A Peek Inside

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Control

i feel the need to blog about something that is on my heart. I may not type well today because I have a hurt hand, in a cast.

i don't want to go into details about the fight, just so you know. but there was a fight between my little sister and i. well, not exactly. i didn't fight with her, she fought by herself. she got mad at me for something that I did, (actually she got mad for something that I wouldn't and COULDN'T do) and i will admit, i talked about her to my mom and she found out. I figure the one person in the world i should be able to talk about my sister to is my mom, she will love her no matter what. sometimes you just need to vent and get stuff out. and you can't go to my sister and be honest with her, she gets mad and does this. so actually, i would have been better off telling her the truth of the matter rather than my mom. it turned out the same and it would have been more upstanding of me to do it that way.

how did she find out you ask? it was done sneakily, and she wouldn't have found out if she wouldn't have done what she did. that doesn't excuse me talking about her, but she wouldn't have known.

but she did it, and got mad. now, she had a right to be mad. what i said was the truth, but understandingly, she took offense to it. then she dragged a mutual friend into it and that caused a bigger fight and I have lost that friend.

now my sister has told me not to contact her in any way. she blamed me for things that were not even happening.

so this is hard for me. i have spent my WHOLE life taking care of my little sister. when she had problems i always helped her. when she had situations with other people come up, i always stuck up for her. and many times, i knew that she was in the wrong and even lying about it, but she's my little sister, so I did it. i remember reading to her when she was too little to read. i baby sat her and taught her how to ride her bike without training wheels and how to drive a stick-shift. I've stuck by and supported her on things that i didn't agree with because she is my little sister.

little things happen almost every day and i want to call her and tell her. funny things, sad things, miraculous things, hurtful things and just things. my kids miss their aunt tracy. we don't see pictures of her, they don't get to talk to her on the phone, she didn't even call to tell my daughter happy birthday. i guess that it is hard to call someone when you delete their phone numbers though.

so in her madness, she is hurting not only me, but my children as well. i am not ok with that. and now this morning i went to look at pictures of my niece and nephew, which i can't see now at all because she won't let me, at their daycare. the daycare they go to has a facebook page and i can see pics of the kids there. but when i went to check, i was no longer a "liker" of the page. I know I didn't "un-like" it, so that means I was kicked out. that hurts.

here is what i have decided about the situation. i can't control my sister. i can only control me. and i can control part of the situation. so i have taken control. how you may ask? I can't contact her so does that mean i am going to? nope.

I won't let it bother me. I feel sadness about it, but i do not let it run my day. when i think of her and i want to tell her something, i erase the thought and call a friend. when i need to laugh about something to someone, i call a friend. it's been well over a month since all of this has gone on. i am still sad that it has all happened, but that sadness does not creep into my life. I feel it, then move on. i am in control of how i react to this situation, and i am not going to react.

putting myself in control takes away her power of the situation. yes she is the one who laid down the rules, no contact. but i am the one who decides how i follow the rules. i will follow the no contact. that includes my heart and my mind also. if i am cut off and basically non-existent in her world, than that is how it will be. so she can tell me not to call, text or email. but i have to take that further to protect myself because this hurts.

i had to blog about this because it's all been running through my mind. but i have told myself that i am blessed with people who love me. they don't lie to me and expect of me more than i can give. they want to be in my life and in my children's life. it's not a here one day, gone the next type of thing. i have never not been able to talk to my sister. this is a first.

my plan now? to move on. i have only one biological sister, but i have many other sisters. sisters in Christ and sisters in the Lord. my kids have aunts, biological and non. my kids have cousins, biological and non. we will survive this.

i will stay in control of this. i have been in control of this. if you had asked me two months ago how i would be not being able to have contact with my sister, i would have said a mess. but in actuality, i've done quite well. i miss her, but i won't let her get to me. this is part of her manipulation and in won't buy into it. i have better, more Godly things to worry about than something this petty.

there, i have stated how i feel and where i am going with this. i feel better now. i am so glad that i am firmly grounded in the Truth and His love. It carries me through and lets me know that i can make it thru this.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Here's Lily Book Review

When given the option to review a book that will be perfect for my kids I usually choose that book. In this instance, I am glad that I did. I am always on the look-out for Christian based books for my kids that won't bore them. Here's Lily by Nancy Rue is a great book for young girls. I definitely would suggest it to any mother asking for their own daughter. I will be downloading this onto the kindle that I have for the kids.

