Why

I am just having one of those months. I thought that it would just be one of those weeks because I was PMSing but this has gone on for a few weeks so now I think that I am having one of those months. I don't know how to put my finger on how exactly I am feeling or why but I just know that I am feeling it. At times I feel anger. At times I feel self-pity. At times I feel self-loathing. At times I feel jealousy and envy. I have had a few days here and there that I feel fine. And all of those other feelings just go away and I am able to see how silly they were. But today is not one of those days. Today is a day that I look in the mirror and literally hate the person that I see there. I wish that she would just go away. I feel like a crappy mother. I feel like a crappy wife. I feel like a crappy person. I just feel like crap. I can't get on the ball and exercise regularly. I feel fat and ugly. I feel like a failure of a wife and homemaker. I am not crafty. I am not....I don't know how to even put it all I just feel inadequate. I suck. Am I beating myself up??? Yes I am. But I need to get it out. I think these things all the time and just having them stuck in my head isn't helping. I know that I need to just get off my butt and do what needs to be done. But my list of to do's often feel overwhelming. I have kids that need to be taken care of, read to, taught, loved, played with, fed, clothed, cleaned, etc. I have a husband that needs my time and attention. I have a house that is in constant need of cleaning and fixing. I have callings at church that take up lots of my extra time. I have play groups. I have preschool groups. I have too much going on. When I can just power on it is fine but I am not the energizer bunny. I can't just power on all the time. And then I ask myself Why??? Why can't I just power on all the time??? Why???
Depression is one of the many tools of the adversary. He uses it to make us ineffective servants of God. We become ineffectual wives, mothers, and homemakers. We become unable to to think of the wants and needs of others. We just think about ourselves and our needs and our wants. Thus, we are unable to fulfill what Heavenly Father has asked us to do...to love and serve our fellow man. He has never said that we must be perfect in all things. He just asks us to try our best. I just really need to understand that. I hold myself to everyone else's standards. I constantly compare myself to those around me. I will never be as crafty as some of the amazing ladies that I know. I will never be super skinny with great ease. I will never have a perfect day with my kids... and I need to learn that that is OK.

My Name is Legion

One of my young ladies at church was asked to give a spiritual thought one Sunday. She gave a wonderful message out of a little book called "LYFSGUD". It was a great message and I asked to see the book for a second. She told me that I could borrow it if I liked. So I did. I have had that book for a couple of weeks now and last night decided to read it so that I could get it back to her. It is a short book. It is geared toward young women...teenagers...but the messages are ageless. There was one "Big Message" in particular that struck me last night. It was under the category of "God Luvs U!". It was a story about how a boy in middle school decided to give her(the author) a nickname. And how, for many months, he followed her around gym class calling her that name. Eventually someone stopped him, but the damage of that name had already been done. The author then talked about a story in the new Testament of how Jesus cast evil spirits out of a man. The spirits then entered the bodies of some pigs, who then jumped off of a cliff. In the story the man came to Jesus. Jesus asked his name. The man replied, "My name is Legion:for we are many" The author then says how sad that that is that Satan had been working so long to discourage him that he forgot who he really was. He forgot his real name. He forgot the name that God knew him by.
She wrote "Maybe the adversary had been whispering to this man for a long time. Maybe the adversary had been telling him he wasn't good, wasn't loved, wasn't worth anything. Eventually, the man believed it and let Satan overtake him."
She then wrote about how when life was hard. When she felt sad, discouraged, or afraid, that it didn't take much for the nickname to come back into her mind.
It got me thinking about some of the names that I have been called many times in my life that I carry around with me and when I am weak the adversary gladly uses those names to define me. To break me down and make me feel low. My sister, my mother, my grandfather, strangers, it didn't matter who did it, it cut me to my core each and every time. And now as a full grown adult those words still hurt some times more than others.
The author in this book tells the reader that they need to remember their real identity. That we are "daughters of our Heavenly Father".
"Let that truth be stronger and louder than any other identity someone might try to give you."
"He knows you perfectly. And your real name, your real identity, is known to him."
I hope that I can remember that when my heart is low and those words begin to burn in my mind more that they ever should. I hope that I remember that someone else's perception of me doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all.

Getting Stuff Off My Chest

This week has been a good week. Albeit a hard week too. The hard was that my whole family got sick. Not just your run of the mill cold but super pukey and poopy kind of sick. TMI..I know but anyway that made for not too much fun for mommy who was also sick during all of this. The other thing that has been hard and really weighing on my mind this week was something that Jake and I were planning to do this coming year. We were planning on having our last and final baby this next year. We have since decided not to do that and to put it off. There are many reasons behind this. Mainly that I am still having a hard time adjusting to Bri. She is such a sweet girl she really is but she has this switch in her that takes place from time to time. There are days that she is happy and wonderful and just such a good girl and a joy...a pure joy! But there are days that she screams and screams on end. Yelling on the top of her lungs, throwing tantrums. It seems like nothing that I do makes a difference. I won't have done anything different from the day before when she is just wonderful and happy. I don't know what causes it. I knew getting into all of this that she had been exposed to many substances while in utero from her biological mother. How much those have affected her I don't know. I don't know if we will ever really know. But for now we struggle. We struggle to find out what works, what doesn't. We struggle to teach her things. And truth be told I want to enjoy my "last" baby. I want to enjoy being able to hold and nurse and just be with my last baby and the only way that I think that that will happen with Bri is to let her have more time to grow and have more time for us to figure out what is going on with her and what we need to do to help her. She needs to be more stable with us and the only thing that gives her that is time. I really hope that this helps her. Love you Bri! (And just in case any one is keeping count or something or judging this on spelling and grammar...I am not... It's a place for me to vent!)

My Name is Lisa.....

And I am addicted to the Internet. I swear that every day that passes it gets worse. There are so many wonderful sites that enable me to get in touch with friends that are spread through out the country. There are sites with fun ideas for kids. There are tons of good things on the Internet. I know that there are tons of bad things too but I don't look at those things. So to me the Internet is a good thing. However, I feel that I am utilizing it way too often. Often the ones that get the bad end of that stick are my kiddos. So starting tomorrow I am not allowing myself online till nap time for the kiddos. And even then I am going to limit it to a half an hour. So wish me luck on cutting down on my online time. I feel that it will benefit it both me and my children. Here's to new habits! Spending more quality time with my kiddos!

Dealing with Poop

I am a mom of three little kiddos. They are ages five, three, and one. There are days that I feel that all that I do is work in poop and pee. Between diaper changes and butt wiping and cleaning up of any little messes that they make. I swear that boys target practice with other things than just the toilet. Their bathroom smells like a public restroom. A very gross public rest room. And it is not that it isn't getting cleaned. I clean that bathroom in particular almost every other day with the strongest cleaners that I use...bleach. But I swear it still always stinks. I feel like this lately has dominated my day too. I feel like I never have anything of worth to add to a conversation of what is going on in my day. How would I even start that. "Well, Bri is teething and has had tons, literal tons of dirty diapers today. The boys peed all over the toilet. Everywhere but in it that is and I have been cleaning it all day. I feel like I should wait to shower till they are all in bed. I feel like a sewer worker. I am sure that this is a little gross to read or even write about but it is how it is right now. I needed to get that of my chest. There. Better!

Baggage

Everyone has baggage but not everyone has somewhere where they can unload it. That includes me. I needed a space where I could truly unload, and I didn't want it to muck up my family blog. So I created this. I hope it helps me feel a little lighter.