Surely there's more to it than this

Julian woke up at 3:15 this morning. I got him settled, and then Rhys woke up at 4:20. I hate that my morning schedule is such that, if Rhys wakes up after 4 AM, it doesn't make sense for me to go back to sleep because I'll soon have to get up for work anyway. Hard to feel like you're living an abundant life when you're perpetually sleep-deprived.

And I hate that my kids are prisoners of my schedule. I hate that I have to wake them up at the crack of dawn for school and daycare. Granted, J would have to get up for school no matter where I worked, but I hate that I'm rousting him out of bed at 6:15 to make sure he's awake before I leave the house. If I worked closer to home and didn't have to be there so early, he could sleep at least a little bit longer.

I had some other topic I intended to blog about, but it seems to have slipped my mind at the moment. Perhaps it will come back.

I also find it mildly amusing that my internet filter took out "hate" when I used it above and took out "crack" from the phrase "crack of dawn". I had to turn it off and edit so there weren't random blank spaces in my post.

Just feeling overwhelmed

Not so much with newborn stuff, per se. Rhys is doing quite well for being less than a month old. My only real gripe is that he tends to have a longish stretch of being awake (and fussy) late in the day, at the same time I'm usually trying to get Julian settled. Julian has a hard time settling and sleeping if Rhys is crying, and in the late evening, Rhys usually is crying. I'm feeling especially anxious this evening, as Brian went back to choir practice and this is my first time to handle bedtime for both boys by myself. I'm worried that no one will be in bed and I'll be ready to drink heavily by the time Brian gets home.

I also find myself worrying about finances. We've been tithing faithfully for several months now, and I know God promises to meet our needs if we are faithful to Him. And thus far, no needs have gone unmet. Sometimes they're met at the last minute and with a whole lot of pinching and scraping and scrambling, but they've been met. Now we're adding all the expenses of a new baby to the household - diapers, formula, daycare once my maternity leave is over. We're always cutting it fine just before payday, and I find myself wondering where the money will come from. I'm not sure what else we can cut from our budget, and I guess I'll have to get better with using coupons and finding ways to economize on things we need. I'm trying to keep the faith here, but it scares me. I feel like I've been chasing my tail financially ever since I married Julian's dad, because once we got married, things just went downhill, and I'm still trying to dig my way out from that. But I know God had a plan when He blessed us with Rhys, and I can't believe He'd give Rhys to us and not provide a way for us to make ends meet. It just makes me nervous not knowing what that way may be, and it makes me more nervous given that Brian and I both have full-time employment already, and I know not to expect any raises or bonuses at my job. It also seems like any financial news is always negative, like the fact that Brian will owe $500 and change for his new CPAP machine. Sure, we can pay it out over time, but it's one more thing to add to the list of People We Owe Money To, and it feels like that list just never seems to get any shorter, you know? Just once, I wish financial news would be good, like "you've won enough in the lotto to pay off your house note". I'm not greedy, we don't have to win the Mega Millions jackpot - I'd be thrilled if we did win just enough to pay off the house note.

And then there's the whole job situation. I like my job well enough most days. I like my manager, he's a good guy. I like my co-workers. Hate my commute, hate the fact that it takes me away from home for pretty much twelve hours out of every day, but it is what it is. I just don't think I'm truly suited for corporate America, and it kills me to have to tell Julian (and knowing that one day I'll be telling Rhys), "I'm sorry, sweetie, Mama can't come to such-and-such at school because I have to work." And while I do like my job well enough, it's just that - a job. I'm fairly competent at it, but I'm not passionate about it. I can't fathom having a job I'm passionate about. I can't even think of anything that I'm passionate about that would ever come close to making me any money. I guess I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, and not having much success. I'd make a change if I could think of something to change to. But I've likely been out of the legal arena long enough to disqualify myself from most legal jobs, and honestly, there are a lot of jobs in the legal arena that I wouldn't want anyway. I'd love something closer to home, but the options just aren't here - not that I know of, anyway. I'd really love to find something that would allow me to work from home, but I can't think of anything that 1) would replace my current salary, and 2) wouldn't require me to invest time and money (both of which are currently in short supply) in further education/certification/something to get started on a different path. I find myself wondering what I was thinking when I made the choices I did when I was younger, how might things be different had I chosen differently, and sometimes (like right now) it just makes me want to cry.

