How to become a morning person.....make sure your kids have really weird dreams in the middle of the night that make them yell out at a brother and make you go running into the room to see if they're ok....You are guaranteed to have trouble going back to sleep yourself and you will find yourself waiting for the alarm to go off!!!!! Next, make sure you have lots to drink right before bed. This will guarantee that you are so uncomfortable in the wee hours of the morning that you will be forced to wake up as you need to make a trip to the bathroom!
All of this works wonderfully if you want to become a morning person! I laugh as I actually read a post on how to become a morning person yesterday and they didn't write what I just wrote! The things I would write are in the above paragraph and happen to me on a regular basis. My kids have the strangest dreams that make them cry out (often in anger at their siblings!). I should just learn to not get out of bed, but sometimes they don't stop, so I have to go in to their rooms to tell them they are dreaming. It's kind of funny except that I do love sleeping at night. This tends to be super disruptive to my sleep and if it is right before I'm supposed to wake up then I lie there wishing I could fall asleep again, but I end up tossing and turning. The bathroom thing is true, too.
I do love being a morning person. I end up being a tired afternoon person, but will try to grab 15 min at some point and that's all I need to make it through the rest of the day. I really do go to bed much earlier than the average person I'm told, but lately, my older teens have become the classic chatty kids late at night. You can't get them to go to bed. I've tried. They won't stop talking. I've tried to get that to stop, too. My older son will actually tell me, "No, Mom! I love talking to you guys! I never get to do this! The little ones are always so loud and running around interrupting!" How do you say no that? So last night I was up until 11 pm which is waaaaay past what I like to do, but when these two like to talk, we are really trying to sit and listen and it is nice and there are way less interruptions! I know these days will not last forever, so I really do embrace them, but it impacts my mornings for sure!
We have been busy this week prepping for the trip to New York. We are trying to do as much as we can on the cheap, but we are still finding it super expensive. We don't regret the decision to go, just that it costs more than we bargained on. Travel insurance, oil changes, new wipers, gas! Plus, I wanted my kids to go without holes in their jeans. Guess what...all of their jeans have holes, or so it suddenly seemed, so off we went to the store last night. But I was grateful, so grateful for that store that sells great clothes second hand, "Plato's Closet". We found several pairs of jeans, a couple sweaters, two amazing pairs of shoes, a hoodie, a dress shirt and it all added up to $135, if I remember correctly. At a regular store, that might have bought two pairs of jeans - that's it, so yes, it wasn't free, but we felt it was good quality stuff we had bought. I had a 20% off coupon on top of that, so an even better savings.
Then I went to the second hand child's store (there are two - one for youth and one for kids) and the jeans were $1!!! I was excited. "Who else needs jeans??!!!!" I quickly picked up a few jeans, a winter jacket (one of our horses loves to play with zippers on coats - can't explain it - and he ruined the zipper on my son's coat so he could no longer zip it up! I also got some shirts for my son who only has stained ones it seems and that all added up to $37 - again, not free, but not bad for the amount of things I bought. I shop so rarely for clothes as we have been given so much from friends and family who have bigger or older boys. This was unusual to have to head out, but necessary. I forced my husband to pick a sweater or two as lately all he wears is "Camo". That is fine for the Duck Dynasty guy, but I really don't like camo on my husband. So he listened to me and now he'll be a little easier on the eyes!
I read about how Hudson Taylor's belongings got stolen by one of his Chinese helpers. It amounted to a significant sum of money. He prayed that God would convict the man to return it, but it never showed up. Instead, he got an unexpected letter in the mail that had been sent from Europe 6 weeks earlier for the exact amount that his stolen luggage was worth. This showed Taylor that not only did God provide for his needs, but he knew what they were even before his things were stolen! God had moved in his friend's heart to send the money at just the right time so it would arrive when he needed it - even allowing for the 6 weeks of travel time!
I know this is the case for us, too. My husband is a strong man. He is not afraid of anything. But, Satan can has found that he can make my husband fearful in one area, the fear of not being able to provide. My husband recognizes this and has determined to nip it in the bud. He will see all that we are spending, but knows that we must spend it to keep our vehicle running, to be safe, or to dress our children in clothes so that they are not homeless looking, or to buy the insurance that is necessary, etc., and instead of thinking, "Oh no, our bank account is dropping - we'll never be able to pay the people we owe, or where will the money come next, or what if, what if, what if........????" Now, he recognizes it is a lack of trust in God - He'll speak to himself and say, "God knows our needs. He'll provide what we need. I don't need to be afraid." This has always been the case in our twenty years of marriage - always. We've never truly gone without.
So, off they'll go to New York this weekend - with 11 chapters of Acts under their belts. They are going to have an amazing opportunity to interact with other youth that memorize God's Word and they'll have fun, too. I will be here with the younger 5. There will be lots to do - We have two ice surfaces to skate on, the pond and a rink my husband and boys made. Plus, my sister's husband is away, too, so I may meet up with her and her kids which will be fun. Even that is a provision by God - sister/cousin time! Maybe they'll even bring back a medal........
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