Reality Bites & other randomness

You haven't heard from me lately because we are back in the real world and the real world is BUSY! It is amazing how much stuff has to be done when you return home after being gone for 3 weeks. The mail pile was out of control, bills to be paid (in my rush to leave I forgot to pay bills), budgets to revise (we got a nice chunk of pay raise), van to unload, van to clean out, bible studies to host, MOPS to coordinate, laundry to do, groceries to get, oh yeah and I still have kids to take care of and a husband to love on. I'm ready for another vacation.

I spent all day cleaning out the van yesterday. All day. It was disgusting. Seriously, I vacuumed up enough food to feed a small village. It was gross. So I took everything out of the van and really cleaned. I took apart the grotesque car seats and washed them, used an entire bottle of cleaner on the inside of the van, shampooed the carpets and even cleaned the roof (how in the world do things find their way up there?!) Usually my cleaning goes completely unnoticed, but this time my boys were all impressed with my work. Both boys kept saying, "Wow, this looks good!" I have no grand illusions that it will stay this way for long. High hopes, but no illusions.

While I was cleaning the car, our cleaners were cleaning my very dirty house. Can you say "delicious"?

MOPS is now in full gear. We got our charter, late last week, to start a MOPS on base and so the next year of my life is going to be immersed in this endeavor. I'm scared, excited, nervous and overwhelmed with all their is to do to be Coordinator of a brand new military group. I did read something yesterday that put it all into perspective:

"The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master's investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.' ~Matthew 25:22-23

While God is giving me a bigger job, he wants to be my partner in it!!! How amazing is that?!? It is so cool that God wants to partner with us. Cool, but very, very humbling. And how much pressure does that take off of me?! It is a reminder that it is not all about me and it is not all up to me. I think that I'll need to be reminded of that on a daily basis.

What else...

The kids. How could I forget?!? I'm not sure if my kids are having a hard time adjusting or if they are just acting out, but we are having a hard time with them. Right now, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and chalking up their behavior to coming down from vacation. They are both having a really hard time adjusting. Love and I have been working really hard to love all over them and spend extra time with them. Today we are going to SeaWorld and tonight we are eating pizza at our friends neighborhood swimming pool. Tomorrow we are getting a babysitter for the girls and taking the boys for a date night to see Kung Fu Panda. (It's getting kid friendly reviews, so hopefully it will be!) Our hope is that yhis extra attention will help. I think they are also sensing that Daddy is going back to work, on Monday, after being off for a month. But we aren't going to think about that...