Saturday Musings {Day 24 and 25}

This past few days have been wonderfully busy, and a little brutal. I am still learning my children, their little preferences and what helps them thrive.

We spent this last week visiting friends, away from the house most every day. Turns out, Lou & Mack swing more to the introvert/hermit side of the pendulum and were on the verge of emotional collapse by Friday afternoon. I love visiting people and arranging playdates, staying out of my house as much as possible (somehow it stays cleaner that way) but I am learning while my kids are small, that is not always best so in the weeks ahead I'm going to start saying 'no' to more things and learn how to add more in-home play and structure (and not have my kids watch TV while I'm doing things on the computer). What on earth does that look like? I have no clue! If you know or have ideas, please help me!

Friday afternoon I planned to write a post (that had been intended for Thursday!) titled "10 Things I Love about my House," but I swear, I looked around and didn't see even one thing I liked- let alone loved! Blogging is hard when you want to be real because there is rarely space in my messy life for pretty pictures, scheduled posts, and well-edited verse. Not every blogger in the world has all these things all the time, but I don't have any of them-- any of the time!

I have loved sharing my Spending Fast though and it has been a joyful method to stay accountable to God and the people I started this journey with (and you hitch-hikers I picked up along the way).

Yesterday was not just a blogging fail, but a parenting one as well! After I put my kids down for a nap, I realized I was hungry and had no food in the house so I ordered delivery pizza for lunch, this is a new low for me. After they woke, I felt like we needed to exercise (but not go the gym, too much effort) so I barricaded my children from coming upstairs with a baby-gate, put on some make-up, and off we went to Target. We made ourselves feel better with some apple juice and Diet Coke, strolled the aisles looking for a baby present for my niece expected to make her debut soon, and all left in better spirits then when we entered.

This is still the struggle for me, even 10 months into my fast. I still love to self-soothe with a special ---always highly caffeinated-- drink and a trip to the store. I don't know how to undo this and fully blame my mother for teaching me poor coping mechanisms at a young age (I'm pretty sure every time I got hurt, I was given a Popsicle and a Barbie). I don't have time or money to go to counseling for these issues so I will just have to stay on a spending fast for life.

One fun update from this week is I officially ran out of my allotted funds to get my hair highlighted (I set aside money for this fast exception at the beginning of the year) so went dark for real this time to help me get through to January. I did not expect to like it but I do-- probably because my hair girl Dee is awesome! Here are two photo's in which I am wearing more make up at one time than I usually do in a month. I promise to post some more real-life pictures soon but who is taking those of themselves anyways? Isn't that missing the point?

My girl Haverlee and I are off this afternoon to check out the Homegoods and Nordstrom Rack that just opened in Des Moines. I am leaving my wallet at home to encourage myself to spend intentional time with my friend instead of oogling at all the stuff I see! Let's see if it works...