Friday "Book"

My favorite breakfast of the moment happens to be steel cut oats. Yum. I just had a nice steaming bowlful. Too late to be called breakfast though. Chewy and textured mixed with creamy and hot. Add a little salt and a spoon full of sugar and it's enough to keep me filled for hours. Not only is it filling, but full of fiber and protein. How can you go wrong eating the stuff? 4yo isn't as impressed with it as 10 yo and I. She gets cold cereal instead. Of course, it's not as filling so within an hour she's asking for something else. I try to make her wait until we're all hungry, but that can be painful and difficult for those of us that have to deal with her when she's hungry.

This week has simply flown for me. I look back and feel like we've done very little that's productive, but maybe I need to redefine productive for me. I'm so stuck in the mindset that we're not getting anything accomplished unless we've checked a bunch of lessons off and logged hours and hours of school. It's hard for me to look at things like a day of play with our friends, or spending the day cooking with daddy as productive. I'm such a black and white type thinker. There is little room for gray in my universe. Things either are or aren't. When something falls somewhere in the middle, it is very hard for me to accept it as truth. Living in the gray is like living in the middle of chaos for me. I want and need things to swing back to either black or white. That sense of limbo is more than I can take.

Things here on the home front have been very quiet. A sense of being lulled back to sleep and forgetfulness has taken over once again. Perhaps I shouldn't allow myself to fall into this false comfort, but the known is often so much easier than the unknown. How else could I live the way I have for so long? It's much easier to just live in a place of numbness than to feel the real emotions. Every now and again I start to stir out of the coma and begin to feel the reality, but very quickly I remind myself to fall back to sleep and slip once more into a place of numbness. Again, this is one of those black or white type issues for me. Is it that I'm living with an altered reality, or am I being faithful and steady? I'd like to think that having done all I can do to stand, I simply stand. I wait patiently on the Lord. I wait for his promised deliverance and salvation. Every time I get stirred up, and begin to feel as though I will burst and I begin to cry out to Him, I am reminded of that verse. I'm reminded in prayer when I've poured myself out and come to the place of quietness again. I'm reminded at every turn it seems. Stand. Be firm. Of good cheer. So simple and often so hard. It's easy to become impatient and try to push things along as fast as my finite mind can think. That's when I am reminded once again, that He is infinite. He's seen the end from the very beginning and has a hope and a future for me. He will not leave me, nor forsake me, or fail to bring about help or deliverance for me. What manner of love is this? In Him is stillness, and peace. He has been my rock and my hiding place. He has been the One I look to. The One in whom I trust. He is, so I don't have to be. How comforting to know He is with me. I am not alone.

We are home today, btw, because some of the moms were nervous about the weather. I think they played into all the hype that tv weatherman can sometimes stir up and decided to call a snow day. On one hand I was glad, because I truthfully like to sleep. I don’t' know how else to put it. I often have difficulty settling in, but once I'm in those nice cozy blankets and the sleep fairy has visited, I don’t' like to be wakened until I'm good and ready. One of the kids had a nasty, nasty cold Tuesday and shared the love a bit. I've been fighting off a cold all week. 10yo woke up with a sore throat yesterday. Anyway last night at bedtime, I felt my head getting all foggy and my throat getting sore, so I turned to the trusted benedryl to dry it up. It's the one product that works for me, but it makes me so sleepy. This morning when it was time to get up, it was all I could do to fumble out to the computer to see whether or not the other moms had decided to stay in for the day. I was disappointed we wouldn't be seeing everyone, but relieved that I didn't have to try to think. I stumbled back to bed in hopes of waking up a little more, and instead fell hard back to sleep. It was like I blacked out. What and odd feeling to wake up 2 hours later to realize both kids are up and about and watching tv. Guilty, I stumbled out into the living room and went about the motions of getting the day started. I hate that feeling.

Shortly I need to head out to the post office to mail a work sample. Then I need to get 10yo cranking on some real work. I'm not looking forward to staying in all weekend. I don't know what to do this evening. Tomorrow 10yo has an all day scout trip. "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone." I had really wanted to spend the weekend away at a conference all by myself. Mom and dad said they'd keep the kids and 4yo said she'd even stay with them. I decided last minute to save the hotel money and keep it instead for my private stash. We'll see how the weekend plays out.
Maybe 4yo and I will have some grand adventure somewhere.