Motherhood

Well here I am. I didn’t mean to take a sabbatical from my blogging but something came between us. What, you ask? Motherhood. That’s what.

Here I sit typing this post with a sleeping baby (a very beautiful, peaceful sleeping baby) wrapped tight to my chest in a mobby wrap. For days I’ve intended to write this post; weeks even, but up until today I never could quite convince myself to waste my “free time” on a blog post. Today, though I’ve eaten, showered, neatened house, and decided dishes can wait; I’ll write that post. I’ll let the world know that my baby has arrived.

The waiting ended at 2 AM Saturday the 14^th. Or maybe that’s when it really began? I got out of bed to go pee and my water broke as soon as my feet hit the floor. It wasn’t until 26 hours, lots of contractions, a few ‘I’m going to die’ moments, and the glorious couple of hours of pushing later that our darling baby arrived. Honestly the whole time seemed to just disappear for me. One day of my life *poof* disappeared. Vanished. Gone. Only the wee hours of Sunday morning stick in my mind. The time when I knew I was indeed getting somewhere.

So world, here is my baby, sweet little Jerusha Ann Smith.

She joined us at 4:17 AM Sunday, March 15^th, 2015 weighing 7lbs 13oz and 21”

I will spare you the detailed story of my labor and delivery because, well, I’m just going to assume you don’t care to hear it. If I’m wrong leave a comment and I’ll consider sharing.

Now here we are. Cautiously exploring the new status I have achieved. I count myself a mom from the day I became pregnant but being a mother of a baby on the inside and a mother to one on the outside are two entirely different things. Related, yes, but entirely different. You may have thought you weren’t able to get any rest while so uncomfortably pregnant but you don’t know how much you’re actually getting. Uncomfortably sleeping for 8 hours is actually sleeping. Sitting up in bed from 12:24 AM until 2:07 AM is not sleeping, and then again from 4:12 to 5:52. That’s how last night went for me. It’s not always that way, though, unfortunately. I say unfortunately because I’d take a night like that over this past Sunday’s any day. Getting up every 4ish hours is doable. Not getting to sleep until close to 2 AM because baby just isn’t tired and then getting up every 4 hours is much much harder. Take my word for it, or my husband’s who was the one who got her to sleep in the end and had to get up for work at 6.

Hard as that all seems to me it is still most definitely worth it. I would go through the 9 and a half months of pregnancy all over again, and relive these sleepless last few weeks if I had to in order to have her. Or any other baby in the future, for that matter. My younger sister insists she’s never having kids; its not worth the sickness of pregnancy, the discomfort involved, the out of shape state it leaves your body in, and then the sleepless, bedraggled state of new-momhood. But I’m here to tell you it is. Not that I expect you to believe me ;)

Furthermore: you may want to check in with me on that in about 15 or 16 years ;P

Holding this beautiful baby may be worth it but for any readers not yet a mom let me encourage you to cherish the free time you have because you may not always get to paint your nails whenever you feel like it. Someday you may have to decide if the baby will stay asleep long enough for you to get them painted and dried and you also may have to decide if painting your nails is something you should even devote free time to, isn’t that sink full of dishes priority? And you sure wont have enough time to paint nails, let them dry, and wash the dishes…

No, things won’t be the same for a very long time if ever but it is worth it. Scroll back up to that beautiful picture and try and tell me it’s not.

I’ve always hated the idea of “me time” it just seems so.. self centered and selfish but now I understand it a little better; a little differently than the mainstream idea of “me time” but a little better. You see, for me being able to grab a quick shower while Jerusha is sleeping is a luxury I consider me time, to be able to finish feeding her in time to rush to the bathroom before peeing on myself is me time, feeding her now as I one handedly finger peckingly type this (yes, she woke up and decided the mobby was no longer acceptable) is me time. So, spending the day at a spa, catching up with some girl friends for coffee, or going to the mall this weekend aren’t on my list of me time activities but I have learned to appreciate the me time of showering, using the bathroom, doing some house work, and writing in a way I never knew I would.

So, you without the baby, don’t take the everyday ease wherein you go pee whenever you need to for granted.

~Haley

Pathetic - Impatient - M e

Patience.

It has a whole new meaning at 41 weeks 2 days pregnant.

