Mommin' It Up!

July 25, 2008

First-Time Offender

Last Saturday after a family get-together, Sophie and I were happily cruisin’ along home via the rural state route off of which my hubby’s sailing club is located when I looked up and saw a State Trooper coming toward me on the other side of the road. I quickly looked down at my speedometer. It said 70. The speed limit was 55. I knew I was toast. Crap!!

Sure enough, the trooper turned around and flipped his lights on, and thus at the age of 30, I got my first speeding ticket. He clocked me at 71, and the fine was $175. That’s right, one hundred seventy-five-freakin’-dollars!! A little steep, I think. Champaign County must be hurtin’ for cash. But alas, I was guilty. I knew I was. It just would’ve felt a lot better if I had meant to speed. I’d much rather be punished for a crime I intended to commit than for one I totally didn’t mean to at all. I was just driving along…not even paying attention. There was no one else really on the road out there in the sticks. Just me and the cop.

At least the trooper was nice. Right away he told me that Sophie was adorable (adorable enough to get me out of a ticket? Apparently not.) I probably would have cried if he had been mean to me. Last year we got pulled over in Indianapolis when Bobby was driving, and the trooper was a complete jerk for no reason. He was a disgrace to his profession. We had two sleeping kids in the back of the car and he treated us like we were hiding meth under the seats or something. Ugh. But anyway, while I was waiting for Good Cop to write my ticket up, Sophie kept saying “uh-oh, uh-oh!” Truer words were ne’er spoken, little girl! He wrote my ticket up and gave me my instructions for payment and/or court (I’ll take payment, thanks so much. I’d love to spend $700 in gas to come back out here and see you again, but I have to wash my hair that day. So.), and sent me on my way, admonishing me to “be safe.” Which I guess means drive 55.

So, my friends, that’s my sob story. Crime doesn’t pay. Unless you are the Champaign County Municipal Court, in which case my crime just paid you $175.

You’re welcome.

Now, please tell me some of you other ladies out there are criminals like me!

July 7, 2008July 7, 2008

What Keeps You Up at Night?

I don’t sleep very well. I don’t have insomnia, and I usually don’t have too terrible of a time falling asleep, but I have a hard time staying a asleep and I dream, dream, dream all night.

So, I don’t sleep very well, due to some as-yet-undiagnosed problems. But you know what? As contradictory as this may sound, not much keeps me up at night.

I didn’t used to be this way. Falling asleep used to be very difficult for me. My mind would race, refusing to shut down. I worried long and hard while I longed to sleep. It was very frustrating but I couldn’t stop my anxieties from whispering in my ear while I tried to wind down. I worried about money and work, mostly. You see, I never did love being a working girl. (Not that kind of working girl! I know you were thinking it, Jill!!) The seven or so years I had a career, I didn’t enjoy all that much. Even though I loved the last job I had before I started staying home, I didn’t love the responsibility that went with it. Having a family, I felt, was truly all the responsibility I could handle. But I am a person who wants to give her all and excel at all that is entrusted to her. It was excruciatingly difficult for me to work, even part-time, and have a family, because I wanted to do both perfectly.

But I am getting off-topic. About two years ago, I met my best friend Luanne. We met at church and she soon invited me to a Bible study she hosted in her home. One of those very first nights at her home, I heard her say the words, “I don’t really worry about anything. Not much keeps me up at night.”

My jaw about hit the floor. I asked her to clarify. Worrying was second nature for me. I had to try NOT to worry, and I almost always failed.

She simply replied that since she had given her life to God, she was his, and so were her problems. “He’s my provider,” she said, “and he has never let me down. Lots of people in my life have let me down. Not God. Not ever.”

I had, at this point, been a Christian most of my life, about 20 years, and I had never truly realized that God is my provider. Maybe it is because my life had been pretty “easy”. Isn’t that crazy? I think I felt that I needed to make all the right decisions in life and that by doing so I could control my fortunes. But all that “being in control” brought me were struggles and sleepless nights.

