Let Me Know Your Confessions

I actually got around to making some additions to the blog that I've been planning to do for quite some time - you know how that goes.
One of these new additions is a message board on the right hand side bar, and this is for all of you to share your confessions.
This was actually a message board that I had created to be a prayer board for another project that I never really got around to using.
I kind of forgot about it until now, and decided to use it instead as a message board to get to know you.
But, crazy enough, I cannot remember the username or password on my moderator account to change the board around a little to fit its new purpose. How ridiculous is that??!
So until I figure out how to access my account to make some changes to it, it still calls itself a prayer board, but feel free to share a thought about yourself, your life experience, or share a confession of your own. Maybe you even have suggestions for this blog, please let me know those too.
Or maybe you just want to say hello - and the board is your place to do so. If you have a specific confession or comment about a post, still feel free to make a comment on the blog.
I guess I just felt that the comment space wasn't adequate enough to allow my readers the freedom to confess about their lives as well.
And hopefully I'll get over my forgetfullness and fix the board sooner than later.
So I guess the confession of the day for me is that I really don't have it all together, obviously....

The Unpardonable Sin

Today I did the unthinkable. dun dun dun....

I took a nap. On the couch. For 45 minutes. I probably would have slept longer but the phone rang, so I did the whole shake off the sleep thing in my mind, found my best professional voice, and said "Hello this is Kate." Regular readers know I work from home, so when the phone rings I never know if it's going to be a work call or just some crazy friend or family member chatting it up in the middle of the afternoon.
This was in fact a work call, a client who was going to be dropping off some paperwork in about five minutes. I obviously didn't want her to think that I was snoring away under my desk the whole afternoon, so I, faster than lightning, changed out of my sweats, fluffed my hair, opened the door, and said with a huge smile on my face, "Hi, I'm so glad you found us okay, come on in and let's go over your paperwork."
If she only knew.
I feel like I'm confessing some huge sin in telling you that I napped! Aren't we supposed to be too busy to nap, aren't our children, our jobs, our husbands, or atleast housework supposed to require all of our waking hours? Aren't we supposed to be run ragged every day of our lives? Maybe I'm just the crazy exception to that rule.
But you know, there are days when I am a superhero - I bleach the entire house, make dinner, do preschool with Kaydn Rye, and get in 8 hours of work all while baking roll out cookies on the side...but then there are other days....when I barely get in three hours of work, sit and look out the window when I should be making dinner, blow off all the errands I had lined up for the day, let the bed go unmade the entire day, and tell Kaydn that he needs to go play with his toys in his room while I space out.
Is that so wrong?

Where's Your Personal Power

I just happened to stumble upon someone today on the radio talking about the usual pentecostal "binding Satan" banter.
Now, before I get any further, I must tell you where I'm coming from. I come from a free lutheran background, which is the hymns, liturgy, no smiling, no clapping, no movement of any kind in church, kind of church.
Not that there's anything wrong with lutherans, gotta love em, but for me that was pure spiritual bondage, so I left that church in college to attend a pentecostal inner-city church (while attending a free lutheran bible college I might add - yeah I know - weird). From there I was delivered from a lot of spiritual bondage and oppression and eventually ended up in a Mississippi Church of God when I transferred to a Memphis inner-city college, which I eventually ended up graduating from.
Now, after even more changes in our faith, we no longer celebrate Christian holidays but instead celebrate the feasts of the Bible. Yet we're not Messianic Jewish because we do not live by the law since Yahushua abolished the law, so we are now Jewish Feast-celebrating pentecostals who attend a Church of God in the midwest after being transplanted out of the south.
So, now that we have that straight, I can move on.
I don't know if any of you have any experience with the pentecostal church, but it's a good place to get free from a lot of junk in your life in a loving and nurturing environment. But you may hear a lot of, "You know, I'm blessed today but satan is trying to do this and he's trying to do that, and boy, he's really coming after me this week. It's been a trying week." I eventually came to the conclusion that a vast majority of people, whether they're Christian, not Christian, pentecostal, you name it, seem to give satan a lot of credit.
Half of the stuff we give satan credit for is either simply the consequences of our actions or a situation Yah is using to perfect us, mature us or to really break us so that we fall before His feet in a full surrender and freedom from all the junk we've been carrying around with us.