And for any of you who know my mother’s history you’ll be laughing at me already. But, hold on just a second, at least she knows what to expect.

I came into this knowing I could be like her but that’s not quite the same as going into a pregnancy knowing you will have at least an extra month to wait. Its just not. I’m sure.

So today I struggle with patience.

My husband has changed his prayers over the course of this wait from “Lord, your timing” to “Lord, please today” and now our request has simply become “Lord, give us patience.”

It’s hard to stay cheerful as I sit around simply waiting. I’ve run out of “before baby” projects and just keep waiting to have a baby fill my time.

I neaten and re neaten the house; hoping each time that it will be the last time before the baby arrives.

I cook dinner and hope tomorrow night it will be Shelby pulling enchilada’s out of the freezer to serve me. (That could probably be the case regardless of being pregnant ;P)

I walk through the baby room and hold back tears as I eye the empty crib, empty car seat, and un decided on boxes of clothes.

I sit in my chair, feet propped up due to swelling and go ahead and let the tears flow. How much longer God? When can I meet my baby?

I feel like that’s pathetic. It’s barely one week past my due date. My mom has gone through so much more. But at the same time, 40 weeks is a long time to wait. 41 is even more. Every little bit counts.

At 41 weeks I’m still physically less miserable than I was during the first half of my pregnancy. I’d still trade weeks of this oversized – Wall-E – character body I’ve acquired to the weeks of throwing up my guts daily.. hourly.. Yes, this is better physically but combined with the waiting it’s getting close to matching.

Waiting really isn’t my thing. Patience just isn’t a virtue I’m well equipped with. If you read my last blog post you’ll know how I feel about my time. How I micro manage it. Well, this baby was supposed to come on the 5^th. That’s what I had planned. That’s the day I convinced myself it would arrive. It was the perfect day. Wesley could take Friday off and have the weekend home with new baby and me. But, no. God’s timing wasn’t mine. Being told no in such an obvious fashion is pretty hard guys. Pretty hard. Each and every day since I’ve still been told “no” and being told no is not getting any easier, in case you were wondering.

So now I pray for patience.

I ignore my body.

No, that wasn’t a contraction. No, it didn’t hurt more than the last. No, they aren’t getting closer. Don’t you dare look at the clock.

Really, after this weekend of carefully timing everything and analyzing every little thing to no end I know it would make me crazy to do so day in and day out. So I ignore everything and wait.

And wait.

And keep waiting.

I have been told not to rush it, to enjoy what time I have left. I understand that. I addressed that idea in a recent blog post. I have cherished the time I’ve had to myself with our baby BUT it is okay for me to be ready for that time to end. I’ve enjoyed it for most of the past 41 weeks, okay? That’s a while to wait to meet my baby face to face. I’m ready.

A scripture keeps coming to mind daily and although I know I’m feeling it somewhat out of context I do think God is using it to remind me He’s here. 

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

That is me. Minus the laboring part (oh how I wish). Heavy laden; ready for a rest. Ready for something new. A take over. Ready to have this baby in my arms as to womb. Ready to begin parenting. Ready to know if our baby is a girl or boy; who it takes after. I am ready.

So here I am. Ready God. Give me rest. In your time. When you know I need it; give me rest.

….waiting also didn’t get any easier when my family booked a beach house for the week of the 21^st-28^th and invited me along if the baby has arrived and we’re up for traveling….

T I M E

Time has slipped away from me.

I know, that probably sounds odd coming from an 8+ month pregnant woman but really, truly, it has.

In the last month Wesley and I bought our first house, became “grown ups” long enough to figure out insurance, banking, and etc. (;P), moved with the help of family and friends, and my time has been taken up.

Before we moved in my sister and I painted the living room, baby’s room, the bedroom, and most of the trim work. A close friend helped with some of that as well as spent a day helping me clean the house. Once again my sister (Shelbs) spent a day with me cleaning our rental before handing the keys back.

Painting and cleaning. Both very time consuming.

My time has been consumed.

