Today I Cry

I woke this morning with a blinding painful headache and my husband was there to help make sure it wasn’t my blood pressure.  He brought me more medicine to help elevate the pain. It’s Wednesday, but I’ve already been difficult to love this week. I had a pretty manic meltdown Monday night and the devil was attacking my royally yesterday morning, but my husband has been amazing.  So when I woke up at 3 am this morning in horrible pain I thought, “not today, today I need to be strong, today is the day we (or at least I) cry.” 

When I met Matt and we began dating I had no clue how much I would personally morn over the loss of his first wife.  My therapist has said countless times that I should not use “crazy” to describe my actions, but I think that it’s seriously crazy that I cry more eight years after Nicole’s passing then my husband does - not that he does not still morn - he just doesn’t cry. And, well, I am good at crying. 

I am telling you never in a millions years did I think I would morn Nicole like she was my dearest friend, but my goodness I mourn her.  I fight the guilt that I am here because someone is not.  In some ways I morn as I do for James in that I am saddened by the “what could have been”.  There have been many events over this last year that have made the “what could have been” sadness stronger. 

Our the first year of being married after Nicole’s passing I was blindsided by what grief looked like from my husband. Honestly, I was angry and jealous, being newlyweds I was frustrated that he was not more present with our family.  I was shocked at how badly he disconnected.  Since that first year, I always prepare myself for what is to come the week after Thanksgiving.  I have been known to ask for prayer for my husband stating, “because I lose him from now until after Christmas.”  Matt’s grief has ebbed and flowed as the years have passed - some years seem harder than others, but it’s not his sadness that makes me cry. Well, it’s not always his sadness.  

If you know me and we have discussed Nicole, at all, you know that I seriously cannot talk about her without crying.  This past year I spent hours in conversation - good raw conversation - with another woman. I shared my story and talked through fears I faced without shedding a tear. And it was until we ended our conversation that my mother-in-law said, “You know Deb’s husband is the pastor of Nicole’s parent’s church.”  I ugly cried all over that poor woman because I knew that she had a glimpse into Nicole and her family.  She actually knew about me before we had met, she knew all about my littles and about Matt.  I never imagined feeling the love that we receive from Nicole’s parents.  My sadness is for them as well. 

As I am writing this I feel like I need to gain the attitude that I have with thoughts of James’ passing: celebrate the time I had with him, the memories of his life in a positive way.  Live in thanksgiving for the blessing of his life on mine. 

Nicole gave Matt specific directions when knowing of her passing. I am telling you the woman was organized - I woman after my own heart with lists of things he needed to do, gifts he needed to pass to her friends and family and letters she wrote to her dear husband (y’all know I am balling right now).  She told Matt that he was to take care of the schnauzers (Gus & Moby) which he did until their passing, lose weight (he was a little fluffier then) and get remarried.  

From those directions I feel like I can honor her by loving my husband well especially during this time of year, not taking for granted an ounce of time together and living our life fully.  At this moment in my headache induced loopiness that seems a bit of a big ask, but it’s the least I can do to honor Nicole. 

So today I cry (I might cry tomorrow, or next Tuesday, too), my therapist would approve.  She would probably say, “crying is normal, you are normal”. Today I cry because sometimes life just sucks.  It just does and we really have no real explanation why we are to walk through these hard things in life, we just have to trust God’s plan…even when it sucks. 

You must forgive me I just love this card by Emily McDowell and it’s so perfect for this.  

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and this one too. 

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Last year I wrote this post for Matt: http://www.danaraeblog.com/2016/11/my-dear-husband.html

Have to say, though, a good cry has made my headache go away! Yes, a positive spot on the day!!!!

Five Ideas to Make Getting Dinner on The Table Easier

As I finished my post on a Mom's Witching hour I thought I should have included the topic of Meal Planning to help with the stress during that time a day, so I decided to share with you my five ideas for getting dinner on the table easier. 

1. Meal Planning

The number one thing that helps me to ease the stress of making dinner is meal planning. My week goes so much smoother when I only have to go the store once and I know exactly what we are going to eat each night, but it does take some planning. 

First, you really need to know your schedule. When are your busy nights, when is it best to use your crockpot (see number three), and what night do think you can prepare a recipe that may take a few hours? I also make sure that I plan something that is fairly easy to make (or even leftovers see number four) on my trigger night. You know, the night where you are most likely to be exhausted and want to trade dinner prep for a drive through. 