But I do get so sick of Christians, these people who have the power of Yah pumping and flowing through their veins like a whitewater raft, waking up and letting the devil defeat them every single day. I think it's the saddest thing in the world for those filled with Holy Spirit power to roll out of bed everyday just to "white knuckle it" through the day.
And you know, I used to wake up just trying to run from the devil everyday, trying not to fall into the same old same old emotional and spiritual traps. Everyday scared me to death.
But now, I know that when I wake up, the devil is scared to death. There comes a point when instead of running from your demons you simply turn around and face em.

I just had it pointed out to me the other day, but if you look in Ephesians 6:11, where you'll find the armor of God that we are to put on everyday, you'll find a belt of truth, shield of faith, and a sword of the Spirit, among many others, but you'll never find something for your backside. That's because Yah never meant for us to be running from the devil, he meant for us to stomp on the devil - head on. It's funny how when we do this the devil rolls over for dead.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Ephesians 6:12-13

So what is it that you are carrying around with you, is is doubt, fear, depression, anger, resentment, jealousy, hurt, pain...and will you confront those demons head on?

Free-Spirited Republican??

With all the craziness in the political world, I just had the craziest conversation with a good friend of mine.
"You're a Republican?? I would never have guessed that. You seem too free spirited to be Republican," she said.
Now this was the funniest thing I had heard in a long time.

And before I go on I must say, in the company I keep I don't really care if someone is democrat, republican, libertarian, socialist, you name it, I don't really care, I just require that people be true to who they are and what they believe.

I'm still trying to figure out how we got into the discussion, but I do remember telling her that the choice for president of the United States is coming down to a lesser of evils. But I had made it clear that I was going to vote republican, and her face went totally confused.

I then said, "Oh, yeah, I'm totally republican. I'm not even close to the middle on that - I am so far to the right it's not even funny."

And I guess I never really thought about it as conflict, but I said, "Yeah, I guess I am somewhat of a free spirit as well."

So I guess it is possible - a free spirited republican.

Which means I am a free spirited believer that people need to live their own lives, never make excuses for themselves, overcome any obstacle and rely totally on Yah, which means not relying on anyone or any government entity to create their destiny.

Does that make me an intolerant and rigid thinker? I argue not so, and feel that all of us free-spirited republicans need to come out of the closet.

Getting off the Merry-go-Round

I was recently reflecting on those times in the past when my faith in Yah was merely "fire insurance," and how my life has changed since I decided to live a fulfilled life rather than wait for this fulfilled life to decide to come to me.
Some may look at my little life and wonder, why is this life so fulfilling, which is, believe me, a question I used to ask myself and is why I wasn't living a happy life.
But I guess I feel like a fulfilled life means living out your purpose in all areas of your life.
But of course, finding whatever that crazy purpose may be is the stickler for many of us seekers.
And I guess I felt like I found my purpose when I wasn't afraid for Yah to fulfill his purpose in me.
I always thought that I would have a federal investigations career, be very successful, have a big house in the city and ride off into the sunset on a white horse.

But well.... It didn't work out that way, is was like I got the life someone else ordered, like my order got crossed with someone else's down the street.

I ended up with a husband constantly traveling for work, a tiring, thankless job as a journalist that consumed my life, a two-year old and a lifestyle of naps and housecleaning on Friday nights.
Not exactly glamorous.

But I still strived toward this crazy enigma in my head, and during that time I remember feeling so petrified that Yah might have something different and something totally spirit impovering in store for my life. I definitly wasn't living a Psalm 37:4 life, "Delight yourselves in Yah and he will give you the desires of your heart." I guess I secretly thought I didn't deserve the desires of my heart, like I wasn't worthy of those desires. And to be honest, I don't think people have a clue what this Scripture means. It means that these desires of the heart will only come once we delight in Yah. That's someting to think about, but easy enough - delight in the one who created you.

But anyway, it was like Yah gradually planted in my head these ideas, these glimpses of happiness that kept nagging at me, like starting my investigations and recovery business and like the idea of getting off of the merry-go-round.

The merry-go-round - now that's the typical American routine - get up, get the kids ready for school or daycare, go to work, take the kids to wherever they need to go in the evening, make dinner, eat, do homework and bedtime routine with the kids, watch television, brush your teeth and go to bed, until Saturday when you order take-out, spend the day cleaning house, yell at your kids for whatever reason because your so burnt out from the previous week, watch television, and go to bed.
That's the merry-go-round I'm talking about.

So it was like my desires started to match up with what Yah was doing in my life. He allowed me the financial freedom to quit my job, start a business, actually be present with Kaydn Rye, and actually have time to serve the kingdom of Yah through ministry.

