Oh what a morning it has been. First things first, I was up EARLY. All by myself. I just woke up very early, (For me anyways.) and stayed awake and was wide awake. And then I realized how uncomfortable I was!

Oh yes, it's that lovely time of pregnancy when sleep becomes non-existent because I'm bigger than the bed basically and my back hurts and my neck hurts and I get charlie horses in the middle of the night and I have to pee all of the time and blah, blah, blah. The time where I literally dread going to bed and will stay up as late as Zach will let me(Hey, some one's got to work in the morning!), but now instead of sleeping through his early morning departure, the first sound of him rousing gets me up and out of bed. Usually thankful that another hellish night is over with.

Anyways, I'll be done complaining for a few paragraphs. I had thought I would get to the blog early. Just like the old days. But here it is 9:30 and I'm just now finding my way to the keyboard. Part of it is because of laundry, but most of it is because of those kiddos. Someone PLEASE send me a How To Be A Mother Of Three Book For Dummies ASAP. If I think two is challenging.......

Yesterday I got my entire house cleaned in one day. Yes I did. That's quite an accomplishment for me, seeing as I haven't been able to do it since we moved.

Ok, our apartment at my moms house took me literally an hour and a half to clean. Imagine that. And I did it once a week, with showers(I hate cleaning showers. Hate it.)

Her upstairs that I cleaned for her took me two and a half hours.

I could usually clean that sucker in one day, if I had that much time on my hands and didn't mind ignoring my children for a few hours and could work in all the vacuuming around naps(That's the hardest part.)

Here? Oh no. Since we moved it's been taking me the entire week to clean.

One day I dust. One day I vacuum. One day I do the kitchen and mop and dust and do all the other kitchen necessary chores. One day I do the bathrooms. One day I clean up after the girls. One day... You get the gist.

And so for me to have completed the entire house in one day, in fact in one afternoon is reason to celebrate!

I understand that it doesn't mean that much to you. And it shouldn't. But for a city girl dealing with mice and bugs and an infestation of those damn Japanese lady bugs, plus the dirt from just being in the country that is a saving grace that I needed to be sure of.

Yes, Rachel, you can clean your house once a week again. And it can all feel clean in one day. And you can kill those damn Japanese lady bugs, although go ahead, reward yourself, leave the spiders for Zach.

See how empowered I am?

Ha.

Ah, Country Life.

Do you know how surreal it is to come home to an Ax, like a real Ax that Zach just used to chop fire wood in the chopping block and get out of the car and smell a fire going and walk into the house to a blazing fire and leave the outdoor sounds of hooting owls, howling coyotes and deer eating out of your garden?

Not to mention the palm sized spiders, the moths with 6 inch wing spans and the rabbits the size of black labs.

I know. It's not that out of the ordinary. Lots of people have fire places and they get their wood from somewhere. Maybe it's bizarre to only me.

Do you know what else is bizarre? When people on facebook are friends with other people on facebook that I know.

That doesn't make sense. Let me try it again.

People who I don't understand the connection between are friends and I know both of them, but I don't know how they know each other. It really weirds me out. I mean it's great. Congratulations for knowing more people than just me.... But it is strange to know that I would show up as their mutual friend and I don't even know where they would have ever met or come into contact with that person. Like even people states apart.

Huge deal right? Totally worthy of the blog.....

Moving on.

So I'm in this Thursday morning Bible Study. It's through my church and it was my effort to get out of the house, have grown up time, utilize their free day care services and actually do a study.

I didn't actually take in to account that the other moms their would be interested in friendship. I mean, who knows if they are interested at all in a friendship with me. I'm still relatively new, these women have been in studies together for years. I'm shy. More shy than average but I blame it on the pregnancy. For ten months every time there's a new kid, I become this strange introvert. It's not normal, and it's very frustrating, but that's where I'm at right now. I don't usually like to share my thoughts anyways during studies like this. I have thoughts, and don't get me wrong you'll hear every one of my thoughts on issues that don't really effect me. But please don't ask me how I felt about such and such theological enlightenment moment. For that it would be necessary for me to leave the shallow confines of my middle school mind and try to reach a deeper level with a group of women I see for two hours, once a week for all of four weeks.

It might happen. In the future. But not the near future.

Besides church people are funny anyways. Don't get me wrong, I AM a church person. But I also can look around at the Church and realize that it's made up of people, people who make mistakes all the time, are not near perfection in any sense of the word and all in all, even with the best of intentions, more often than not fail my expectations.

Does that sound cynical?

I don't feel cynical about it. When I look at myself though, having been raised in the church all of my life and having a grade school, high school and college Christian education, I should technically have this whole love your neighbor as thyself thing down.

I don't.

I fail 1,000 more times than I succeed. And I can't really expect more of other Christians than I can of myself. Can I?

Anyways... Where was I going with that......

Oh. So anyways, yesterday we had to answer some questions between our table. And the question was: What two words would you use to describe yourself as a child, in high school and now as an adult.

This was a very difficult question and it for sure forced me to answer publicly, so I thought why not go ahead and share with the Internet Universe as a whole anyways.

As a child, I said: Shy and Awkward. I wanted to say Shy and Ugly, but I didn't want to hear people go oh, no you weren't, I'm sure you weren't. I heard enough of it with Awkward. Um, I was an awful child. Big, too big front teeth. A crazy mess of hair that I had no idea what to do with! And I was terribly shy. Oh so shy. And SO sensitive. But not for like me. I had two terribly cruel older brothers, so I was tough, but if something bad happened to someone else or if they got into trouble or you name it I would just break down into paralyzing tears. I would also have the same reaction if people tried to talk to me. Oh my word, I was SO shy! That's mainly where I go when I think of childhood, but I could have also said adventurous, funny, a good friend, terrible taste in clothes(I could probably still say that today.)

In high school, I said: Selfish and Goal Oriented. Geez, I was selfish. Like, the most selfish of all. Plus, my relationship with Zach didn't help. You know what high schoolers who think they're in love are like. Totally annoying. But I knew exactly what I wanted out of life. I had goals. I accomplished them. I worked hard and it paid off. They were all goals that involved me. And some of them didn't get accomplished until college but they did get accomplished. Like in high school I decided that I would travel Europe, write a book, be the first Cloyd to finish college, decide what I wanted to do with my life, and get married and have kids.

Done. Done. Done. Done. Done. And Done.

Unfortunately as an adult that has left me without any goals left to achieve.....

In high school I could have also said that I was athletic, musical, creative, smart and very, very, very social. I finally discovered who I was and felt comfortable in my own skin. I eventually figured out how to at least give the appearance of a somewhat good hair style and I was hopelessly and ridiculously in love. But we were limited to two words.....

So where does that leave me as an adult? Oh this was the worst. I shared my answers and then I heard every one elses answers and I sounded pathetic. Oh, it was kind of embarrassing. Let me share what they said: They said things like they were finally comfortable in their own skins. They were confident and loved being mothers. They said they were content with life and happy and brave. They said all of these really positive things.

And I said. I am Lost. And Busy.

That's right. Busy of course is explainable but is it really what defines me as an adult? It certainly feels like it. More likely it will probably always feel like I could have done more. Said more. Been there more.

And I'm not just comfortable looking at my horizon and seeing only motherhood. I'm used to goals. Tangible goals that can be accomplished. That can be written down on a To Do list and checked off when completed.

Make sure Stella can say Thank You and I'm Sorry to others. And Teach Scarlett to be Less Bossy and More Comfortable around Unfamiliar Situations are actual goals of mine, yes. But there will never be a time in my life where I can cross it off the List and move on to the next thing like, instilling confidence and practicing humility and developing a generous spirit and being practical and thrifty with money and diligent in school work and house work.

Do you see what I mean?

Write a book. Check. Done. That's a life goal. That's a goal oriented person that can move on to the next task and feel a life full of satisfaction and accomplishment.

I think the problem is, I don't have any of those right now and I'm letting myself be consumed in the motherhood/busy/overwhelming part of life.

Sure I have To Do Lists, but they are filled with Dust, Vacuum, Figure out Dinner, Pluck Eyebrows(Which trust me, is following Write Blog today. In fact, it should have been priority this morning. The whole Bert and Ernie Look isn't doing too much for me.... But somehow I lost ALL of my tweezers. ALL of them. And since I already own like seven I didn't want to buy a new one, but it turns out they're like two for a dollar at Bakers and so splurge I did. All in the name of keeping this marriage fresh and reminding Zach he did not marry an overgrown Sasquatch.)

But I need more life goals. I need purpose. I need to be able to walk in to Bible Study and not be the sad, depressing failure of a 26 year old when all of these other women beam with self assurance and the joy and sense of accomplishment that they get from motherhood.

Bleh.

Here's a happy note to end the blog with.

It looks like the Mouse Epidemic is under control! Zach is a total warrior and natural born hunter. Those ugly little rodents never stood a chance!

And lost. I am lost. Like I said. I was goal oriented, and finished my goals. Now what?

The only thing missing is that successful career and I suppose that is accompanied by publication. And I'm an adult now, so I suppose that means I'm realistic.

Motherhood is enough for most. But lets be honest, its full of unanswered questions and doubt. Am I doing this right? Am I disciplining enough? Am I disciplining too much? Is what I just said to them going to shape their entire future?

So. Sure. It's enough in the sense that it consumes all of me and it should... but there's no instant gratification at a job well done. Hell, will I really ever know if I've done a job well done?