More of Me

This blog was intended to give me an outlet, to allow me to practice some creative writing and to help me get to know me by sharing myself with the world... well, with you anyway.
I've been inspired by my beautiful and creative cousin (by marriage), Adair, to re-embrace my literary side.  I feel like I've been enriched every time I read her blog, Pen and Ink.  Maybe it's just because I haven't really ever gotten the chance to get to know her because we've never lived close to Chuck's family since we married.  I am so impressed by her maturity (greater than mine at her age, I think), her love for her family (something I want for my girls), her literary knowledge (more than mine now), her ability to appreciate the details (she photographs them so her readers can appreciate them too) and her turns of phrase (which make everything sound like a Jane Austen novel).
All that was an introduction to my first Poetry Corner post.  I'll be sharing some of my own poetry as well as poems I like or have been a part of my life.
I'll share one of my own to start it off.  I have a whole journal filled with various writings starting in 1993.  I'm not claiming any of them are good.  In fact, I know for a fact several are bad, but I'm sharing anyway.  (Maybe some of the ones I think are decent first...)

Trees

Trees

Stark figures in the night

Leafy silhouettes in the light

Trees

Complexity concealed

God's handiwork revealed

Another One?!

I'm starting another blog.  Yes, another one.  I felt I needed a place dedicated to crafty things.  So if you want chatter and random thoughts, come here.  If you want crafts and such, go there.  See, isn't that much more organized?

The Pretty Pickle is up and running!

On a Lighter Note

My Much-ness

Just finished reading this post over at Jen and the Giant Peach. This beautiful girl... woman... lady... (oh my goodness, what are almost-30-year-olds suposed to call one another?!) anyway, she was a dear friend in college and is still very dear to me even though we are far apart in location and in the paths life has taken. I've been waiting with baited breath for a while for her to start blogging and she has finally started her adventure in the blogosphere. She's mostly focused on her upcoming wedding (who wouldn't be?) but she recently did a more personal post. Go read and return.
Any of y'all relate? I have also felt this way recently, as you may know. I was fine for the first two years of marriage. Still in the blissful land of getting a kick out of calling one another husband and wife, my identity hadn't really changed all that much. Being girlfriend and being wife were sort-of similar. Wife was a much more intense version, but there were some perks too. I didn't feel like my entire identity was called into question... until... I had Eden.

Mommyhood is exactly what I wanted and a title I intended to don and relish all along, but somehow, now that I've arrived, this place is monotonous and often too tedious to be enjoyable. While trying to decide whether or not we should upgrade to a van or a larger SUV, I was again slapped in the face with the struggle I involve myself in everyday to be the hip mom, the mom that other people are surprised is a mom, the mom that thwarts the attempts of "the dowdy monster" and stays (or becomes, in my case) stylish and fit. Jennifer's post made me think of Matthew 16:25. Here it is in the Amplified.

"For whoever is bent on saving his [temporal] life [his comfort and security here] shall lose it [eternal life]; and whoever loses his life [his comfort and security here] for My sake shall find it [life everlasting]."

The Sara interpretation: Every time I get caught up in trying to make my life what I think it ought to be, I leave behind what is truly important. If I could just learn to focus on the eternal, I would feel totally fulfilled and satisfied in this life.
My desire to pursue the thing I think God placed in my heart (dance, the use of dance for worship and the ability to teach and choreograph) is frustrated by my inability to do anything related to it at the moment. My children leave me with little energy, little time to myself and no opportunity to take or teach a class. I've often shed tears over the intense desires I still have to be involved in dance. My body is completely unable to do most of what it could in college and my mental knowledge of technique, history and terminology has eroded away.
 I've asked God why He tortures me with the desires to choreograph peices with movements I can't even do and with groups I don't have access too. Why am I so exhilerated by teaching and have no students? If I had no children, I could possibly be fulfilling myself in all these areas.
Argh!  The rest of my original post was lost because I was trying to do something fancy....  It just basically said that maybe all of the above was good because it might cause me to run harder after God instead of the things that I think I want to do or the things that I want to define me.
blech!  I said it better the first time.

3 Dollar Fancies

I love words. I love poems. I love to write. That's one reason I blog. I don't really exercise my writing skills here as much as I would like, but my brain is more used up than it used to be and poetry and other creative writing ventures don't come as easily as they used to. That's beside the point though.

I went to the Dollar Tree and I bought three sheets of wall stickers. Just the alphabet in sticker form. I've been debating ever since we bought this home about what vinyl wall art I might want to buy, but I can't decide what scripture or saying I want and plus, they're just so darned expensive and I won't be able to take them with me when we leave. For the moment, $3 worth of letters has satisfied me. Wanna see what I did with them?

dance {trust}

I decided to use them on a glass frame too... our very first professional picture as a couple. :)

let love be our accompaniment

Hippie Bow-chic

I hesitate to post this because I did not do a tutorial and I have not finished the one I started for you. The fact is, I usually don't take pictures along the way when I'm making something with no pattern and have no idea whether or not it will even turn out. This was the case here. I just got a vision in my head, had an hour and some fabric that I wouldn't be too, too sad if I ruined and went at it. Have I spent too much time looking at boutique patterns for toddlers? or can grown-ups wear bows too?

