hahaha! What does it say about how much I did not love summer this year that I’m blogging a whole series on “recovering from summer.”

I feel like I should explain that it has more to do with moving this summer and leaving so much undone and waiting for “after the kids start school.” But really, is there ever an end to projects?

Plus, I spent a large amount of time outside this year, and I want to whine about how hot it was. I’m a fall person, I can’t help it. I AM SO READY FOR FALL!!!!

Lately there has been a little more time during the day for me to be alone with my thoughts. Not only that, but as I’ve been talking with my friends, I’ve been listening to the words that I’m saying. With the boys at school all day, I have time to reflect on what I’m hearing and saying.

I realized as I was talking the other day that I actually believed that I’m not good at anything at all. 

So much happened in the 4 years we were gone from this place. They weren’t bad years, but they were growing-up, maturing kind of years. Actually, just moving 3 times in 4 years was tough, and that’s not even the part that I focus on most. It feels like I walked about a billion miles to get from there to here, and my body wants to sit down and soak in a bath and just process it all.

Life brought challenges, new tasks, hardships we’ve had to see the boys through, and relationships that changed how I interact with others.

Both difficult and wonderful things have happened, and I internalized so much of it in a negative way. I let it bring me low, not humbled, but defeated and rather sad.

You, my blog readers, are also my friends, so I want to share a little of what I’ve been dealing with. Maybe you can relate.

There were several things I felt like I failed at, then there was the heart scare, the not being allowed to exercise, the weight gain, a difficult person I had trouble with, seeing my parents deal with the fire, the constant moving, and maybe I didn’t handle it all that well. I tried to act like I did.

Low Self-Esteem

My self-esteem became ridiculously low. You might actually call it an inferiority complex. The things I have been saying to myself were HORRIBLE. These are lies I’ve believed.

“You are an inadequate housekeeper.”

“You’re not good at anything.”

“You’re so chubby.”

“Alan doesn’t approve of me.” (These are lies. All of them.)

“Everyone hates your blog. Stop writing it.”

“You were pretty when you were young. Now you’re ugly.”

“You’re annoying. Don’t talk so much.”

“Your views are controversial. Don’t tell people what you really think.”

“No one would hire you even if you tried to get a job. You have no skills.”

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

What to do about low self-esteem

I’m no expert here, but I think the first step is realizing that this is a problem. It’s not a little problem. Living defeated is a BIG BAD DEAL when it’s stopping you from fulfilling your purpose.

I heard people talk about a book called “Girl, Wash Your Face.” (I make like 12 cents a copy if you buy it through that link. lol) I haven’t actually read the book, but the statement made sense to me because in the practical sense, I often skip washing my face in the interest of accomplishing something I deem more important. In the applicable sense, you can tell from the title alone that this is a “Get back up!” sort of message.

You know I love YouTube. So I went there, and I typed “girl, wash your face” in the YouTube search bar. A long list of videos by Rachel Hollis popped up. I watched a random video about finishing the year strong. I don’t even know which one it was.

She kept talking about how she tells herself things like, “You are super fit.” or something like that.

That got me thinking to the crap I’ve been telling myself, just horrible lies I’m believing about myself, rather than believing anything GOOD about who I am and what I can do.

I was in my kitchen, baking cookies for the kids, and I realized, “I have to make a list! A list of how to fix this and a list of POSITIVE thoughts about myself.”

List #1

Healing Self-Esteem Issues

1. Pray about this.
2. Ask God why you have this problem.
3. Identify how you have been dishonest with yourself.
4. What lies or unimportant truths are you listening to?
5. Make a list of what makes you valuable & what you do well.
6. Tell yourself new truths to replace the lies.

I made this list for myself through tears of determination. Yes! Why have I been stumbling? “Who am I?”

What have I been doing? How did I allow myself to come to this place?

It’s OKAY to be sad. I might even still feel sad for whatever reason, but believing evil lies about yourself is helping no one.

