We've Moved

Not us, but the blog has moved!! YAY!! I finally have created a new blog that uses my current email address and not some antiquated address that hasn't existed in almost 5 years. Took me long enough, didn't it?


You'll now find all you want to know about Wades' World HERE!


I still need to work on all my budgets and gadgets, but for now it's up and running.

My Feelings Exactly

I've probably mentioned at some point how much I love TheNester. What's not to love - - She lives in the Charlotte area. She's crafty, creative and a great decorator. She says so many things that I think, but could never put into words. She's inspired a few of my decorating projects here in the new house like my coffee filter wreath and a sunburst mirror that has yet to be completed or begun for that matter.

Today or yesterday - sometime in the past few days - my days seem to run together or over each other and most of the time I have no idea what day of the week it is...Okay..the point is she had Karen from the Art of Doing Stuff do a guest blog on how she sold all of her stuff in a 2 week period of time and totally redid her house, only keeping those things that were truly meaningful. Check out her post here. While you're there, be sure and read some of TheNester's other posts on this topic.

I don't know about you, but I have been overwhelmed this week by many things - one of the main ones being my disgustingly filthy and cluttered house! Since Saturday, I have mopped my kitchen floor 3x because two of the tornadoes have dumped entire bowls of cereal on the floor. It could stand to be mopped again, but I can't let myself bond with the mop any more this week. I just can't do it! In an effort to have one room in my house be relatively clean, I spent a little while cleaning the laundry room this morning. It even has clean baseboards and that's totally not my style.

I'm feeling the need to just start tossing more stuff from our closets and drawers and wherever else I can find useless, meaningless things hiding. One day, not today or this week or even this month, probably not this year, I will have a clutter free, peaceful and easy to live in house.

If I could only figure out where I left that Diet Dr. Pepper I had in my hand, I could get started on the decluttering. I really do lose opened, half consumed cans of Diet Dr. Pepper in my house. I could do a whole blog post on the topic, I'm sure!

Understanding Grace

In the past few weeks I have discovered that my view of God's grace over me is quite skewed and as a perfectionist, this has been especially dangerous!

You see, as a believer in Jesus, well meaning people in my life have told me about this perfect little picture that my life as a Christian woman should look like. Here's what I've understood - - To be a good Christian woman, wife and mother, I should wake up before the children every day without fail and spend an hour studying the Bible and praying. I should never raise my voice to my children and I shouldn't have to because they will innately be perfect children who would never dream of making a wrong choice. I should love and serve my husband and submit to his every decision because he can do no wrong. When he comes home from work at the same time every day, I'll be perfectly dressed, lipstick and all, dinner will be ready and the house will be free of chaos (living and non-living). If I don't live like this, there's something terribly wrong in my spiritual life. Some may even say I don't have a relationship with Jesus at all. (gasp!) You can probably see how the perfectionist nature in me that will never live up to this picture of the perfect Christian woman has kept me in bondage and defeat for years! I'm so glad that the only person I have to give an account of my life to is God!

Well, reality is that my life doesn't look like that and the grace of God that covers me through the shed blood of Jesus says it doesn't have to. Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus ever give this indication. Yes, there are the places that point us to pray without ceasing and to rise while it's early and go to a secluded place to spend time with Him. I don't discount those at all, however, I am a mother of 3 small children whose husband doesn't come home from work at the same time every day and for months at a time doesn't come home at all. In the past week, I have had one - one hour conversation with my husband who is somewhere in the middle east. I have to make choices and decisions for our family that are way outside of the realm of what the ideal woman is supposed to deal with! In no way, shape or form is my life typical or ideal and I've come to the place where I will no longer beat myself up because I can't live up to the man-made standard for what my life should look like as a lover of Jesus.

My new understanding of grace leads me to know that it's my heart and my intentions that are most important to Jesus. My heart longs to study the Word in depth and for hours at a time, but in my current circumstances, that's not possible. I'm grateful for a group of ladies who I walked through the end of the book of James with using a simple, doable method that didn't require hours and hours of study, but that I was able to do in short snippets throughout the day as time and the quietness of my house allowed. I know this season of my life will pass and I will have more time to spend studying and praying and fellowshipping with others.