So, where do you get your recipes? I am a huge user of pinterest and have a board dedicated for just main meals. As I see things that I think I will love I put them there, but I also have bloggers that I love getting recipes from, here are a couple:

http://www.mixandmatchmama.blogspot.com/

http://picky-palate.com/

Now, let’s talk about the fun part of Meal Planning - where to store your recipes. For years I had hug stacks of printed recipes, but for the past three years I have been meal planning through Google Calendar and it has been such a blessing. 

You will need to setup a gmail account if you do not already have one - don’t worry they are free and pretty easy to setup. And they are even easier to link to your iPhone or iPad - which is my life saving step. 

Here is a video on how to set up and use a menu on Google Calendar:

2. Meal Prep

Lately, a real stress saver has been to look at my recipes to see which part I could possibley do the morning (or even day) before. If you know that you have to have ground meat (beef) in a recipe, you can cook that in the morning, then all you have to do is add your other ingredients. This works with chicken, too. I found that recipes that require for me to have cooked chicken ready are the ones that will mostly likely get pushed aside for McDonald’s, so I try to have all that chicken cooked long before 5 pm. 

I even had one friend tell me she bought bulk ground beef, cooked it (some with taco seasoning) then frozen them in pound sized servings. All she would have to do is grab it from the freezer and pop it into a recipe. 

On my busiest day we are out of the house until dinner time, so I normally prefer a casserole on that day. I can set my oven to have a delayed started and with the cooking timer feature my oven will shut off and stop baking after the allotted time I set. Then, when we get home dinner is ready! It’s even more fun (ha! I don’t know why I get so excited about these things) when you can make the casserole like months in advance (say with leftover thanksgiving turkey) then freeze it - how easy would that make your day? 

3. Love Your Crockpot

There is so much you can cook in a crock pot from chicken breasts to even hotdogs. If you are busy with after school activities and sports then I suggest you build a relationship with your crockpot. You may want to spend a little more money and get one with a timer if you feel like you are out of the house way longer than 8 hours a day. Also, buy the liners for your crockpot! Trust me you do not want to spend the rest of the night scrubbing the crust of the sides of your crockpot after you have been out cheering your football player most of the night. 

4. Don’t Be Ashamed of Leftovers

Having a Leftovers Night is nothing to be ashamed of. I would start a warming up line to the microwave and then fill my counter with rubbermaid containers, hand the family some plates and say “serve yourself.” This usually happens in our house on Thursdays because the fridge is overflowing with containers and I am tired of being in the kitchen. 

5. Plan an At-Home “Date Night”

Why not fix the kids something easy (like leftovers) one night and feed them early. Then, make something special (that your kids probably won’t eat) for you and your husband. Eat in the fancy dinning room, use the good plates and have yourself a little date. My children are not normally in bed too early, but why not make it fun for them and let them have a movie night in your room or in the playroom. As they get older you can involve them to be your waiters or waitresses. 

Here is a great video that Meg at What’s Up Moms did on this topic: 

I really hope these steps help you, so your meal planning doesn’t wind up looking like this: 

A Mother’s Witching Hour

Last week a mother I know posted (something similar to) this on Facebook:

Why can’t my husband see me with my children in the morning when I am full of energy and playing with the kids? Why does my lowest point of the day have to be when he gets home?

I am quite sure you can hear a roaring “amen” from the toddler mothers through out the world! 

Along with responses (as her post received) similar to “I hear ya sister”, “I am praying of you momma” and “I know, my husband probably thinks I hate being a mother.” 

I call it my witching hour. 

Now, I looked that term up on a very reliable source (wikipedia) to find out exactly what it means and where it came from. Here is what the oh so knowledgeable people had to say: 

With a modern literal meaning of "midnight," the term witching hour refers to the time of night (3:00-4:00 am is commonly speculated) when creatures such as witches, demons, and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful and black magic to be most effective.

Do not stop reading. I do not believe (outside of movies) in witches, demons, and ghosts. And I have never tried my hand at black magic. But what I can say is after you have spent all day separating fights over who got the red marker first, changing poopy diapers, cleaning crayon off yet another wall of your house, and repeating for the millionth time “no, we are not watching Little Einsteins, right now” you quite possibly appear as a demon wanting to use a little black magic to successfully to get dinner cooked before your husband gets home. Am I right? 

Now, all of you June Cleaver haters out there who are about to give me a lecture that you do all of this and work a full-time job I have to say I have been there - I know the pain and I am not trying to say that my gig is any worse than yours. Hang with me, you may benefit from what I have to say as well. 

