UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Obviously. To be completed soon.

I'm IT!!

I've been tagged by Alli at When in Rome.  I'm supposed to answer this survey using only one word answers. So here goes!

1. Where is your cell phone?
Desk.

2. Where is your significant other?
School

3. Your hair color?
Brown

4. Your mother?
Debbie

5. Your father?
Greg

6. Your favorite thing?
family

7. Your dream last night?
None

8. Your dream/goal?
Sleep

9. The room you're in?
Office

10. Your hobby?
none

11. Your fear?
Loss

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years?
Georgia

13. Where were you last night?
church

14. What you're not?
cleaning

15. One of your wish-list items?
rugs

16. Where you grew up?
Georgia

17. The last thing you did?
clicked

18. What are you wearing?
sweats

19. Your TV?
Off

20. Your pet?
none

21. Your computer?
Gateway

22. Your mood?
tired

23. Missing someone?
Dad

24. Your car?
Sold

25. Something you're not wearing?
rings

26. Favorite store?
Target

27. Your summer?
over

28. Love someone?
lots

29. Your favorite color?
green

30. When is the last time you laughed?
today

31. Last time you cried?
Friday

I'm tagging Bethany, Carrie, Mary, and BRIAN so maybe he will BLOG for once!!! (I'm not sure anyone else reads me...maybe I should do followers and find out??)

Greenville Pics, etc.

Well, I came to post my baby video, but all of a sudden the little video thingamabob is gone, so I'm going to have to figure out what to do now.  I will post some pictures of our weekend, though.   I've got more on my mind however than just baby pics. We're doing a small group at church on parenting using the video series by Chip Ingram, "How to be an Effective Parent in a Defective World."  It's a great study, and Chip Ingram brings up so many great points (if you are not familiar with him you can find him at Living on The Edge.)  Two things in particular have really struck me and I'd like to share them with you.  Most of the series, particularly the first session, talks about modeling for our children.  We all pretty much know that our kids are going to do what we do and not what we say.  But Chip puts it in different terms - could we instruct our kids to do everything exactly the way we do?  Would we be comfortable telling them to handle every single situation EXACTLY the way we do?  Because that's exactly what our children are going to do.

Wow. That's rough. Hard core. Do I want Liam to talk to his dad like I do? Do I want Liam to handle stress the way I do? Get lazy like I do? Even more profound - do I want Liam to be faithful in prayer like me? To study God's word the way I do? To love God the way I do?

Because he will. Ouch.  If I want my son to grow up to be a godly man of integrity (which I do),  I sure had better model that for him (and Brian had better too) because no matter what we say to Liam, the lessons that he will learn most will be the ones we teach with our actions.  Talk about motivation!!!

The other point that resonated with me from our recent lessons was this:  One of the worst things you can possibly do to your child is to do for him what he is capable of doing himself. Basically Chip says that in doing so you are crippling your child.  I loved this, because it rings so true.  I know adults who cannot do basic tasks for themselves because a parent always did it for them.  I remember so clearly being embarrassed in middle school because my friends knew how to do some things for themselves that I did not (like, at the time, how to iron a shirt). I sometimes think moms are especially bad about this with their sons, and then they send overly dependent sons off to depend on their wives (this is not at all a reference to my husband, let me be clear).  I do not want to be that kind of mother to my son.  Of course, at 9 months old there are not really any age-appropriate responsibilities to give him yet, hahaha!!! 

I'll probably have further commentary about this parenting study as the weeks go along - and I would encourage you all to give Chip a listen (not just the parenting stuff, but any of his studies).  Now...let's have just a few pics from the weekend, shall we?

Check out the pumpkin shoes....

Falls Park in Greenville, SC:

(Alli, the onesie fits perfectly, see?)

Two posts in as many days? What?

