Wallow and self pity or Do and Be - choice is yours, results are a world of difference

Do you ever see another woman and think "I sure wish I could be more like her?"  Of course you do.  We all do.  We see a thinner woman and think "I sure wish I looked that good."  We see a mom with a passel of kids and a huge smile on her face and think "I sure wish I had her patience and joy." 

Generally when I begin looking at other women and thinking these things it turns out poorly.  I look at them in that one instant in time and envy someone I know nothing/little about.  How ridiculous is that?  Pretty darn if you ask me.  It makes me feel poorly about myself.  I don't know about any of you but when I feel poorly about myself I tend to withdraw, from my children, from my husband, from my friends.  I live in a little bubble of self pity and self hatred and as I said that just isn't good.

But today I realized that sometimes I look at women and I think "I sure wish I could be more like her."  And then instead of wallowing, I get up, and I make an effort to be more like whatever trait that person displayed that I want to have.  Mostly these are women I go to church with.  Women I know in passing as we each run off in our own directions to wrangle our children on Sunday mornings.  Women who have inspired me to BE more generous, more giving, more selfless.  Women who are showing me in snippets of their character what it is to be like Jesus.  Sometimes it's helpful to see someone else living out the character traits of Jesus, to see what it looks like in real life.  Sometimes it gives you the nudge you needed to change to be more like Him.  These women would probably be surprised if I walked up to them and told them what an inspiration they are to me in this way.  I know that they too probably sit in their homes and sometimes struggle with impatience, and selfishness, and laziness, and just plain "don't wanna"-ness.  But we're human so that's really to be expected.  The defining moment though is when we look at another person and choose to DO, to BE rather than to WALLOW and PITY ourselves. 

So when you see another woman who is doing something you want to do and being something you want to be, don't wallow, don't pity yourself, get up and do, get up and be.  It's MUCH more rewarding than wallowing.  Trust me.  I know from experience.

Children and cleaning.... a lesson I've learned

I learned something.  Right now it is 12:33am and a bit ago I got back up out of bed because I couldn't sleep.  I was upset about something and well I decided that since I wasn't sleeping anyway I should tackle the disaster that is currently my kitchen while everyone else was asleep and the house was peaceful.  To tell you the truth though it felt creepy more than peaceful at this time of night. lol  Anyway while bustling about the kitchen unloading the dishwasher and re-loading it I was thinking about how frustrated and burnt out I felt tonight when KOJ got home.

I've spent the last three days cleaning and organizing.  On Sunday I started a giant re-organization project that touched EVERY room of the house but the bathroom.  So by the time we went to bed Sunday night the house was in shambles.  I've spent the last two days working diligently at putting everything back together only better.  No worries a post with pics to come later this week... maybe next week.  Soon. 

In my cleaning frenzy I've been trying to get the kids to occupy themselves, using the tv as a babysitter more than I like, and just getting really annoyed at having to go back and re-do something I just did because there's a 16 mo old in the house.

See:

She's totally cute (see her first pig tails!) but she's a trouble maker by nature.

Anyway I was pondering in the kitchen about WHY I've been so burnt out.  And I realized that I hadn't been feeling burnt out the last week or two because I'd gotten into a routine of sharing the burden with the kids.  We had gotten into a rhythm of the kids helping.  It isn't always consistent.  It's not always the same task or the same time of day but when things needed to get done I would have the kids help.  They are learning responsibility and it's leaving ME less burnt out.  Only I hadn't realized that yet.  Until tonight.  Now I know.

I know that it is more important for me to spend my time with my children and include them in these things.  Even though it will take longer, not be done as perfectly, and there will often be whining.  I need to let go of the ideal I have in my head of the perfectly clean and organized home.  I need to continue to do the best I can but not lose sight of the fact that it's the kids that are my main priority.  Having an orderly home is for their benefit.  Not the benefit of others.  And if there are cheerios on the floor even though I just swept the dining room for the third time today, oh well.  And if the living room only gets vacuumed once a week we'll live.  I don't want to be a lazy slob anymore but I also don't want to be neurotic about how clean the house is either.  As with just about every area of life and parenting the key is balance.  If someone finds the key let me know, I'd love a copy!

Feeling inadequate

So often in my life I have felt inadequate.  I have felt undeserving of any compliment of my mothering, wifing, housekeeping.  I have felt like the biggest sham on the face of the planet.

I think that this was two fold.  On the one hand I felt like I was able to put on a decent front in front of other people and so they believed me to be something that I was not behind closed doors.  And on the other hand I made assumptions about the other person's idea of this or that.  For example if someone told me that I had such well behaved kids in public then I felt like a sham because let's face it behind closed doors they are no angels.  I made an assumption that the person has this idea that my children are always well behaved.  But perhaps this person has had children or been around children and knows that sometimes them not whacking each other over the smallest thing (usually a toy car) is great behavior.  Perhaps their comment is TRUE.  Perhaps they don't care what my children act like outside of the grocery store.

I have felt similarly about my home.  I try my best and I've made huge strides this year.  Strides that I'm proud of.  As I glance around my home right now and see toys all over the living room floor, laundry needing to be put all the way away, and knowing that there are dishes on the counter and the floors need swept.  I also know that I worked hard today and that this is just the result of living with four small children.  I didn't used to know that.  I didn't used to feel that it was ok for the house to not always be lived in and it's ok to accept, graciously, compliments given to me by others who happen upon my house on a good day.  I mean really, the house didn't clean itself.  I know because I've tried to let it in the past and it just doesn't cooperate.

All that to say that I feel free.  On this issue of housekeeping and the pressures I once felt, I feel free.  On the issue of parenting my children and the pressures I once felt, I feel free.  I feel free to ignore the assumed pressures from other sources and focus on what KOJ and I believe is important to teach our children.  I feel free to go to bed without washing that last dish and with a laundry hamper still flowing with laundry.  There's always tomorrow.  And really as long as I've loved my children well TODAY and put them to bed with lots of love.  And as long as I've loved KOJ well today and go to bed at peace with him then well, that's all the housekeeping I need to concern myself with at the end of a long day.  There's always tomorrow to wash that dish, put away that laundry, and have that little argument over something that will be completely meaningless within a few hours.

I think that the biggest changes in me over this last year have had little to do with housekeeping and EVERYTHING to do with finding some contentment and fulfillment in God.  A recent verse in my bible study on contentment was from Psalm 139.  I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  God knew my heart before I was ever born and He knows all the days of my life.  He created me especially to be me.  Finding a peace with that has just been amazing.  It is what has lead to the sense of freedom I feel.

It also lead to being more on top of an issue I've long struggled with.  My weight.  I'm not perfect.  Some days are better than others.  But I'm trying and taking it one day at a time.  If I screw up today, there's no reason in the world I can't pick myself up and do better tomorrow and in that mind set I'm very happy to say that I'm currently at a 14lb weight loss.  It's just a small dent in the long term goal but it makes me able to face myself in the mirror everyday.  Just knowing that I'm doing something about it makes me feel better about myself.  My clothes are starting to fit better too.  I can't wait for the day that I can move down a size.  Eek, so exciting.

The feelings of inadequacy still sometimes try to settle in and I try my hardest to pray and remember who I am in God.  It really helps a lot.  But I do still have my struggles.  Life isn't completely perfect, after all we're still here in this fallen world.