SWAGGER WAGON

In honor of the addition of an Odyssey to our family... it's not a Sienna, but we'll try our best to have the same amount of swagger.

The Final Countdown, pt. 2

See. I told you that really wouldn't be the final one. Well, as I was saying...Sort-of along those same lines... I've become aware lately of the possibility that we Christians are too nice, too sweet, too easily molded into something attractive to the world. A friend sent me a YouTube video of a pastor that really stirred me. You can watch the clips here if you like. Don't worry, It's not a whole sermon or anything, just bits.


Then, a couple days ago, I heard this song on the radio and what I heard was completely different than what I would have heard before I watched that video. Here are the lyrics:






Give me rules, I will break them.
Show me lines, I will cross them.
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves and breathe
To sweep me off my feet, it's gotta be




More like falling in love than something to believe in
More like losing my heart than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out, come take a look at me now
It's like I'm falling, oh
It's like I'm falling in love.




Give me words, I'll misuse them
Obligations, I'll misplace them
'Cause all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free, it's gotta be




Deeper and deeper
It was love that made me a believer
In more than a name, a faith, a creed
Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me, it's gotta be...


Chorus


A lot of that is true and sweet, but...
but....
Is God's calling without lines and limits? Is being His child void of rules? Is it just like falling in love and being on a "honeymoon high" with our God? Sometimes. If we depend on that emotion, we won't stick with Christianity for long.
There are too many questions that will demand answers or will at least demand that we look at them square in the eyes and say that we don't know the answers but will still choose to serve our God. There are too many situations where we will be uncomfortable and even derided for the sake of our God. (persecution, hello!) There is too much at stake to hang it on something that's "like being in love."
I was almost embarrassed for the writer of this song telling God "It's gotta be" this way or else I'm not going to be able to follow through with it. Yes, there is grace for our unwilling, dis-abled human hearts. Yes, our Lord woos us as a lover and wants us for His bride. But, just as in a marriage, it takes the fortitude of commitment to grow the relationship. It takes a commitment to honoring the rules, the lines and the obligations. The things is, the more you grow together, the sweeter the obligations become and the farther from the lines you stay.

The Final Countdown

Not really... I'm sure there will be another countdown. When I'm a couple months away from 40. But right now, it's the countdown to 30. The big three zero. That's right. I know, I know. You can't believe it. I look like I'm going to turn 21, not 30. Well, believe it. And even though I've lived almost 30 years on this earth, I feel like I've only just begun to know myself, to be somewhat ok with myself and to dip my toes into the concept that what others think or project on me ultimately doesn't matter.
Can you imagine how we would feel and act if we could fully grasp representing Christ and His calling for us, His grace and graciousness (meaning that He wouldn't just run pell mell over people because He didn't care what they thought) AND were also able to fully grasp the non-importance of our measly concerns compared with eternity (meaning that we wouldn't stop to bother with the petty concerns of others or ourselves if they distracted us from the ultimate goal)? I can kind-of imagine it. The fact that I can't even fully imagine it just shows how utterly far I am from attaining it.
I am now going to write the rest of what is on my mind and heart in a second post. Wasn't I nice to you? Now you don't have to feel guilty for stopping mid-post because it's so dang long and you really weren't expecting to devote this much time to my blog at the moment. Or you can choose to read the next post. :)
I'll be 30 June 28, by the way.

In Honor of Mother's Day

...and all of us struggling through the young marrieds with kids stage. My friend Melissa suggested another video by the same woman who did "Wrinkled Ladies," Anita Renfroe. I laughed and laughed at "Wrinkled Ladies" and was totally ready for more.

Go watch this and then come back here to read my thoughts.

What I wasn't ready for was the tears that came because this one hit a bit too close to home.

On the other hand, it brought up again something that's really been weighing heavily on my mind lately. I don't want to have a pity party, (here comes the "but")

but it's just been pretty dang hard to do this kid-raising thing with a husband who often works long hours, must sometimes work nights, often must take his free time and leave home again to study or work on a presentation etc. and no relatives to take the kids for just an hour even. I know I am not the only one who feels this way. In fact, most of the people I currently keep the company of are in the exact same situation and often have less husband time than I do. I was just talking with one of my friends yesterday about the fact that we might have felt totally different about the number of kids we choose to have or the amount of enjoyment we would or would not feel about raising them in different circumstances. I can't even imagine what my stress level would be like if Chuck got home at 4 every day, had no work to do outside of work and if we both got to sleep though the night and if the mom or mother-in-law could take the kids (or even one of the kids) for just an hour or two every now and then. Every one has trade offs, I know. I also know that there are moms in much worse situations than I. I know some women don't even have a husband. I know some people's kids are sick or worse behaved or, or, or... I also know that this sacrifice now is to have a pretty sweet situation in just a few years.

I KNOW. I'm just letting it out, ok? This is the real me. I'm not going to pretend that I don't ever get into a funk about this stuff. I'll get it all back in perspective in a couple hours and buck up and get back to what really matters. Don't worry.