Mushiness

I have control issues..... there I said it. Anyone that has been around me for awhile has heard me say those words, even my kids understand. I am getting A LOT better, but there are still some areas where I think my hands should be there fixing and maneuvering the situation, and only when I have completely got myself tangled up in a mess; do I step back to ask God for help.
This happened to me many years ago when I was about 21 years old. I had managed to get myself into a relationship that I knew deep down I wasn't supposed to be in, but instead of getting out, I figured I could make it work and fix it. The more it went on, the more I wanted out. Thankfully God gave me a perfect path to cut the strings to that relationship with little regret....two months before the wedding day.......
At that moment I knew I couldn't keep taking charge of things, and I had to let God take control. I got on my knees and prayed for God to take over of my life. I was already a Christian mind you, I had just gotten to the point where I thought I could fix and control things on my own. That very day God opened my eyes fully to my feelings towards Derek. I knew when I opened my door that night, he was the one that God had chosen for me.
Fast forward through time.......and today we celebrate our 12 year Anniversary. I am so thankful for God taking control and giving me a man that loves me completely and faithfully. Who makes me feel secure and safe even when we have to spend yet another Anniversary apart. I am thankful that God has blessed us with 7 children!! How amazing is that?!!
One of the best things that we have done as a couple has been to give our children a loving marriage to look at. I mean, we truly love each other! What you see when you meet us, is honestly what we are like most of the time. Don't get me wrong, our marriage is not perfect- we are not perfect, but we have found a few things that help us in our everyday marriage.
1. Divorce is not an option, we never use the "D" word. Since we know that God brought us together, we would be going directly against God's plan, and we know that is not somewhere we want to be.
2. Forever faithful. We do not worry about each others faithfulness while we are apart, we both have vowed to never even attempt to go down that road. Looking at our children, and knowing the devastation that would leave behind has helped us to stay forever faithful.
3. Promises are promises. Whenever we utter the words "I promise", we know those are sacred words. We never say those words unless we mean them.
4. Laughter is important. Spend 5 minutes with us and you will most likely see us laugh. My husband is hilarious. Laughter can get you through most anything.
5. Money isn't everything. "How do you have money to raise 7 children?" We do because God has given us 7 children so we know he will take care of us. This is a big control area for me!! Hardest area for me to let God in.

I am thankful for my husband who does not suffer from control issues, and happily allows me to wield my imaginary control over things. Even if he does take great joy in taking over now and again and watch me panic. ha!

Happy Anniversary Derek Jason!! I am so glad you have tolerated me after all these years. hahahaha!

Green Acres Is the Place To Be!

We have been living in Missouri now for almost a year and a half. I must say, I actually really like it here! Many people over the years would ask "Do you want to be stationed in Fort Leonard Wood?" My response was always "No way!". I am not sure why I had such a negative opinion of this area, I guess I believed we would be in the middle of hicksville, with little means to entertain ourselves for very long. Now I admit, the town I live in is rather small, the only main store is Walmart (which I have a love/hate relationship with), and few other places to really shop. I have discovered this has actually been a good thing, I can no longer go out and mindlessly spend money on frivolous things just because I want to escape from the house.
 When we did not receive our rent money from our house in Washington for over a year, I had to find creative ways to save some money. One was to make my own laundry soap. I also made my own dishwasher detergent. The laundry soap actually turned out quite well, but the dish washing soap, not so much. But it was fun to at least try! I have now bought cloth napkins to help with reducing waste and money. They are a lot nicer to use anyways, and cute! I have started using cloth hand wipes for when the kids wash their hands, instead of that one hand towel that get drenched in water and yuckiness throughout the day. I still buy paper towels though, because there are some messes I just want to toss in the garbage.
I have discovered different ways to buy my food. I now receive eggs from a local lady in a nearby town who raises her own chickens. Best eggs ever! I now buy most of my produce from organic boxes that come every week. What a difference! One of my favorite things has been buying a quarter cow from a nearby Mennonite family. Delicious! I even bought my first gallon of raw milk from a local Amish family. I now make much of my own bread in my new bread maker. I am still intimidated to do it all on my own yet. :) My last experiment was making my own ketchup, it was easy and super yummy.
I am proud of my changes I have made over this time period, it has been a great growing experience and a great way to start depending on my own solutions instead of items off a super market shelf.  Although there are still a few items I will never give up.... store bought toilet paper and store bought feminine products, I am not THAT country! :)