Lily is a 6th grader with flaming red hair that she thinks is too fuzzy. In school she deals with bullies that pick on her because of her looks. It lowers Lily's confidence in herself, until she meets Kathleen. Kathleen is a teacher for a modeling school and chooses Lily to attend.

But Lily's parent are not so sure about it. She has to find a way that God shows Himself in this modeling business before her parents will agree to send her through the full schooling. Lily seems to be more wrapped up in herself and her pride to be looking for God.

Certain events take place to spin Lily around and make her come to full realization of what she is doing and what she is capable of doing. Sometimes it takes something huge to open our eyes.

I want to read the next book in the series, which is #2 called Lilly Robbins, MD (Medical Dabbler)!

This book was given to me by Booksneeze.com in exchange for my honest review.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

One Month to Live Book Review

This book definitely had some great ideas and advice in it to help live your life to the fullest. The authors in this book, Kerry and Chris Shook have asked the reader to pretend that their life is ending in one month. Then they go on to ask you what you would like to accomplish in that month.

I think this may be a really good book for some people without direction in their life to read. Or maybe they just need to open their eyes to the wonderful life that they currently have, and this book and ideas is one way to help to help them do it.

Personally, I thought the book was dull even through the good advice. I found it very hard to get through and I did not want to read it.

I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange for my honest review and opinion.

The Quotable Rogue by Matt Lewis Book Review

I have been a fan of Sarah Palin since she entered the running for Vice President in 2010. I thought reading a book with a bunch of quotes from Sarah's feisty mouth might just be interesting. For the most part, I was right.

Now I don't know too much about politics and the like, so some of this stuff I didn't even know what she was talking about. But the parts that I did I thought that most of it was pretty funny, witty, true or thought provoking.

One of my favorite quotes was one that she made about Vice President Biden. It was one that made me chuckle out loud.

If the election had turned out differently, I could be the one overseeing the signing of bailout checks and Vice President Biden could be on the road selling his book Going Rogaine.

If you are interested in, or if you like what Sarah Palin has to say, you should read this book. It is enjoyable and can even help you learn something. You can read quotes from Sarah on topics like abortion, Barack Obama, Education, Media, Family and much more.

I received this book for free from Book Sneeze in return for my honest review.

Bible Stories for Preschoolers Book Review

     When I saw the chance to snag this book for a review, I took it! See, this book would be perfect for the preschoolers that I teach during church. I took this book in when it was my month to teach to read to my class. We decided to start at the beginning and read through it.
      The stories were very engaging and interesting. It held the attention of these small blessings very well. We have read quite a few stories in it by now and we do like reading this book.
    I like that the book has questions and activities for the children to answer and follow. This helps to instill those lessons into those fresh minds.
     One thing that has confused my assistant teacher, my students and myself is that in the stories that talk about God being there, He seems to be portrayed as an angel. It is confusing I think to the kids because God is not an angel. We have been sure to explain this to their little minds because they did ask about it.
    My assistant and I could not help but giggle at some of the pictures and the ways they are drawn. There are a lot of pompadours drawn onto people. Some of the illustrations also have people standing in weird ways or holding their hands in strange positions. We have had a few laughs about that.
     All in all, this is an ok book. The stories are good if you can get past the pictures. I personally wouldn't go out and buy the book, but I am getting use out of it.

DISCLAIMER: Tyndale House Publishers has provided me with a copy of this book in return for my honest opinion.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Winter Storm 2012

I have never experienced a storm like the one we just did in the 34 years I've lived in this state. And the same can be said of my hubby who has lived here 42 years of his life. With that said, I will tell you the journey that we experienced these last 5 days.