My witching hour is always right about 4:30 pm to 6 pm. That is the time of the day when I am the most tired and truly believe that my girls are so annoyed by my face. It is the time when all of the peace that may have been in my house earlier in the day has vanished, not to be seen again until 8:30 pm when everyone is snug in their beds. 

My cellphone is the bell that rings marking the start of my witching hour.  My hardworking husband calls during his drive home (hands-free mind you). My dear husband has an hour (maybe longer depending on Houston traffic) commute to get home each day and while I enjoy knowing that he is heading home so I can start dinner (and I know that help is on the way) this usually always signals for all three of my children (yep even the teenager) to lose their minds. Matt usually wants to unwind and download his day over the telephone (we’ve done this for years), but there are days when I have to say “I just can’t talk right now.” While he is sitting somewhat comfortably in his car, leaving his worries of the day behind, I am knee deep in finishing housework, helping with homework, and preparing dinner with the help of a three year old (who really thinks she has become Betty Crocker in the kitchen). 

Now I am telling you that getting through my witching hour without it turning me witchy is something that I’ve been striving to achieve. Somedays I am successful and somedays Matt gets home to find me watching Real Housewives of somewhere and saying, “it isn’t happening today - hope you’re okay with a sandwich.” Here are a few things, though, that help during this time. 

First and foremost, keep it real with your husband. Try taking a girls weekend and leaving him with all of your kids, then he will see what everyday looks like. Or for a less dramatic approach, try a little heart to heart. Ask for grace. I am quite positive that Matt did not marry me thinking that as soon as I said “I do” June Cleaver would appear. Really, even though I am all for a woman in the home and taking pride in your house (even though some weeks I don’t) we have to live in the reality that that just does not happen most days. Now, it may happen a few times a month (or if you are an overachiever a week) where your husband is greeted with a smile, a warm meal ready for him on the table, and the children playing quietly - those days should be celebrated! I mean you need to head for ice cream after dinner (and of course after the kitchen is clean). 

For me personally, I feel like I am successful at the end of the day if I do not unload all of my issues as soon as he sits down his briefcase. I really do try to have him come in the house without walking in the middle of screaming (the girls, not me - most of the time) and not tripping over toys or things that have accumulated in the foyer. I am very aware that he has just spent an hour driving home from his 8 plus hour job in horrible traffic and I want him to breathe as well. At the same time, I want him to give me grace if the day did not goes as I have planned and if maybe I got stuck with my head in Facebook too long not realizing it was going to take an hour to make dinner. 

The second thing that has helped me is giving myself grace! There is only one perfect parent and that’s our Heavenly Father. As I have slowly started giving up comparing my life to pictures on Instagram or other bloggers I follow I have been able to breathe, relax and realize everyone has a child that refuses to eat what you made for dinner at one time or another. Mine just happen to turn their noses up at anything but corndogs these days. Things will not always be perfect, you will work hard on a new recipe then realize as you are sitting with your family that it is the most disgusting thing you’ve eaten. That is when that random package of spaghetti and marinara sauce in your pantry comes in handy. Even Julia Child had duds somedays. So lighten up on yourself, be kind with your thoughts towards yourself during this time of day. I mean, it’s a successful day when none of your kids needed a bandaid, right? 

Lastly, do something that will make you feel better about you right before your husband gets home. That could mean running a brush through your hair, throwing on a little powder and some lip gloss. It could mean lighting some good smelling candles through out the house - I love food scented ones. You might also want to try a small power clean (less than 5 minutes) of one of the main rooms of your house. I alway pick the living room because that is what we see most of the night and I can sit peacefully during dinner if my living room rug isn’t covered with toys. I also make the bed (sometimes at 4:45 pm) because that is one of my husbands things that he likes to come home to. Also, music always helps me to breathe, but not classical or toddler songs. Classical is like nails on a chalk board somedays or makes me even more tired. And really, haven’t we heard enough toddler music through out our day? 

The end of the day is hard, ladies, I do think our mothers would disagree. I hope that my little tidbits about getting past my witching hour helps you. I also invite you to share your tricks to getting through the end of the day below in the comments. I would love to learn to learn from you and I bet your advice may help someone else as well. 

I want to continue talking about grace - it’s an area of conviction for me lately. I find myself asking am I giving grace to my girls? to myself? to my husband? My goal is to work more on that and work at teaching my girls the gospel, not just the laws (more on that later). 

Me? Unorganized?

Last night I spent time organizing Shelby’s school notebook, again. I took the much needed opportunity to get out the house alone and get her some snazzy pocket dividers that will not fall apart next week. I labeled and sorted until everything was perfect.

