Archive for May, 2010

Today’s Passage 5/17/10

May 17th, 2010

“He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8.

I’m a list person. I can’t even begin to tell you how long and dynamic my to-do list is.  I’m trapped in a giant game of whack-a-mole.  Brad has traveled out of state twice in the past week for work. Our cat almost died this weekend, and while ferrying him around town this morning I saved a turtle off the road, all before clocking in to the day job. The kids and I are recovering from a weekend trip to my parents’ house. Meanwhile, today I’m trying to launch a new a chore/scripture memory/meal/activity planning system for the kids, and a new daily Bible study program for myself. Not to mention the thousands of home maintenance & improvement tasks, social obligations, health matters, financial items, and other general issues to address. Whew!

Brad and I are stressed.  I was telling him this weekend that I think if we put first things first – namely, emptying our jar of all but the large spiritual rocks for starters, I imagine that God can leverage some supernatural efficiencies for us, and things will fall into place. I just need to prioritize correctly and let the rest go.  So what an encouraging verse this is. All I must do is BE a certain way while holding God’s hand through my life. Easier said than done, however… what I take away from this verse is all that is specifically NOT required: a perfect house, organization plans and lists, a quota of play dates and social events, etc. Thank You, Lord, for the encouragement today, as I was struggling to keep my head above water! Thanks for reminding me that all the “stuff” that I make so important, is really not all that important. Not that I’m ditching my lists, but it’s just nice to put them back into perspective.

Back on the Map

May 13th, 2010

Howdy strangers!  Wow, has it really been 2.5 years?  Let me re-introduce myself.  My name is Jessica; I am a wife and mother of 3… I know I’m a loser of a mom not to have written about my precious darlings over the past couple of years.  We’ve just been so busy living life in the real world, and haven’t stopped to document it in the virtual world.  Well, for the record, I’m officially back in blogging action.

I feel the need to explain this sabbatical.  Primarily, we’ve been a little busy.  To put it into perspective, let me offer the following list of events that have occurred since I last wrote:

  • Subsequent children birthed: 2
  • Possibility of terminal diagnoses for said children: 2
  • Doctor and therapist appointments: my guess is over 100
  • Nannies interviewed: 8
  • Nannies employed: 3
  • Homes bid upon: 8
  • Homes bought: 2
  • Homes refinanced: 2
  • Homes rented out: 2
  • Home renovation/repair projects: 15? 20?
  • Multi-day power outages: 2
  • Hail storms that required new roofing and skylights: 1
  • Dogs lost: 1
  • Dogs gained: 1
  • Dogs housebroken: 1
  • Children “housebroken”: 2
  • Wild animals found in yard/garage/pool: ~150 hummingbirds, 2 ducks, 1 jaguarundi, 3 red tail hawk nests, 5 kite nests, 2 wren nests, numerous squirrel nests, 4 bunny nests, 2 possum nests, 1 fox, 1 turtle, 1 frog
  • Trips taken: NYC, Saint Louis, Austin, California (Brad’s work), next week: Seattle (Brad’s work), next month: Yellowstone
  • Social events hosted: my guess is 3-4 dozen
  • Churches visited: 5-6
  • Siblings married: 1
  • Nieces born: 1
  • Close friends and family having major life events: couple dozen
  • Reorganizations/layoffs/job changes for Jessica: countless (all with Bank of America though)
  • Home businesses started: 1
  • Law school graduations and career changes for Brad: 1 each
  • People thoroughly exhausted: 2 (plus more if you count our parents & other sitters)

Furthermore, I’ve been in a state I like to call “analysis paralysis.”  Many previous posts that I’ve written but not published have been waylaid due to technical difficulties, such as hacking of our website, computer problems, spam attacks, video/photo issues, mysteriously vanishing posts, etc.  So then my conundrum was whether to wait until I could sequentially revive and post the rapidly aging drafts, or whether just to pick up from now and move forward.  Well, I decided to hybridize my approach.  I can’t resist the urge to write what’s on my mind, so I’m going to write current stuff as time allows.

So to both of you faithful readers, thanks for holding out hope!  I’ve been a bit overwhelmed on all fronts.  However I hope to ameliorate the growing backlog and catch up with posting them over time.  I’ll have to toy with when/where/how to post updates, so bear with me.  But it feels good to be back on the map, and I hope you’ll stay tuned!