All my goodness has turned to badness...

I'm in a mood.  I don't think I have been in a mood all day.  There is something about trying to get my family to eat food that stresses me out.  The same thing happens around getting them in bed.  Or ready for school.  I've been trying to identify the stressy parts so that I can work with them rather than against them.  Like, I try to add in an additional 5 minutes to my departure time to allow time to fight over how they have the same job every time they get in the car - sit down and buckle up.  I figure, we are going to fight over it anyway so if I can just allow a bit more time for the fighting then it doesn't cause me to run late and piss me off.  Just aggravate, not piss.  But I'm not sure how to alleviate the whole dinner and bed thing.  They have to eat.  I have to cook them food that they will complain about.  I realize that I could choose not to make food that they will complain about but eating corn dogs, pizza rolls, pizza, sloppy joes, tacos, and burgers is only going to take me so far.  Despite all the talking I do about sugar and chocolate and baked goods and sweets, I'm equally as crazy about a great salad or a nice ripe mango.  For real.  I took a picture of a mango for facebook once.  I had access to it for about 30 seconds because once I sliced it away from that vexing huge pit, my fruit instinct took over and I devoured it.  So if you put me in between a juicy, ripe mango and some milk chocolate it would be the mango.  If it was dark chocolate, it might be a draw.  And the kids DO have to go to bed.  Because that is the only time that I get to have a conversation with someone who doesn't declare that he hates me just because I had the audacity to, I don't know, make them eat a lovely dinner.

Honestly, I think I'm just downright weary in my spirit.  And I hate that.  Especially after a weekend like Unbound where you are choosing to open yourself up to hearing about the atrocities of people using other people for labor and sex and evil.  Who am I to be tired?  Who am I not to wake up every single day and not be overwhelmed with gratitude because I am alive and I am free and God loves me?  And the icing of food, shelter, a car, Hubs and the kids?  I try to take comfort in the fact that God uses these valleys.  But that for sure doesn't mean I'm happy to be down deep in one.  I need to spend some time really figuring out what feeds my soul.  How I can really allow God to feed my soul.  Writing this helps.  More than I even expected.  But now Unbound is over.  And another serving team role I have is coming to a close.  And our Saudi student moved out - unexpectedly.  And I have a friend battling cancer - and right now, it's playing pretty dirty.

And what I'm realizing just now as my furious fingers fly to convey all that is that I have some pretty major grieving to do.  Being attached to Unbound took up over 2 years of my life between joining the first one around February of 2009, having it in April of 2009, taking a small break and plan the next one for a year and half and having it last weekend.  And it wasn't an easy 2 years.  I heard and saw some really awful stuff.  It's not like that is a feeling that I can just wash off in the shower.  That stuff stays with you.  And it should.  It should become a layer of something that you take out into the world and make a small change here and there, make a statement here and there, pray big everywhere.  And the other serving role has had to do with the prayer team I have been on for our church's campaign to raise money.  I have been glad to be on that team.  And there has been some astounding blessing for me personally to serve on a team with people from my New Orleans group, as well as some people that I know from other portions of my life.  Which makes it sad when something that has had intention and goal goes away and you've gotten used to meeting, being required to meet, with these peeps.  And our Saudi.  He had lived with us for 9 months.  The irony is not lost on me as he called me Mom and everything.  We had our ups and downs and at the end of the day, he really had become part of the family.  He dug our dogs.  He thought I was funny.  He was generous and polite.  I'm also bummed because rather than coming to us with the situation, he just made the decision to go.  We didn't have a falling out or anything.  He was directed to do something within the confines of a culture that I don't understand and sometimes I don't agree with.  I just wished that he had trusted us to help him and find a good solution that would work for all of us.  And then there's my friend.  She is a small woman with a gentle spirit.  She has been fighting this fight for a long time.  And I know that she is tired and I know that she is in pain and I know this is selfish but I just really want there still to be a fight to be fought.

And so there is all this on top of the daily grieving I do in front of a mirror and see all kinds of extra bumps.  And I gotta daily figure out what to serve for dinner.  And fight with kids whose only job it is every single day is to just get into the car, sit down and buckle up.  And just generally being tired.  I don't what happened but somewhere along the line, my brain made a decision that it's going to  go to sleep sometime between the hours of 2pm and 6pm.  And my body can join in but it's not a requirement. Not stellar timing as I do frequent driving during that time frame.  How am I supposed to evaluate my circadian rhythm under these conditions??  Anywho.  I realize this is not my normal repertoire coming at you.  But I hope you will grant me some grace.  If you do, there is a better than mediocre chicken recipe that I made up tonight coming up next...

Kroger is our local grocery store and it's running a mega sale.  What that means, you mix and match 10 qualifying items and you get $5 off automatically.  You score that AND use coupons and you are gold.  So now, I have more Ronzoni Garden Delight pasta than I can throw some sauce at.  That will change once there is a good sale on sauce...  I also have stuffing.  LOTS of stuffing.  Tens of boxes of stuffing.  But, I know that I like to have it for Thanksgiving.  And again at Christmas.  And I know that I like using it in meatloaf.  And we are putting some in the Thanksgiving boxes for the drive at our church.  And I'm figuring out what else to do with it.  So tonight was an experiment.  I pounded some not entirely thawed skinless, boneless chicken breasts.  I dipped them into beaten egg and coated them with a mixture of the savory herb flavor stuffing and mozzarella cheese.  I put those in a coated pan (because really, does anyone say a "greased" pan anymore?  That just sounds gross.) and cooked them at 375 for half an hour.  Probably that would have been fine but Hubs wasn't comfortable with the looks of the inside of the fattest piece so we stuck it in for another 10.  I served it with some baked beans and some corn.  And here is what happened.  Scooby complained about the beans and the corn.  But he ate his chicken and asked for more.  Twice.  Princess ate all the food on her plate.  Skunk ate nothing.  Peanut put all her corn on top of her beans and ate that.  Hubs and I ate all the food on our plates as well.  I was worried that the stuffing would be too big and should have been crunched up some more but it was fine.  It had some good flavor to it.  The cheese acted as a combo glue, caulk situation.  Which makes it sound super appetizing, right?  Am I right or am I right?  Or am I right?  I give this endeavor a heady 7.9 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  It could stand to be tweaked but has a solid start.

So guess what!  (FYI, there should never be a question mark after the term "guess what".  You aren't asking a question.  If anything, you are commanding something.  And if you are gonna be kind of rude like that, you shouldn't underscore yourself with a question mark.  I'm just sayin'.)  I'm tired!    In closing, I would like to note that all my goodness has not, in fact, turned to badness.  The lines from the song just popped up in my head and I thought that it was a good reflection how even good stuff can cause grief or a reason to grieve.  And that we have to be okay with that.  I don't believe that God wants us to suffer.  But I do believe that we need to learn to turn to God who adores us when we do.  And who may just have some sort of information that He can only convey when we are down on our luck.  Or down on our knees.  Begging please.  And that is about all I have to say about that.  You know.  For now.