First of all, I don’t spend enough time on myself. I feel at home serving people and doing for others but I feel that part of myself has drifted away from me. I no longer know what my personal interests are or what I’m good at anymore. I manage to fill up my time with seemingly pointless pursuits and I don’t know what to do with myself when I have nothing to do. Point in fact, when I first arrived here in my room I couldn’t get on the internet to do the work that I had planned to do so when it didn’t work the only thing left to do was take a nap.

Making myself a priority takes work. It takes effort to carve out time to read a book or plan time with friends. Maybe it’s not that way for everyone but for me it is. It’s also no small task to ask someone else to handle all the kid duties and prep everything beforehand so it’s easier on everyone. It’s actually easier to just keep busy and not give space to your thoughts.

I am 33 and I don’t really know what I want to be when I grow up. Honestly, I hate that feeling. I know I’m a wife, a mom, and a teacher. But what am I as an individual? It used to be easier to define myself when I was in school. “I’m a counseling major.” I never really enjoyed defining myself by any of the jobs I’ve held either. Who would other people say I am? How would my children explain who I am and what I do?

I have felt myself drifting lately. I have felt my emotions become a sea of turmoil and I have watched my relationships with my kids and with my husband take a nosedive. I have also let my relationships with my friends become less of a priority. My family deserves better than that and it’s my responsibility to give it.

I want some real change. I want my husband to leave his job and I want us to make money in a life that’s flexible. I want us to change how we live our lives so we can have more time together. I want to help make this happen for us because I am scared of all the time we are wasting. Our kids are growing up way too fast and I can’t think of enough fond family memories and I feel guilty about that. We are in too much debt and live in too much mess. We have choked out our own chance at freedom and I desperately need that to change. I am hoping that after my weekend away I can arrive home with my newly found goals and conquer some of the obstacles in my path.

This is my first post in a series I’m planning called “A Quest for Less.” Even if I’m just taking baby steps in my journey towards Minimalism at least it’s forward progress. I hope you’ll be back to join me on my quest.

Christmas is roughly three months away. This year I plan to be more proactive with my planning, purchasing, and purging of junk around here instead of letting it sneak up and overwhelm me like most years. Every year I try to get rid of old, broken, and just generally ignored toys that have accumulated before more toys show up on Christmas morning. This year I’ve decided to start that process much earlier and hopefully stop the cycle.

Getting rid of the broken toys. This may seem easy to most folks and it should be. However, most of the time I have to perform this seemingly easy step in secret because my oldest child carries an intense emotional attachment to his stuff. Everything has a story behind it for him or a beloved memory of when he played with it. He saves slips of paper, stickers, broken toys that were once favorites, trash that he claims is part of his “collection”, and even gets upset when I try to hand down his outgrown clothes to his younger brother. So, this first step requires the kids being gone so they don’t see me cramming black trash bags full of junk and running them to the trashcans like I’m some sort of spy running a covert operation.

Prioritize don’t organize. I’ve made the mistake in the past of making the second step be organizing the rest of the toys that I haven’t purged. I spent a ton of time sorting countless trinkets, action figures, toy cars, and game pieces into all these separate bins. What I found was that these toys really weren’t being played with and loved even though they kept finding their way onto the floor. Plus, when it was time to put things away they would get dumped back together again because no one understood the sorting method except me. So this time I’m putting some real energy into observing what they actually spend their time playing with. When other kids come over to play the choices vary some but not a whole lot. If it doesn’t get played with on a regular basis then it is outta here!

Speak their language. You may want to involve your kids in the purging process. It’s great if you can explain to them the need to give toys away to other kids who don’t have toys to play with. Sometimes that has worked for me. Unfortunately, that concept is sometimes too vague for my kids. What did make it real for them was me saying “Ok, look. No new toys are moving in until some of these old toys get moved out.” I’ll sit out some boxes and we’re not done until the boxes are full. One of their vices is Nerf guns. Holy cow do my boys love those Nerf guns! There isn’t a birthday or Christmas that goes by that they don’t ask for one. During the purging process I make them pick out their favorites and I usually give them a number they are limited to. Then the rest have to be given away.