After that night, I began working on simply trusting God to provide for my family’s needs. It is harder than it sounds, for a professional worrier like me. A few months later, for a lot of reasons, Bobby and I decided I would quit my job. When you looked at the math, it didn’t seem possible. However, we both really felt it was what God wanted. So we took the leap of faith and I quit! And guess what? We have wanted for nothing. Because even though it didn’t look like it was possible, with God, EVERYTHING IS TOTALLY POSSIBLE!! We aren’t exactly rollin’ in the dough, but we have everything we need, and all our bills have been paid. God is so good! He has been so gracious also to bring couponing into my life. I know that sounds nerdy, but before I started couponing, I was never able to give things to others. Now I get to give simple, every day necessities to friends, family, complete strangers, and charitable organizations – with little or no cost to me – while also providing for my family’s needs. How amazing is that? What a gift!

I know that I usually don’t blog on spiritual subjects, but if I can share with you all the frequency of my children’s bowel movements and regurgitations, I think I should be able to share with you that I am a follower of Christ! Because if you don’t know that about me, you really don’t know where I’m coming from. Whether I am writing about breastfeeding or barfing, I am always writing as a hopelessly flawed person whose life has been completely redeemed by Jesus Christ.

All that to say that two years after Luanne’s words about worry shocked me, I’ve grown in my faith, and honestly, besides some silly dreams, not much keeps me up at night. I can’t begin to express how thankful I am for that fact.

So tell me, friends and neighbors, what keeps you up at night?

June 6, 2008June 6, 2008

Please Join Me for My Pre-Vacation Freak Out!!

You are cordially invited to join me as I freak out the night before I leave for vacation. Which is now. Tomorrow night (well as I write this it’s almost midnight, so it’s practically tonight!) after Bobby gets off work, we are packing the kids up in the ol’ station wagon and heading off on a seven-hour drive to the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. Ok, actually we are only driving halfway there tomorrow night ’cause I Pricelined us a sweet deal on a 3-star hotel in Charleston, WV. But the real reason we are only driving halfway is because a) Sophie is a terrible traveller, and b) because my parents live on top of a mountain, 4 miles up a very winding road with absolutely no light whatsoever and driving there at night with a cranky 18-month-old is just not fun! Or good for my nerves.

Oh, did I mention we are going to my parents’ vacation home? Did I mention that I NEVER IN MY LIFE thought I’d ever use the phrases “my parents” and “vacation home” in the same sentence? Well, much to my surprise, my parents got crazy a couple of years ago and built a house on top of a mountain 7 hours from where we all live. This is the area where my dad grew up, and apparently you can take the boy out of the mountains, but you can’t take the mountains out of the boy, or something like that. ANYHOO, my parents’ FORTIETH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY is this Sunday. Can you believe that?? FORTY YEARS!! AMAZING!! So my family, and my brothers and their families (8 grandkids in all!) are all going up tp the moutaintop for a big ol’ happy family celebration!!

I am really excited, but I am sooooo not ready to go! My bags aren’t packed, the laundry’s not done, and very few things on my huge list are crossed off. I made a last-minute trip to CVS and Target tonight to get random crap we need and now I’m just tired. Tired, tired, tired! Can I just click my heels together and be there please? With no long Sophie-screaming car ride and no sleepless night in a hotel with Sophie crawling all over me??? Please?? Beam me up, Scotty!!

Allright. I’ve got to get Joshua’s underwear out of the dryer. Somehow today I managed to do all the kids’ laundry EXCEPT Joshua’s underwear. I am a true TALENT, I tell ya what!! Good thing the college town at the bottom of the mountain in Virginia has a Wal-Mart in case I forget any essentials. And guess what ELSE they have?? A CVS!!!! And there’s another one in the next town over!! Woo-hoo!! Maybe my dad is right, and Virginia IS the Promised Land. I guess I’ll find out…if I ever get done packing!