people that He surrounds us with.  Because last night, I was given these 2 dishcloths out of the blue.  WOW!  I was so excited!  She had no idea how such a simple and often overlooked tool in the kitchen that she took the time and love to make, could mean so much to me.

What I love about them the most is that each one is different.  Some are crocheted and some are knitted.  They have different stitches and different yarn.  They are different sizes.  Together, they remind me that each season of marriage is different and will feel and look different from the others.  Enjoy the beauty of the good seasons and the survival of the hard seasons and no matter what, this too shall pass, like it or not.  And most of all, I CHOOSE to love, I do not feel love.  Love is not a feeling or emotion, it is a job.  Which means, I will not ever worry about falling out of it, I either choose to love or I don’t.  Now falling in and out of lust, is a given.  I just hope the Good Lord doesn’t mess with that until we can both no longer………

 

Well, good night you all! :)

~trish

Sunrise to a daydreaming weekend.

This is just before 7 am going over the bridge leaving home for the weekend, almost alone.  Almost, because my shadow #4 goes with me everywhere.  Got food in the boob and will travel.  so I loaded up for a 3 hour drive to attend a bridal shower and came back the following afternoon.

It was so amazing and refreshing to be on the move so early in the morning and to drive in almost silence that i had to take a picture of the sun coming up to share.  The part I loved the most about this adventure was the quietness of driving.  And I mean quiet.  Even with the radio blaring, it was still quiet in comparison with the ciaos I live.

The time was a saturation of my thoughts that allowed them to move and grow without interruption.  My thoughts slowly covered and engulfed my dreams and desires for my family, children, and husband.  My goals were noted for the long term and the short term needs were viewed in a more  critical light, versus just in the motion.  For once in a longtime, I was not having to go through the motions.  I could think about the motions I do everyday and consider what I could change for the better.

I spent the next 48 hours moving slow and with a smile. Grueling was the realization that I am so caught up in the task and effort that my day takes, I often forget to smile, (note to self is to start smiling).  I evaluated me as mom, wife, daughter, and child of God.  Took inventory on what needed to changes and smiled at what I was getting right.  Took the time to emotionally let go of any recent baggage I have emotionally acquired and dusted off the trunks in long term storage.  Emptied a few bags and smiled.

I thought and dreamed about this coming year and the next 10, then the 5 years after that and then the lifetime that I will have when my children will be adults.  I prayed. Prayed for their success, their love, their spouse, their children.

I talked to God. I called a friend. Had a chat with me.  I had no idea how a long quiet car ride can set the soul at ease. I hope not to wait to long for the next.

~trish

A bossy know it all!

Get me out of my routine and the worst of me comes out.  This is terribly hard for me to write.  For those who know me well, like my mother or even my mother in law, this post would only confirm what they know to be true.

 

I might, who am I kidding, I am really bossy with my OPINIONS. Ouch, they are just opinions.  See I might be am a know-it-all, as my father in law calls these wonderful people, KIAs.  Get it, Know It All, KIA.  Well, see this bit of a KIA problem might have a little bit to do with that train I want to drive.  As a want to be train driver, the engineer in me sees things so blue and white gridded lines with a ruler and pencil. 

I am so bad, I will walk in my mother in laws house and tell her what needs to be moved to make a better flow and efficiency to her home.  I must have some mother in law, because anyone else will tell me where to go and how to get there.  My mouth will literally spout off exactly what I am thinking before my good sense had enough time to stop it.  Get me a perfect stranger that might want to be a good friend and I will run them down in 3 weeks top by telling them how to be “better”.  What a jerk I am. 

I think this might be a pride thing. And if I am noticing that I am bossing everyone around and telling them how to be better (shamefully, like me), then God has a huge slice of humble pie for me to swim in just around the corner. I will eat the last bit of it embarrassed and ashamed of my sin and ugliness.  I will ask forgiveness of my pompous air from people, wonderful people, who had finally had enough of me.

