The bowl of chance

     For those of you who don't know.... I was married on March 5th. This means, instead of being 5 hicks from the sticks, there are now 11 of us. My husband has five children. It has been quite an adventure. I moved on Thursday, spent Friday unloading my trailer into the new house, and was married and ran away on Saturday, and then Monday, spent my first day as the mother of nine. I cried that day. Five children came home from school and four of them had to read to someone. I stood there and I wondered what time that meant we would have dinner. Would there ever be any time for them to play? It was a noisy confusing mess. I wasn't the only one that cried. If it wasn't for my mother in law, I think I may have crawled under a rock and never come back. My husband was a similar mess.
      We have three little girls ages 8,8 and 3. They LOVE to play dress up. The first week, I did 17 loads of laundry. I don't even want to think what that meant for the water bill. We cleaned there room three or four times a day. The little boys, ages 3,5,6 and 7 , were no better. They filled their laundry basket twice a day. We cleaned, and cleaned and cleaned.......and cleaned. I wondered if I would ever have time to sleep again.
     At dinner time, my meals went cold for the first three days. The kids ate like a whirlwind. James and I spent the entire time plugging our ears and serving just as fast as we could. They were thirsty, they needed more mashed potatoes, someone cried because there were no more mashed potatoes, and they got skipped. I wondered if I would ever eat again. 
     These days, I'm an old pro. We've had to adjust several times, but those days of mess, and crying and noise are over. ( Well, almost :) ) To combat the laundry monster, we tried removing the laundry baskets, so that they would all have to sort out their clothes with me, before the clothes hit the laundry room. It didn't work. We ended up with a pile on the floor, instead of a pile in a basket. So, we put locks on the doors, and now the kids play in the family room in the basement. When the room gets dirty, which happens a third of the time it used to, we take 15 minutes and clean it.
     At homework time, the kids sit down and get to it. They all read silently for 15 minutes and then they quietly work on individual stuff. We treat it like a lab. If they have a question, We work through it, but otherwise, they do it themselves, and I just proof the final paper. We are done in about a half an hour, and then everyone goes out to play.
   At dinner, we have fun. Each child takes turns telling about their day instead of screaming over each other for attention. They raise their hand if they want seconds of something, and EVERYONE eats their vegetables.
     Last night was perhaps one of my favorite dinners. It was just a little different. Because I am still adjusting and some nights are better than others, we accumulate a lot of left overs of various sizes and kinds. It adds up to a lot of food. My husband was going through the fridge and said that he just couldn't see wasting a thing when resources are so appropriated already. So.....he got out a sheet of paper and a bowl. The Bowl of Chance was born.
     What is the bowl of chance you say? Only the best game EVER! We put all the kids names in a bowl and then they passed it around and pulled them out one at a time.The name read got to choose a left over. Happy kids, and an empty fridge. Game over.

     I'm sure the road will still be hard. I'm sure the rules will change.  In fact, I don't even have a good picture  of all of us .The best part is....I can do this. I am a mother of nine.

The tale of the past, the present and the future

     Today is a good day. It's a day I wasn't sure I would ever see. I sit here, typing away on a computer in a room I've only seen from a web cam for the last 5 months. The journey that brought me here is one I would never wish upon my worst enemy. It's a road riddled with thorns and anguish , pain and tears, and yet somehow, I am still smiling. I was scathed, but my stripes are healed. I have scars, but they are faded.
     Most of you know the story. I was married to a man in the Navy. We lived 4 years in Honolulu Hawaii. What I thought were just growing pains, as far as our marriage went, were part of a much deeper seated issue that I never in my life dreamed I would have to face. After 5 years of that marriage and four beautiful little children. He turned to me and said he was gay, and just couldn't hide it anymore. Our youngest child was 3 months old. How in the world does one live through that? Prayer. Prayer and loads of sleepless nights and and endless parade of days where you just don't want to get out of bed, but you know there are mouths to feed and laundry to do, and a life to live, even if you don't want to live it anymore. I have been held up by the hands of God , when I could no longer stand on my own. I have been loved by a long line of people I call my family and my friends, people who sat down their own lives and listened to me blubber for months on end about things I just couldn't make sense of. They patiently gathered what I said and gave me the courage and the energy to take just one step to claiming back my life until I woke up one day and found that somehow the days were getting easier.
     Little by little I found that I was breathing again, and then that I was smiling again. I found a purpose for my life. I worshiped, and I gave thanks. I cried a little less and was able to sleep a little more, and then one day, the tears were gone. I gardened, I picked up hobbies. I learned to sew and attempted a slew of other things, just to say I could. I sang. I brought music back into my life. I swam with my kids, and I enjoyed my lot a little more. Suddenly I lived.
     Now , sitting in this chair, in this room, I look back and see just how far I have come. I am reminded of a scripture "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so.....righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor in corruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility".
     Had I not closed the first door, and walked through the valley of the shadow of what I thought was surely death, I would never have come to where I am now, and that place is amazing. I have come to the edge of a great and plentiful valley, one filled with milk and honey. My own personal Eden, where the promises of forever rest. Had I never tasted the bitter, I couldn't have had the sweet. Men are that they might have joy, and that is the sweetest of all the gifts there are. Joy. Joy in a new journey. Joy in a future I was never sure I would be able to have. Joy that I"ll never have to walk that old path again. Joy that I know what I went through was worth something, because now I see the whole picture. Joy, and mostly thanksgiving. I am thankfully for the lesson learned and ever more thankful for all of you. You have each reached out in one way or another, and given. What a blessing it is, to look back and see just how richly bless I have always been, in the people I have had around me. There's nothing better than that.
     On March 5th I take new steps on a new road. Where it goes I don't know. I do know one thing. I'm still blessed. Whatever happens, I am still surrounded with people who love me, from all sides. I feel it, and I am thankful for it. It doesn't get any better than this.