Buy for quality not for quantity. This is my new catch phrase…especially with Christmas and a couple birthdays coming soon. After I finish writing this I am going to ask my kids to start thinking about what they really want for Christmas. My guess is that they already have a pretty good idea. Then that’s what I’m going to plan on for Christmas. I don’t know why we always seem to purchase extra stuff that I figure they’ll like but I know not really love just so they can have fun opening things on Christmas. I hate realizing that we’ve been sucked into the mentality that your birthdays and Christmas need to be filled with piles of packages to open. I also won’t be doing any junky stocking stuffers from the Dollar Store this year.

So this begins my “Quest for Less” and I hope to have some follow-up posts to go with this little series of mine. Do you have any tips for purging the toys around your house or making Christmas gifts more meaningful? I’d love to hear them.

Have you seen those new shows on Hoarding? They’re terrifying and disgusting. The part that is terrifying to me is that none of those people who are literally living inside a landfill planned to end up that way. They didn’t just wake up one morning and say, “Hmm, I think I’ll turn into a hoarder and keep everything forever.” Granted these are extreme cases but it’s scary how things can sneak up on you when it comes to household clutter and saving things “just because” we might have use for them someday.

I’ve started reading up on Minimalism. I don’t mean minimalism is relation to painting or performance arts, but rather the quest of being content on living with less. I read a great post today called “The Unmistakable Freedom of Contentment and How to Achieve It.” I wouldn’t consider myself discontented but I need to make that shift towards getting rid of the excess and paring down our lives to get free of the junk and the obligations that having so much “stuff” carries with it.

My two main take away thoughts from the article are:
1) “Not only does contentment provide the opportunity for minimalism, it also reduces your stress level, improves your outlook, relaxes your body, and makes your life enjoyable.” — How awesome is that?! I want that! Less stress, more relaxation, and a more enjoyable life with my family is exactly what I want.

2) “Be content with what you have, never with what you are. Never stop learning, growing, or discovering. Take pride in your personhood and the progress that you have made, but never become so content that you cannot find room for improvement. Contentment is not the same as complacency.” — Can I get an amen? I just have this urge to cheer for some reason.

So I hope to come back to this topic with revelations I’m having and progress I’ve made. As I was reading this morning, it became abundantly clear that it’s time to attack the kids’ toys again since I seem to keep picking up the same stuff over and over again yet I never really see anyone playing with what I’m picking up.

Why is it that kids behave better for people other than their parents? I mean seriously what’s up with that? Something about that is so wrong that it makes ME want to scream like a rotten toddler throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. You would think that your children would behave the best for those they know and love the most but unfortunately that is not the case.

This morning I got to experience a testing of my own patience at the hands of my middle child. A child whose smile could melt snow in the dead of winter but when he is in a mood….watch out! I remember my oldest son going through a similar phase that would cause me to wonder if selling a child to a traveling circus might be considered legal through a loophole of some kind. My oldest has gotten better so I’m hopeful that our middle child will live long enough to make it through to the other side of this stage.

So today, my mom is watching my kids and helping them with their schoolwork while I hide in my room in my pajamas. I plan to watch some chick flicks, paint my nails, take a hot shower followed by a nice long nap. Then in a couple weeks my generous (although probably secretly afraid husband) is going to keep the kids for a weekend so I can enjoy some more time alone. I think I may know exactly what to ask for on my next birthday.

So what do you do with those frozen dreams? How do you identify which dreams are the ones worth fighting for? How do you know if a dream is really from God or it it’s something that just popped into your head? Let’s see what today’s chapter says:

- God’s dream will never go against His Word, because His will never contradicts His Word. If the desire you have goes against God’s Word, it’s not His dream. Paul told us the secret to determining if a dream is from God when he said, “God…is able to do far more than we would even dare to ask or even dream of–infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes” (Ephesians 3:20). God’s dream will rise to the top while everything else will melt away. Just as the ice cream in a root beer float rises to the top, so does God’s dream for us.