You see Shelby has been having organization issues lately – like losing her homework.  It’s been very frustrating for me and JAG. During our daily discussion about Shelby earlier this week JAG suggested that we lead by example. There are many areas in our house that need organization he said. WHAT YOU TALKING ABOUT WILLIS?!?! My defense wall went up – I am not Unorganized! Of Course, JAG quickly dropped it by saying, well I need to clean up somethings.

Yesterday I walk into the kitchen which has become my office while working from home – I gasped. Muah? Me? Oh NO it’s true! I mean look at my kitchen table! It had been like this for days – we have just been pushing things out the way to eat. 

In case you are concerned for my poor husband – I did clean everything off the table including the fall table cloth before he returned home from work last night. We ate dinner as a family on a clean table.  I guess JAG speak the truth – I hate it when that happens.

Now on to me new find!

Mabel’s House

Oh, it’s quickly becoming a favorite – I bookmarked it – which mean something! I am slowly working my way back through and getting to know Liz. You should go check her out! Click the link above.

Have a great Friday everyone!  Tonight I am taking one step closer to getting the spirit of the season by taking the girl to see Santa. Fun Times!

Divorce

Let me pretense the blog by saying a few things. One all things happen for a reason. God knows my beginning and my end and I know that where I am right now is where I was meant to me. I love my JAG with all my heart and we are not divorcing. Also, if I had to go back I would not remarry my xhusband, gweedo and if you read my blog you will know all the reasons why.

With that being said, though, I stumbled upon a blog last week about a woman who left her husband. They are looking divorce straight in the face. She was so transparent with her feelings that I was almost in tears. I wanted so badly to reach out and give her a big hug. If had the opportunity I would and then I would sit her down for a long talk – that I am about to give you.

Oh I would never want to be called an expert at divorce – that is just ugly or even an expert at interpersonal skills – I am just me sharing with you my feelings.

I really can’t say if something happened that I could go back that I would or would not do things the same way, but I have come through the past three years with a new outlook on marriage and divorce.

First and foremost I would say do not give up. We may have – I know at the end I gave up on my marriage. I got to the point of complete hopelessness where I said it would be easier to leave then to stay and fight more. I had no fight left in me. Little did I know that leaving wasn’t a piece of cake either – not for me and definitely not for my daughter.

Even though things have gotten tons better with Shelby she still struggles. She went the first year thinking that her parents would get back together and was completely crushed when her father remarried. She had to work through – with help – tons of anger. She was angry at me because I left the house that she had always known. Then that anger turned toward her father and new stepmother after they got married. Everything has leveled out and she loves her step-parents, but she still struggles with leaving me every other weekend. In her mind, if she had it her way, all four of us (me, JAG, Gweedo & his wife) would all be with her all the time – could you picture it?

Secondly, when you are facing this cross roads no matter how easy it seems to get advice and counsel from family do not make that your primary source. Lets face it as parents we love our children and do not want them to hurt. In many cases we can only see our child’s side and then we react out of emotions only. My mother bounced back and forth I think. At first she was dead set against me getting a divorce – this changed with actions from Gweedo. Once she saw exactly what I went through she understood – but we got divorced remember. I think – I am not sure- that if we tried to reconcile after our separation that there would be issues between my family and him. I definitely know there would be between his family and me. Do you see what I am saying? You need a neutral third party – someone without biases – someone who may not know either of you. At the same time that person needs to open enough to say “both of you have things you need to change.”

Lastly -since I feel like I am just rambling and not providing you with anything decent- remember no one said this would be easy. I am not talking about Divorce – I am talking about Marriage. Six weeks ago JAGdad did not stand in front of me and say “Do you take JAG for happiness 100% time with birds always chirping and never any arguments?” Nope…didn’t happen. You see the honeymoon ends and you are back to bills, groceries and a dog that pees in the middle of the living room floor. It’s not easy – it takes work. You go through your ups and downs. He changes which leads you to change. Your change changes him some more.

There is one thing that I have in this marriage that I did not have with Gweedo – wait two things. First, the commitment that God comes first – always has with our relationship and always will. Let me say, though, there are strong Christians whose marriages end in divorce I am not blind to that, but that is one thing that Gweedo and I did not work on. As someone told me before we got married – we were not equally yoked. I thought I was yoked enough for the both of us – Wrong! Now JAG and I we are equally yoked – may not see eye to eye on political things, but we know where God stands in our life and marriage. If it is not God that you believe in then are your beliefs in-line with your husband’s? It’s extremely difficult to be successful if everyone isn’t playing for the same goal in mind.

