A God-Sized Dream

Do you have dreams?  Not necessarily the kind we have while we’re sleeping, but dreams of doing something different,  being something different, taking your life in a whole different direction.

For a long time, I forgot how to dream. My first husband had trouble finding a job when we first got married, and he went back to school to get credentials that would help him in that regard. Because my education was such that I would almost always be the bigger breadwinner (I was an attorney, he got his paralegal certificate), I pursued employment moves based on how much they paid and what benefits they offered. I didn’t have a career path, I wasn’t pursuing a dream of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was trying to do the most I could for the family,  because it felt like that was what I had to do. It was my responsibility, and somewhere along the way, any dreams I might have had just fell by the wayside.  I never even noticed their absence (which might be even sadder than the fact that they were gone).

I went through a divorce after my older son was born, which put me in the position of sole income for the two of us, and that pushed me to focus even more on monetary rewards from jobs. Curiously, though, the two positions I’ve held since the one I had have led to pay cuts, and as Thing One got older, he became more vocal about wishing I could pick him up from school every day, asking why I couldn’t take spring break/summers off, and generally expressing a desire for my schedule to allow for more time with him. With each comment,  my heart broke a little more, but what could I do?  We had to eat, and I needed a job so we could have decent health insurance, right?

Fast forward a bunch of years. I now have two kids that I love more than anything,  and I’m still schlepping away in the 8-to-5 work world.  Brian and I got married in 2008, so we were a two-income family again, but expenses increased when Thing Two was born, so it wasn’t like those two incomes now had us flush with cash.  I still wasn’t chasing a dream, I was just trying to find a job I liked most days and that paid enough to make ends meet. (And when I lost a job unexpectedly in 2011, I was just looking for a job, any job!)

Thing One didn’t get less open about his wish that I’d have more time at home ad he got older, and now Thing Two is old enough to express thoughts along those same lines. I still wasn’t seeing any way to make that happen,  nothing I could do from home that would bring in the income we needed to take care of obligations, much less get ahead. I had no dreams, just responsibilities to meet, and it tore me up wanting to be there more for my kids, but not seeing any way to make that happen.

Then a couple of months ago, something prompted me to check back into the possibility of becoming a registered piano technician, something I’d considered (but never done anything about) several years ago. I took the leap of faith and enrolled myself in a reputable self-study program, but still wasn’t sure what (if anything) would come of it.

Enter Holley Gerth. Holley is the author of You’re Made for a God-Sized Dream, and I kept seeing references to the book in blogs I followed.  I thought maybe I should check it out, see what this God-sized dream thing was all about.  I visited Holley’s blog and found that there’s a group of women committed to encouraging each other in their pursuit of their God-sized dreams – you know, those dreams that we feel like God puts in our hearts, but we don’t see how they can possibly really work out.

So I had to start thinking on what my God-sized dream might be.  (I don’t have the book yet – I think I need to invest in that and do a little reading.)  Finding a career path that would give me more flexibility to be there for my kids?  Possibly. I surely don’t know how that would work out – according to my human math, it doesn’t.  Becoming a piano technician?  Maybe.  I have the study materials, and I’m beginning to work through them.  And in just the little bit I’ve done, it’s pretty exciting stuff.  Maybe this is my God-sized dream to pursue.  I’ll have to pray hard and study hard and trust God to lead me where He wants me to go!

Saying farewell

I learned this morning that a friend of mine from college, Aimee Wallis Buchanan, passed away last night. She died from complications with the flu. She was 44, the same as me.

I haven’t seen Aimee in 20 years. We kept up on Facebook, as well as that can be done. I saw her kids growing in pictures. I saw the love and passion she poured into her ministry with youth. I saw the things she accomplished as a wife, mother, and minister. Aimee had purpose in this life, and she lived it out joyfully every day.

I grieve now for her family – her parents have lost a daughter, her husband a wife, her kids a mother, her youth a leader and friend. It’s always hard to lose someone we love, but more so when it seems to us that she should have had years, decades left to live and laugh and do God’s work. I grieve because now we’ll never have the chance to get together in this life and reminisce about those golden days at Baylor. But I can rejoice knowing that she is with our Lord and Savior, and someday I’ll get to see her there.

And Aimee’s death is making me think. She threw herself wholeheartedly into ministry. She had a passion, a purpose, she was walking the path to which God  had called her. I can’t imagine how many lives she’s touched.  I find myself wondering,  so why am I here? What am I doing to advance the Kingdom of God? How can I live with purpose if I don’t know what that purpose should be?