I am very pleased to say that does make me feel like time is passing quickly. I’m not constantly sitting around moaning over my uncomfortably large state. In fact, most of the time I’ve been too busy making lists and crossing items I’ve completed off to even notice how close I could be to giving birth. Or it might be my nervousness about giving birth that constantly is pushing the idea into the far corner of my mind…

Due to all the time that has elapsed since my last post, peoples recent comments about how close I am, and my own statement of “I can’t wait to meet my baby” has gotten me thinking a lot about time. Not only time though, rather our perception of it.

You see, I really can wait to meet my baby. 

In fact, the last thing in the world I want to do is rush through the last 3+ weeks. In merely 3ish weeks I will never ever carry this baby inside me again, I will never be its sole provider, I will never get the lay awake at night crying tears of joy as I feel my baby moving inside me assuring me it is alive and well. In around three weeks I will be forced to give up this closeness. I don’t want to rush that. But, on the same note, when it is time I will be thrilled to meet my baby face to face. To compare its features to Wesley’s, to mine. To witness Wesley’s first contact with our baby. I will get to use new senses in my relationship with this baby. Things must be given up to be replaced with the new. And I look forward to that time. I just can wait. I don’t want to rush it.

I want to live all my life in this manner.

I want to take each day at a time and live it to the full potential.

But, you see, I am a control freak.

When it comes to my time I feel an intense need to control. We’re talking serious list making-calendar filling-micro managing-time freak. My pocket book calendar has my days broke down. Which day will be cleaning, which dinners I have planned, what times Wesley will get off, what days he will go run, which days he will do strength training. I have a pad of paper on which I write out detailed daily lists. What time I’ll get up, which chores I’ll do, which projects, who I’ll see, when and what I’ll eat. Now, truth be told, I don’t always have my days schedule written out on paper, sometimes it’s just carved in stone inside my head. But that’s just it. It’s there and it is to be followed.

See? I control my days.

And then, every once in a while that control is taken from me. I will have a day planned and then *poof* something unexpected comes up and my list is worthless. Wesley comes home from work, my day is almost complete, I have dinner plans figured out, I’ve imagined us spending the evening sitting on the couch sipping tea and discussing our days, planning for tomorrow, and then he walks in the door saying “let’s go out tonight. You have some groceries to get, right?”

“Uhm… Y e s … but I didn’t plan on going out tonight.” [Que internal panic and a mad dash for rescheduling and righting the chaos created in mere seconds.]

(It’s really not that I can’t be spontaneous, its just that… I like to know when I’m going to be..)

On days when control is so cruelly ripped from me I often spend a few seconds in panic and then that evening, depending on the size of the change, I may experience some depression over (1) losing my control and (2) the day not going “perfectly”. Depression of this sort, much as in any other case, is draining. It leaves a very bleak outlook. I realize how much time I spent planning and quickly wonder how much of my life has been wasted on plans that never take place. Then I may spend several hours bemoaning the fact that I waste most of my life planning useless plans.

Is there an answer to my dilemma?

Should I stop planning all together? *shudder*

Should I fly by the seat of my pants? Go with the flow?

I’m really not sure. I kind of doubt there is a ‘fix’ for this. I will probably carry on the rest of my life, planning, viewing change, re-planning, changing, and re-planning; days on end, weeks, years, and in the end my entire life time. But I think I’m okay with that. It’s who I am. I need to plan. I just need to accept the state of re-planning as a comfortable place.

Now, back to my original thought.

Understanding time as it is.

As I’ve reached this point in my pregnancy I am often being told “Don’t worry, it’ll go fast.” From those supportive glass-is-half-full people and “You still have three weeks to go, it’ll feel like forever.” From the equally supportive and realistic people, I’m sorry, I mean glass-half-empty folks.

Well both of those statements (and almost every other regarding time) drive me crazy. I usually just want to give them a good shake, whip out my calendar and shove it in their face. “Do you see this? It’s a year. A year of days. One year, comprised of 365 - 24 hour days. There is no ‘fast’ there is no ‘slow’ it’s all going by at the same rate everyday. For. Ever.”

Yeah, I’m a little overly passionate about this issue but really, can you all agree with me? Time doesn’t go faster or slower.

You have to agree with me. It’s a fact.