Words Parents Never Wish to Hear

* Please Note : This blog post is very personal to me. I have prayed about this for many days, and feel led to share an intimate part of my life with others, but I also want to protect other peoples privacy. I am not someone who likes to air their dirty laundry, but also I do not like to put on a happy face when there are things God is working on in me.
When you become a parent there are certain things that you fear and want to protect your child from, and you say from day one what you would do in those situations. One of those situations you as a parent always say..... "If someone was to touch my child, I would ......." You are thinking it in your head right now. What happens though when your child comes to you and tells you that someone you knew did something to them? At that moment your world shatters; your bubble you created for your family has now popped. I know this because it happened to me.
As a parent you never want to even imagine something like that happening to your child, but when you are faced with it, what do you do? Who do you call? Where do you turn? These are all things I had to figure out, places I never wanted to know about, people I hoped to never meet.
I am telling my side of the story because I know sadly it is not uncommon. I am so thankful that God granted me to go numb, I couldn't process things well unless I could shut everything out and just focus on being there for my child and making all the calls and appointments I needed to. The second thing I needed to do was tell my husband. That was a conversation, I wish never existed between us.
Next came all the investigations and interviews. All my children were subjected to questioning, I was questioned, my parenting was questioned, my choices questioned. Talk about humbling!! I started questioning myself over everything and felt that I let my child down, I should have known this person was a monster. I wanted to lock the doors and close all the blinds and cuddle with my kids all next to me..... and we did just that.
Even through everything, I could see God's hand moving through our lives. He brought Derek home at the very time I could not go any farther. We needed time to be a whole family and to heal and to find peace.
One of the hardest things to work through, was the rage. That underlying feeling of knowing you could kill someone and sleep well at night afterwards. Never have I known so clearly, then the moment I was in the courthouse and had to see his face again. At that moment I knew. But even with the rage, I felt God's hand on my shoulder pulling me close to Him. He knew I was angry and hurt, and wanted revenge, but he also knew I needed peace, and love and forgiveness. Have I forgiven, no. Will I someday, yes.
I write this to show you that my life is in no way perfect, but to say I have a perfect God. And even with all the horrible things in my life, it does not compare to eternity with my Lord in Savior in Paradise. The second reason I write this is to tell everyone how truly proud I am of my daughter, for telling me the truth and sharing something so personal and horrible. To then say " I want to tell the police because I never want him to hurt another person." She is stronger then me, and I am glad. Because of her standing up and telling the authorities, they discovered he hurt another girl and he is currently behind bars awaiting his hearing.

She's back!!!

Time to get back into the blogging world. I miss recording our life adventures, our ups and downs. And I am sure people missing reading about them. Ha! 

We are now back on the mainland, in the great state of Missouri. Quite the change huh? Yeah, I was not expecting to enjoy it here as much as I have. 

Derek is now Chief Ganley. :) Very proud that he completed his Warrant Officer training even while suffering with meningitis. That was probably one of the scariest things I have witnessed. He is currently deployed to Afghanistan. Military life is never stagnant.

I am still homeschooling, now all the children (minus Zachary). I am much more laid back in years past. I want them to enjoy learning....chuckle.... We still have days of crying and yelling and complaining, and sometimes the kids do that as well. Ha!

I am not sure how long we will be here, my hope is a few more years at least.... I know right?! I dragged my feet for years about coming here, now I get depressed at leaving. Even when I have to worry about ticks, tornadoes and high heat, I think this is probably one of the happiest times of my life. I am blessed beyond words to be married to a man that still loves me after all these years, a family that supports me, kids that have some really great moments, fantastic friends, and a God that loves me every moment of every day. 

