whodunnit? oh wait, ME!

i've had a majorly grumpy past week and a pretty altogether unsatifying few months. i don't know if it's pregnancy hormones, being off my magic pills, the fact that i am just a spoiled brat or some combination of all 3.

.

nothing anyone could do would make me happy. it was awful. on day i would be freaking out about how hard it is to take care of a one year old, and then the next, while he was spending the night with his grandparents, giving me my sought after freedom, i would be hating the world (and taking it out on jesse) because i was so bored and there was nothing for us to do and was missing the little guy. wherever i was i was just nonstop disappointed. ugh.

.

looking back on the whole thing just makes me want to take a shower and wash that whole attitude off of myself. like forever.

.

jesse was being amazing and trying to help me get to the root of where this prickly disgruntlement was coming from. he said, "okay, how would you write your story differently? let's say you could repaint the picture of your life; what would it look like?" just like the awesome donald miller book that he got this idea from; that got me thinking.

.

for one, i thought if i really could start it all over i would have us on the mission field somewhere. africa. haiti. somewhere rough. me+america is a bad combination. when i was a little kid and was being impossible my dad used to say, "all you know is what you want." that was hard to hear but it's still very true. i tend toward pretty extreme self-centeredness. i don't know if i am a product of this entitled, gimme-gimme american culture or if it's just my sidekick and egger-on to the selfish junk that already lives in my heart.

.

i am not good at doing things in shades of gray. if i decide to get healthy i have to force myself exercise and eat right every single day by removing even the possibility of temptation or i won't stick with it. if i have the opportunity to do the easy, lazy thing, i am most likely going to take it. right now, it feels like the same goes for my whole outlook. i know how i should live and act and treat people, even in a culture that tells me the opposite, but i am so lacking in self-control that it would take to pull this off while being so comfortable and with all of my needs met in an instant that i feel like it would be "easier" (even though it would in reality be so much harder in so many tangible ways) to just extricate myself from here and relocate to a place where the spoiled, entitled, "world, bend to my will" mentality just couldn't survive.

.

a few times in the past few months i have been so ready. i have prayed to god to just light up the sky with the name of some country that we are supposed to drop it all and move to. i will sell it all, give it all up: the volvo, the krystal, the air conditioning. but he hasn't. and it would be retarded of me to think that trying to escape the evils of one culture is reason and motivation enough to go "serve" in another without really having a genuine heart for that place first and foremost.

.

okay, so then i tried to repaint my life HERE and picture what it would look like. to rewrite my story and use the absolute power and control i have always wanted. at least if i could construct this fantasy world in my head, it could be a happy place that i can go to when i am stressed. but i am sitting there trying to rewrite it and i am thinking about the characters. i am making all my supporting actors do what i think they should and act in ways that make my life easier or better and, freak me, i am having to rewrite EVERYONE. and then it flipping hits me.

.

i am the bad guy in my own story.

.

if i was reading the book of my life, i would so be like, "shut up, shut UP! you stupid spoiled bee-atch! you have everything that anyone could ever want and all you do is spend your time complaining it away and having pity parties at the slightest discomfort. you are a horrible character and i want to skip all the pages that you are on!" barf. it's true. when i get in these "woe is me, nothing is going my way" moods, i am a very unpleasant character.

.

in analyzing my story, i was trying to think of the worst thing that has ever happened to me. i couldn't come up with anything. geez. i should be sunshine and sprinkles to the entire world around me nonstop. but that is often not the case. instead i just want more. more ease, more comfort, less being stretched and challenged and more everyone just do what i say!

.

it's all over the bible that hardships should be seen as blessings and that suffering accomplishes good in us and that by faithfully enduring hard things we can enter the kingdom of god. hmmmm, okay. well, i don't want to sit around asking for super life-changing bad crap to happen to me so that i can faithfully endure, but cripes, even in the little tiny "hardships" that do come my way, i consistently drop the ball.

.

my father-in-law loves to quote romans 5:3- "we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

.

if the heart change that paul talks about was video game and the goal is to get to hope through perseverance and character, born of suffering, and beating the game was on the level where you received this awesome life-giving hope, well, shit, i am stuck on level one just making a muddy swamp out of my tiny, jumped-up sufferings and feeling such extreme disappointment while god promises that the hope earned though perseverance and character DOES NOT DISAPPOINT. i am making such a big loud fuss about how my sufferings are so disappointing. well, genius, the reason is right there, you are trying to skip all the levels in between and just have the disappointment AND suffering removed without beating any of the bosses in between.

.

hear me now, this is not a sobfest where i want a bunch of my friends to tell me that i am not the bad guy (i even considered turning off the comments on this post to prevent that, but i would love to hear any other thoughts y'all have). this is me coming out and saying, "i have blown it, jesus, i repent of all the times you have gently given me little opportunities to faithfully endure and persevere and earn character and hope and instead have revelled in self-indulgent disappointment and put-on martyrdom. i want to grow to live completely with a hope that doesn't disappoint no matter what the circumstances and i ask you for the strength and courage to seize the opportunities to do so with a faithful heart and attitude. also, could you please be gentle and LOUD at first since i am a moron and probably won't get it and definitely won't like it at first."