You are of high value!!!

List #2

The Confidence List

On this page, I wrote only solid, positive truths about myself.

Things like this:

“I make delicious no bake cookies.”

“God greatly loves me.”

“My children adore me.”

“Alan thinks I’m pretty.”

“I have courage.”

“I am not fake.”

“I put myself through college in 3 1/2 years.” (Answered prayers!!)

“I share my lessons with others on my blog.”

And I actually wrote way, way more than that. I wanted to pass these ideas along to you, in case you need to make those lists too.

After I made these lists, I also sat down with Alan and discussed this struggle with him, so he could understand what’s going on inside my head and my heart.

Life is tough, but we don’t have to believe the lies. We CAN live victoriously.

I firmly believe there are both good and evil forces in this world. God wants only what’s good for you, and the devil knows that the worse you feel about yourself, the less likely you are to do anything bold and beautiful for others. He wants us cowering in a corner, but that is not what we are built for.

I know I can’t overcome my low self-esteem in one weekend, but by golly we can forge ahead, right? I hope you’ll make your confidence list too!

Is this something you’ve dealt with? Tell us in the comments section how you rise above it.

The post Day 2: Tackling Low Self Esteem with Truth and List Making appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

There are so many exciting things going on in our chilly little Northern Cal world, it’s hard to keep my head on straight!

Alan is in the middle of a mid-term schedule that has him pretty stressed. He actually has to go out of town later this week to test out a drone parachute that he designed. Woohoo!

Alan and I are so different. No one would ever, in a billion years, ask me to design ANYTHING. Thanks to this design project, Alan and I now share the love for Brittany’s, which is a delightful craft store, similar to Hobby Lobby!

John David’s language abilities are exploding. He still speaks in small phrases, but it’s just adorable to hear him talk. Meanwhile, he and Daniel have developed an obsession with baseball caps. Daniel wears his tee-ball team hat, which is blue, and JD wears a red Nats hat. They run around like this, feeling so important. Daniel even wears his to bed.

Daniel wears his full uniform at all times that he can get away with it. He’d love nothing more than to wear it to church, bed, and everything.  Alan is very excited to have a son that likes baseball as much as he does, and they go out in the yard and practice together. I just love to hear it.

Sometimes I start to think that our little family is getting over the hump of the exhausting baby/toddler phase. Then we experience a full family outing failure, and I am reminded that the hump is still a mountain to us.

The boys’ end of the year CC program was pretty much a total disaster for Alan and me. First, Caleb, while on stage in the large group opener, made faces. Meanwhile, JD kept crying out. Well, you can’t keep a crying toddler in an auditorium, so we kept taking turns walking out with him. Since we were up and down with JD, Daniel took that to mean that he could be up and down and up and down and up and down too, so we left Tuesday night feeling like we only have one kid that knows how to behave in public.

It was a humbling experience. Really, we live feeling pretty humble. Managing four kids: hard for us–others make it look easy. Homeschooling: hard for us–others think it’s big fun.

After Caleb left the stage from the opener, where he was making the faces, Alan whispered to me, “You might need to go say something to him.”

But Caleb was on the other side of the room, sitting with his class, and the show was well underway.

“Maybe Lindsay (Caleb’s tutor) will say something to him. Lindsay’s good that way.”

She did. We were safe. No more faces for the second performance. PHEW!!!

Once a children’s church worker told me this story about my children, “I heard someone talking, and I couldn’t believe it when I realized it was Joshua. He’s supposed to be the shy guy, right? So I called him over and made him sit by me. After a while, I told him he could go back to his seat, but he could not talk any more. He said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and he went back over there and never uttered another word. That’s really great! I mean, hey, a kid that listens to instruction!”

So no, our kids aren’t perfect. No one’s are, but I’m going to go on feeling good about them because they do listen to instruction (most of the time), and most importantly, they have precious hearts.

