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Mommy Intergration

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Over the past couple of weeks I have found that the same topics are coming up in my conversations with other moms.  I am married with four children and I do a lot.

I blog, crochet, knit, sew, go to school, moderate various groups, and so much more.

I know!  That list doesn’t seem like a lot, but I kinda cut it short and used words to summarize my activities.

(I digress) 🙂

The point in saying all of this is that often times people think that because I have four children I have very little time to do much of anything else.

They say things like, “How do you find the time?” and “I don’t have four children and I can’t seem to get what I want done.”

Well, here are my thoughts on this.

First, let me say that I did not learn this over night.  It took a some time for me to get what I am about to share with you.

We have to learn to integrate what we love and what we do with who we are.

I get it…that seems confusing, but let me explain a bit.

You and I are both individuals that are very complex.  We aren’t as simple as the titles that we carry.

Simply put…you are not just a mother or a wife.  You are so much more.

You are the woman that God has created you to be.

The truth is that whether we accept it or not we are who we are.  Learning who we are is a great part of this process.

I had to learn who I am.  I had to learn what I like and what I don’t like.  I had to learn what makes me tick.  What makes me smile?   What helps & encourages me and what can stop me right in my path.

Again I say, this was a process.

I spent time looking at my life when it was consumed with only being a mother and a wife.  Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mother and a wife, but without the “me” part, it can all become a bit robotic.

I learned that my family apprecieates my creative abilities and they take joy in watching me do what I do.

Hence the “Mommy Intergration.”  It is the act of incorperating mommy into my life and not the other way around.  I am first myself.  I am a woman that loves and serves God.  I am also a wife who loves her husband.  I am also a mother that loves her children.  Yet still, I am a woman that enjoys crafting, speaking, reaching out to others, and making a difference in this world. (Or at least trying to)

As I mother, I make time for the things that I enjoy.  I sit down to watch the television shows that I like and I allow my children to watch them with me.  (This being said, I don’t watch anything that doesn’t promote a healthy godly lifestyle) As my children watch television with me, they learn what its like to just be.  Not to be a mother, but to be themselves.

I do this same thing with crafting.  I allow my children to sit and watch or at times participate in my crafting activities.  This allows them to see that there is a creative side to who I am.  They also learn that there is a creative side to who they are as well.

I’m sure you see the pattern here.  I take time every month, every week, and everyday to do something that I love and enjoy.  I find a way to incorperate what I do with mothering. My children don’t always have to be napping for me to do what I enjoy.  They can sit with me as I do it.  We can talk about it.

As I do this daily, I find great fulfillment in my life.  I am constantly asking God to help me live a life that is fulfilling, pleasing to Him, and encouraging to others, including my children.

As my children see me living as me…not just mom…they learn who they are.

So, if you were to visit my home, you would find lots of singing, dancing, reading, crafting, cleaning, making a mess, playing, taking time out for self, making time for others, and just…well, being…

I hope that I was able to communicate my thoughts on this in a way that is understandable.  This is a topic that I have a lot of passion about, so I have so much more to say about it.  I just wanted to take a moment a speak on it.

Perhaps in the future I’ll write on it more.

I want to encourage you to find out who you are and to integrate your mommy-ing into your life.  I pray that your mothering experience will be as pleasurable as mine is.

Do you every think on this topic?  What are you thoughts, challenges, obstacles?  Have you found mommy integration an easy thing to do?  Leave a comment so we can discuss it.

To Be or Not To Be

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“To be or not to be, that is this the question.” William Shakespeare

As I have lived my life, it seems that this question continues to come up.  Is it ok to live this life as an individual. To be yourself and do as you desire in your heart.  Not to be yourself is to take what you know that everyone else is expecting and project that on you.  Well, this is what I have done for so long.  I have contemplates, thought about, and stressed what everyone else thought of me.  I have refrained from saying certain things because I thought that it was the best thing.  I have said things in a certain way because I didn’t want to offend anyone, but the truth is no matter how hard I try, someone is going to get offended.

People are going to thing what they want of me regardless of my actions.  Some of the best people that I know have had people say the worst things about them.  So…I have decided that there isn’t anything else that I can be besides myself.  This is what is best for me and my family.  For all that I know, it could also be best for the people around me.

I have so much ore to say, but right now I have to cook dinner and then do some school work.

Until next time…

Taking Steps Today

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Staying focused isn’t always easy, but in gonna get my assignments done. As a mom and a wife there’s a lot to do. Add on a student that’s moving and it’s a totally different thing.