Thank you, Aimee, for being my friend, a ray of sunshine to those you’ve minstered to, and for living your life in such a way as to make me contemplate how I can live my life better and more fully.  Godspeed, and I’ll see you in the presence of our Lord one day.

Restaurant Review: Sammy’s Grill

Since we moved here, Brian has been on the lookout for a good, made from scratch chicken fried steak. Every place he asked, he was disappointed to learn that they made their chicken fried steaks using frozen premade chicken fried steaks.

Behold, the quest has ended.

We found a made-from-scratch chicken fried steak at Sammy’s Grill, out on Highland Road.  It’s a bit of a drive out there, and traffic going that way is pretty awful on a Friday evening, but it is worth the trip.

Brian said the chicken fried steak didn’t disappoint!  As you can see from the picture, the portions are generous, and everything we’ve had there has been delicious.  I’ve had the Seafood Au Gratin and Acadian Catfish (fried catfish fillets topped with crawfish etouffee), and both were lick-the-plate good.  Thing  Two has expressed his approval of their chicken fingers by cleaning his plate, and he also likes to look at the fish tanks they have around the restaurant.

The first time we went, Thing One wanted to order spaghetti off the adult menu.  He’s at that age where a kids’ meal doesn’t always fill him up, and when he’s of a mind to, he can put away some spaghetti.  We’re trying to get him to eat more vegetables, and the adult portion came with salad or coleslaw.  Our waitress asked him which he’d prefer, and he said he didn’t want either.  We said no, if you’re ordering off the adult menu, you need to at least try everything that comes with it, and our waitress went along with the conversation just like we’d planned it ahead of time.  She told him, oh, absolutely, he had to have one or the other, and made a big deal out of it.  He went with a salad with ranch under much protest, and he wailed and gnashed his teeth when we told him he had to eat three good bites.  You’d have thought we were asking him to dine on rusty nails.  Finally, after making sure that no green showed through the lettuce for all the ranch, and dramatically loading a crouton onto his fork with each bite, he managed to choke down four bites of salad, and lived to tell the tale.  He also ate almost all of his spaghetti.  If we’d had any room left for more food, we’d have tried dessert.  We’ll have to catch that another time!

The bottom line is, Sammy’s serves good food in a casual atmosphere, they’ve got something to please pretty much every palate, and it’s worth hauling it way out Highland Road for.  I’d go earlier in the evening rather than later.  They offer a Sunday brunch, and we tried going out there after church once, but it was jam-packed.  Maybe someday we’ll make it for brunch!

Menu plan for the week

Whew.  We made it through the holidays, and now we’re trying to survive Brian’s new job!  He got a job as a meter reader.  We’re very thankful that he has it, and yes, the income is a good thing.  But he’s been working six-day weeks since he started, and the job is pretty physically demanding – lots of walking, in the hot or the cold or the wet or the dry.  He’s about ready to be done with these mandatory Saturdays that they’re all having to work.

In an effort to make evenings a little easier on us all, and to keep us from breaking the bank on eating out, I’m getting back to my meal planning.  On the agenda for the week:

Ribs in the crockpot with broccoli slaw and potato salad
Man-Pleasing Chicken with broccoli rice casserole
Creole Stuffed Bell Peppers
Breakfast for dinner
Pan-fried cube steaks with parsnip mashed potatoes and cream gravy and sauteed mixed vegetables

I fully expect my kids to like some of these things, and I fully expect for some of them to be greeted with “ewwwww, I don’t like that”.  Thing Two is very three, and would prefer to live on bananas, cheese, yogurt, applesauce, and fried shrimp, with the occasional Pop-Tart thrown in for good measure.  Thing One inherited his father’s picky gene, and he’s got issues with some textures, too, so there are things he just can’t choke down no matter how hard he tries.  Brian and I will eat pretty much anything, but it’s proving to be a challenge to fix things that my kids don’t either protest or leave on their plates.  It’s frustrating.  I like to cook, I like to try new things.  It would be nice to have an appreciative audience.  Got any suggestions for good meals that have some redeeming nutritional value and are appealing to the younger crowd?

You’ll notice my meals are not strictly paleo.  We’ve tried it, and while we did find some recipes we really liked, it’s challenging for us to do all paleo, all the time.  We try to eat pretty clean, but we’re not cutting out rice, and I do like potatoes occasionally.  (And yeah, I’m from Louisiana – if we can catch it and fry it, we can eat it.  I like the occasional chicken-fried steak or big ol’ plate of fried shrimp.  It’s in my blood!)  We’re focusing instead on adding more fruits and veggies to meals and to snacktimes, and on encouraging the boys to choose healthier options more often than not.  This is a real battle with Thing One, who’s old enough to really kick up a fuss about not getting all the same junk foods his friends get.  I think it was an eye-opening experience for him when we went grocery shopping and I asked him to read labels.  He was aggravated and pretty surprised to find that high-fructose corn syrup is in a LOT of things.  He told me, “Mom, I try to tell my friends that that high-fructose corn syrup is bad for them, but they don’t listen to me.”  Points to you for trying, my son, and points for listening to your mama. 