Time marches on. It’s not waiting on people. It’s not speeding past people. It marches on at the same rate as always and I’d think we’d be used to that by now. Stop expecting it to slow down just for you to get extra time with your munchkins before they turn into adults and stop expecting it to speed up so you can get this busy week over with. The steadiness of time doesn’t change. Our perception of it is what changes.

We measure time by how much we’ve accomplished, how busy our days are, how well we planned them. Time is as it always has and will be; your perception of it is what is changing. Your view on the “speed” of time is based on what you expect to get out of it.

Now, maybe the reason I have this pet peeve about time being such a steady friend is directly connected to my need to control it?

Yes? Yes.

Because for me time is set. At the end of each day it will feel just that; like one day. At the end of a week I will smile and sigh knowing I wasn’t cheated out of any time, I had one week, one more solid, seven day period of time that no one could change. The comfort in exaction of time is oh so important to me. Whether or not I lost control on a few of those days that week was still a week and in through the glass of predestination it held exactly what it was supposed to hold.

Time.

I love it.

So everyone else just stop pretending it speeds up and slows downs and flies past or crawls by because it doesn’t.

Time marches on.

Do remember though; spend your time wisely.

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, wither thou goest.” –_{Ecclesiastes 9:10}

Thanks for taking time out to read my mostly rant like post on time. Hopefully soon I'll have pictures of our new home in  tidy order that I'll post :)   ~Haley

Are You Keeping Me Accountable??

This is a picture post to mortify myself in the name of accountability. 
My resolve to keep the house cleaner? 
Here is the result of spending a weekend coming and going from home only to pick things up and drop things off while the majority of my time was spent basically living at parents.
The house evolved quickly into a complete mess and Monday morning saw me out of bed with a checklist and cleaning on my mind.
So here are before and after pictures of the mess created in 4 days and cleaned in about 2 hours of steady cleaning.

Living Room - Before

Living Room - After

Dining Room - Before

Dining Room - After
[Note: I know it appears to be messy still but we're collecting moving boxes and there's not much you can do to make them look neat;P]

Sink - Before

Sink - After

Counter - Before

Counter - After

Bedroom - Before

Bedroom - After

 So, as you can see, my house cleans up nicely when I put the effort in. 

Admittedly these pictures are from Monday of last week and my house isn't this clean at the moment. It's not this messy either, though.

Thanks for following my journey through laziness and housewifery..

How is it going for you? What is the state of your house/room/dorm? What have you done to let it become a mess or keep it neat?

~Haley

Reflections and Anticipations

Around the end of 2014 I thought about putting together a post covering my year and all the blessings therein but I never got around to it. I put it off thinking I’d just write a post in the first few days of 2015 and cover both the past year and what we look forward to in the new year. Well, that didn’t happen either. I guess it still technically is the beginning of the year, January 9^th isn’t really all that late in the spectrum of three hundred and sixty-five days.

So now I thought I’d roll it all into one mid January post. Reflections on the past year and anticipations on the one we’re in.

A lot happened in my life last year - I have had so many incredible blessings take place in the last twelve months.

I married my best friend and fiancé Wesley Smith and we started on our adventure together and a grand adventure it is proving to be. April fifth will forever be a favorite day of mine <3

To start our adventure off Wesley took me on a surprise honeymoon which involved my first experiences with flying, cruise ships, all around the clock all you can eat buffets, room service, Mexico, and caring for sick spouses ;)

We came home to our first home together and I started the life I’d trained years for; stay at home wifehood. I was lazy sometimes but nailed it other times. I was over ambitious some days and lazy most. But I’ve done okay and still have a happy husband and with my renewed desire to overcome laziness am much happier with myself as well.

I was blessed with one of the deepest desires of my heart and feelings of one of the most amazing and purest joy as I watched the positive sign appear on a pregnancy test. I got to share that joy at three AM on a Sunday morning with Wesley and excitedly praise God together for our first child with which we will share our adventures.

The pregnancy (as more deeply described in my previous post) has not been only what I imagined but much more. It has been harder than I anticipated yet exceedingly more thrilling and breathtaking as well. Daily I am overwhelmed with a mother’s joy and love as I feel my little one pushing against a sundry of organs, ribs, and the like. I cradle my unborn bundle of joy and pray over it knowing all too soon I will miss this feeling as it is replaced by new senses when our baby arrives in this world.

