I'm taking a vacation - from my problems.

"But you, Yahweh, know me; you see me, and try my heart toward you."

Raise a mug of tea to honesty... and self improvement because you might just be the worst person ever.

Do you know what happens to me when I'm doing something terribly strenuous? I start to think. Sometimes this is a good thing. I make lists in my head while changing the laundry or doing dishes. But when it's something like this, really scrubbing - putting my whole self into getting this chore done I tend to think on things deeply tucked into my heart. Those thoughts behind the door that has a plaque stating: "Keep Walking, you don't want to look here".

I haven't been feeling like myself all the time lately and I think my heart has had a bad attitude. I've given a couple of half assed attempts to turn my thoughts and my heart back to where it's supposed to be but when those attempts didn't produce a new me I just flopped back onto the sofa of self pity and went back to what I was doing before.

I feel unhappy and the base of it is ungratefulness. What's most rediculous is my attitude towards my husband. He makes out a savings plan and tries to set me down and tell me about it. He's very excited. He sees a financial future. All I see is not getting our lawn mowed this month. (We have to hire a tractor or something) He crunches number and does checkbook magic and I complain what I don't have.

I don't have short cute grass, or flowers in my flower beds or a fence... and the lawn is so long I'm expecting Laura Ingels to run through it any moment, but it's ours. Sweet Lord Kaitlin look at what you do have!

I feel so ashamed when I listen to myself. And it makes me so angry I wish I could slap myself.

Jerry and I want to live frugaly. We want our lives and our children's lives to be about experiences. We want them to remember spending time together. They're not going to remember what couch we had, they're going to remember snuggling up together to read Harry Potter. They're not going to remember what kind of car we had... they're going to remember singing Steve's Songs in the car and laughing at Opposite day, their favorite song.
That's what I want - for them to have the memories of togetherness. Sometimes I scratch my head and don't understand why on earth they aren't more grateful... and I've recently had the realization that it's me. I'm not grateful for what we have... how would they?

I feel like it takes over me... thoughts on what we're going to do next to improve the house, what are we going to buy to make this or that more homey. I feel so ashamed just saying that. That's not what I'm about! That's not what our family is about or for. I don't even know where or when this started... I just realized it's much bigger than "wouldn't it be nice..."

We are finally past the "surviving on a dollar" stage and Jerry has worked so hard to get us here. We're trying to recover from past mistakes we've made and trying to learn to keep a savings account. But instead of thanking God everyday for a husband who has a good head on his shoulders I feel resentment towards Jerry for "not caring about what I want".

I don't feel like cleaning the house. I don't feel like cooking a nutritious dinner. I don't feel like doing the laundry. You know what? Not only do I not feel like doing it... but I'm actually just... not doing it. And it makes me feel worse.

I had a stern talk with myself. I had a long week of being in my thoughts. A long week of keeping track of what I'm doing with my time. Several long long long nights lying awake wondering how can I make life into what I want...

I HAD to clean the bathroom. It was not pretty and while scrubbing and scrubbing until my muscles were shaking I looked into my heart and what I found was not pretty. A song came to mind from when I was much much much younger and I felt even more terrible, this is not who I wanted to become.

I sat down on the floor of the bathroom feeling suddenly much heavier when the slow realization spread across my brain and seeped into my heart. I felt such conviction and had all these feelings and thoughts at once that I do feel like I was slapped.

I'm unhappy because I'm frustrated with my kids, because I shoo them away because I'm too busy for them. They pester me all day long to pay attention to them but I'm too busy trying to do school and trying to get time to myself because I feel overwhelmed because the house is dirty because I didn't follow through on my schedule because I wanted a few more minutes on facebook because I wanted to say something that was apparently so important that I let Iris cry for a few minutes and because of all that I felt a little bit sickened by myself and so I yelled at the kids to find something to do because I needed to hurry and clean just one thing and then they yelled at each other.

What is my life all about? School? Facebook? Myself? NO! It shouldn't be.

I want to be an example to my children and there's only one way to do that.

Be with them. Be with the Lord. Be with the laundry. Be with the cleaning supplies in the bathroom - using them!

Be There. Don't be here.

What does this mean, I asked myself... It means I need to make sacrifices.

My school semester ends on July 31st and I've dropped my classes that started in August.
But that's only part of the sacrifices. The other sacrifice is this one.  So for now I'm going to let my facebook and blog get a little dusty while I try to blow cobwebs off my children's heads and while I spend time with them.

I know I'm going to have a ton of pictures and I will be uploading them to my flickr account. But I wont be blogging here for awhile and I wont be on facebook for awhile. If you need me, call me on the telephone or write me a letter.

I'll be here kickin' it old school with my kidlets teaching Joe to read and learning to appreciate all of my blessings.