Hope for the Weary Mom: Where God Meets You In Your Mess – NEW Expanded Edition!

Thing Two Makes a Mess…of Himself!

Moms, have you ever had one of  THOSE days?  You know, the kind where homework doesn’t get done, dinner burns, the cat gets sick in the middle of the living room, and one of your kids takes it upon himself to add a little body art with a marker or three?  Yeah, we’ve all had them.  Days that feel like they’ll never, ever, end, and days when we wonder what in the world God was thinking when He blessed us with kids (and on those days, we sometimes question whether our children are actually a blessing at all!).

If we’re honest, we’ve all had them.  If we’re honest, we can admit that on those days, we all feel like we’re the worst moms in the whole wide world, we aren’t good enough, we can’t hack it, every other mom on the planet has it more together than we do, and we’re ready to throw in the towel.  Please know, dear friends, we are NOT alone, and Hope for the Weary Mom: Where God Meets You In Your Mess is a perfect way to lighten our burden on those days when nothing goes right.

The first version of the book came out in 2011.  Today, the new expanded edition is available, and it’s free on Amazon for Kindle for the first 48 hours.  Free, that’s always in the budget – go pick up a copy!

This book made me laugh.  It made me cry.  And it made me realize I’m not the only mom who’s ever felt like she didn’t deserve the title.  I think this is one of my favorite passages in the book:

“Honey, I need you to come home now. The two-year-old is screaming because he wants to sit on my lap while I’m nursing the baby. The baby is screaming because the two-year-old keeps trying to sit on his head. When the two-year-old tries to sit on the baby’s head he can’t nurse. Now he won’t nurse at all and is screaming his head off. The bulldog has started crying because he wants to be fed (doesn’t everybody!!) and I’m going to explode within the next ten minutes if you don’t COME HOME AND BRING ME BEER AND CIGARETTES RIGHT NOW!”

He brought me a Coke and dark chocolate.

I’ve had moments like that!  (For the record, Brian wouldn’t bring me beer and cigarettes, either.  He’d also bring dark chocolate.  And Dr Pepper.   Or maybe coffee.)  The entire book is full of situations where moms have felt overwhelmed, underappreciated, super-stressed, and about as far from Carol Brady as anything you can imagine.  And the book is full of the many ways that God wants to reach out to us in our mess and just pour His love and grace into us.  We may not be able to be the perfect mamas on our own, but by God’s grace, we can be the moms He calls us to be.  But we have to choose:

I chose to lay down the shame, and open the blinds, letting God shine the light of His Word in my heart. I came clean, and agreed with God that I could no more raise these boys to be godly men by myself than I could walk to the moon.

Much like Brooke describes, I’ve got two of “those” boys – rowdy, loud, and proud, and sometimes a bit much for public consumption!  I can’t raise them to be Godly men by myself.  I can’t raise them to be Godly men with just me and Brian.  But God is waiting for me to invite Him to walk with me (and sometimes carry me!) along the path of parenting.  He can work through me to grow my boys into the men He wants them to be, and Hope for the Weary Mom does a wonderful job of reminding me and encouraging me to remember that.

This version of the book also has study questions at the end of each chapter, which I absolutely love.  So many of them hit me right square in the heart and really made me think.  “When was the last time you honestly admitted to God how weary you truly are?  How do you think He would handle the news?”  Well, of course He knows when I’m worn to a frazzle – He knows everything about me!  But He’s waiting for me to ask for help, ask for grace – He won’t step in uninvited.  “Do you have areas of your life where you constantly struggle? Maybe your dishes are piled sky high, or your laundry looks like a small mountain. When you look at those visible signs of struggle, what are the first words that pop into your head?”  Um, yeah.  Dishes.  Dirty clothes not making it to the hamper.  All of those tell me, “wow, you really stink at this parenting gig, you can’t even get your kids to pick up their dirty clothes on a regular basis”.  But God has different words to fill my mind and my heart.  The questions are a great opportunity to think through a lot of things, either on your own or with a group of moms, and to realize that we aren’t the only ones, and there IS hope.

Thank you, Brooke and Stacey, for opening your hearts and pouring them out on paper for weary moms everywhere.  Your book is a blessing, to me and to so many others.