I am so grateful for the freedom that I've experienced in the past few weeks as I'm reminded daily that God doesn't love me any less because I'm not perfect! He knows there's no way I'll be perfect as long as I reside on the earth. While I'm here, I must embrace the circumstances and situations of my life that aren't ideal and let Him use them to conform me to His image. I'm grateful that I better understand that God made me as an unique individual and His love is unique for me, as it is for every other believer. He knows what my days look like and knows before I even open my mouth how I'm going to respond to my kids or husband. His desire isn't for me to beat myself up over my failures, but to find joy in His grace that covers all of my imperfections!

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:1-2

The Almost Tax Day Comeback

After over a month of non-posting here to Wade's World, I'm seriously working on my comeback, complete with redoing the blog layout for good and even changing my account from a non-existent email address to one that actually exists! What a concept? I'm thinking that using a real email address may help me with my issue of not being able to post from my iPhone. If I can resolve that issue, you'll definitely see more from me.

Since the end of February, I've been on a journey of sorts of discovering who I am and why I respond to situations and challenges the way that I do. It's been a painful process, but one that will prove worthwhile for years to come. In the days ahead I'll share more about some of my personal discoveries and how these have effected my outlook on my life up until this point.

One of the things I've discovered is that I struggle with perfectionism! Some of you may not be shocked by that, but I still am at times. If you saw the wreck my house is most days, you'd think there's no way she's a perfectionist! The problem is that I beat myself up because my house isn't perfect. Not being able to see the surfaces on the tops of the kids' dressers stresses me out every time I walk into their rooms.

My struggle with perfectionism contributed to a lot of the undue stress I put on myself in academic situations and the reason why I may be able to excel academically, but I'm a terrible student. I know that doesn't make sense, but my mom can attest to the number of times in high school when I would pitch huge fits or threaten to quit school over how difficult I could make any assignment because I wanted it to be the best. I wanted people to think well of me.

I mention my perfectionism issue here because that's been a struggle with me and this blog. When I go through these spells where I'm absent or where I can't seem to be committed to posting regularly, I just don't. If I can't do it perfectly, why do it at all? You can imagine how this can translate into so many areas of my life! It's why I'm hesitant to paint a wall in my house - what if it's the wrong color? what if I drip paint on the trim? if I do one room, I'll have to do them all, etc. It's an agonizing and debilitating mental struggle!

So there you have it! I'm back as much as I can be, but am not going to beat myself up about not posting for a day or two.

Days Go By

The days are just flying by here in my little world. For no real reason, I find that I spend less and less time sitting in front of this laptop. One of the reasons is probably that I spend more and more time with my phone in my hand reading news articles, tweet and status updates. Because my blog is set up with an old email account that I no longer use, I can't use any of the blog apps to update this thing or you might see new posts more often.

The children have all managed to find themselves in bad phases of their lives! F5 is working to get himself caught up with his friends here in his TX kindergarten class. It's a struggle because he acts so disinterested most days or just rushes through whatever it is we're working on. I have had to walk away from him many afternoons because I just get so frustrated with his lack of effort or his clueless act he turns on. F4 spends most of his time bossing F1 around or micromanaging her every move. His tactics are very ugly and mean. I'm sure he is dealing with some middle child issues at this stage in his life. F1 is just F1! She has her own ideas about how she's going to behave and the things that she's going to do that every moment of her life is a power struggle. She wants so desperately to do what her brothers do, but she's obviously not mature enough to do such things. She annoys the heck out of them with her destructive antics!

So my life is quite fun and interesting these days! I have supplies for 5 different decorating or craft projects, but just don't have the energy or desire to get involved in them after I've had a rough, stressful day with the children. I've spent more nights in the past month sitting on my couch watching pointless television than I care to admit. I never thought my life would come to this and that I would have so little motivation or energy to do things that I enjoy or really want to do, but I'm here or there! Every day I hope that things will be better or different, but so far, it's just not happened. I will keep hoping, regardless!