Daniel was eating his lunch the other day, and he asked, “Where’s JD?”

“Napping,” I said.

“Oh, Me see him sleeping on the monitor. He’s precious,” Daniel giggled.

Oh yes, he IS precious, and so was the little boy talking about him, with the sun butter on his cheek and the baseball uniform on, even though it wasn’t game day.

LOVE!!!!

Caleb has always been a big defender of the underdog. Don’t even get me started on how much I ADORE the way he randomly heats me up cups of coffee and brings them to me throughout the day.

Recently Joshua has become a huge advocate of the poor and the homeless, especially the homeless. He wants to go around giving them all tents. He talks about it day and night, every day, which warms my heart, but it also challenges me.

These kids have a need to SEE us helping the poor. Yes, we do give money to causes and church, which help the poor, but the boys are wanting to SEE us do that. I’m not sure how to go about it. Does anyone have any specific suggestions? We’ll be happy to take ideas!

“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed.”   Proverbs 19:7

We only have three weeks of school left, yall!  This is so exciting!! I can’t tell you how relieved I feel.

Next year’s curriculum!

Planning for next year is underway. This is paramount. Every weekend this year, I had to work on plans and organizing the next week’s school work because I was unable to prepare last summer, thanks to the move. THIS year, if I can get most of that done before the school year starts, I will have more free time DURING the school year. So maybe my house will be cleaner, but most importantly, I will have less stress!

Alan’s parents are arriving this week to help with the kids. This will give me some extra time to plan and Alan and I a little time together. We’re hoping to go to Yosemite National Park. We are hoping to do a lot of hiking,  and speaking of exercise….I got a blog opportunity that I’m excited about last week.

Coach Cox from this website: coachcox.com offered to be my personal trainer this month for free, and all I have to do is tell you all about his service.

I’ve mentioned before that I get offers for services and products like this, and I rarely take them on, but the idea of focusing on living more healthy sounded like something I need.

My goals:

1. Lose a little of this mum tum. (Yes, I do realize my gut is protruding.)

2. Have more energy.

3. Just take better care of myself in general because motherhood requires putting yourself on the back burner a lot, and I let it go a little far this year.

We are able to take care of others better when we first keep ourselves healthy. Plus, as they say, “More is caught than taught,” so our kids need to see us modeling good habits.

So my first challenge:  Drink 70 ounces of water/day! Justin figures up how much water you should drink based on your body weight, so that’s my number.

It’s only been two days, but I’m doing great. I told one of my friends here about the water thing. She said, “Is that hard for you?”

Um, yeah! Normally I drink like 20 ounces of water/day!

I’m also supposed to be eating more nutritionally and working out 3 times/week. I’ll let ya know how that goes this week. At least I’m drinking my water, so you know, yea me!!  🙂

Best thing about this whole online personal trainer thing: I get an app on my phone to track what I’m doing. He sends you exact work outs, complete with videos, tailored to your needs, and you can ask any questions you need to ask. So far, I think it’s AWESOME. I will let yall know more about this as I get further along in the program!

Speaking of trying to take better care of myself, guess what else I did?

Mother’s Day 2015

I CUT MY HAIR. This is really only a big deal to me. Most people I know didn’t even notice the change. It had been a YEAR since I got my hair cut, so this felt like a great, big deal. Alan was so tired of hearing me gripe about my hair, he finally made the appointment for me. Thanks, Alan.

Caleb, me, and my new hair. Next week: Perhaps I will make it to make-up.

I think Alan’s statement the day after my haircut sums up this whole year of adjusting to California, learning how to home school, taking care of 4 little boys, and just my general experience over the last year. He said, “It’s so good to see you back to yourself. That hair cut was really what you needed to get your confidence back.”

Boo-yah. April is back. 😉

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.”         Psalm 20:7-8

The post Life in Northern Cal: Modeling Good Habits and Helping the Homeless appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.