Interview with Elaine

I found this on another blogger's site and decided to try it with my kids. Here is Elaine's answers.

 

1. What is something mom always says to you?

Go to your room.

2. What makes mom happy?

Picking up your room.

3. What makes mom sad?

I don't know.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?

Tickle.

5. What was your mom like as a child?

Being good. 

6. How old is your mom?

Aaaaa LOT. (Followed by laughter.)

7. How tall is your mom?

Four

8.What is her favorite thing to do?

Play on the computer.

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?

Play on the computer and stuff. Go out to eat. Go to a friends house and that's all.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?

Strawberries. (I would become famous for strawberries?) Yeah, cause we picked strawberries.

11. What is your mom really good at?

Ummm, Eating..hahaha.

12. What is your mom not very good at?

Mmmmm, picking leaves.

13. What does your mom do for her job?

Nothing. oh wait, you go to the bank to get money.

14. What's your mom's favorite food?

Crackers. (we are eating crackers btw)

15. What makes you proud of your mom?

Nothing.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?

I don't know. A mom.

17. What do you and your mom do together?

Go out to eat.

18. How are you and your mom the same?

Cause we have the same hair.

19. How are you and your mom different?

Cause we are not the same size.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?

Because she likes me and she got me ice cream. Actually I got me ice cream and mom got her ice cream.

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?

McDonalds...no no no. I know I know. No I don't know. Our friends house, Christina.

Seconds

For as long as I can remember I have put the people who care the most about me....second. At best.

I push them away. I hide my deepest thoughts and secrets from them. I do that in the name of "not hurting them". So, I tell myself.

I keep them at arms lengths, though they are pushing to know me completely. I lie by omission. All the while I pull in the ones that treat me the same as I do those that love me most. I reach out to those that set me aside and make me feel like second, at best.

I do dearly love those that love me fiercely. Yet, I continue down this self destructive path. This path that keeps everyone at bay.

Those that make me feel second are safe to get close to.  They may never want to know me fully, there for I won't allow them to hurt me completely. So, I tell myself.

I have what I would call "a fear of abandonment". I keep the ones that might actually stick around at arms length. While allowing the ones that are seemingly digging their way out of my life to consume my time, energy and love.

Whats more is that I do all this knowingly and willingly. I self "medicate" this way. I willfully choose it.

I am truly sorry to those who have gotten lost in the after math of any of my push and pulls in life that I use to keep myself "safe".

Please don't give up on me. I am in here somewhere. While I may never give fully of myself to those that love me most. I will not make those kinds of promises. Promises I don't think I can keep. Old habits die hard.

I do truly know your love and I ache for any pain I may have caused you. As well as pain I know I am sure to cause you in the future. Its the nature of my head strong self defeating behavior. Once again, I am sorry.

How to get a new toilet, I hope.

Step 1. Buy crappy handle that keeps falling off, to replace the old one that broke off.
Step 2. Since the handle keeps coming off you have to lift lid off the tank to flush the toilet.
Step 3. Have child lift tank lid to flush toilet and drop lid into toilet tank.
Step 4. Have husband tell you that the seal is broke from said child dropping the lid into the tank.
Step 5. Go to investigate and clean up water. Find that the toilet tank is cracked from the dropped lid.
Step 6. Use a bucket of water to flush toilet until I have time to go buy a toilet and install it myself :-)

You see we have too much to do right now to get ready for the county fair. I am staying home from fair to take care of the goats, so I will probably be playing plumber as well. Not like I have not removed and installed a toilet before! Just was not planning on having my alone time spent on plumping projects.
What I really wanted to do was clean house naked...lol. Guess I can install a toilet naked to make up for it...ehh? I think NOT.

Unlocked

It just hit me. I know where, besides premenstrual, all my anger was coming from today. I also was having moments of EXTREME sadness.

I was missing my mom and angry at my dad. I had "thee talk" with my friend Christina last night. The talk I hardly have anymore. The talk that I shut people out of my life to avoid having. I told her about my parents death.

I normally keep people at bay and just tell them the "logistics" of it. You know, the blunt "my dad shot my mom and then shot himself". And just let the jaw drop and say, "ehh, its life what can you do?"

YES, really. The queen of detailed long conversations, shuts her mouth and keeps her heart guarded. When it comes to THAT day in time. BUT I told her everything. Every last draining detail. How certain smells still take me back to that day. How I felt hearing the words that was told me. What I did that day and the days following.

Every horrid detail. Well darn near. As much as I could handle at the time.

I shut it out most of the time. The voices, the faces, the guilt. I leave it locked away. I opened it up and let the hurt come back for that moment in time and it spilled over to my next day unknowingly. Back in the closet you go, I will deal w/u later pain.

Waste not, want not

So, I put that cake from last week into the freezer with plans for it. I had a party this Saturday at my house with a spring/summer feel. Here is what I turned that "ruined" cake into.