Why does His dream for us rise to the top? What distinguishing characteristics will His dream for us have?

1. His dream requires faith. If a dream is from God, it will be so big in your life that you can’t do it on your own. If you can accomplish it by yourself, no faith is required.
2. God’s dream makes a difference in the lives of others. It’s not a selfish dream. God created us as social beings, just as relational as He is, and He wants us to love and serve others just as He does.
3. God’s dream comes for your heart, from the core of your being. Whenever God gives you a dream, He places it deep in your heart. Scripture uses the word heart to mean your internal motivation, your love, and your passions. So when God gives you a dream, He places it in your heart. When God gives you a passion for something, He wants you to go for it because it’s incorporated in your being, not because He’s trying to hijack your life. He doesn’t give you a passion for one dream and then call you to fulfill a life plan that’s completely unrelated. That’s not His character, nor is it good stewardship–and He never wastes the resources He’s created.

How do you distinguish between your own selfish dreams and the God-given dream planted in your life? How has God revealed and reinforced His dream for your life? How have you typically responded in the past? How would you respond differently if you only had one month to live?

So seriously…could it get much deeper than all that?! So, if I’m being totally transparent here beyond being a wife and a mother I do not honestly know what dreams God has planted in my life. If I’m evaluating my life by the questions above then the only pursuit I can say fits those criteria is being a mom and wife. I can’t do it on my own without God. Well, I can’t do it very well on my own anyway. It definitely requires faith. It obviously makes a difference in the lives of others…namely my husband and children. And I do firmly believe that God put the desire to be a wife and mom in my heart. I’m not sure I could do it if I didn’t believe that. I know I couldn’t homeschool my kids without that desire. Because, let’s be honest…there are some rough days where it’d be nice if I had the house to myself and could let someone else take care of the kid’s discipline and education.

I am slightly befuddled by the comment: He doesn’t give you a passion for one dream and then call you to fulfill a life plan that’s completely unrelated. Does that mean I only get one dream? Have I missed it? Am I just here to do the mom thing? Not that the mom thing isn’t an awesome responsibility. Or does it mean that I’m still waiting to figure out what my dream is? I guess for now, my job is to do whatever I do to the best of my ability taking the responsibilities God has given me as seriously as I can. Do I hope there might be more someday? Yeah, I think I do.

There’s more to the chapter on Thawing Out Your Frozen Dreams but that’s about all the deepness I can take for one day.

I continue to be in awe of how fast this first year with Melody has flown by. I want to document the story of how Melody came into our lives because I don’t want to lose the details with the passing of time. One day I will share Melody’s story with her as well.

I will never forget the day in November when I was in the dairy section of Walmart with my mom when I got a call from my husband. We were chatting about nothing in particular and in his typical fashion of saying things out of the blue he said “Oh when you get home, remind me to tell you about someone asking us if we want to adopt their baby.” “WHAT?! Excuse me?” was my reply. And that was the beginning. Although Shawn and I had discussed the possibility of adoption we had never pursued it. We had our two boys and toyed with the idea of having another baby but it was all just hypothetical at that point. Now we had been approached directly about adopting a baby that was due in about four months. We struggled to wrap our minds around the concept. At first it seemed so sudden and a little crazy. Even as we talked about it and went back and forth about the possibility it was so hard to picture it as reality. Even when we decided to pursue it we didn’t tell anyone outside of our family in case it didn’t go through.

It was so strange to prepare for a baby that wasn’t growing in my stomach. It was hard to cautiously tell our boys of the possibility they might be getting a little sister but not to get their hopes up in case it didn’t happen. Several times we got calls that the birth mom had gone to the hospital for signs of early labor and I really started getting stressed out because I had gotten rid of all my baby supplies and I was totally unprepared. What if the baby came early? I finally talked Shawn into letting me buy a couple outfits, a pack of diapers, and some formula and we borrowed a bassinet from someone in the family. But that was it. A far cry from decorating a baby nursery, having baby showers, and spending months preparing your house and your heart for a new baby.