Thank God for his empowering grace the makes the impossible possible.

I can and I will get it all done.

The cooking
The cleaning
The packing
The reading
The paperwork
The scheduling
Caring for myself, my husband, and my children
I can. One thing at a time

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Be Enough Me: Living Honestly

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Like This Tree I Too Will Be..

 

  • I am a woman
  • I am a mother
  • I am a daughter
  • I am a wife
  • I am a sister
  • I am a friend
  • I am a writer
  • I am a teacher
  • I am a Christian
  • I AM ENOUGH

That is what I am saying, but most of the times, I don’t feel like I am enough. I have to convince myself of this. Honestly…

Over the past year, when I started blogging, I have been confronted with an aspect of myself that I must have kept hidden for a long time…my humanity.

No, I’m not being funny, but as a woman Christian woman in today’s society, I am expected to be anything but human. My posture, tone, deeds, feelings, and appereance are suppose to be divine. In many ways this is impossible. Don’t get me wrong, I am becoming like Christ daily, but the pressure that I feel from the expectations, both inner and outwardly, make being a person impossible.

Yes that sounds crazy, but over the past year I have felt and dealt with some real emotions. I was afraid to express them. Even more than that, I was afraid to feel them. I stopped blogging because I wasn’t sure how to speak, let alone blog about my feelings.

I have decided that I am going to do something for myself. I am going to allow myself to feel. I am going to allow myself to live. I am going to allow myself to live honsetly. I will express my emotions in the best constructive way that I know how.

I am going to trust that I am as God sees me. I am enough, even when I feel weird.

I’m not going to try to be more than I am or omit what I am for the sake of thinking that it will make me more. I will be me…

That’s the honest truth.

Perhaps like Robin Far discusses in her post Finding Your Why, my word for this year should be honest.

 

Being Mom Blogs…

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When I wake up in the morning in Utah.  I still consider it to be a strange place.  Although I have lived here now for more than a couple of months, it still feels strange.  I haven’t exactly made friends and my life sometimes feels a little foreign.  These are the times when I really need to relate to someone else, another woman.  When I search for blogs that may allow me to connect with other women, I normally find ones that are so positive that they seem unreal.  I have been a mother for 10 years now and I know personally that everything isn’t always great.  No! They are not always horrible, but honestly it’s a wild roller coaster ride.

I originally started my blog with the intention of being honest about my life, but the more blogs I read by other mothers, the harder it became to be honest.  I really needed to do this, be honest.  Not for anyone else.  It was simply for me.  I was reading stories that sounded like the perfect pictures that accompanied their posts and I thought that my blog would stand out like a sore thumb in a way that I didn’t want it to.  I thought that I wouldn’t have any readers and that everyone would think that I was being extremely negative, when all I really wanted was an outlet to be honest and connect with other women like myself.

Well, that was a little over a year ago and now I need to blog more than ever.  My family’s life has changed in so many ways that sometimes its hard for all of us.  I normally enjoy writing and talking, but blogging is just different.  I know that my thoughts will be read and that someone may respond.  That is good for me because I want to converse about these things.  I just don’t always want to converse with my family, my mom, or  friends back home who just don’t understand.  I don’t want to post my every thought on Facebook for my mom and everyone else that I care about to see.  Yes, I know that my blog is public and that’s ok.  But the difference is that I’m not typing all of these things for the people that I know to read, I’m doing it for that same reason that a writer writes a book, because they have something to say and this is how they do it best.  This is a type of therapy for me and I know that other women feel the same.  So many blogs are created per day…blogging speaks for itself.

So, I have realized my needs and I have begun to look for blogs that are not overly negative, but that are realistic.  I want to read the stories of women like myself who don’t want to reveal all of their family problems, but who are not afraid of talking about somethings that are on their minds and in their hearts.  This morning I really needed this.  It was like being in group therapy.  Sometimes we as women, human beings, wives and mothers need to know that we are not alone.  I need to read, hear, or know, that I am not the only person dealing with anxiety in some areas of my life.  Yes, the Lord said that we should be anxious about anything, but as a human it’s hard and I strive to move past it, while I trust Him. I need to understand that I am not the only person dealing with relational issues with friends.  I need to grasp the fact that I’m not the only person that may not have a clean kitchen, right now.  I don’t want total negativity, but I do want realism.