Although I can say that I am the happiest I have been, I can also say that I have had some major struggles, especially of late..... more on that later...... Can't wait to capture more of our family's moments for us to remember later down the road. 

Baby Food

The other day I decided to make some baby food for Zachary. I had some extra veggies so I thought I would use them to make him some homemade food. After I was done I thought to myself  "Wow, look at me- just like the pioneer women." I then laughed at how silly that comment was. How I made the baby food:

1. Cut up veggies and put them into microwave safe bowl

2. Steam veggies in Microwave

3. Use emulsion blender to make veggies the correct consistency.

4. Pack veggies into baby size containers and store in refrigerator for later uses.

I don't really think that is quite how the pioneer women prepared food for their little ones. I must say, I am quite spoiled with modern conveniences. Poor Zachary would have found a taste for bark, if it was left up to me to grow our own produce.

Craigslist Ad

I thought this was Hilarious!!!!

Yoga mat for sale. Used once. - $1 (Bellevue)

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Date: 2011-09-13, 10:32PM PDT
Reply to: sale-cbz7z-2597736393@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

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Yoga mat for sale. Used once at lunch hour class in December 2009. Usage timeline as follows:

11:45a
Register for hot yoga class. Infinite wisdom tells me to commit to 5 class package and purchase a yoga mat. I pay $89.74. Money well spent, I smugly confirm to myself.

11:55a
Open door to yoga room. A gush of hot dry air rushes through and past me. It smells of breath, sweat and hot. Take spot on floor in back of room next to cute blonde. We will date.

11:57a
I feel the need to be as near to naked as possible. This is a problem because of the hot blonde to my left and our pending courtship. She will not be pleased to learn that I need to lose 30 pounds before I propose to her.

11:58a
The shirt and sweats have to come off. I throw caution to the wind and decide to rely on my wit and conditioning to overcome any weight issues my fiancée may take issue with. This will take a lot of wit and conditioning.

11:59a
Begin small talk with my bride to be. She pretends to ignore me but I know how she can be. I allow her to concentrate and stare straight ahead and continue to pretend that I don't exist. As we finish sharing our special moment, I am suddenly aware of a sweat moustache that has formed below my nose. This must be from the all the whispering between us.

12:00p
Instructor enters the room and ascends her special podium at the front of the room. She is a slight, agitated Chinese woman. She introduces me to the class and everyone turns around to greet me just as I decide to aggressively adjust my penis and testes packed in my Under Armor. My bride is notably unfazed.

12:02p
Since I do have experience with Hot Yoga (4 sessions just 5 short years ago) I fully consider that I may be so outstanding and skilled that my instructor may call me out and ask me to guide the class. My wife will look on with a sparkle in her eye. We will make love after class.

12:10p
It is now up to 95 degrees in the room. We have been practicing deep breathing exercises for the last 8 minutes. This would not be a problem if we were all breathing actual, you know, oxygen. Instead, we are breathing each other's body odor, expelled carbon dioxide and other unmentionables. (Don't worry, I'll mention them later.)

12:26p
It is now 100 degrees and I take notice of the humidity, which is hovering at about 90%. I feel the familiar adorning stare of my bride and decide to look back at her. She appears to be nauseated. I then realize that I forgot to brush my teeth prior to attending this class. We bond.

12:33p
It is now 110 degrees and 95% humidity. I am now balancing on one leg with the other leg crossed over the other. My arms are intertwined and I am squatting. The last time I was in this position was 44 years ago in the womb, but I'm in this for the long haul. My wife looks slightly weathered dripping sweat and her eyeliner is streaming down her face. Well, "for better or worse" is what we committed to so we press on.

12:40p
The overweight Hispanic man two spots over has sweat running down his legs. At least I think its sweat. He is holding every position and has not had a sip of water since we walked in. He is making me look bad and I hate him.

12:44p
I consider that if anyone in this room farted that we would all certainly perish.