This is how it goes for me.  I spend a bunch of time alone (adult alone), me and the kids doing our thing.  During these days, I seek advise from others (Christians) to be a steward of my blessings (i.e., children, order, home, etc.).  So I spend my time in a relative isolation sharpening my skills with satisfaction.  I am blessed with wonderful friends who limitedly enter my home by God’s hand to help refine me.  I get so comfortable with my blessings and work my craft efficiently.

In my excitement at how wonderful things come together, I cannot help but share the knowledge I gain. When I say share, I am talking about anyone who is not walking fast enough away from me and I somehow have managed to sit on them.  You want to talk to me, it will be about my favorite topics:frugal, kids, birth, raising mindful kids, homeschooling, sewing, or being efficient.  Go outside that, I won’t have time for it and I will justify it.  See, what a jerk.

Now after a while, I will find people interested and then you get this “WOW” factor from them.  This is my problem, at this point my head inflates and my heart is deflated in comparison.  My head is so busy being great that I forget to put my heart into the conversation.  I begin to act and treat people as if the only way to be good enough is to be like me.  Ahh, this is when my heart breaks because this is not how I want to treat someone or anyone.

With my pencil and ruler I will draft out a better way for them, for their home, budget, children, kitchen, or anything else in the homemaking craft.  My straight forth demeanor will seem as though I am throwing sledge hammers into a glass shop.  Unfortunately (told to me by many a boss) , I call it like I see it and lack the tack to gently present it. Either you will love me or you will hate me and you will know soon enough. 

Sadly, I am doing this because my heart wants to best for you and want everything you are and have to be better for you.  I have no ugliness desired about it or sense of I am better than this.  But it doesn’t matter, the devil will help inflate my head so much and I will get so busy fixing everything and everyone that my heart won’t even be part of it anymore.  In fact, I will go back to my unsaved dumpster mentality that I am busy fixing, because nothing is good enough or anyone, most of all, me.

So the Miss Bossy Pants who happens to Know-it-all has surfaced and I must squash her out.  But I know there is no way to do that without His help.  And you know, that Miss Bossy pants can‘t figure out what to pray for forgiveness for! How could I be a sinner when I know it all. AHHH! When my pray life is lacking it is because SHE showed up with her big headed pride.

If I follow the typical routine.  I will aggravate and alienate most everyone.  I will go back to solitude and seek council to be better. Sharpen my skills with success.  Tell everyone in sight and get ugly all over again. 

SO the best thing I can do is stop it all before it continues along.  Trash my pride and give it to the Lord.  Ask for forgiveness from everyone I have been around for any length of time at one sitting.  Shut my trap and open my ears.  And if someone wants to know, then tell them.  But what works for me, doesn’t mean it works for everyone.

Did I also tell you, that I feel led that my job from God is to share with others how God has blessed me to be a good steward of my blessings.  And that sharing in this blessing, I need to teach others.  Hmm, I am walking a fine line.  Is it that when you are doing God’s most profound work, the devil will work hard to distort it anyway he can.

So I pray I am on God’s path and I will work at sharing my experience as God has given me and to keep my mouth shut more than it is moving and my ears open, before my mouth gets to yapping.  I better get busy apologizing.

 

(Thank you Lord for letting me smell humble pie and giving me the choice in eating it or not, amen.)

~trish (had to give a picture of my favorite Miss Bossy pants that fills up my heart with goodness.)

SUCCESSFUL?

A short conversation today, got a small fire stirring up in me today.  Being Successful is all that could come to mind.

Background:  A pit stop at my husband’s office led to a conversation with one of the other employees, male.  Having a good dialog about homeschooling and the opportunities given to us by the State of Florida, or more of lack of insane restriction and qualification.  The comment was made that my formal training is an Engineer. 

Yes, my friends, I will let you know.  I am an engineer.  No, not the train operator, but boy I would love to drive a train.  Nope, I was the calculator toting, scale in hand, designing stormwater control structures and detention ponds with all the permitting and calculations required.  I ended it just over 2 years ago to stay at home with my 2 kids and pregnant with the 3rd.