Wednesday 1/28: Knew that a snow storm was coming and we were preparing for that. We had cancelled children's choir and AWANA at church that night. The snow had already started the weekend before, but we hadn't really had a large accumulation. We finally did get an accumulation of about 6 inches. At about 8:45 Wednesday evening, the power went out. With the snow coming down outside, it didn't look promising, but I wasn't expecting what happened next.

That evening it kept snowing. I believe that it snowed until sometime Thursday afternoon when the snow turned to frozen rain. By now I had already made 2 pots of coffee on the propane camp stove that we set up outside on the porch. I also cooked us a dinner of scrambled eggs and frozen hash browns that night on the stove in my wonderful cast iron skillets! Thursday evening my hubby told me that he could hear branches falling outside in the dark. It was from the frozen rain weighing down the snow on our trees.

Friday was the day that we really experienced the trees and things falling. When I woke up that morning, there was already evidence of branches down in places. My hubby's car, that we couldn't start to move, almost got hit by one branch that first night. My nephew's car had branches covering the top, but didn't hit the car I think. I went outside Friday morning and could hear branches falling off of trees everywhere. I mean everywhere. Just standing outside for 1 minute you could see at least 5 branches fall and maybe even a tree top or two. The freezing rain continued.

All day Friday when we stepped outside we could hear and see limbs, branches, tree tops and many whole trees just falling all over. It was a weird experience. The big tree out front that worries me in the big wind storms didn't drop that many branches. One it did drop was right behind hubby's car, which was the 2nd close call. After it got dark on Friday night it was very unnerving because we could hear things falling all around us but we couldn't see anything. Sometimes we heard cracks so loud they sounded like gun shots. Some trees fell so close we felt them hit.

It was hard to get the kids to sleep that night. No noise to cover up the sounds of the woods just crumbling around us. All the rest of the day it was falling snowballs, iceballs and branches until the snow melted.

On Saturday we were still cold and tired of being in the dark but thought the worst was over. We went to bed that evening and I told Amanda it should be nice to fall asleep without something to worry about. She agreed. Around 2:30 in the morning we woke to the sounds of a tree hitting the house. The wind was blowing furiously outside. The kids and I were sleeping on the couch in the living room and it sounded like it hit the master bedroom where hubby was. Amanda yelled and started to panic, and we heard hubby say it was ok. We laid back down and I rubbed Amanda's back and hair to block the noise some and calm her down. We saw a bunch of blue lights in the sky and assumed they were transformers blowing. The wind makes me so nervous already, I could hardly take the panic I felt. We prayed so much during these days to keep our worries down.

When I got up on Saturday morning I walked around the house, dodging the gigantic snowballs and iceballs that were melting and falling from the trees, along with branches still. I wanted to see what hit the house. I couldn't find anything. But I did find a huge maple tree in the back yard had fallen over. That surely had to be the sound we heard. It was just so loud it sound to all 3 of us that it hit the house. This was part of a tree that Amanda and I watched the top just fall right off 2 mornings before into our backyard.

There had been several trees that came down in our driveway. A couple took down our power lines. Ruined some fences. The one day the kids and I were sitting on the couch in my living room and we heard branches breaking and turned to see if we could see it. It was branches falling off of the tree in front of my sister-in-law's house. We watched 3 big ones fall right onto her porch roof.

Never in my life. I've never experienced this. I think it was Friday or Saturday night when my nephew borrowed a generator from a friend and we were able to plug in a tv, space heater and a lamp when it was running. It didn't heat us up, but helped take a bit of the chill off. There were several times when we could see our breath in the house. There also were a few times when it was actually warmer outside!

Our power was finally restored today, Monday the 23rd. We were out of power for 5 days and 5 nights. We bundled up every morning, spent much time snuggling under blankets and with cats who also felt the cold. When I finally got to get out of the house and drive around, I couldn't believe the devastation. It looks like a hurricane came through. Tops of trees are gone everywhere. The trees that don't have their leaves are the most noticeable. Especially when you see a bunch of them together and all you see are broken tops.

I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father that he kept us safe through this storm! And my house in one piece!