I plan on cleaning my kitchen, making my relationships better, reading all of the books on my list, being the perfect mom and doing my best to be positive…but in the meantime, I’m going to give myself permission to feel and express what is really on my heart and mind.  If I don’t I may go crazy and nobody wants that. 🙂

So I have something to say to all of you moms out there that are being honest and still having integrity (allowing your family some privacy) on your blogs.  Thank you.  You help me accept myself as a woman.  You help me have the courage to be myself at all times.  You help me to see what reality is in my life.  You encourage me to be better as you strive to be better.  You encourage me not to fear the my emotions, but to realize that I feel them and find ways to deal with them.  You help me understand that no one is perfect.  Thank you so much for your courage, honesty, and the faith that you have in God to know that He will help you get through it all.

This is why I enjoy being a momblogger and reading other momblogs.

Until next time~


Friendships…Really?!

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I’m really not sure that I want to really do this, but I kinda feel like it, so I’m gonna do it.  I have read post of many women who have the courage to take what is in their hearts and express it on their blogs.  There are women who have come up with some really great names of their blogs that express the way that I feel about somethings.  I want to say that you all give me courage to take a moment and express myself, without fear.

Recently I moved from North Carolina to Utah.  Actually it was 10 months ago.  I used to have a circle of friends that I could count on.  We would call one another to check on each other regularly.  These women were Christian women and we has tons in common.  Prior to moving, I began to feel that our relationships were growing further and further apart.  Once I left those relationships became almost obsolete in my life.  Even the women that I just called once in a while to check on and they did the same, suddenly disappeared.  I really wasn’t expecting this to happen, but it did.

I moved out here to Utah, thinking that I would be able to make friends just like I did back home.  making friends has never been hard for me, until now.  I’m not sure what it is.  It could be that I’m a black woman and the percentage of African-Americans out here is about 1%.  Maybe they don’t know what to expect, but seriously I doubt that this is the problem.  I have spoken to a few women of other nationalities that say it’s hard to make friends out here as well.  (This is somethingI’m not used to.  I come from a very integrated area…race has never been an issue) So the difficulty has cause me to experience a bit of loneliness.  With all of my friends and family on the other side of the country, it has been pretty hard.  I have my husband and my children.  They keep me company, but I don’t want to put a strain on them.  I believe that there is a natural place in the life of a woman for relationships with other women.

Recently, I made, or thought I made a friend.  This has happened a couple of times out here.  I talk to women, we hang out, let our kids play, plan on going on family outings, and then something happens that cancels everything that we have discussed.  In the past I would look at situations like this and think that God knew that the relationship wouldn’t have been a healthy one, so He disconnected it.  This may still be the case, but the truth is that, it’s really hard.  I’ve been to a church and tried to make friends, but one of the women got offended by something that I said and…to make a long story short, I no longer go to the church nor do I think that we are friends.  I honestly think that no one meant any harm, but again…it hurts.

I am beginning to think that this is a time in my life that I am not going to be connected to anyone but my husband and children and that’s ok, but God is going to have to help me learn how to do this.  I have always had my mother or someone who I could visit and spend some time with doing things that women like to do.  Now those things have been limited to text messages, phone calls, and Facebook messages…that is whenever people are available.

I hope I’m not rambling. I am just finally saying what I have been thinking.  I have found that I began rambling in my conversations.  My friends would tell me that they had to go or would not answer the phone when I called.  They would text me a message that they would call me when they were able to talk.  That is completely understandable.  They have lives, husbands, children, and other obligations.  They just don’t understand that I’ve been holding in a lot waiting to talk to a girlfriend.  I’m in my house all day with my kids.  I can’t have these conversations with them.  More than this, they don’t understand that when they finally do call me whether it is to just say hi or to talk about an issue that they are having, I take time out of my schedule.  It has never been convenient to maintain relationships.  I have spent hours on the phone with them when they needed me, but now that I need it, where are they…WOW!!!  That’s the first time that I put this out there like that.  I’ve gotten text messages or calls from “friends” that needed me and I made myself available.  It would be nice if I could get the same.

Saying all of that I do realize that things may look one way to me, but may actually be another way.  I guess it just says a lot to me when I’m not getting any calls, texts, or Facebook messages from friends saying “Hey! Are you doing ok?” until they haven’t heard from me in weeks.  I used to check on people regularly.  I still love them, but I’ve decided that I’m not going to be a bother to anyone.  I have shown myself very friendly, if they want to remain friends, they know how to reach me.  I may call them to see how they are doing, but I probably won’t be talking too much…I don’t want to bore anyone or take up too much of their time.

I’m going to stop now.  This is me pouring out my heart…feeling like some tears will follow.

I have things to do, so I’m gonna get going.