confessions of the undomesticated

After taking the kids Christmas shopping for each other, and for me and Jeff, my husband says to me:

"Zeke wanted to get you one of those triple crockpot things. I said 'That's a really good idea. She hates to cook!' "

They decided against it, which I think was a smart idea :)

Although it irritated me at the time, for so many reasons, my husband is correct: I hate to cook. And while I do think they did the smart thing by getting me something other than an appliance to cook with for Christmas, it honestly isn't a bad idea. Think of the possibilities, you can have your meat AND sides cooking while you're gone (or even while you're home!) with little to no effort and ready for you whenever you want to eat it!


I have a confession to make: I am not domestic. This is not something that I discovered recently. It isn't even something that I didn't realize until after I got married. I always knew it - I am not domestic.

1. I hate cooking.

There is nothing enjoyable about it for me. I don't know much about it, it doesn't come easy to me, and frankly the thought of eating something that I've seen in its raw, uncooked, slimy form sounds about as appetizing as eating out of the garbage can.

2. I hate cleaning.

I know, I know...who doesn't? I am not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination. Most days I look around at a mess and think about cleaning it up, but wonder what the point is. It will just get trashed again, and it seems counterproductive - especially when the whole time you're picking up, your 2-year-old comes right along behind you and undoes everything you just did.

3. I hate laundry.

Don't get me wrong - I like having clean clothes. But that mountain of laundry piled in my basement overwhelms me so much that I want to run screaming from it. I can sort it and throw it in the washer/dryer like a champ. But the part that comes after - the folding, ironing and putting away - make me want to curl up in the corner in a fetal position.

The list could go on...I like coffee, but I don't want to make it - because then there's the actually getting up and doing it, cleaning the pot and the cup - it all seems pointless. I love HGTV, but when I try to put any of those ideas into effect at my own house, I feel like I'm trying to put a square peg into a round hole.

So there you have it. My undomesticated confession. Hear this: I wouldn't trade getting to work part time so that I can be home with my sweet little Bella to avoid any of this. I am trying to become more domestic. But I can say this - I am good at being a mom. So if it means that my house is a little bit messier, that our meals are not always as good as they could be, and that the laundry pile gets taller than me sometimes, I can be ok with it. I would rather know that I took good care of my kiddos and raised them to be well-behaved, hard working, Godly people.

In the meantime, here is a little website that has recently changed my life - at least where cooking is concerned. E-mealz is a website that will plan your meals for you. For $5 a month, you can pick a meal plan based on diet or where you shop the most - or both. It will give you 7 meal plans (ingredient list plus recipe), plus a grocery list every week. Try it out - if you get bored like me and feel like you fix the same things all of the time, you will love it.

Happy Thursday!

yana gets a haircut

I wanted long hair so bad I could taste it when I was growing up. Unfortunately, my mom didn't want to take care of it (In hindsight, having 3 kids of my own now, I don't blame her. Man, I hate the taste of crow.) so I was punished with the Dorothy Hamill haircut, which I'm not even sure was in style then. So...I decided that I would never make my daughters, if and when I had them, cut their hair off if they wanted it long.

Yana has an abnormal amount of hair to be 6 years old...and its super curly at that. She recently decided she wanted a haircut, and has practically begged for one for several weeks now. After making sure that it was really what she wanted, here are the results:

Before:
The casualties:

And, after:

i finally did it

I swore that I wouldn't. It was on my list of things to NEVER do. I was going to pride myself in the fact that I was one of those hold-outs. Even if I were ever to have an inkling of desire, to participate, I wouldn't, simply because it was the new craze.

But...I have caved.

I am reading Twilight.

I have never seen any of the Star Wars movies. I have never read or seen any Lord of the Rings series. To me this was just another teenage craze, that somehow managed to suck in even women up to their middle ages. I refused to be taken over by the obsession.

But alas, I have. And I will admit (albeit, kicking and screaming) that I actually. . . am. . . enjoyingit.

It may have something to do with the fact that I am reading it on my new nookcolor (have I mentioned that I got on of things for my birthday?!). Everything read on a nook is much more enjoyable. You can bookmark pages, highlight words or sections, lookup the definition to any word on the page, change the page color, font, font size, brightness, do a search. . . it even tells me that at this point, I am 63% done with the book. I can download books for Bella that will come to life on the page and will even read to her if I am unavailable to do so. I can even surf the web!

So, maybe I'm not really enjoying Twilight as much as I just enjoy reading it on my nook. Yeah...that must be what it is.

BTW...anybody got a copy of the movie I can borrow? ;)

Three

Three has always been my favorite number. Because my birthday is the 3rd of the month. Which is also today :) So I have decided, for 2011, that I am going to make some resolutions - and actually stick with them. Or try to at least. So, in the spirit of three, here are 3 New Year's Resolutions.

1. I am going to blog more. Please...don't get too excited. I know you are probably overwhelmed with the prospect of it.

2. I am going to try to do better. At everything. Better at keeping house, cooking regularly, being a better wife, mom, friend, employee, co-worker, exerciser, eater, writer....everything.