Through my marriage I’ve been blessed by claiming the Smith Family truly as mine. I have so many incredible siblings now. My family life with the Huffman’s is much more peaceful and loving as well now that I’m married and out of the house ;P I have received a very unexpected blessing in the form of a mommy who is now one of my very best friends. Some readers will understand why that comes as a surprise; to you others, let’s just say I wasn’t the easiest daughter to raise..

In spite of the depression during pregnancy this year has still held the most balanced version of me. I don’t know whether I can say marriage was my fix, or the change in hormones through pregnancy, or what combination it is but I do know that out of the recent years this has been my least depression controlled one. Anyone who has dealt with depression, self-harm, suicidal tendencies personally or have close relationships with people who do/have you will understand what a relief and blessing this truly is.

Something I’m still grasping is adulthood. I got married this year, turned twenty this year, began motherhood this year yet still lump myself in with the highschool/teenage group in my mind. I have (I think) grown up a little though. I am comfortable going to pay bills myself, shop, hang out with the librarian who is an adult, so, that’s something. I still struggle with answering phone calls or returning them but… I’ll get there eventually.

Among our adventures this year we took a trip to St. Louis just because we could. We camped, took in a Cardinals game, visited the City Museum (it is amazing and I highly encourage family’s with kids to go), and walked through more of Forest Park than I ever needed to in order to visit the zoo.

We took an overnight trip to Cincinnati and southern Indiana going to IKEA, Bass Pro, and a gathering at a family friends place.

In early August I joined my family on a trip to Michigan where we went to a Bible Conference then spent a few days at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It was my first stay away from Wesley and I missed him a lot but it was good to get away at that point in my pregnancy.

Mid-August saw the Smith Family’s to Holden Beach, NC and I was ecstatic to finally get to join them on their traditional vacation. We had a wonderful, relaxing, and fun week followed up with my first visit to Grandma Kathryn’s home in the mountains of North Carolina.

In mid-October we went to Ohio for a siblings wedding and my first penetrating trip into Ohio. And let me tell you, North Eastern Ohio in the fall has got to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. I got to see lots of lovely country, farms, and Grandma Smith’s home.

Thanksgiving Wesley and I spent at my parent’s home where all my siblings gathered. It was a wonderful time full of food, family, rejoicing together in our many blessings, and simply being together.

Christmas Wesley and I spent with his family and enjoyed a very relaxed day of food, poker, and naps.

So in an overall reflection of the year 2014 I’ll sum it up with I got married and gained over 50 pounds and if I were to make a resolution for this new year it would be to lose at least 40 of those 50 pounds ;) :P Just kidding… sort of.

Looking forward to 2015 I trust that it too will be year of new and wonderful adventures filled with innumerable blessings.

Wesley and I have just purchased our first house and hopefully within this year I will be able to paint, decorate, and turn it into the home I envision.

Sometime in early March we anticipate the birth of our first child which is sure to add to the excitement of our life and create a sleep deprived me which may be interesting :P

Wesley is signed up for a few 5k’s throughout the year and is probably planning to add to those as the year progresses.

In 2015 I am planning to once again bake for the Greencastle Farmer’s Market but come sleep-deprived-March-me we’ll see where my resolve is ;)

I don’t have any major “resolutions” for the new year. I just plan to live every day striving to do all in a way that glorifies my Father in heaven and enjoy each moment He gives me. I am longing to immerse myself in the joys of motherhood and continue improving on my journey in wifehood. I hope to grow in both and become more and more the finished work of a divine Creators hands.

So how was the last year for you? What are you most looking forward to in 2015?

I realize that this post is very random and poorly put together but as I try and retry writing it I am having trouble focusing and decided as to postponing it until it’s completely irrelevant to simply leave it as it is and publish it.

~Haley

Emotions of Pregnancy

The cold ugly truth about pregnancy and emotions. And as its 3:48 on a Saturday morning and I sit here awake and typing there’s a good chance I’ll touch on the uncomfortable physical aspects as well…

I am an emotional wreck and have been throughout pretty well all 6 and a half months of my pregnancy.

I’ve tried to keep a fairly close record of my feelings and thoughts in my diary so that when I’m back to normal (or as normal as a person I ever get to be) I’ll be able to have some good laughs. Or deep groans of embarrassment. Probably more of the latter.