After you’ve picked up your copy of the book, please stop by the Facebook party this evening – there will be good fellowship and great giveaways!  Also, check out what others are saying on the blog tour!

Truly trusting, or not?

As I think I mentioned previously, we moved from the Dallas area back to my home state of Louisiana in June. (It’s good to be back in God’s country!) We were tickled that our moving truck referred to Louisiana, since that’s where we were headed.

Brian isn’t from Louisiana, but he was a good sport about the move, and I’m thankful for that. We figured he’d find a new job, it would be something new and different, and life would roll on.

But here it’s been three months and a little more since the move, and Brian’s job search has produced exactly nothing in terms of results. Not an interview, not a callback, and most definitely not a job. It’s not due to a lack of effort on his part. He’s applied to all sorts of things, he’s volunteering in hopes that that might help open up an opportunity, he’s taking civil service exams to try to move his work experience in a whole different direction. He’s trying, but as of yet, nothing is opening up.

The point at which this becomes most discouraging for me is when I get paid. That’s when I realize that no matter how I stretch it, no matter how we might try to live frugally and economize, my salary just is.not.enough to make ends meet. (Yes, I went to law school. Sadly, I realized after the fact that I have the intelligence but not the temperament to be the kind of attorney that makes a lot of money.) It frustrates me and scares me, and I do a lot of talking to God about the situation, and in the course of talking, I find myself wondering:  What does it *really* mean to trust God to provide for our needs?

When we find ourselves stretched too thin moneywise, we try to think of things we can do (especially when we find ourselves slammed with back-to-back expensive car repairs like last month).  Is there something we have that we can sell?  Should we ask family if we can borrow money?  Is there a second job I can take, something I can make and sell on Etsy, anything?  We try to find a way to make ends meet.  But lately I’ve wondered, when we do that, are we truly trusting in God’s provision?  Clearly, my salary is not enough, but God isn’t constrained by the amount of my paycheck when it comes to providing.  So, should we just sit and wait (as patiently as possible, which for me is not very) in anticipation of a blessing poured out?  Or are we trusting as we try to find solutions, not knowing exactly how God might choose to provide?  Because He can do that any way He wants, you know.

So what do you consider to be truly trusting in God to meet your needs?  I don’t have an answer to this.  I’ve prayed about it, but no answer has yet made itself clear to me.  I guess as long as God doesn’t make the answer a resounding “Quit messing with stuff and just wait on me,” we’ll keep doing what we can when we find ourselves a bit short of cash.  And we’ll definitely keep on praying for Brian to find a job.

Meal planning and a paleo update

I find it’s a lot easier for us to cook at home (rather than spending money on eating out) if I have a meal plan.  I don’t necessarily plan a meal for every single day of the next week, and I don’t necessarily plan every meal of every day.   I plan for dinner, and we’re usually able to have leftovers for lunches and do something easy like a smoothie for breakfast.  Here’s what’s up for this week.  All meals will be pretty close to or completely paleo-friendly.

Caramelized Honey Dijon Chicken, Roasted Broccoli and Carrots with Cashews

Zucchini Noodles with Chicken in Tangy Peanut Sauce

Balsamic Winter Throw Together Bake

Bacon Beef Butternut Squash

Cider Braised Brats, Onions & Peppers

I’ll also be making a couple of treats:

No-Bake Coconut Crack Bars

Strawberry Frosting Shots

Paleo Brownies

And let’s not forget breakfast!

Pumpkin Pie Muffins

Paleo Peach Frangipane Muffins

Yes, this is a pretty ambitious list for me.  Not the regular meals, but the sweets and breakfasts.  But let’s be serious, paleo or not, I have a wicked sweet tooth, and breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I’m planning to include them this week.  If I have paleo-friendly treats on hand, I’m less likely to eat sugar-laden junk.

As for how paleo is going, when I stick to it, pretty well.  I have no idea if I’ve lost weight, and I really don’t care.  My goal is not to get down to some unreasonably low weight – I don’t care what the scale says, I don’t really care what size clothes I wear, I just want to be proportionate on top and on bottom, and I want to be strong and  healthy to keep up with my kids.  In addition to trying to eat clean more often than not, I’m also getting consistent with my working out (finally, at the age of 44, I like the kettlebell enough to stick to it!).  I notice that I feel better when I eat clean, and I’m starting to notice that some of my clothes are fitting a little looser.  Not so much that I need new ones, but enough that I notice on some things.  I’m also noticing that it’s easier to get down on the floor with the boys, and it’s easier to get into Brian’s big ol’ truck that has no running boards (which is a challenge for vertically challenged me).  So, I’m seeing progress in practical ways, and that motivates me to keep on going!