.

so yeah. it's out there. i just reread what i wrote and it doesn't make a lot of sense, but i feel like i said what i needed to and purged the junk that was clogging up my soul. this is pretty much me giving permission to jesse and whomever else to call me out on being a little brat and to help keep me accountable and aware that when i am feeling crappy and grumpy and like the world is conspiring against me, A: it probably isn't, and B: now's my chance to get some of that character stuff. the cool thing is that if i can get this down, even a little bit, it will work anytime, any place; so i won't need to rewrite my entire life or relocate our whole family just to be able to have the life i want and the fruit of god's promises. just as suffering can find you no matter where you are or what you have or who you're with; so can a hope that promises not to disappoint no matter the conditions. i'll have some of that, please.

unloading some miscellany

-judah decided to jump some developmental hurdles this weekend (at my parents' house, of course) and now says car ("cah"), banana ("na-na-na"), ball ("bah") and he now also waves at the appropriate times.

.

-i chopped off about 15 inches of my hair on saturday. no, i didn't donate it because it isn't virgin hair since i highlight it. stupid, slutty hair. but i feel like i got let out of prison losing that snarl-fest!

.

-judah is lucky enough to get 2 birthdays almost every year since he was born on both may 25th AND memorial day. this is cool because we will always have a day off work and school to spend with him doing whatever he wants for his birthday. this year he played with the grandvincents and then we had an awesome porky BBQ meal at J.R.'s where judah went into the spazziest run and flap and nevereverstoporslowdown spell i have ever seen from him. it was hilarious.

.

-i went shopping for some summer maternity clothes at about 3 different stores this weekend and got a total of NOTHING. i did come away with some serious self-loathing and an appreciation for the 3 shirts and 1 pair of pants that i actually feel human in. me+pregnant+summer in georgia+the AC in my car sometimes just stops+only having full length jeans to wear=an epic season of swampass.

.

-today is/was judah's due date. i still sometimes think 6/1 is his birthday. thanks for coming early, little man, please convince your bro/sis to do the same.

.

-for the first year ever (well, maybe last year was, we were in the hospital) our little town decided to have a massive fireworks display for memorial day right at dark. apparently they used our backyard as the launching point because at 9:30 as i was just drifting out of my book and off to peaceful slumber, a machine-gun wielding maniac starting firing rounds at rebels from directly behind our bedroom wall. or at least that's what it felt like. i unleashed about 10 gallons of adrenaline into my bloodstream and proceeded to compose the angry letter to the mayor in my head during the full 20 minute show. fireworks are only for new years, 4th of july and every day in mexico. or so i thought. they are so lucky they didn't wake up judah. i would have stormed downtown in my night mu-mu and laid a bra-free flopsy beatdown on the entire municipality.

.

-i learned a really cool trick for cell phone etiquette. this is a constant bickering point between me and jesse and his iphone and the constant texts he gets from youth kids and little internet voyages he decided to take at random moments when we are together. here's the rule: if it would be rude to pull out a crossword puzzle and start working on it, it's not kosher to start fiddling on your phone. i love it!

.

-we are soclose to disconnecting our cable for a trial month. there's no good TV on right now anyway (so you think you can dance is the exception) and we want to give it a fair shot and see if our life/marriage/family situation is improve over the interval. i can tell you it will definitely be back on when i go on maternity leave in november because there aren't many things that keep me sane while breastfeeding, but TV is one of them. i so wish we had done the "no TV for the first year of marriage" thing that some couples do. we are addicted and it does us no good.

giveaway 80 results

*if you wanna try your hand judah's birthday picture game for funsies go here before you read this post.

.

i should have invited all of y'all to judah's birthday party so you could regulate on the game. you guys did so much better than the day-of participants, averaging about 7 correct answers to their less than 4! here's how y'all did (feel free to check and make sure i graded you right):

.

2-betsy (maybe it was hard with no lamb there for comparison!)

.

4-courtney and carter's mommy (who won the dedication award for printing out the pictures!)

.

5-joanna (though her mind may have been elsewhere since she got married last saturday!)

.

6-allie, candi and adrienne

.

but wait! there was some major drama at the buzzer between the highest scorers. when i posted the collage i accidentally put E in twice and left out C. before i could fix it, merran filled in her responses so she only had 11 answers. but, depending on her placement of C she was either going to have 10 right and be tied as grand champion OR put it in the wrong place and have only 8 right putting her in a tie for second. after her write-in ballot it turns out that she switched C and G making the final placement as follows:

.
8-mikki, erica, steph and merran (seriously amazing)
.

10-lori (TEN!?!?! dem skillz)

.
click the "read more" link below this little teaser pic to see the correct progression and to read some more fun facts about how you all did:

Read more »