Escaping and panic attacks

If it were up to me, today, right this minute, my reality would consist of sitting in a cabin, a small one, in the woods of Colorado watching the Aspen trees ready themselves for autumn.  Yep, when I close my eyes to have my Calgon moment it is that scene playing in my head.  So what's wrong with that?  Nothing really, except that it just seems cruel to be there every time my eyes close.  Those stupid desires and dreams we have in our lives taunting us.  Why does God let me have these desires knowing we cannot fulfill them.  I want to sit on the front porch with the chill of the air lingering til mid-morning.  Stay curled up in a Woolrich blanket and sip my fourth cup of coffee.  Homeschool my children using every book from The Lamplighter reading into the night by candlelight and the warmth of the woodstove roaring in the corner.  Sounds pretty dang awesome, right?  Ok, some of you might not think so, but it sounds like nothing short of heaven for me and I'm pretty sure that my husband would be right there with me on this one.  But, really, back to the original question, "what's wrong with that?"  Nothing really.  Most people live their lives the way that they want to without thought or regard to much else.  I'm for the "what about me" attitude right now, cause I'm in that mood so brace yo-self.  Here's my 12 month plan.  Yea, life's too short for the 3 year version.

Plan:

Save money

Buy property for cheap in Colorado

Build log cabin, open floor plan, minimalistic furnishings

Move into above cabin

Plant garden

Watch children and garden and marriage grow into something amazing

Can every fruit and vegetable under the sun

Hunkerdown for winter

Light fire in woodstove

Buy more Woolrich accessories

Crochet entire wardrobe

Start learning how to use a loom

Shovel snow off of roof

Get ready for spring

Start over again for the next 12 month plan

A great list, of course a little too much about tactics and less about concepts......  I struggle so hard with wondering why I can't have this life.  No, really, it's quite sad.  Will I be on my death bed with regrets in this area?  IDK.  Here's why.  I believe in a God, a wonderful, omnipotent one.  One that has laid out for me a plan for my life to follow His will in my life.  While God is definitely everywhere I go, like the mountains of Colorado, my heart just feels suffocated sometimes by the life I lead.  One of doing the "right" thing, living my life honoring God and walking the road he wants me to travel.  I know that He will provide for my families' every need, I know that, He has proven it time and time again.  There are times that my hubby and I discuss how amazing it would be to be missionaries, anywhere.  Or to travel from disaster relief to disaster relief and sharing the hope of Christ to those in need.  But then through fear or laziness or lack of knowledge I cower in the corner of my mind and click my heels together wanting to just be in the solace of that cabin.  That stupid, adorable, rustic, amazing cabin.  I want to pray, but don't want to hear.  Or maybe I will get the answer I desire.  Or maybe my desire will morph to meet the will of the Almighty and when I open my eyes there before me will lie my desire.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

-Galatians 2:20

Status Updated

I am a Facebook fanatic.  Not so much to let others know what it is I'm doing every second of the day, but really just to keep up with friends and offer encouragement when I can.  I take it on as a very different social media for me.  Some join to find their soulmate or to reconnect with old friends or for networking, etc.  I just like it because as I am locked away in my house most days it gives me a way to get out into the world while still sitting on babies and doing laundry.  Sometimes, however, things come across that just really put into perspective how we are all in different places in our lives, whether spiritual growth or just plain existing in society.  Here's the one that caught my eye today, names have been changed to protect the "friends" in my list:

Jane Doe Gooder: Ever done something nice for somebody and wonder why? I'm questioning myself right now!

Ok, let's get this straight. I used to live a life of "do", then wait for affirmation, then pat myself on the back, then do again and wait for more affirmation. But what happened for me was that when I didn't get the affirmation, my feelings got hurt, my heart hardened and I no longer felt like giving anybody anything. What was wrong with people didn't they understand the effort I put in to making their day better? Wasn't my gift amazing enough to deem a simple accolade? Then loud and clear in God's sweet and simple way, He asked the same of His gift to me. Wasn't my gift enough for you? But here is the difference. My attitude in giving was certainly not the same as the Heavenly Father's attitude of giving. He gave because He loved me. He gave because He wanted to give. I was giving to get, which is not giving at all.

Matthew 6:3-4 But when you give to the needy (or to those you love), do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing (give so often and so much that it becomes like breathing, involuntary), so that your giving may be in secret (even a secret from yourself). Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Forgive me for the parenthetical paraphrase, but it gets my point across through this scripture.  Like breathing, you don't think about EVERY breath you take until its hard to breathe.  I want to practice giving so I stop thinking about giving and it does not become hard to give.

So, update your spiritual status and let us all know "what's on your mind".  Imagine if Jesus had a facebook and recounted everything through his status.

"Ungrateful people.  Fed thousands then told them the Good News and they all left."

"Being crucified tomorrow.  Probably won't be on here for a while.  At least three days."