3. I am going to read more. Because really...it's good for the mind. And, because I got a nookcolor for my birthday :) And what better reason do you need to read more?!
Happy New Year! Happy Monday! And Happy Birthday to me!

tuesdays are speshl

I hate Tuesdays.

I don't have anything personal against Tuesday. But the schedule that engulfs my weekly Tuesday usually makes for a less than enjoyable day. I always pick up Zeke and Yana from school, but this year some genius decided it was good idea for them to go to school at 8am, meaning they get out at 2:20. Which means I have to leave to pick them up no later than 2. And Bella's naptime is at 1:30. You can see where I'm going with this.

I try to lay her down for an early nap, but she's just not ready for one. So we fight it out for a while until she finally does, which just means that she's in a little less of a bad mood on our way over to get them and back. What that also means is that by the time we get back home, she's tired again, but she doesn't really want to take another nap because she's already had one.

So...as you can imagine, much of my Tuesday is consumed with screaming. It's fun.

For the past few weeks, and for the next few, I've been doing a bible study with my mom and sister on Tuesday nights. That's usually something enjoyable to look forward to, however, it also means that after Jeff gets off work and gets home, and we eat dinner, he's left with the aftermath of the bad moods. I know this, and it causes me to have a less than enjoyable bible study.

Today has been no different. Bella is currently laying in her bed screaming. I am determined she won't win, but my sanity may get the better of me soon. Yana has knocked everything off of the playroom table about 5 times after I've told her at least that many to put it all away. Zeke, no matter how many times I've told him that the Wii won't turn on and I don't know why, has stood in front of it, pushing the power button over and over saying "The tv says no signal. I pushed the power button and it should come on when you do that, but it won't."

I've had my usually Tuesday rant where I've told them all in the most loving way possible that they are all driving me crazy :) I always follow it up with "I love you, but you are all driving me nuts."

Yana just came and gave me a handmade card that said "I love you Jess" on the outside and "You are speshl" on the inside. So even though I feel like I might lose my mind because everyone is driving me crazy, I can't help but remember that Tuesdays are "speshl" even in spite of their craziness.

Happy Tuesday :)

v. a. c. a. tion: funny update

1) Rear turn signal bulb burned out. Add that to the list.

2) Left to replace the turn signal bulb. Backed over an entire box of scrapbooking supplies that I forgot to take in the house when I cleaned the van out.

3) Arrived at Walmart to have the bulb replaced. Sales associate says to me about the service worker standing right next to her at the desk "You can ask him yourself if we do that." The same associate then proceeds to put my information in their system as "Gassisa McCarty". Really?

Thanks Walmart. Once again your stellar customer service has exceeded my wildest expectations. Not.

4) They kept my keys. I had to go get the kids out of the car after checking the vehicle in. This seemed to anger the anti-theft system when I had them unlock the door for me from the inside, which followed by persistent honking of the car horn for the next 5 minutes.

Overall - you can see how it was a great day. T-minus 18 hours til vacation....and counting.

i heart donald miller

Awesome article by Donald Miller. Jeff has read all of his books. I've never read one. But I like his blog. Sometimes he's out there, but he's real...and I like it.

I’d rather be hated than loved with conditions. I think most people would agree. At least when people hate you, they are being intellectually honest. I mean you know where they stand. But we’ve all shared a political view or a struggle and had people take a half step back, or worse, reveal they no longer want the best for us. When this happens I get a hollow feeling and I associate that hollow feeling with the person and their ideas. So that begs the question, do we actually love our friends without conditions? Are we the kind of friend we hope to have? Ultimately, loving people conditionally is an attempt to control them. We are wrongly thinking that if we can make people “pay” for their faults, or their opinions that don’t match ours, they will have a negative association with their faults or their supposedly wrong opinions. But that’s not the way it works.

When we attach conditions to our love, what we are really doing is attaching a negative association with us! People don’t sit around saying, man, if I just didn’t have this fault or this opinion, that person would love me. What they actually think is this: Wow, that person is a jerk, and all they represent, including their morality and political beliefs must make people jerks. I never want to be like that, so I will seek another community that accepts me as I am.

It’s interesting to me that Jesus never forced anybody to agree with Him. Instead, He has a quiet confidence. He was responsible to say the truth and to be Himself and he let others take responsibility for their lives. He did not use love like money, paying some and withholding from others in an effort to control them. He spoke the truth, He wasn’t offended when people didn’t agree, and He gave them their own will to do as they wish. But what’s more, He loved them regardless. He loved them whether they followed Him or tried to kill them. He even loved them while they were killing Him.

If you have an opinion, and somebody disagrees, let them. Just make it know what you think about the issue, listen to them closely, and then love and care about them regardless. If they keep trying to change your mind, gently explain to them that you simply don’t agree, but you don’t want it to interrupt your friendship. If people can only be friends with others who think the way they think, this is a weakness in character.

The Jesus kind of love, the love that speaks the truth and yet does not try to control, is supernatural. It is a very confident position and it comes from God. Will it always win? No, but the point is not to win, the point is to love, even to our deaths. So make this commitment, I will tell the truth to the best of my ability, I will not try to control, and there is nothing anybody can do to get me to stop loving them.