I’m starting the week with some hellos, linking up with the lovely Lisa Leonard. I stumbled upon her blog a couple of years ago, and I fell in love with her jewelry and family. She has a son with special needs, and her pictures and stories of him melt my heart.
Every Monday, she greets the new week, so here’s what I’m saying hello to this week - hoping these provide me with some much needed motivation.
Hello dirty dishes waiting in the sink...you’ve only been waiting to be cleaned all weekend. Be grateful for your dishwashers. We’re renting right now and are without one, but when we own a home again, I think I will have a new appreciation for loading the dishes. Two things to be thankful for: (1) There’s only two of us. (2) The view outside my kitchen window.
Hello Christmas tree that is still up. I excused it the first couple of weeks after Christmas. By the time we finally got unpacked from our move, I got to enjoy our Christmas decorations for a week or so before we left to visit family and friends for the holidays. I was in no hurry to put away our decorations when we got back. Fast forward a few more weeks and here we are, with our Christmas tree still glowing at night. I complained last night when I had to turn it off. We were watching Netflix, and the glow coming from the tree interfered with the Wii. When I disappointedly got up to turn the tree off, Chris sweetly reminded me that January is almost over. Whoops. It’s on my to-do list this week.
Hello new baby. One of my college roommates is having her baby this week! I’m excited. I’m even more excited that I’ll get to play the role of fake auntie now that we live 20 minutes from each other.
Hello North Carolina - I’ll be seeing you soon. Looking forward to a trip home to visit with my sweet family.
Hello substitute application - really need to get working on you!
Hello gym. I’ve started going to the gym once a week with our Children’s Minister. Once a week - I know, it’s not very impressive, but it’s a start! I literally have not worked out in years, and believe me, I feel every muscle. Becky is a fitness guru so it’s been fun and comical to participate in the workouts she puts together.
Hello beautiful weather. I plan on enjoying the 60 degree weather for the day.
Hello Monday. Hello to a new week, full of fresh grace.
Hope yours is fantastic.
Seven months ago, I attempted to start a blog.
I failed.
I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and after writing my first post, I wanted my blog to look pretty, like all those websites out there that people are paid to make look pretty. I’m too frugal for that, especially since I had all of one post, so I spent hours searching for free pretty backgrounds, headers, and tried to make them work with the template I chose. I could NOT get it to work. It looked correct if I was on my computer, but the mobile version of my blog would NOT apply my design. It was UGLY, and it bothered me. I spent hours trying to resolve this issue, and I even got my super talented sister to try and help me with it. My love attempted to encourage me to continue writing posts, telling me that it didn’t matter what it looked like. He didn’t understand. It had to be pretty before people saw it because you might judge my ugly blog. I know, that sounds really stupid. Why did I care whether or not you would like it (assuming someone out there would look at it)?
I care way too much about what others think. It’s one of my weaknesses, and at the core of it is pride, ugly pride. And it stopped me. I got frustrated and annoyed enough that I quit trying to make it work, and I eventually just gave up. Summer continued on and then school started back, and I completely forgot about it .
Enter a new season in my life.
We’ve had some BIG changes in life recently. About 2 months ago, we left our home, jobs, family and friends in GA, and moved to AL to follow God’s lead for a job for Chris. It’s been scary, sad, amazing, and exciting all at the same time. One of the HARDEST things about leaving GA was leaving my job as a special needs preschool teacher. I loved it. It was my dream job, and I had the honor of loving on my babies for 6 1/2 years. As hard as it was to leave, it was obvious to us and our family and friends that God was calling us to a new place.
We have absolutely loved our new home. Our new church is amazing and exactly what we have been praying for, for years. We have new friends that we have bonded with very quickly. Chris LOVES his job, and I LOVE sleeping in. It’s awesome. My days are spent hanging out with Matilda, running errands, reading/journaling, visiting with friends, helping Chris at work, and whatever else comes up. It’s a lovely break from the stress of teaching, paper work, and IEPs. I know it won’t last forever, so I am enjoying it while it lasts.
Since I’ve had more down time these days, I’ve been keeping up better with blogs I enjoy reading. Recently, one of my other beautiful sisters started her own blog. I’ve loved reading her journey; you should too. As I’ve read her blog, it’s reminded me of my own blog fail. Nattie doesn’t give up. That’s something I love about her. I need a lesson or two in that area. Because I couldn’t get my blog to work (look pretty), I gave up. I know it sounds cheesy to make some life lesson out of this for me, but being a perfectionist, I fear failure. It often keeps me from doing things I want to do because I’m afraid I’ll mess up, fail, not do a good enough job, etc. Like the time it took me 3 years to commit to measuring our windows and purchasing blinds for our house because I was afraid we would measure incorrectly, spend a lot of money, and then they wouldn’t fit and couldn’t be returned because they were cut to fit our windows. It took a student asking me at church, “Why don’t you have blinds up in your house?”, and then telling me that she could see us when she drove by our house to finally get me motivated to measure windows with Chris. We did, and they worked, and I regretted not doing it sooner.
Since I gave up so easily the first time, I have been attempting to make this blog thing work again. After trying to use other people’s templates and design again, and it STILL not work on my mobile version, I decided to try and make my own. I am one of the least tech-savy people you will meet, but after a quick google search, this lady proved to be very helpful.
So seven months later, I am finally pleased enough with it to share with you. The over-achiever/people-pleaser/perfectionist/pride thing is a continual work in progress. Thank goodness for grace.
And hopefully, I’ll start using this space as I intended to back in June.