On top of this, my husband and I worked for the same firm.  We were a powerhouse of ability and still fresh and green in the circuit.  I mean, we had the world by its tail and was confident in the success we were going to have.  I still have a fleeting feeling of the suits, I once wore and the million dollar clients.  I am saying this, as both my husband and I are tapping away on own laptops, he working and researching for his job, me working and researching (well, tell you) for my family.  Looking so industrious.

So lets just say, my world compared to my working life is far from different hemispheres, if not planets.  I went from take out meals to meals from scratch.  Suits and shopping sprees to hand me downs and homemade threads. Gym membership – gone.  Six week hair appointments – to cutting my own hair after a shower.  Bi-weekly messages to only when it is medically necessary.  The hot mocha lattes and frozen cappuccinos to a hot cup of Foldger’s coffee with some good creamer. LUNCHES!  I treated myself to wonderful lunches, now I eat left-overs.  I declared me time, for my exhaustion that was never budged.  My book budget, ahh, memories, now I just pay for book fines from the library.  Let me tall you, I would not go back.  None of that is worth, what I have now.

 

About a month ago, my husband asked if I missed work?  Well, at first I did desperately.  I missed the challenges and the fellow workers, and getting the gratifications of getting a job done right, a client happy, fixing the impossible.  Two years later, please do not strap me to that ball and chain called work.

Financially, if you need and I mean NEED to work that is one thing.  I spent the first year at home, trying to learn to live on what we had, yes, it took that long to do it.  Well, for the past year and half, not only do I live within our financial ability, I thrive on it.  I have learned to thrive on $150 a week with 3 kids, a scrapbook and sewing hobby, homeschool supplies, indulgences, and fun.  It can be done.  So to go to work just to have money, seems awfully greedy, especially since it would be at the expense of the peace and harmony of my family.

Something to do! Well the next reason to go to work is to just have something to do.  Well, I have plenty to do and IF I had my kids in school, there is still plenty I could find for myself to do.  I can garden, organize, volunteer.  You name it. Going to work when you do not need to, is just because you did not know what to do with yourself. 

SUCCESS: Well, my short conversation got me thinking.  With my wonderful pieces of paper in the expensive frames crowning my achievement within the college world.  Where is the best use of my abilities and where would those efforts bring me the most success? Hmm.

I drove and thought about this for a little bit and then it just started flooding my mind. (I should have stopped to write them down).  First, my desire to constantly learn and improve has benefitted my family.  I have used my skills to research and LEARN how to be thrifty, crafty, simple, and self-reliant.  Alright, I used my college degrees to pursue to be the best homemaker I can.  I consider that a step towards feminine freedom, (even though my previous college professor would disagree.) My education just allows me more opportunities than if I did not have it.  No matter what, it is my choice on the opportunity I take.  Having my educational background, to me, strengthens the notion and importance of how important a homemaker really is.  This is a snickered at and overlooked career path by the general public.  I am always being justified that my decision/forced retirement to stay at home was because of outrageous daycare bills. Not so.

So to me, success for me is the fact that I am working diligently to provide my children

• a strong knowledge and love for our Lord.
• A comprehension and knowledge of the power of money, good and bad.
• the ability to live and thrive with less, so they will not be bound by the NEED of money.
• to learn how to learn, this self teaching ability came at the end of my college career.
• a solid foundation to give them to the our world as self reliant, independent, responsible adults.

What could be more successful than that?  Making money, having promotions, being looked to for your career success can end with a budget cut or retirement.  My success will produce fruit long pass retirement age.  My fruit will be my companions at the end of my life.  I will see and watch with pride as their fruit is strengthen and fortified, just as they were.  I will enjoy the blessings of their love.  Now that is success.

Even more so, is the hope that I have, that God will use me to teach other moms to have success and that my fruit will do the same.  To show that being a steward of what God has given us, will bring blessings of abundance.

I am succeeding and I will be successful.  God will use what ever education I have when HE intends for it to be used in that way.  I have no worries.  Sometimes, that education is used just on my husband alone, who is an engineer also.   Many engineers are often concerned about how 2 could live together.  It can be done.

~trish

(I am really sorry, I got one chance to review this and decided to post it, instead of letting it sit as a draft.)