01 02 03 Ostriches Look Funny: Let's Be Real. Derrick Doesn't Want to Bat Anymore and I Need Jesus. 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

Let's Be Real. Derrick Doesn't Want to Bat Anymore and I Need Jesus.

34 It's New Year's Eve, also known by many as the Day After My Birthday, which is also called 5 Days After Christmas and I have just received a huge box of coffee (five bags!)(Raised hands emoji).  The kids are at Grandma's so I thought I would take a minute to see if I can still write after all this time.
bad news, my phone isn't downloading pictures so i am going to post some random ones to make this more interesting. Here is one of my favorite games, "Fish Stix". It is like dominoes but with fish. 

This time of year makes me angsty. Angsty is my new word for Depressed, it sounds so cute and adorable. Depressed sounds DEPRESSING. I don't know exactly what triggers it, but every stinking year, I start to hear the voices. The worst part about the voices is that it is really the sound of my own voice, and my own voice is being a total jerk.

I am a big enough person to know now, that my ONE job is to edit the voices. I have a tendency, this time of year, to wrap everything anyone says to me in a giant bow of FAILURE. I don't know if it's different for other people, but when I get low it is because I feel like a failure.

I am always amazed at how many different ways a person can fail. It seems like every time I climb a mountain I notice I have actually been climbing backwards and am NOW IN A CAVE.

It feels good, during these times, to use a lot of caps locks. The other thing that feels good is to filter it through the lens of What God Says About Me. I don't write resolutions, because I feel like resolutions just feed the terrible feeling that I am doing something wrong. I certainly make them in my mind though. I make resolutions every five seconds, as does every perfectionist on the planet.  I read in a book somewhere that perfectionism is a slow death. Sheesh. So is red meat.

I do notice that instead of making resolutions I tend to decide to blow up certain parts of my life and you know, renovate. But now that I am older, I don't even know what I would blow up.

Homeschooling this year has not helped me in this area. I have spent a large chunk of vacation worrying about school. It was only yesterday that I realized that if this were "normal" school vacation I would have no problem with the boys binge watching Pokemon, but now that we do school at home I keep having a looming, all day suspicion that I was supposed to do a grammar lesson. Irritating.

To be honest Q does not want to do home school and he misses is friends. He is 8. What do you do with that?

Again I don't know.

I am learning the art of being still. I have blown up so many things in the past (metaphorically speaking) that I know it just makes a big mess. I try to remind myself of that when I am tempted to do a crazy DIY project but I still secretly want to pull up the carpet on the stairs.
Oh my gosh, hahaha. This was in the attic. I put it on Instagram a while back and it still slays me. Consider this my Christmas gift to you.

The one thing I am going to resolve to do in 2016 is to be honest. Mostly honest with myself. I already feel like this blog post is too honest and is going to make people worry about me. BUT ANYWAY. Honest.

So when the voice in my head reminds me of my failures, I will be honest. Sometimes the voice i s100% right and I am doing a TERRIBLE job. OKAY MOST OF THE TIME.

Wash me in white. I cannot do a good thing. I can't do a single dingle good thing. I even suck at DIY projects. This is why Jesus saved me. He has offered to do the hard things FOR me and guilt has no place. I can't even sort out what is grace, but I know I need it to keep from drowning during the days after Christmas, before a New Year.

Meanwhile I have a hot date tonight and it took way way too long to find actual pants. Perhaps some of my angst is wrapped up in wearing yoga pants for Too Long. I don't know, I try not to dig into my angst because then I get sad. Instead I will be eating rich food with my cute husband, because I don't have any scary resolutions hanging over my shoulder. I've saved that shoulder for Grammar Lessons anyway, there's no room.

Here's to wishing all of you a Happy New Year. Don't try to be perfect, just embrace the One who is. 35 36 37 38