Also, if you had not heard, JAG and I pretty much can tell each other anything. We are both gifted with the skills of conversation. We were like this from day one – no practice – no book, we just opened our mouths and out it came. It has helped tremendously.  I know that for some it takes some work, but again no one said it would be easy, so work at it. Hell, what harm could it do when you are faced with divorce – how much worse could it get if you really got out your feelings – non-harming feelings – saying “You are so stupid” is harmful. A counselor can help you with this – trust me your marriage is worth the money.

Oh, this has gotten so long and I am not sure if I have helped anyone. I guess what I am trying to say is Divorce as many know is not the first answer to the problem. At least please don’t let it be. Try everything, everything to find the love that you once had because it’s in there somewhere. I can say that and not feel like a hypocrite because I did give up too soon. I did not attempt to find that love and now it is gone with Gweedo – don’t worry I don’t bat an eye about it. My love for him is like my love for any other child of God, but you know as I said before God knows I would be here today, so he had to have known that I was not meant to love Gweedo anymore than that.

What I Want in 2011.

Can you believe it is only 26 days away?

My Word for 2011 is ORGANIZED! There is a place for everything and everything has its place.

No more of this:

Nope, this isn’t from Hoarders. It is a picture taken last month with my phone to warn JAG about what he would see when he opened the garage door. Now let’s double that load on the left and build it up a little higher on the right to create what is in there today. This is all me…my life, my house, crammed into JAG’s our garage. Wait Darth Vadar on the sewing machinge case to the left proves it's not all me. 

I want this all gone by New Years! I originally said by Thanksgiving – haha.  Everything put where it should go so I don’t have to go dig for a pan or a hair brush.

Besides being able to park in the garage I want weekly menu planning. I want to make one trip to the grocery store per week or even per every two weeks. I want everything planned so we know what we are eating when. I want to cook – not just heat my food again. I said cook…not charbroil…I am working on it.

I want homework time for miss thing! I want her to do it and do it correctly…the first time.

I want Family Devotionals or even family night or even family game night. I don’t want the TV on and I don’t want JAG and I sitting on the sofa each with a laptop doing our own things.

I want an active family – not 50 million places to go, but walks and parks and stuff like that.

Ummm…what else?

Me personally…I want to read, read and bake, and sleep. I love to sleep. So much for being active.

What do you want your 2011 to look like?

Letter to JAG

Dear JAG –

Happy Two Week-Aversary!

What have we learned these first two weeks?

We Learned 

~To tell the vet not to feed Duke dog food with chicken. Nasty!

          ~That you know how to kick doors open – I am still positive you did it

            NCIS style.

          ~we should have listened to my mother when she said “better start

  moving soon…time with creep up on you.”

          ~I cry about stupid things.

          ~I say I am “sorry” way too much for no reason at all.

          ~I shouldn’t move furniture alone.

          ~You still are the most patient person ever.

          ~ to not make plans because Shelby will always have a way changing

            them.

          ~Shelby has motion sickness too.

          ~that Shelby and I probably do have too many clothes, but you have us

            beat with the number of books you own. I feel like I need a library card

            to go into the office.

          ~ that for some reason I kind of suck at cooking lately.

          ~that I also suck at folding clothes.

          ~and putting them away

          ~and picking them up off of the bathroom floor.

          ~that June Cleaver may never show up.

So here is to two weeks my love and thousands more to come!

Might be Crazy, but not a Cleaver.

I stood in my kitchen last night and I told myself – You Are Not June Cleaver!!! I repeated it over and over again.

Can someone please tell me how five days in I can be to this state already? Last night I had an internal mini melt down. Dinner was ok, but not wonderful. My new dishes don’t fit into the cabinet as I would like. I have not figured out how to wash dishes without getting water all over the counter and floor. I felt like I had to be the one in the kitchen, I had to cook, do laundry, deal with dogs and Shelby all at once. What is wrong with me?

I have to remember that just because I have a wedding band on my finger it doesn’t mean that June Cleaver has taken over my body. I will not be a perfecto wife and mother that easy.  

There are so many things that I want to do and do differently this upcoming year and I think that has caused me to throw things in fast forward even when I don’t need to.

Am I alone – or did others fly into crazy gotta be June Cleaver mode the first week after marriage?

If you haven’t been able to tell – the picture has nothing to do with this post. Thank you to my new Aunt Debbie for taking this picture! This was our first dance – we did the Evolution of Dance – look it up on YouTube.

FYI: JAG was so trying to help me, but I kept kicking him out of the kitchen.