"Funniest thing happened today.  I walked on water and Peter fell in.  Too funny. LOL!"

Ok, probably not with that attitude, but ......

God bless your every breath today!

Love.

B-, C+ and She Daydreams in Class

Most of my school years were described with the above, with some "talks too much in class" thrown in and a little bit of "she is a great student".  Everything I needed to know I learned in ........ just rang through my head and frankly still does.  I am such a daydreamer no matter where or what I am doing, my mind is wandering here and there.  Things to do.  Oh, why?  Seriously, why?  I can't take it with me when I leave this earth, so why?  Thank goodness that pile of laundry will not follow me to the heavens!  Although for my sis-in-law, she's love it.  She loves laundry.  Ick.

I have been on an average path my whole life.  Eh, whatever.  C'est la vie.  Whatever shall be, shall be.  It's killing my exercise routine among other things. I find my time sucked out of my day by things that I can't even recall their existence when I lay my head on the pillow rather than those things I really need to be doing, focusing on and making a priority. I love to sometimes be anywhere but where I am.  Like I am more secure in the depths of my fantastic imagination than anywhere in my reality.  It happens with my devotionals on a daily basis.  I'm in God's word and daydreaming about what awaits me later that day.  Or I justify multi-tasking my quiet time by doubling it up with reading my emails.  You know, the subscribed daily devotionals...... yea, not the same.

I do not believe that the daydreaming process is a bad behavior inherently, but getting out of hand like mine does, it does become somewhat of a life sucking manifestation of my spiritual journey.  When I find myself not staying on track with my daily quiet time and bible study I become distracted more easily and find that my daydreams become these thoughts of wild, weird, awful events and travels that just overwhelm my thoughts.  Last few weeks I've been convinced that I have some sort of life threatening disease because of a strange pain I've never felt before.  I have come to understand that the pain is derivative of the 15+ pound hunk of baby fat I tote around 10 to 11 hours out of the day.  But because I have resorted to finding other ways to take up my time, i.e. Netflix, Facebook, randomness and have not stayed the course with my walk with God, I let in all kinds of negative influences on my life.  I don't really know if I am disease ridden, but highly doubtful.  What I do know is that I am going to need more of my Heavenly Father's influence in my life to cope with something like that.  To bring me hope, joy.  "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind" in Romans 12 is so true.  Both ways, good and bad.  You will transform your mind if you fill it with drivel, you will get slime and sludge and nothing of substance.  If you fill it with the all powerful wisdom from the God above you will find hope and peace and joy in this crazy life here on earth.

I'm up for the joy.  How about you?

Christ brings us new life through the transforming power of his love.  Take a moment this week.  I am going to try.  And try without daydreaming about silliness, but daydreaming about those heavenly things, that's where I'll start.

And then, there was this on my blog page to the right of my new post and I thought it was worth sharing here.

Eumorpha pandorus, yea bless you!

This darling little (ha!) creature was hanging out on our screened door the other day at the crack of dawn because we forgot to turn off the front porch light from the night before.  Holy moly.  He, or she, was huge!  Of course, I had to go wake up Sarah so she could take a look at it and do her normal researching to find out "what the world" it was.  Hence the pictures that follow.  Eumorpha pandorus, or otherwise know as the Pandorus Sphinx Moth, is it's correct identification.  Pretty amazing creature.  Even more mind boggling is that the caterpillar from whence it came is a bold red fat looking guy with white spots!  God is amazing to detail, isn't he?

Then there was this guy:

We don't know exactly what in the world he was except really ticked off and very grouchy!  Our cat tried to figure it out, but to no avail.  It has monstrous looking pinchers and funky wings!  It was on attack with those pinchers going crazy.

So, when Sarah is not doing her entomology, she has taken on a new venture!!  Vegan dog treats!  I would love to go into some wild story about wanting to get my dogs on a raw diet and what-not, but really it's just because I am too cheap to buy dog treats at the store and I had all of these ingredients in my cabinets!

So, here ya go:

1 1/2 cup water and 3 tbs vegetable oil in the mixer and mixed a bit.

Mix together 3 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1/2 oatmeal, 1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds, 1/2 cup diced carrots, 1/2 cup diced celery in a separate bowl then add it to the water and oil and mix.

Roll out onto the counter after kneading it a bit.  (Rolling it into the shape of the state of Louisiana is completely optional.)  Roll about 1/4" thickness and cut into whatever shape floats your boat or butters your toast.

She was doing these for training bits, so small rectangles is what we were going for here.

The actual recipe said to cut into dog bones and she tried a few of those and was glad we did small rectangles for the rest!

And Virginia and Chantilly are happy campers so far!

Life, it's worse than I thought

So, life's been busy around here.  Yadda, yadda, yadda and all those other excuses of why I haven't blogged in weeks, months, a while.  

So, yea, whatever.

It's all good.  Ran a couple of races, but my running has dwindled to a halt, until my schedule lets up enough for me to get some sleep and wake up early to do it!  Ok, enough excuses with that too.