The nights I cry after Wesley gently teases me about my gassiness (girls who have never been pregnant let this be a warning; your self-esteem will never be the same)

The time I was sitting in my in-laws living room surrounded by all of my brother-in-laws and cried over the fact I hadn’t bought that orange candle at IKEA after all (next trip to IKEA, two months later guess what Wesley insisted I get? Mhmm. Orange candle).

Eating at the church potluck and coming back from the dessert table with an empty plate and tears in my eyes because the grape salad I made was already gone. (Awesome husband that Wesley is took me out afterwards and bought the ingredients for me to make myself some more.)

Listening to my mom repeat a nightmare she had and bawling over it. I actually needed a couple of Kleenexes for that one.

Most of those stories are laughable. It’s the ones where I spent the entire day in bed crying, throwing up, crying, feeling so entirely abandoned and alone, if it not for the baby growing inside wishing I could simply die and end all the feelings; those are the embarrassing and painful ones. In spite of how over dramatic it sounds, and trust me, I know I’m often over dramatic, I really do want to remember the feelings and thoughts.

I wasn’t prepared this pregnancy.

I didn’t realize that dip on the emotional roller coaster existed. Sure I was going to have physical uncomfortableness, emotional ups and downs, and the first longest nine months of my life but I really had no expectation as to how far down the “downs” would go.

For any women out there who haven’t been pregnant; try not to let my ‘truths’ scare you. Just because it’s been this way for me is no guarantee it will be this way for everyone but it was for me and I really had no idea it would be.

I wish someone would have warned me.

You have no idea how many times I wrote the words “I just want to die” in my diary. How many times I clutched a pillow close and cried into the emptiness of my bedroom those same words. But I haven’t spent so much of my life bopping between the lines of emotional stability and depression without some recognition of the real truth filtering through. So, I would try every single time to quickly follow those harsh words up with “Its just hormones. Its just emotions. You don’t want to die. We want to live. We.”

We.

Because my body is home to the most precious life on this earth and I will carry it and love it until the day it enters the world. And then, I’m going to love it in a whole new way for the rest of our lives.

I had (and still have) to constantly remind myself that I love it, my baby. Sometimes I feel overwhelming guilt after thinking how comforting death would be because I’m letting my baby down but I don’t think guilt helps. I think the emotional wrecks throughout my pregnancy are natural and not just for me. I am sure there must be women out there who have or will deal with the same thing and I want you to know I’ve been there. And I’m surviving. And I hope and pray that someday I’ll be there again and again. I’m not going to let the dark horror of depression scare me from having more children but in the future I’ll try to prepare myself more for the days it overwhelms me.

I’d heard and read a lot about Post Partum Depression because with my history I know its likely to be a struggle but I’d never heard that the struggle can begin during the pregnancy.

To feel an intense hate for my baby because of the emotions I was going through? It was so wrong and I knew it. In my heart of hearts I knew I had nothing but love for my baby but somehow the unexplainable emotional circumstances wanted to stand in the way.

I can’t describe the feelings I had. They were noticeably worse through the end of the first and second trimesters in my case. Now I’m doing much better. I just wish I’d have known. There are helps out there.

Be honest with your husband. I didn’t really want to tell Wesley how I was feeling. It’s his baby, too and he loves it nearly as much as I plus he loves me. How would he like to know I’m over here crying because I want to die... therefore I want the baby to die as well? But it really did help if I just told him. He could hold on to me and try his best to make things better.

Psalms and for me Lamentations 3. They really have helped me get through. Reading of any sort helped. Forcing my focus on something outside of me. But God’s word? There’s just nothing quite as comforting and peaceful as listening to Him.

Family. There were days that I knew I just shouldn’t be home alone. Be honest with yourself about that. Its not fun to feel dependent, I know, but its also not fun to hate yourself. Call your mom, call a friend, your mother-in-law. Anyone close enough to help. I would have mommy pick me up and hang out with my siblings so I wasn’t alone. Some women won’t have family or friends close enough for that to help but at least give someone a call. Talk it out. It helps.