Today Brian and Liam and I drove down to Greenville, SC to meet up with his parents for the day. We strolled around a gorgeous park in a newly developed area of downtown (I think it's pretty new, anyway - Mary? Am I right?) and let Liam crawl around in the grass and on a little stage there. A 2 year old little girl came up and crawled around with him for a while, and he LOVED it. I've got to get him around more children. He loves other "little people" but there are not many other babies in his life right now. We ate lunch and dinner with the grandparents and walked downtown, visited the Mast General Store and O.P. Taylor's toy store, and just generally had a relaxing day. It was so great to get outside and spend some time with family instead of being stuck inside at work all the time! At the toy store, Liam became particularly attached to a miniature grand piano and howled every time I tried to pick him up and take him away. He loved sitting at the piano and pressing the keys and "singing" along. It was a moment that I wished my dad could have seen - he loved to play and sing so much, and he would be so thrilled that Liam seems to love music already. I've got some pictures to post tomorrow...none of the piano, though, because he would not let me put him down even long enough to pull out the camera!!

One more thing...

Oh, and if you happen to enlarge the photos below (which I would NOT recommend doing, by the way), those are NOT dust bunnies on the floor where my baby was crawling. Nope. Not a single one. And that is NOT what it looks like in the reflection on the floor. Nope. I would never put that on the internet.

And truthfully, that's drool on the floor. Not what it looks like. (I mean it this time.)

Trying Again

Do any of you find yourselves making list after list of projects, dreams, intentions, "to-do" missives, etc. with the "If, then" stipulation attached? When this happens, this will get done. If this is complete, then I can do....

Yeah. And of course those projects rarely all get completed. And the conditions are never quite met. But we make ourselves crazy sometimes thinking those perfectionist thoughts. I'm terrible about this. I have this sense of order that makes me think these thoughts almost constantly - and what it boils down to honestly, with me and I'm sure a lot of us, is that if we can just achieve "blank", THEN we will be happy. Even if we don't specifically name it "happiness," that's what we're striving for. And that's completely wrong. I know that happiness, contentment, and joy can be found in Christ alone, and that we are to be content no matter the circumstances. I know that I will never find true happiness in all these other things, even if I got every single tiny thing on every single "to-do" list in my head completed and checked-off. Even so, knowing this in my heart, it's still difficult to convince my brain of this, and so I strive. And we all do sometimes, subconsciously, because we're human. But anyway, that's where I've been.

Of course, as a wife and mom and employee there are things that really do have to get done - dishes pile up and laundry accumulates and babies outgrow clothing and so forth. So I've been trying to catch up on the necessary things and maybe to get a little beyond the necessary. I get a lot of inspiration from blogs that I read (more on this later) about some of those projects that I want to do (maybe healthy inspiration, sometimes maybe not) but I realized that I was spending way too much time just looking at the ideas. So I needed to take an internet hiatus to try to tip the scale back in the direction of action. Basically, I needed to get off my tail, out of the desk chair, and actually DO some things in my house/life/etc. rather than just thinking about what I wanted to be happening. I guess in all that striving for "happiness" there comes a point too where I get overwhelmed and sit and think about it rather than putting anything into motion. I can sit for hours and look at pictures of paint colors and decorations for the baby's room, but if I never get up and put the paint on the walls and decorate, then what good does it do?

The most difficult lesson, of course, is learning to be content if the paint never gets to the wall and the decorations never get put up, AND learning to be content if they do. Remembering where my happiness truly comes from, and remembering that being a perfect housewife does not add any more days to my life or give me any more true value, that's the hard part. Thank goodness I do not have to fix all that on my own.

On a lighter note, Liam is 9 months old today. And crawling. And cruising. And saying "bye-bye" with a little wave. And cutting his 6th and 7th teeth. And definitely NOT sleeping well, hopefully due to those pesky little incisors. Possibly, a video of baby hilarity is coming soon. Until then, a naked baby on the run for your amusement.

So Much for Ambition!

Lots to say, but the most important thing is this: Brian and I are taking an internet hiatus for a week, and hopefully after that time I will be back to blogging on a regular basis. Obviously I have jinxed myself before, however, so I cannot promise exactly when. Please don't give up on me, I don't want to lose the few readers that I have!!