25 More

It's been a while again since I last posted but I did get another request for 25 more things you may or may not know about me and it seems much easier than finishing half a dozen posts right now so here they are:

1. I am slightly addicted to Panera's Iced Green Tea
2. I can't go to bed alone unless I have the T.V. on
3. I got my one and only high school detention for going out to lunch off campus
4. My nickname in high school was "Flash"
5. I don't love ice cream
6. I still have the T-shirt I received from my D.A.R.E. graduation & occasionally wear it to bed...(it's 21 years old, not kidding)
7. My favorite T-Shirt I wear weekly is a high school soccer-t I got my junior year
8. I am not a hoarder;)
9. I love tomales
10. In my closet all of my hangers must be equally spaced
11. At one point in my life I owned 62 pairs of shoes
12. I LOVE to take pictures....98% of them are of my kids
13. I have one cup of coffee and one cup of tea each day
14. I have been the owner of 5 cars
15. When I turned 16 I didn't get the BMW I was hoping for.  I got a BMW baseball cap.
16. I am a total night owl
17. I sercretly wish I could somehow have a show on the Food Network
18. I have never lit a grill before...or grilled for that matter
19. I almost always have a candle burning in our house.  
20. I cannot stand Christmas decorations
21. I have never smoked pot...just thought I'd throw that one out there;)
22. My favorite game as a child was called "birdie," a made up game my cousins & I created.
23. I cannot stand watching cartoons
24. My first kiss was when I was 15
25. I don't like wearing sweaters 

Ready...Set...Learning How to Relax

Somewhere in the middle of sipping sun tea in a lounge chair on the beach while eating a fresh cut pineapple I realized something.  It's something about myself that I think had always known but must have kept so buried in the back of my mind that I did not have to face it.  Here it is...
I am completely incapable of relaxing.

I think I've learned to trick myself into thinking I can relax but when I really started to think about what relaxation means I'm pretty sure I fall short of it's true definition. 

All year I daydream of coming up to Michigan.  I close my eyes and can almost hear the waves and smell the fresh air when I'm stuck in burbs.  It's calming and even in mid-February it's looking forward to going to Crystal Lake that gets me through the day.  Up north I don't have to make any phone calls, return any emails, pay the bills (okay, I do actually have to pay the bills but it's much easier now that I can do it all online;), run from school to after school activities or even make dinner.  It's not that I let my family starve but James and I have worked it out over the years that vacation he does all the cooking, well, grilling.  We bring all of our meat from home and he turns our trip into the great vacation grill-off.  I'm thankful and blessed BUT  that's not the point.

The point is (while I try to avoid it once again) that I seem to be completely unable to relax.  Sure I can pretend to lay lifeless on the sandy shore while soaking up some vitamin D but who am I kidding?  It's August.  As I "relax" on the beach all that is going through my mind is the four completely different school supply lists that await my attention as soon as we get back home.  I find myself fighting those little voices telling me to just go inside and order them online, make new lists of all the extras the kids will need or even just find myself wondering if any of my kids will get put in the dreaded "peanut free environment" classroom.   That means no peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and on a day when lunch meat is no more I go for the quick pb&j sandwich, pb&crackers or even pb& apples, granola bars, a fam favorite of peanuts & raisins, etc, etc. etc.

I left the house 100% spotless when we left. I knew a house even in slight disarray would have me going crazy on vacation but somehow in my demented state I'm already plotting & planning on how I will unpack and get everything put away. Sick....I know.

So, as I sit back and try to relax this evening I can't help but grab my laptop to process.  I apologize if you are reading this and rolling your eyes but get ready to roll some more because I did think about just typing away my thoughts and not posting but then I'd be leaving something unfinished.  Not going to happen.  Good night, Crystal Lake.  Tomorrow I will begin a new book.  Here's to hoping Have a New Kid by Friday by Dr. Kevin Leman is a good distraction from my "relaxation."

Why can't I just turn my brain off for a few? Please don't get me wrong. I'm having one of the most amazing times here filled with so much fun & family but something about my alone time is just not right. Maybe I need some new music on my ipod or maybe that's God's way of telling me to use that time to talk to Him. As I sit and think about it now it's quite possible that all the confusion and noise in my brain is really God yelling, not whispering, for me to listen. I hear Him.