Gratitude

Gratitude is important.
 I was thinking a lot about this as I was lounging in my chair, ocean side with a drink in my hand while in Mexico. Easy to be grateful when you are in that situation for sure. I was thinking how lucky we are that we got to take a vacation like that. That we bought our dream home earlier this year and that for the most part we are pretty comfortable in our lives. I don't say any of this to make my life seem like I have it all together, we are FAR FROM perfect or even put together, but thinking back even 5 years ago, none of what we have experienced, the good and the bad was on my radar. In the last 5 years I have birthed two children, lost two parents, received a pretty amazing job, bought our dream house and just finished a wonderful vacation. 5 years ago, we were scrapping by and all of these things (minus the parents dying) were on our bucket list and we felt like WE WOULD NEVER GET THERE!Heck we still aren't "there". It is so easy to be grateful when everything is going right and life is easy... like on a Mexico vacation ;)
 Choosing to be grateful in the everyday life is a constant choice we make. When our kids aren't sleeping, or running around like crazy people, when the car is having problems or you are SO busy you feel like your head might, quite literally spin off your body, you can still be Grateful. There are times when I am overcome by gratitude, literally floored in the moment by how blessed we are. And there are MANY times where I have to make a mental list in my head of all the things I need to be grateful for, because the truth is; the busyness, the mundane, the stress of everyday often overpowers our ability to see how incredibly we are blessed.
We can be blessed in the really rough times. When my mom was dying, and if you have ever had to watch someone die slowly of a disease, it is AWFUL, I remember people would ask me all the time how I was doing, and it was rough. It was hard, it was incredibly painful but man do I feel so blessed by that time. Thank you Jesus for that extra year and a half that we got to spend with her. The chance to love on her and spend quality time together. The chance to bond, and love on and connect as a family as a whole. It was an amazingly special time, in the midst of all that hard. 
You see, even when it is shit, we get to choose to be grateful from it. Most of you reading this know me, you know that I am not a positive person by nature, this is something that I have to work on and that I will choose to work on because it makes me a better person. So know that this post comes from someone who struggles with looking on the bright side a lot.

Psalms 118:24 This is the day which the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
(Go ahead, sing the song from Sunday school... I know you want to!)

Failure

FAILURE - gosh this is such a nasty word! It packs such a powerful punch and it seems like no matter how hard I try, one that keeps interjecting itself into my life over and over again. Satan sure knows my weakness. He knows that I feel like a failure at parenting so much, and loves to hit me when I am down. Lately I have been feeling really defeated. I feel like this last year our family has just started to crumble. Especially Ruby. I just am not sure how to relate to this beautiful little girl. She is so much like me yet I can't seem to get a grip on who she is. And I feel like that sounds absolutely horrible coming out of my mouth. I am her mom and I just don't really get her. This is one of those times where I miss my mom horribly. I know that I acted like Ruby when I was younger based on things I read and I know my mom would have some great insight. She definitely is this little puzzle that I am working hard to solve. I don't know, maybe our life is moving too fast for her because she struggles so much with transitions. You can imagine how this plays out in a house where both parents work full time, I have a side job and we have school activities, daycare, kindergarten. I feel like we are constantly on the go and I am constantly saying no and we don't have time, or we need to hurry! It hurts my heart, I want to go slower but there is nothing that I can take off my plate right now.
 I cannot WAIT for the day when I get to work from home and I can move at a pace that is more centered around my kids. Where mornings aren't rushed and I am there for school and activites. This desire on my heart is so strong, it is often all I can think about. So I guess, in the meantime, I just give myself grace!