This was my first attempt at Fondant people. I had an awesome time creating this guy. I love cute and whimsical and LOVE LOVE taking something "ruined" and turning into something wonderful!

We had a very blessed time at the party, too. It was a Bic houseparty party. I LOVE House Party. This was our (me and my sisters) 3rd time hosting a houseparty party. She has already been selected for another for next month! We are hosting that one at my home as well, I have a bigger kitchen and its a canning party!! I am soo excited.

Three fits, lets try four!

So, I like to make cakes. That is understatement. I LOVE to make cakes. I have not gotten very creative with the actual "cake". I use "beefed up" box mixes. I am not a follow the directions kinda gal, with anything in life.

So, I was asked to make a baby shower type cake for a celebrating one step closer to adoption for a friend of mine. This is the resulting finished product. ALL things on the cake are made from scratch. The cake is even made from scratch... gasp! Don't worry there is story!

So. The story.

This was the second attempt at making this cake. It was made in a half sheet cake pan that I have used only once before. Remember I said I only use "beefed up" box cake mixes when making my cakes. When I used this pan the very first time I used three cake mixes. Which made the cake 2/3 white and 1/3 chocolate. It fit in the pan with room to spare. I wanted to make the cake an even half and half cake. So,  four cake mixes it is!

Immediately upon getting all the batter in the pan I knew this was not going to go "as planned". OH well, we have gotten this far, what's a "little" extra batter gonna hurt? I thought I would just have a bit of a dome to cut off the cake to even it.

That's what I get for thinking.

Take note of the cake piles in the bottom of the oven, dubbed "horse turds" by the kids. Now look what the kids willing did with the "horse turds". YUMMY!

The cake in the pan is still edible. I froze it. I will decorate it next weekend for a "beach" themed party I am having to get the girls together for a house party!  It is sunk in and that will become the "swimming hole". If all goes well.

I remade this cake, from scratch, to get the finished product in the first picture. This time I used a double batch of butter cake recipe. Now recall I have never made a cake from scratch, so that is a risky investment for me. Also, realize that I have no clue how many cups of batter this cake recipe will make either. I was prepared to deal with the consequences, again.

I figured how much worse could it get.

Well, I do not have a cooling rack big enough to hold a cake this size. So all I can do is flip it out on the cake board and allow it too cool. When I went to flip it over to cut off the slight domed top, the whole top of the cake stuck to the cake board. I did not take a picture of that. It was sticky and goey from the retained heat. I could not just scrape it off and stick it back together.  I was able to save it, though. I took the cake bits I had to cut off around the edges and layed them in the hole in the middle of the cake. Wallah, flat even cake! Remember this was cake number two.

I did not have to make cake number three, thank God!

EVERYTHING??? Oh come on you couldn't mean EVERYTHING!

"Do everything without complaining or ARGUING" Philippians 2:14....

WHAT!!??!! We are not supposed to fight and argue, God?

I remember a line in my "marriage counseling" stuff before we got married in a video we watched...an older mother was telling her adult daughter something,  after her husband (the daughters father) had just yelled at the mother and the daughter asked her mom if she was gonna take that? she said "I will win my best friend back faster with kind words, than with harsh words." or something like that..but that's the point.

I am NOOO good at that! I am trying. Most of you know how well I speak my mind. Sometimes a personality asset, sometimes a flaw. 

I get discouraged, almost daily, with the choices I make in my marriage. How to speak to my husband, respond to him, "serve him" (ohhhh bad word bad word..I am sure u r all saying that!), and submit to him as the head of the house.  When I struggle with this things HOW can I get down on him for struggling with his "husbandly duties?"  Things like loving me, kindness, serving me, providing....but u get the point.

He has his struggles just as I have mine. All to often its like Sharon, my pastors wife, used to tell my pastor, "Do you really think I am out to get you?"  I am so blessed to have so many good godly examples of "how to do marriage." Then I hear of PASTORS doing it VERY wrong...sigh. NOT my pastors, but one woman had said 3/6 of her pastors in her lifetime had affairs on their wife's WITH someone IN the church!

And fidelity is not the only issue couples struggle with, just being KIND to one another...realizing we ARE in this TOGETHER...we have a common goal.  We will NOT always agree on how to reach those goals or even what those goals should be!

But all in all, "Are we really out to get each other?"  Some days I think YES. Honestly, most days I think YES!!! YES at the top of my lungs YES. But really are we? Honestly I think we just forget we are on the SAME team. We forget to build up and not tear down.

We know better than anyone out there how to push each others buttons. When I am worn out and tired from unexpected  LONG days. When he has something on his mind to get done and I want something else done.

I forget to take a step back and take control of my own actions. To rely on God to deal with his bad attitudes. I know prayer works, I am just such a control freak!

God does NOT lie...he does not say if we love each other we should hurt one another and fight. We will have disagreements, but we need to speak the TRUTH in LOVE...

1 Corinthians 13:4-9 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,... See More

6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails