Becoming a House at Rest....

Do you live in a house at rest? Or a house at war? If you have been reading my blog, you wouldn't be surprised to know that I have been going through a bit of a struggle this past month...finally it had taken it's toll on my husband. My house -The Kreissig home-, was in a house at war.
It starts little by little. Your driving to work in traffic (speeding ticket doesn't help!), you walk into the break room to hear a giant negativity fest on who's doing what wrong,  your mood shifts, your day continues, and your tired body drives home, you walk in the door only to find... utter chaos......this is the key point here....at the end of the day your family gets the tired soul that in the beginning of the day is battling against the war, at the end of the day sometimes you just don't have the strength to fight it off.
For me, when my soul is tired;
 I nag my husband.
 I raise my voice to my son.
 I yell at my poor little ignored Bozley that is constantly under my feet

Here is a little tid-bit of what my home sounded like after I walked in the door last week

"Babe next time can you PLEASE load the salad bowl on the top rack not the bottom? You warped it!" (I'm lucky he even does the dishes)....Austin "GET OFF THE TABLE"....Lilly is in the back round giving me a warning she's hungry...."Bozley GO TO YOUR ROOM" (as my dog was trying to give me a greeting by scratching at my legs quickly runs to his kennel)...."Babe, SERIOUSLY there is an OPEN dirty diaper sitting on the FLOOR!! (again, the things I nag and yell at him for seem to be things I should be appreciative he even does!) Lilly has taken to doing her high pitched shrill because it's the only way she can be heard above the chaos...."Austin is throwing a tantrum because he is trying to communicate he's hungry and wants to get into the fruit basket, "Austin USE YOUR WORDS"... All the while Justin is sitting on the couch wanting to just pass out from his 10 hour day at work, then immediately being the sole parent while I work until 7:30. "BABE PLEEEASE TURN OFF THE TV!!!"


Reading this,  makes me sad how I treat the people I love. Reading this, also makes me see how easy it is for things to get out of control. We as women set the mood for our house. It is up to us to change this.
Saturday night as my hubby and I sat down to have our quiet time, I turned to him and said "You are depressed, what is wrong with you? You're so negative lately, and I feel like I don't even know you." In saying this to him, I was saying to myself as well. He replied "I feel like I have nothing to look forward to, I go to work and it's negative, I come home and your always in a bad mood, the kids are crazy, I work for the weekend....it goes by so fast, and then everything starts all over". This scared me. How could this have happened? Did I do this to my husband? Does his biggest source of happiness start with me? Did I turn him into this empty shell in a few short (hard) weeks? The answer to all of this is YES.
Sunday morning at church the Pastor asked us "Do you live in a house at war? Or a house at rest? When you drive up to your house, do you feel a sense of peace? Or do you feel tense? Is there yelling? (a pit in my stomach formed as I sink in my chair) Is there conditional love, where you will only treat someone with love if they treat you with love first? (I sink a little lower) Are you nagging at your spouse? (At this point I'm basically off my chair in pure shame)...
For everything that I work so hard for, for all of the answers I feel I know, for everything I strive every day to be....it all could fall apart on me in a those short weeks. And it did. And I only have me to blame. STUPID! I'm so happy our Pastor hits us on the head every now and then, because we all need a little wake up call.
Don't take the pressures of the world out on your family. Your loved ones are on YOUR side! As much as you might think that you don't....you might find that you do. Try video tapping your home for 10 minutes and listen to what is being said. I'm ashamed at how often I was yelling at my little "hearts on legs"
I really don't want any yelling in my home. It snowballs from there, and quickly becomes an avalanche of more and more yelling. I have posted a note in the heart of my home (the kitchen) that reads "House of Rest", as a reminder to myself not to yell, to take a deep breathe before I open my mouth. My mouth, after all, is my greatest weapon in turning my home into a war zone. This is going to be hard, and it will be work...but what I am working towards I know is my greatest blessing.
My family.

How could you yell at those faces?

His Perfect Way....not MY way.

Have you ever had just "one of those days". This morning I overslept,  raced out the door (didn't even get Austin out of his pj's) threw the kids in the car (no I did NOT literally throw them) and drove to my Mother-in-laws house to drop off the kids. Just as I was pulling into my salon I see flashing lights behind me....my heart sank.....SPEEDING TICKET.
I had informed my patiently waiting client by phone that I was in the process of recieving a ticket so I would be walking in shortly :( As I dried my tears (in the air conditioner of my car no less) I forced myself to have a positive face for the day, just because my day wasn't great I wasn't about to ruin my beloved clients day as well. As I started to shampoo her hair she stated to me "God has a purpose for everything, wait for him to show you what you can learn from Him." She couldn't see me as I rolled my eyes thinking, "yeah sure, He'll use my 300.00 speeding ticket as a life lesson I'm sooo positive I can learn from this". Little did I know, God was answering my prayer as I recieved this blow to my bank account.
Hubby and I have had the desire in our heart to invest in a larger home. We bought our lovely condo when it was just the 2 of us...needless to say 2 kids later, we're basically maxed out. But even more than that, I've been struggling with the fact that I work (not really work I love what I do)...although I'm only away from my kids 2 or 3 days a week, I just feel guilty about leaving them those days! We really would like a bigger home so that I can build my own salon in it and work from there... less commute, more flexible hours, would only be working for me... the positives are endless. The desire is to be with my children and husband more, the perks of having a larger house with a payment that is about the same as we pay now, is a bonus!
Later in the afternoon, we found out that we basically can only get a loan if we can put down $25,000. I felt like Scarlette O'hara when the Yankees wanted the taxes on Terra "$25,000 might as well be a million".  No way in this earth can I save that much money! But there are other possibilities, I guess I'll just have to........
wait.
You see, on my way to work this day I prayed to the Lord "Please, give me a neon sign...I'll do what you want, if this is what YOU want".
Never would I have thought that the lights of a motorcyle police officer would've been my "neon sign". SLOW DOWN. WAIT.
The Lord knows the desires of my heart, and I LOVE that He has a sense of humor! ( I wish it didn't come in the form of a speeding ticket but hey....I asked for it)
I want to live God's perfect way, not His permissive way. If it is in His perfect way for me to wait and save as much as possible...than that is what we shall do. I love that He knows what to do with my life more than I.

Do you see the little Casita on the right? That's the salon....someday:)

These are my weights.

As I sat down to write tonight. I sat here with a heavy heart. I haven't posted in a couple weeks because I knew  that if I sat down to type, it would open the heavy burden of my past that has consumed me more now than it ever has in my life.
I sat here and was going to tell you all about how when I was 2 years old, my Mother took my Sister and left me with my Father till I was 3. A few years ago my Mother blindingly gave me the information that while they were gone, "the babysitter would call me and tell me you had un-attended to ear infections, and would sit in the corner and shake"....some things....I could've done with out knowing. When I spoke with my Sister about how deeply hurt I am with my Mother leaving me, she tried to console me by saying "Mom was really good with you when you were young, she got really mad at your Dad when he'd slap you across the face"...again...could've done with out.
Recently I've been in contact with a sibling of my Mother's...I have great memories with the person's family, I found out that when I was 10 after my Mother tried for the second time to commit suicide (leaving me again for the um-tenth time) this family tried to keep my brother and I as their own. My Mother wouldn't sign over custody unless she could've come and been taken care of as well. This is the part that has been haunting me. Why couldn't she have known what was good for us and just let us go? I could've lived with a beautiful family, a stable environment, with a Mom that would do things like...in the middle of the night get all of the kids out of bed and give us flashlights searching for racoons!! I could've met my soul-mate Justin a different person, one that didn't have baggage, that trusted-and possibly had a family that could contribute to our family as well!
I know God had a purpose for me. My life is so beautiful now. I've never ever dealt with my past. I wasn't ready to, now for some reason the wounds are finally bleeding and I haven't known what to do with them...
Until now.
As I sat here to use you as my counselor, I scrolled down to a fellow bloggers titled post "Weights become wings".
These are my weights, these are the things that have been weighing me down. Please Lord, turn them into wings. Help me help others by what has been done (or not done) to me, so that maybe one person on this earth will hurt a little less.
I'm thankful of that person's blog, because I finally feel that all by myself, I can move on....