On the morning of January 28th, we were closing on our new house. We had just left the attorney’s office and were headed to the house to try out our new keys when we got a call that the birth mom was once again having contractions and was going to her doctor’s office. At this point we had gotten several calls like this and she was on medication to decrease the chance of preterm labor. We just assumed this was another call like all the others. We started making trips back and forth from storage bringing loads of boxes and furniture to our new house but we kept checking in via phone to make sure everything was alright.

Around 7′oclock that night I placed a call to the birth mom to ask how she was doing. She was still having contractions and was waiting on someone to come check on her. I asked her if her mother was still with her and she replied “No, she had to go home. I’m here by myself.” After I got off the phone with her I went to find Shawn and I said “I’m going to the hospital. Whether this is another false alarm or not, no one should be having contractions in a hospital bed all alone.” I threw a few things in a bag (just in case), grabbed my purse and left. It was pitch black on the unfamiliar back roads that I took to the hospital that night. As I got closer and closer I could feel myself getting more and more nervous but I finally arrived at the hospital.

When I got off the elevator on the floor for labor and delivery I tentatively looked around for where to go. At that moment a nurse came out some double doors, walked up to me and asked “Are you Faith?” “Umm, yeah,” I said. She said “Oh good, you almost missed it.” As I walked into the room, I asked the soon-to-be birth mom “So, how’s it going?” She said “I’m about to have a baby.” A few seconds later a doctor and two nurses came in, and I gave my hand for the moral supportive squeeze that really does nothing to help with the pains of giving birth. I vaguely remember getting a text message from Shawn asking if I had arrived ok and I texted back “The baby is coming.” A few pushes later and Melody was born. From the time I arrived in the hospital room to the time she was born was exactly 10 minutes. I could have missed the whole thing if I hadn’t called when I called or left when I left. Amazing God moment #1.

Because the unexpected labor happened so fast and because the hospital was extra busy that night, the two new moms got to the spend over an hour with our little Melody. Just the two of us. It was so incredible. We had a great chance to talk and here she is giving me the blessing of a daughter and SHE was thanking me. It showed me in that moment how truly unselfish she was and how much she cared for her baby to make the choice to give her to a family that could provide for her child in a way that she could not. If her family or any of my family had been present for the birth we would not have shared those moments together. Amazing God moment #2.

About an hour after Melody was born we had some family visitors on both sides including new daddy Shawn. Everyone decided to go home when they came to take Melody for her bath. I decided to stay overnight and assumed they would bring her back to sleep in the room so I wanted to be with her as much as possible. Well, the entire night passed and they never brought Melody back. In the morning we were told that Melody’s oxygen levels were not what they should be so she was placed under an oxygen hood and had to stay in the nursery. That day after she was born was spent mainly just me and the birth mom hanging out in her hospital room making trips to the nursery to go visit Melody. At first it was strange because different hospital personnel and nurses were in and out of the room all day and they would naturally ask her about her new baby. Each and every time she would inform them that I was the mom and ask my opinion on things. It was kind of surreal but I think it helped solidify things in her mind because I can only imagine the emotional roller coaster she must have been on. It really helped calm my fears as well that she would really want to go through with the adoption because in the back of my mind I know I was afraid of getting close to a baby that I might lose. Amazing God moment #3.

Melody had to stay in the hospital for four days. By then, birth mom had checked out of the hospital so I had to travel back and forth from home to go see Melody. I couldn’t hold her as long as she was under the oxygen hood either. So it wasn’t any easier to realize that I had a baby. Even though the birth mom had already signed her rights over to us it didn’t feel any more real because there was no baby at our house. We finally got word that Melody was going to be released and Shawn and I were planning to go together when he got home from work. Due to a hospital technicality we were told that the birth mom had to be present in order to release the baby. I received a panicky call from Shawn hours before he was able to leave work saying that the birth mom was already on her way to the hospital. He was worried that there was a chance something could happen with the hospital releasing Melody to the birth mom if we weren’t there. I had been out shopping with my mom buying baby supplies because I realized I didn’t have socks or other basic baby items I needed. So we changed our plans and headed straight to the hospital as I’m picturing all the horrible possibilities that years of watching movies on Lifetime had stuck in my head. I also imagined a huge emotional scene with the birth mom’s family. When we arrived, birth mom was rocking Melody in the nursery. She had come alone. My mom finally got to hold her new granddaughter and the infant nursery had cleared out during the week so it was extremely calm and quiet. We each took turns holding her and taking pictures. Melody got her footprints taken and got her oh-so-flattering hospital picture taken.

Eventually it was time to go. We got her papers signed and put Melody in her carseat. We all rode down the elevator together and there was definitely lots of tension in the air. We both walked Melody to my van. There was a feeling of finality when I slid the door closed and as I hugged birth mom good-bye she really started crying. We just held each other in the parking lot and cried together. I thanked her again and then we parted ways. I was so thankful that it was so calm and that she came by herself and that all the possible situations I envisioned never happened. God moment #4.

There is much more to Melody’s story and too many more God moments to count on the road to getting her adoption finalized. There were several times when we weren’t sure she would be staying with us because the biological father came back into the picture and tried to ruin everything. But even in the midst of it all we could see God’s hand clearly at work. I can honestly say that I haven’t had to rely on Him so deeply as I did during the adoption process. I have never felt so gripped by fear in one moment and so elated on angel’s wings in the next moment than on the day of her final adoption hearing. Melody’s adoption was finalized on May 29, 2008 the day before Shawn’s birthday and what a wonderful present that was!

You are such a beautiful blessing to our lives, Melody! I can’t imagine our lives without you.

- A dream is something that calls to us, something that may seem impossible or crazy but tastes sweeter and more fulfilling than we ever could have imagine.

- It doesn’t take long for the blizzards of life to freeze our dreams. Everyday life has a way of wearing down the dreams of our youth and deflating the hope of seeing them come to pass. We get frostbitten by the bitter cold of disappointment, delay, and deferment. Instead of dreaming big and believing that God can accomplish great things through us, we go into survival mode and put our dreams on ice.

- Many people have no idea what their dreams are and what they really want in life. Don’t you feel this way at time? Maybe when your job is getting you down you wonder if you’ve completely missed your calling. Maybe when a relationship falls apart or when circumstances make you question if you’re in the right place. Maybe when you’re just bored and going through another mundane daily routine. During these moments we tend to forget what our true desires and dreams are because they get buried under and avalanche of pain.

I would venture to believe we’ve all had thoughts like these. I know I have. It’s often in the moments when the busyness slows down and I actually have time to contemplate about my life that I start questioning things about it. The sad thing is that I stay so busy I barely have time to sit and wonder if I’m enjoying all the things that are keeping me so busy.

Currently how connected do you feel to your dreams? Does your day-to-day life reflect an active pursuit of your dreams? What prevents you from such a pursuit?

Hmm, I would have to say that I don’t feel very connected to my dreams. In fact, I’m not even sure I remember my dreams. I used to want to be a pediatrician but then decided if I was going to have a family and be a mom that much school was just unrealistic for me. Then I decided that nursing might be a shorter more obtainable option for helping people and I’m certain the medical side of helping people grew out of my dad being an ER doc. I finally threw in the towel for any possible nursing career when I came to the conclusion that the nurses dealt with far more of the 3 P’s than I wanted to deal with. What are the 3 P’s you ask? That would be the Puke, Puss, and Poop cleanup that I wanted nothing to do with. I eventually moved onto the counseling and psychology side of helping people. I do have my undergrad degree in counseling and hope some day to finish my Marriage & Family Therapy Master’s degree but I don’t currently have a passionate desire to go after that dream. It would just be nice at this point because I wouldn’t pursue a career in therapy while I’m trying to homeschool and raise my kids.