12:52p
It is now 140 degrees and 100% humidity. I am covered from head to toe in sweat. There is not a square millimeter on my body that is not slippery and sweaty. I am so slimy that I feel like a sea lion or a maybe sea eel. Not even a bear trap could hold me. The sweat is stinging my eyeballs and I can no longer see.

12:55p
This room stinks of asparagus, cloves, tuna and tacos. There is no food in the room. I realize that this is an amalgamation of the body odors of 30 people in a 140 degree room for the last 55 minutes. Seriously, enough with the asparagus, ok?

1:01p
140 degrees and 130% humidity. Look, bitch, I need my space here so don't get all pissy with me if I accidentally sprayed you with sweat as I flipped over. Seriously, is that where this relationship is going? Get over yourself. We need counseling and she needs to be medicated. Stat!

1:09p
150 degrees and cloudy. And hot. I can no longer move my limbs on my own. I have given up on attempting any of the commands this Chinese chick is yelling out at us. I will lay sedentary until the aid unit arrives. I will buy this building and then have it destroyed.
I lose consciousness.

1:15p
I have a headache and my wife is being a selfish bitch. I can't really breathe. All I can think about is holding a cup worth of hot sand in my mouth. I cannot remember what an ice cube is and cannot remember what snow looks like. I consider that my only escape might be a crab walk across 15 bodies and then out of the room. I am paralyzed, and may never walk again so the whole crab walk thing is pretty much out.

1:17p
I cannot move at all and cannot reach my water. Is breathing voluntary or involuntary? If it's voluntary, I am screwed. I stopped participating in the class 20 minutes ago. Hey, lady! I paid for this frickin class, ok?! You work for me! Stop yelling at everyone and just tell us a story or something. It's like juice and cracker time, ok?

1:20p
It is now 165 degrees and moisture is dripping from the ceiling. The towel that I am laying on is no longer providing any wicking or drying properties. It is actually placing additional sweat on me as I touch it. My towel reeks. I cannot identify the smell but no way can it be from me. Did someone spray some stank on my towel or something?

1:30p
Torture session is over. I wish hateful things upon the instructor. She graciously allows us to stay and 'cool down' in the room. It is 175 degrees. Who cools down in 175 degrees? A Komodo Dragon? My wife has left the room. Probably to throw up.

1:34p
My opportunity to escape has arrived. I roll over to my stomach and press up to my knees. It is warmer as I rise up from ground level - probably by 15 degrees. So let's conservatively say it's 190. I muster my final energy and slowly rise. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. Towards the door. Towards the door.

1:37p
The temperature in the lobby is 72 degrees. Both nipples stiffen to diamond strength and my penis begins to retract into my abdomen from the 100 degree temp swing. I can once again breathe though so I am pleased. I spot my future ex wife in the lobby. We had such a good thing going but I know that no measure of counseling will be able to unravel the day's turmoil and mental scaring.

1:47p
Arrive at Emerald City Smoothie and proceed to order a 32 oz beverage. 402 calories, 0 fat and 14 grams of protein -- effectively negating any caloric burn or benefit from the last 90 minutes. I finish it in 3 minutes and spend the next 2 hours writing this memoir.

3:47p
Create Craigslist ad while burning final 2 grams of protein from Smoothie and before the "shakes" consume my body.

4:29p
Note to self - check car for missing wet yoga towel in am. 

A note

The other day my kids were being such turds - I know it is hard to imagine from those angels. It was one of those days that I just threw my hands in the air and said "That's it, I am done." That evening I had a meeting to go to and was quite relieved to be able to leave the house. When I returned home I had this note on the door from my Sarah, I thought it was very sweet........

Thank you for trusting me to watch Zachary...and the kids.I feel more responible now. I cleaned up abit and Matthias,Jojo and Laurelin helped....
Hopefully tomorrow is a good day and hopefully we all will have a good school day! I will try to have a good attitude! I love you Mom! 
Love, Sarah!
p.s Im laying with Zachary! I didn't want to leave him alone.
Love you lots, love you a whole bunch


I guess I will keep her around. :)