Darling Juicy Friends... I just found this little jewel of a story and HAD to share it with you! Written on a blog called, "The Wonderful World of Hand Crafted".
Perfectly shared...in pictures. You'll love it! I think it simply brightened my day! Click HERE for the story!
(feeling joy in finding such a treasure)
Mid-summer and like many of you...I am lost in piles of extra laundry...kids scurring beneath my feet. Longer days...shorter nights and the constant noise level on high. What I crave now is the sound of pure silence. I want to hear my own heartbeat and my own breathing.
I am a stay at home mother. And I love my job. Not always but usually. Does this make sense? I know that I could be a working mother. I could leave for a job in the morning and return home in the evenings to my family. And there is a huge part of myself that believes I would love that. But then I picture my little ones. And the idea of leaving them to another person to raise...tosses me rapidly back into reality. I will stay home and be a mother to my babies. For my family, that is the best choice.
I can not be alone in this idea. There must be other mother's at home right now, feeling much the same.
I am fairly certain that summers with the children are supposed to be intense and somehow confined. Much like cramming 20 goldfish into a rather small glass bowl and saying to them..."Swim, just as you normally do!" With that said, I am not shocked that I am craving the silence. But you see, Mr. G has also been home due to being injured on duty...for nearly 2 months now. (I hear the collective sighs of deeper understanding ...you get it...thank you sistas.).
I truly wish I could understand why it is that with Mr. G home, I can not seem to accomplish as much. You would think that it wouldn't change my life all that drastically. But it does. It has. And the laundry piles are bigger. The grocery shopping is needed faster. The every day duties are never ending. And the feeling of accomplishment seems strangely just out of my grasp. Every day.
So I here I am Juicy friends. Wishing for the silence. Hoping for relief from the summer heatwave. And wondering out loud....if there is any sense to be made of this summer life of mine. Would you...could you...enlighten me?
Oh my...nuff said!
I just love this woman...she's got His hand on her heart...most definitely!
I am here. And soon I will be back...but summer fever has taken hold and I am off doing and seeing and running. Just one more week of school for the boys...and then we will "Ahhh" and relax.
You need a laugh...I can feel it. So being the person who cares enough to ensure that you laugh...I am sending you right over to THIS LINK. <----Click there babycakes, then come back and thank me. Because I KNOW you will want to thank me. It's THAT funny. Yes indeed.
And Ms. Fitarella....honey YOU simply rock! I will be laughing all night now, thanks to you baby!
Loved it. Simply...LOVED IT!
(
Feeling fabulously girlie because of the hysterical laughter that made me nearly blow soda through my nostrils while reading this post!)
Just a day or so ago, I Twittered, that baby Jack had spilled coffee onto my Mac keyboard...(Yes, I know HORROR!). While I thought I had pretty much cleaned it up...alas, I have a few irritatingly sticky keys on my keyboard! What is a girl to do? I have not a clue. Sooo, I Twitted.
What's that? You ask. And yes...if you read me...you KNOW I love it when you ask.
See that little spot over to your Left? It says...Twitterings and under it Twitter Updates. Well, that's the place where you'll see little bits of "what's up in this Juicy Diva's life" at the moment or a couple of hours ago...or a day ago...all depending primarily on when this girl has a chance to tap out a Twit on her now coffee sticky Mac Keyboard. You can sign up where it says, Follow Me and when you do...you'll be able to see the little updates of me and other friends on your Home page...all day, every day...its kinda like an addiction to cookies...one just isn't enough. But I digress....
Well..when I sent out the Twit message asking for help on cleaning this thing up...I didn't see a response. That is, until today, when I was surfing quite smoothly around the internet for another reason and bumped into this girl's blog. Where I finally read a response to my keyboard disaster. It's not exactly helpful in the area of coffee... but this just made me laugh out loud! 
Dreaming divas, this is what she suggested I use....for any crumbs that should scurry inside of my keyboard. For some reason it has struck my funny bone, just by lookin at it.
Forgive me here but I think it's a cross between cute and ridiculous! Can you really vacuum with this itty bitty comical miniature and where was this invention when I was playing with doll houses?
What do you think juicy friends??
Read more about this little invention of giggle pleasure here. Or if you just happened to love me and feel horribly sorry for me and my sad keyboard state...which leads you to want to send me one of these treasured mini-vacs of joy...email me here! (wink, wink)
(Charmed with the giggle-fest this brought me!)
Every night we have the same bedtime ritual. He crawls under his covers and we talk for a bit and then I ask, "Ok, let's talk to Jesus. What do you want to Thank Him for tonight?" or "What would you like to tell Him?" And Matt the Great, my middle boy, always says something like...
"Dear Jesus, I hope I have a good night's sleep....." followed by other requests or concerns of his fully 7 (and three-quarters as he would tell you) year old heart.
Last night I asked him the same question and this is what he said.
"Dear Jesus, thank you for the fireworks that we could see tonight from our front porch. They were really nice! Thank you for letting us watch them...."
And I suddenly remembered the distance fireworks that we indeed could see from more than 5 miles distance. Yes they were beautiful. Yes... they were special, because after all, they were fireworks. But did "I," mommy to Matt the Great, even consider THANKING God for letting us see them? No. Sadly...no. 
