It's a Trap!

As you may remember, I spent the length of my summer off, battling critters far and wide in our little piece of home at the edge of the woods. It was a tough summer on my sanity.

The chickens really caught my imagination and I tried to figure out exactly how the eggs that I would find would be getting fertilized. I spent the summer trying to understand the workings of chicken sex.

I went to my neighbor, Farmer Brown, during the summer and let him know that his chickens had indeed been living at my house, roosting in my dogwood tree, and laying eggs in nests around the yard, under the porch, and a rather unsuccessful attempt next to the trash can.

The bear, of course, trampled all over the eggs in the nest in an attempt to open the trash can (which Z pronounces crash tan and every time I type it, I here her saying it in my head over and over).

My sanity this summer was held fast only by one very thin line of fishing wire, I suppose.

Farmer Brown shrugged off all of this information and said that "When it gets cold, they'll come on home. I don't feed them in the spring and summer, they can find their own food." I thought this an odd statement but went about my merry way, thinking that sometime in the winter the chickens would indeed find their place in this world.

It never got cold this winter. I now understand chicken sex. I get to see it every morning.  The chickens live in my yard, they roost in my tree, they eat the vegetables and table scraps that I throw out for them (although I will not put chicken out there for them, that would be wrong). Chickens eat every type of food, which I didn't know before.

They still lay eggs all around the yard, although they are getting craftier with where they build there nests so that the humans will not get too close to them. Neither of the hens are actually nesting right now, I guess that it may be too dangerous to nest on the ground or too cold in the chill of the night air.

Z hates the chickens. Really hates the chickens. She builds traps and mazes for the chickens so that she can "set them on fire and eat them for dinner". I may be raising a sociopath (or psychopath? How do you know?).

The chickens are not the only things that Z builds traps for. Upon learning that Blade and A got money from the tooth fairy for their teeth, she has been trying to build a trap in anticipation for the day (a few years from now) that she will lose her tooth. She knows that the tooth fairy brings money for teeth and she has decided to keep her so that no other children will be able to get the money.

And now you know the real reason that we never have guests over. People that enter, seldom leave. 

When Being Strong Is Not Enough

This would have been what I was saying before I had a relationship with God. 

The Hubs lost his job on Wednesday. We don't know why, don't understand how this could have happened, and we may never know all of the details that led to their decision.

I believe that God is all over this sudden change in our situation and I am okay with that.

I used to hear people say all the time, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." While there is some validity to this statement, my reply has always been, "How strong does God need me to be?".

I had an epiphany yesterday on the way to meet my family for lunch. God doesn't need me to be strong at all. He needs me to know that He is strong enough for me to lean on. Not just in the good times when it is easy to have faith, easy to be His child, and claim my faith in Him, but also in the really tough times when we don't know how we will be able to provide for ourselves and our child and have to trust that He will find a way for us.

That is not to say that there will not still be bad days. Days when all I would really like to do is curl up on the couch, throw a blanket over my head, and try to sleep my way through the really tough parts. But those bad days are not as prevalent in my life as they were before I knew God, before I had a relationship with Him. Those days when I would so easily scream and curse and rail against a maker that I didn't know, couldn't understand the reasoning. Those days that come back at me every single day as I realize how stupid and young I really was.

While today is a day that I would rather not do anything, that I am in a funk over this situation, and ready to just throw my hands in the air, instead, I will praise our God who is making changes in our life to help us, to better us, to make us stronger and more capable for His kingdom. The God of the whole universe cares about my little family and loves each one of us so much that He refuses to let us sit in stagnation.

That. Well, that is just plain amazing.

"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

~Jeremiah 29:11 

Not Sure What That Was, But I Really Wish I Missed It

On Thursday, although I was feeling okay physically, I had a massively intense headache for the last few hours of the day. By the time I loaded myself into my car to head home, the front part of my head was throbbing and I was certain that it was intent on separating itself from the rest of my body.

I also had the hiccups.

It was a hard day.

Every movement, every breath intensified the headache and each audible hiccup felt like a searing hot poker being jabbed into my temple.

I drank some water, slowly, and the hiccups went away. I was left with just the headache, but I was okay.

I made it through 4 intersections. I got to the only major intersection in my commute and was stopped at a red light. Suddenly, everything was very hot. I was pouring buckets of sweat. I rolled all of the windows down in an effort to cool off.

I tried to swallow, but it was as if the muscles in my throat were tightening against me. Everything started to swim and my mouth began that terrible mouth sweat thing that happens right before you get really sick.

I had options here. I could have just leaned out of the open window and let it all go. I could have opened the car door and leaned down towards the asphalt. I could have unbuckled and stood in the median.

I guess my worry was that this was all just a false alarm and that I would somehow look like an idiot that was holding up the traffic in the turn lane.

Instead, I sat at the light and prayed for it to change. If I could just get to that parking lot, or off onto the side of the road, I would be okay.

BAM! something like a punch to the gut, severe pain ricocheting through my body. There is no stopping what is about to happen and no time to react. I blow my cheeks out in a vain attempt to try to catch the inevitable. When that fails, I throw my hand up in front of my mouth.

Fail.

I drive home, the rest of my 30 minute commute covered in the same vomit that is on my windshield, dashboard, car door, floorboard, seat and console.

Here is the lesson for the day.

Never throw your hands into something like that. It will not turn out well.

In fact, throw caution to the wind, get out of your car (or at the very least lean out of the window), who cares if the anonymous stranger behind you thinks that you are a lunatic? You are saving yourself a lot of heartache in case this does turn out to be the real deal.

I am thankful that no one else in my family got sick, for a husband that had a shower running when I got home, that cleaned out my car while I was in the shower and that also let me sleep for almost 24 straight hours. It's not often that a momma gets to truly take a time out like that.