Prayers Please

Oh, hey everyone. I haven't posted in a while. I will probably post more next week as I finish my Step Seven. I'm almost done. I've got about eleven more defects left to pray over. At the rate of two a day, I should be done by the time group rolls around next week. Yay!

I was just wondering if I could ask you guys to pray for me this weekend (and for the next eight weekends in a row). I begin working the 36 hour shifts for my private duty lady starting tomorrow morning at 7am. I am very nervous about being able to physically and emotionally handle this. I realize I should have prayed more before accepting this responsibility, but of course now I'm struggling with having agreed to do this. The good news is that this is not a permanent situation. It is short term while a coworker recovers from shoulder surgery. The bad news is I'm cramming an entire full-time job into the span of one weekend. For the next eight weekends. Does the word "unmanageable" mean anything to me???

Thermonuclear Reaction

Okay, just a warning...I am having a meltdown of biblical proportions today. End of days type of a meltdown. The kind of conniption that is only rivaled by Godzilla's wrath on Tokyo. I want to chew people up and then spit them back out. Once all of the time zones catch up to a wakeable hour, I'm going to make a phone call to help me get my sanity back.

I'm having a really tough time with my son, A (aka Spike). He's taken on the bad habit of lying lately. It's like you can't rely on anything he says, from where he's been to what he's had for breakfast. Also, he's just been downright defiant.

Our most recent "match" began on Friday. This part is absolutely ridiculous and I am embarrassed to even write about it. I came downstairs in the morning to an freshly opened box of Golden Grahams. No big deal, right? Well, I said to A, "Could you do me a favor? Can you please not open any more boxes of cereal until we finish the other *five* that are open? I don't want them to get stale and subsequently get wasted." The reply, "Sure, mom!"

Monday morning, I'm looking for cereal for my daughter. Open the closets, low and behold, *all* of the open boxes of cereal are gone! Wow, either someone was really hungry on Saturday and Sunday or my intelligence is being underestimated by a sneaky 15 year old.

Yesterday, I was cleaning out the garage and getting the recycling together. One of the paper bags tore open and spilled out onto the floor. A paper that was folded up so small that it looked like a cube caught my eye. On it were instructions for hacking passwords off of any computer that runs Windows.

Spoke with A, he did take all of the open boxes of cereal and hide them in his bedroom. He didn't like those flavors, so he figured he'd get rid of them himself. Nice try!

Asked him about the instructions I found in the garage, and he says, "Okay, that was me. Do you want me to tell you whose passwords I have so they can change them?" Hello, that is not the point! You cannot unring a bell! Now that you have the knowledge of how to get anyone's password, it doesn't matter if we change our passwords a hundred times, you can just summon them up anytime you want to!

After that discussion, I moved on to an incident that happened about two weeks ago. I was going upstairs to get my pocketbook so that I could leave for work. I heard A telling my other son T, "Don't worry. Mom will never find out." Then T said, "I am really nervous about this, A." Asked him what that was about. That was because my husband was running a virus scan on the computer and T was nervous because he had downloaded *porn* onto the family computer. My son A had removed it prior to the scan to save T's behind. Yeah, 13 and 15 year old kids looking at this smut. I nearly had a stroke!

But of course, the boy with an answer for everything says, "I don't see why you are getting all upset about the porn. These people are paid actors. Nobody is forcing them." I went into an absolute tirade about the correlation between porn actors and a history of sexual abuse. He just sighed and gave me the "you are so stupid" look. Then he tells me of the "married couples" that are doing this for extra money. Yeah, "it must be true because I saw it on the internet" reasoning.

I have *so* had it! I am ready to smash their computer to bits this morning! And it's not even 8am yet!

Humbly Asking

Well, I'm working on Step Seven lately and "humbly asking." This has really been good for me, so far. In the process, I've been learning a lot about myself and the condition of my spiritual life, which, truth be told, was never in such great shape. But it's getting better.

I've always had difficulty asking for things, partly from feeling not worthy, partly from feeling that I will be turned away for asking. Most recently (yesterday, in fact) I was speaking with a coworker at my private duty patient's house and told her that I was probably only going to continue my employment there through the end of the summer because I need health insurance for my family. She said, "Just ask her to pay you through the business account and you will automatically be offered benefits." I already know that I won't be asking. Thanks anyway. It's just *way* out of my comfort zone. I would sooner give up my job than ask. How self defeating is *that*? But that is my modus operandi, and has been for as long as I can remember. I sit and I wait for my employer, my parents, my friends to offer me the things that I need.

Interestingly, I will ask God for things that I need. But, the problem starts when God doesn't answer affirmatively or efficiently enough for me. Then, I start taking matters into my own hands and really make a mess of things. Instead of waiting, I grab my life back from Him with a "You're no help" attitude and sit and sulk with my back turned like some kind of toddler, until I muster up enough courage to go back to Him with an even bigger mess than I started out with. I cannot tell you how many times up to this point I've had to go back and rework Step Three! And still am.

I do see God working in my life, though. I know He will not leave me. It is very comforting to know that God is always the same, unchanging. He's always good. He always wants me back, even when I think I've really blown it and He couldn't ever forgive me.

Hopefully, He'll remove the pride or impatience first. But even if He doesn't, I need to remember that I'm in Good hands.

I had another strange dream the other night. The house I live in (in real life) is on a major road in our town. A natural barrier of trees exists between our house and the road. It gives us some sense of privacy and also suppresses the noise from the road. In the dream, I was tearing out all of the trees (with my bare hands), even though I knew this would allow all of the passersby to see our house and, ultimately, into our lives. I can't remember why I was tearing up the trees, just that I was very determined to do so. When I was finished I remembered feeling satisfied, but that was quickly squashed by the overwhelming feeling of "oh my gosh, what have I done?"


There were two ways I interpreted this. The first was, I am becoming more transparent. I'm allowing people to see what's really behind those trees that took many years to grow. Removing the trees also helps me see the road, too. Facing the reality of what lies beyond the walls I've erected to protect myself.


The second way I interpreted this was that by keeping this blog going, I am risking my own anonymity and that of my family (I am not the only person living in the house, after all). I do worry about this sometimes, especially if any friends or family members that don't know about my h's addiction were to find this blog mistakenly. Guess I'd have some explaining to do.


After pondering this for a few minutes just now, I think the first explanation is more fitting. The feeling of digging out those trees with my own two hands coupled with the fear of whether I would actually like the new landscape or not makes the first explanation a better fit.

I'm expressing myself very metaphorically lately, at least in my dreams.