As I left the room, I did some thinking. I started to consider all of the
special every day things that I see and smile about but rarely think to thank my Father in Heaven for sending my way. Like the gorgeous red cardinal that landed just outside my bedroom window for more than a moment and stared in our direction. It was stunning. And I loved it. But I didn't thank God.
And what about the soft Caribbean guitar music I found and totally enjoyed throughout my outdoor lunch with my family in the afternoon. LOVED it. But didn't thank Him for it. Or the green grass playtime that I shared with baby Jack in the late afternoon sunshine. Didn't thank Him for it one bit.
I realize that even in this moment, I am forgetting the smallest of things in my day already. Things that have been sent my way by the goodness of a big Dad in Heaven who sent them to me because He fully loves me! And yet, while I loved them...I didn't quite get around to saying thank you. In some cases, I didn't even notice.
I have much to be grateful for and much I should say. So, let me begin by saying this:
"Father, thank you so much for Matt, who once again has taught me much...in this case, that I lack gratitude for loads of little things you've done for me. Thank you for caring enough to point that out to me through a little child...my child."
(learning....truly learning, but so not there yet)
What's a girl to do when she's only 5 posts away from her 100th posting?! Hmm, make that only 4 posts, after this little itty bitty cheater posting..ha ha
So tell me juicy friends...what's a girl to do when she reaches the 100th!?
(Wondering, do they have special bands that play trumpets and bang drums on the 100th post? Do all the posts have to be good ones to count?)
Sitting on the couch...practicing my talent for actually being a "Couch Potato" I saw a commercial that caught me off-guard. The pretty brunette woman on the screen announced, in a rather pleasant voice,
"I am no longer defined by how many dishes I wash."
And then the screen flashed to some type of disposable plates that will entirely change my life and the lives of millions of women around the globe. (oh, if only, right?!)
But, believe it or not, this silly commercial sped through my mind like a downhill skier preparing for a long jump. And I started to obsess about the sentence she had spoken. Did she actually THINK that the number of dishes she washed, would in some way define her? And what is it that I think defines me?
In the past weeks, I've been devouring an amazing Bible study by Beth Moore called, "Breaking Free". I'll hastily tell you, I have loved every minute of it. Breaking free from all the stuff that bogs me down in this life, is all out refreshing! And somewhere last week, I read a particularly moving paragraph that went like this.
"You (insert your name here) are not defined by anything that happened to you or anything you have done. You are defined by who you are in Christ. You are God's beloved child."
And I balled like a little kid, for the longest time, after reading that
oh-so-profoundly-simple truth. Not to worry, these were not tears of pain. I flooded my little hands with tears of pure relief and absolute gratitude!
You see, I have a past. Perhaps like you. Perhaps more or less unflattering than yours. But frankly, there are moments in my life that I am positive would shame anyone if they had lived them. I have done things...said things, yelled things, hit things, thrown things and accomplished acts of ick that I am too embarrassed to share here.
Yet. (Oh thank GOD for the good news) I am NOT defined by ANY of these things. Only God gets to say, who I am.
If you think that your past deeds or someone else's deeds against you are the only way we might try to define who you are...then think about this.
You've perhaps noticed people, attempting to define themselves by the clothes worn, the
houses lived in and the furniture stockpiled inside of it? Cars become statements of a persons wealth and status. Marriages and children become a part of the resumes to success. Jobs become a part of a long ladder that someone will use to define you.
The people you hang with become tokens of style and culture. Even the church you attend can be a defining point to some. And the business of making a statement about who you are, goes on and on.
It's all bunk. Rubbish. (to quote the english)
I am blemished. I am tarnished. I am a complete loser on my own. I can spend hours in front of a mirror trying to look perfect (eh-hm, I admit it...I do attempt that quite often without success). I can act the part of a good wife, an amazing mother, a solid friend that you can always count on to give, do and be the right things. And I can fall into the categories above with house...cars and family with the hope that it will tell me or someone else who I am. But it won't.
And as I sit here at my desk, I realize too, that there are many who would
like to define me. Some have tried to tell me who I am, who I need to
be, what I should do and what I've done wrong. I have labels that
people have tried to apply to me. And I have history that would like
to attach itself to my back, bogging me down for the rest of my life.
But none of it is the definition of who I am.
I am not defined by what I have, where I live, who I am with, or anyone's ideas about who I am. I am not even defined by who I think I am. I am simply defined by one God, who loves me enough to say..."Jenn, you told me all that junk in your past. I forgave you. And honey, (he is affectionate), I can't even remember your past anymore." Oh how I love God! And I LOVE His memory loss grace and mercy, even more!
Knowing God means that while He won't erase the consequences of my past...He will forgive it all. And who I am in HIM today, is the only definition that matters.
In the end, perhaps the pretty brunette woman in the commercial was right. Clearly, she is NOT defined by how many dishes she washed.
(Grateful...oh so grateful)
P.S. By the way, lest you think I am anti-pretty- things...Im not. I don't think that there is anything wrong with having things or attempting to be beautiful...etc. (I like all that stuff too) It just doesn't define a person.