Working keeping this cutie pie below, homeschooling, housework, veganizing the fridge, the garden and the bellies, etc.  

Great news is that we have a garden this year and we have been harvesting mostly lettuce and radishes thus far, due to a late start, due to some other excuses I could plug in here, but won't.  I did actually pick the first of our cucumber and squashes yesterday!  How exciting is that?!

Life is good.  Life is busy.  Life is, well, life.

This picture of these sweet pea plants grabbing the fence is my favorite.  Why, you ask?  Well, thanks for asking and for reading all the way to the bottom today! Because this is how I feel right now.  I feel as though I am constantly grasping on to the fence and wrapping my fingers around it so tight just to hang on!  I've been wrestling with issues that I never thought I'd ever have to get in the ring with and do battle.  I am shocked at myself.  I sometimes look in the mirror as if it's a strange person standing there and just giving her that "what the heck are you doing" look.  And there I am looking back not knowing where to begin to explain my actions or lack of action.  It's weird.  Holding on for dear life, looking down at the dirt below, scrambling up the fence just to get closer to the sun, or son, in my case.  Wanting to feel the warmth on my face.  Wanting to know the peace He brings.  Wondering how I got here.  Wondering how long I'll be here.  Not letting go.  Knowing that the answer lies in the climb.  Holding on for dear life.

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

~Matthew 6:32-33

Gone

This describes so much of my life right now.

Top 10 (In no particular order) Gone Things:

1.  My two oldest boys as they "live" and "love" in Colorado.
2.  The race I've trained for since November is over and done with.
3.  The 40 pounds I am to never see again.
4.  Any clothes that actually fit.
5.  My dreams of being "America's Next Top Model".  I think my age did for me on this one.  Hehe.
6.  The ounce of sanity I once had.  I now need to unbusy my life.  I am feeling the effects of going, going, going.
7.  My fear of dying while running a 10k.
8.  The desire to consume large amounts of food.  My appetite is quite tame now.  Amazing.
9.  The awesome cooking skills I used to have when searing a piece of meat.  Now, just average.  Oh well.
10.  The want for the next thing.  I am content where I am.  God is good.

My competitive side? NOT!

In my training for this 10k next month I have endured things unimaginable to myself.  Never did I think I could run more than 2 minutes at a time, ha!  Now we're running 50 minutes to over an hour!  Never did I think I could run UPhill.  This one makes me giggle.  Really?  Like you can't suck it up and get your booty up the hill, Shannon?  Ok, so I'm a complete weanie-head in this area.  So, my friend that is helping me train tries to find that one thing that will make me forget the pain, or lack of oxygen to my brain, that would motivate me to run the  whole hill and not just give up and walk part of it.  I realized something.  I suck at being motivated to do something that causes me pain and makes me want to puke.  Odd, isn't it?  I know I need to do this to be in the best shape possible for this race.  She has tried so hard to help me in this area.  "Just imagine if Jesus is up there at the top holding out his arms waiting for you."  Then I think, "but if its really Jesus then he will forgive my weaknesses and hug me anyway, right?  Blessed are the weak who have to walk their big ole booty up the hill.  That's biblical right?"  Needless to say, it didn't motivate me.  What does that say about me?!  Then she moved on to other tactics.  "Just picture your daughter up there needing her mother and you have to get to her in a hurry.  Come on, she needs you.  She's waiting."  You know what I did?  I let her down.  I failed.  I suck.  Yep. You guessed it, I walked part of that hill.  She literally had to get behind me and help me run by pushing me up the hill!  Holy moly!  Seriously, Shannon?  You can't even be motivated by that?  What does that say about me?!  I got to the top and she cheered me on, but all I could think about was how I let my daughter down.  How I made her wait because I was too out of breath or lazy or tired or sore to make it to her.  I cried like a freakin' baby.  WTheck?!  Then as I was wallowing in my selfish self-pity tears running down the road I stepped to the edge of the road and twisted my ankle. BOOGERS!!  Immediately in my undeserving beating up of my character God shoved me off the road with a great big, "Really?  That's where you're going with this?  It was only a scenario not the real thing!  You know you would be running on adrenaline if it were true and you would've been there in lightning speed.  Get a grip and turn it off!"

My character has been training as well during this time.  Running is definitely a mental game.  Learning how to run through certain situations no matter how painful or inconvenient it becomes is just a fact of life that I've had to work through.  Amazing how it correlates to  the rest of my life, my spiritual walk, my everyday stuff, etc.  I'm learning how to suck it up.  I'm also learning how to give myself a break, mentally.  I'm also learning that my focus must always be on the Almighty Heavenly Father who is in control of all things.

I will remain thankful everyday for the opportunities I have to run, to walk, to eat, to breathe.  Another day to continue to work in the will of God to his glory.  What will it be today, God?  How big is the hill?  Bring it on. I think.