Another dream I have is to do something with Sign Language. When I was twelve years old I took my first signing class with my mom at our church but I think I’ve always been fascinated about it. I’m not even sure what it is but when I talk to other people about my desire to become fluent in American Sign Language (ASL), my heart races and I often start getting teary when I’m talking about it. I’m mostly self-taught with the exception of a couple short classes so I’m no where near as fluent as I’d like to be. But every week when I’m at church listening to the music I sign the songs in my head. Every week. What gets me overthinking and analyzing my dream are thoughts like “What’s the point in pursuing ASL because I don’t know ANY deaf people.” Sure I could learn songs and sign them during worship because it’s a beautiful expression of music and emotion but is that a good enough reason? Does that make it more about me liking ASL cause it’s neat or because I think I’ll be able to just be ready on the off chance I run into a deaf person? But regardless of the reason or the purpose of that dream I’m not currently pursuing it. So like any language, if you don’t use it…you lose it and I hate that!

The only dream that I do feel like I’m pursuing actively is to be a stay at home mom raising a happy family. I wish I didn’t have the work schedule that I do and I wish my husband didn’t work as much as he does. And there are other things I would like us to be doing better at or doing more of but I am totally blessed to have three great kids and a husband that I’m confident loves me like the queen I am. (Just teasing.)

So what do you do with those frozen dreams? How do you identify which dreams are the ones worth fighting for? I’ll be talking more about Thawing Out Your Frozen Dreams coming soon but I’d love to hear about your dreams. What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Is it possible to be bored with TOO MUCH to do instead of not enough? I’m thinking that it is possible because that’s how I feel right now. Maybe bored isn’t the right word. Maybe overwhelmed is a better word for it. But the feeling I have right now feels a lot like boredom. I am going over my mental to do list over and over again. It’s huge so there’s plenty to do. But nothing sounds intriguing or peaks my interest. In my effort to be responsible and pick the most important thing I need to tackle, I end up just wondering which one needs tackled first.

I laugh to myself when my boys tell me they’re bored. I would LOVE to have the chance to be truly bored again. I can’t remember what it’s really like. I think the closest I used to get to being bored was being stuck in a 12-hour van ride traveling to our grandmother’s house. If I ran out of tapes to listen to (yes, tapes…I’m old, I know) or things to do I would just go to sleep and let the time pass. I would totally LOVE to be trapped in a van right now for 12 hours with nothing to do except take a nap!

I was reading in “One Month to Live” today and the chapter was about thawing out your frozen dreams. I almost don’t want to think about my dreams that I’ve put on ignore. Don’t get me wrong…having kids and a family was one of my dreams but I used to have a lot more. It almost pained me to read the chapter because I haven’t thought about my dreams in so long I begin to wonder if I’ve lost them completely.

A fear that I have is that my children will not know me as more than just the mom who fed them, cleaned up after them, and worked on her computer a lot. I want to be more than that. I want them to know me as a person who has dreams, talents, and passions. But right now they can’t see me as being that person because I’m not that person. I also don’t want to put my life on hold for so long that when my children all leave the house I don’t have a life of my own to continue.

I’ll follow up more on the dream issue tomorrow probably and finish the section in the book. For now, I better get back on track, get un-bored and get some things accomplished before basketball practice tonight.

So today I’m just pondering life. It’s a rainy day perfect for pondering. It would also be perfect for napping but I have too many things to do around the house for that today. I would like to write more frequently about my ponderings of life. I would love for my children to have an archive of my posts to learn about me, about my thoughts, and about their lives growing up. Life sometimes takes me down roads I didn’t intend to travel but for now, that’s my planned course of action. Not a drastic change from things before but more elements of my chatty thoughts.