Then there's my own personal wallow in the pity pit. I've mentioned Bright Blessings before - it's my little sideline/expensive hobby, on hold for now until I feel like I can maybe make a decent showing of it. I've still got my Etsy shop, but haven't sold anything recently. I'm on a couple of boards that deal with, among other things, bath and beauty-type stuff, and I see people starting their Etsy shops all the time and selling things like gangbusters. I find myself wondering something similar to what Melinda wondered here - is my fairly significant lack of success God's way of trying to tell me I'm spinning my wheels trying to ever make anything of Bright Blessings, either on my own site or on Etsy? I see others succeeding where I have not, or at least making a reasonably good showing of their businesses, and I find myself thinking that I must be doing something wrong. I like making candles and scrubs and what have you, and when people have ordered in the past, they seemed to like what they got. Bright Blessings has just never taken off, really. So that's rolling around in my head, too.

I'll have to post later and share some happy things, since I've been such a Debbie Downer here. I just needed to get it all off my chest.

Finances and faith

Warning: This probably sounds like a bunch of whining. And in part, I guess it is. If you can handle that, read on.

This is a topic that's been on my mind for quite a while. It's something Brian and I have discussed throughout our marriage, as we both feel strongly that tithing - giving back to God - is something we need to be committed to doing.

Last Sunday night, the pastor talked about, among other things, making time to be alone with God, and asking God to help you identify the areas in your life where He really wanted you to let go and let Him work. He talked about one of his own experiences, when he was the new pastor at our church a number of years ago, things were not going well, and he was concerned that the church would close its doors, or split, or somehow things would fall out that he'd be without a job with a wife and three kids to take care of. He realized that what he needed to let go of was his fear about provision and needs being met, and as he talked, I realized that that was something I really needed to let go of as well. I was the sole or primary breadwinner for my entire marriage to K, and I'm still the primary breadwinner now (although I am very, very thankful Brian is working!), so the responsibility of making sure family is taken care of has weighed heavily on my shoulders my entire working life. If bills aren't getting paid on time, I take it personally, I feel like *I've* failed somehow, like *I* haven't tried hard enough or pinched pennies enough or done enough to bring home the bacon. I wasn't raised to not pay my obligations in full and on time, and it upsets me when ends don't meet like I think they ought to. This is one really big area where I feel like God wants me to get out of the way and let Him work, and even now, I struggle with it.

I find myself trying to put a time limit on God, expecting Him to conform to my timetable and my agenda. Malachi 3:10 says, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." God doesn't tell us to test Him very often, but here, He does. So Brian and I will freely admit that yes, we're testing God. We've made our commitment to give, and we're doing it. And logically, I know what the pastor meant when he said that God promises to meet our needs, not to make us rich. But when things aren't getting paid on time, I begin to wonder. (I know, again logically and not emotionally, that the lack is with me and not with God - it's not that He doesn't keep His promises, it's that I don't keep the faith.) And hence, the struggle. I'm not feeling very blessed right now, not in the least, and I'm wrestling with what exactly it means to have faith that God will meet our needs. Does that mean constantly living on the financial edge, scraping from paycheck to paycheck, and just trusting that the money will be there to cover necessities and not much else? Do I have to have faith strong enough to trust that we can be balanced on the edge and not fall over, and is that what getting our needs met will mean for the rest of our lives? Somehow I can't imagine that that's what God meant. But right now, this is what I'm turning over and over in my head.

And on a slightly related but not-quite-identical note, there's Bright Blessings. I love making candles and scrubs and goodies. I enjoy it and I'm pretty decent at it, I think. I'm getting the word out in all the ways I know how and all the ways I can afford, and yet I'm not seeing a whole lot of growth. I'm on a couple of message boards where the chat about bath and body products is pretty prevalent, and I see people talking up what they've gotten and tried. It just seems like people seem to forget to mention when they've ordered from me. I've seen good reviews of my products, so I know people like them. I just don't seem to get the word of mouth that other companies do, and I can't figure out why. So, this leaves me wondering, should I just cut my losses and pack it in? Should I put up all my supplies for sale and take my website down and close my Etsy shop and be done with it? I know that right now, I could not handle a huge influx of orders - I know there are e-tailers who get a ton of business, and I'm not equipped to handle THAT much business right now. But a steady stream of orders would be nice, and just having people mention that they got the stuff they did order would be nice, too. I've been doing this for over a year now, and with the way things have been going, I'm honestly not sure it's worth my while to keep it up.

See, I said I was whining. I'm going to go wallow in the pity pit for a while with the lovely chocolate peanut butter cupcake from Sugar Dreams that my friend Kelly brought to me today.