I really hope I haven’t scared anyone away from having children over this. Remember; this is me and my bubble not you and yours. I do hope if anyone else has been there and had a part in this struggle that you, too, will share your story and help support me. If anyone out there is going through these emotions know I’ve been there and would be more than happy to pray for you, listen to you, and be a shoulder to cry on.

Sorry this post is kind of deep and dark but I just feel the need to speak up about it. And since its already so long I’m going to skip the physical pain and cover that some other time. 

I do hope you’ll come back around the beginning of March and see how precious my baby is and worth it this struggle has been. <3

My Bubble: Laziness

Laziness.

I am an incredibly lazy person.

My last (and first) blog post was written in a somewhat sarcastic voice. I apparently came across as discouraged and unhappy to some but let me assure you I am perfectly wonderfully happy – more happy than I have been in most of my life.

But, I’m also lazier than I’ve ever been in my life. (Hard to believe… I know)

So, that being said; without further ado my topic: Laziness.

Why did I stop making the bed after three weeks of marriage? Because I’m lazy.

Why do I often leave our clean laundry in the basket for days on end? Because I’m lazy.

Why does my sink most likely have more than one days worth of dishes in it right now? Because I’m lazy. [side note: If I leave them long enough Wesley will do them… that doesn’t exactly encourage productivity,  now does it?;P]

Why has my living and dining room accumulated junk mail, packaging, cups, socks, blankets, and whatever assortment of things that can be found in them? Because I’m lazy.

And see: I can admit it. I’m lazy. My house is messy because I let it get that way.

Sometimes I even complain about both the fact that my house is messy and the fact that I’m bored. In the same day people! I have a messy house and I’m bored? How is that even possible? I’m really not sure, but trust me, it is. I will also make a side note that my laziness and accumulating jobs is no fault of my mother’s raising; she tried her very best to instill the fact that “Mommy, I’m bored” equaled “Mommy do you have any jobs for me, like washing dishes? Or maybe laundry?”. Apparently when there is no mother to make the change of words though the equation comes out differently.

Now I’m going to blow your mind readers. When I actually get out of bed and set to clean house guess what happens? It takes me about two hours of effort and I can have everything dusted, floors vacuumed, bathroom cleaned, and obviously all the odds and ends are put away. Two hours guys.

That brings to mind the idea that…. See, if I do it I’ll be bored because then… well, I won’t have anything to do, now will I?

Is there a cure to this cycle of laziness and boredom?

Yes, I believe there is.

God didn’t spend so much time dictating the downfall of a lazy man in Proverbs without giving us (1) motivation to change and (2) the means.

“How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? A little sleep, a little lumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man.” – Proverbs 6:9-11

Well, I assume I speak for the majority of us; I’d like to not be poor. So right there we have our motivation to change (Not to mention God hates the wicked i.e. the slothful, lazy sluggard.).

And now I could hand you the whole Bible for the means. It’s a matter of the heart, primarily. If I know and accept my laziness I’ll continue in it but if I know and reject my laziness I’ll change.

If I set my heart to “Do all to the glory of God.” [1 Corinthians 10:31] then everything, including the state of my house as that directly stems from my duties as a christian wife, had better be reflecting this attitude. Would God be glorified in the state of my house as it is? No, I think not but, He soon will be because I’m setting my mind and heart back to Him.

There is also a very practical motivation and means that God has placed in my life for this change to take place and that is our baby.

Soon a new and unexperienced life will enter this world. Whether or not I have overcome my laziness I  will most likely be taken back to square one on time management; energy vs. to do lists. It will however be my goal to conquer this battle of laziness before the baby arrives as I haven’t had 10 younger siblings without realizing how time consuming and demanding babies are. Imagine how much of a struggle I would be in for if I can’t even set my mind to clean house while I’m on my own all the time. Add a baby to that attitude and I’m in for a very rude awakening, now aren’t I?

Sure, once the baby is here my house keeping will probably slip a little backwards but hopefully I will have prepared myself to spend my time more wisely.

Hopefully by two and a half months I’ll have worked the laziness out of my system and will find myself ready for the new task at hand.

So with this, the admittance that I am lazy and the renewed desire to change I will leave you. Please feel free to check in with my progress and keep me accountable.

Have a lovely day everyone! :)

~Haley