So, in all areas of my life - work, family, ministry and friends - I feel fulfilled.
But it's nothing exciting. I try to work in the morning, take a shower and atleast make myself look human, do a little home-preschooling with Kaydn Rye, take him to the nursing home or other ministry opportunity so that we can truly minister to hurting people as a team, go fulfill a need in the church with youth or young adult ministry, get a little more work done in the late afternoon, have friends over on the weekends or get together with family.
It's that simple, but I have been called to a volunteer ministry, to a work at home business and to receive and give blessings to my friends and family, therefore that is what fulfills me. And as I am diligent with what I have been given, I will be given an even greater ministry and even greater blessings.
That is the hope that everyone needs to get off the merry-go-round and lead a fulfilled life.

A Rather Unpopular Change

It is once again time to whip out the matza bread and get rid of pretty much everything I normally cook with throughout the year in preparation for Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This year, Passover is set to begin around the 20th of April, depending upon the ripening of the barley fields.

About two years ago, Brandon (my husband) and I decided to join the thousands of Yahushua-seekers who have chosen to replace typical Christian holidays like Easter and Christmas with the Jewish Feasts of the Bible.
And while this still stumps relatives and friends, we no longer celebrate Christmas and Easter but do not pressure or expect any one else to do the same. I think the expectation that we look down on anyone who doesn't share our opinion on Christian holidays is what keeps family members feeling uneasy about our choices, but truthfully, we think no such thing.
But a couple of years ago I started to question these typical American celebrations, and found they were nothing we wanted to be a part of.
For instance, the term Easter , is actually another form of Astarte,
a Chaldean goddess.
The festival of Passover was celebrated by Christians in post-apostolic times and was a contiuation of the Jewish feast, but from there the pagan festival of "Easter" was introduced into Western religion as part of the attempt to adapt pagan festivals to Christianity.
Astarte is mentioned in Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:17-19, 25 and in 1 Kings 11:5, 33 and 2 Kings 23:13 and she is referred to here as Ashtoreth. So Easter is found in the Bible - as part of the pagan religion Yah condemns.
The celebration of Astarte, the goddess of fertility, was held in the spring of the year, and is where we get Easter eggs and the Easter bunny, which where pagan symbols of fertility.
Actually, in ancient Egpt and Persia, friends exchanged decorated eggs at the spring equinox, the beginning of their New Year, and Christians of the Near East adopted this tradition. Crazy enough, these "Easter eggs" have now come to represent the tomb from which Jesus came forth after his Resurrection.
And eventually pagan celebrations were "Christianized" and came to replace the Yah-ordained festivals that Yahushua , the apostles and the early church celebrated.
So many times I get, "Well, G-d tells the Jews to celebrate these feasts, but we're not Jewish," or "Isn't that pretty legalistic to follow The Law - Jesus set us free from the law?"
I always say, "Well, the New Testament tells us that those who believe in Yahushua are grafted into Yah's chosen people." And while we don't follow the letter of the law, because Yahushua fulfilled he Law, he still celebrated the Feasts of Yah, and therefore we celebrate them as well.
Tons of people ask me, "How can millions of well-meaning Christians observe Christmas and Easter if it doesn't please Yahushua?"
I don't have a politically correct answer to this question, but I always think of Matthew 15:9, "In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."
So, while I don't condemn anyone who worships in a way that differs from ours, I do often think of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron who in Leviticus 10
offered "strange fire" before Yah, attempting to enter in to Yah's presence in such a way that was not commanded by Yah.
They were consumed by Yah's fire of judgment.
To me, worshipping Yah through a festival he did not command in place of one that He did, is the same as Nadab and Abihu.

Who Are We Really?

Lately, in an effort to reach out to the rest of the world, I've been aimlessly wandering about the web visiting random groups, sites and blogs, and I have come to the conclusion that I must be the only one in cyberspace living on planet Earth. For instance, try going to a mommy blog, or try visiting the blog of someone who randomly blogs about life (that's probably me, huh) and they all seem to be living in a magical kingdom where fairies spread twinkledust, making everyone's lives turn out just swell, their children behave angelically, their jobs the happiest place on the earth, their home a sparkling mansion in the sky and not to mention magically making their spouses a joy to live with twenty four hours a day.
Oh my word, I am so tired of hearing about everyone's magically wonderful lives. Granted, after having come from a once very dark place when I'd rather slit my wrists than wake up another day, I now thoroughly enjoy my everday life. I am happy with who Yah has made me to be and I am excited about what He is doing in my life, but whether you serve Yah or not, life is still rife with demands, battles and sometimes seemingly-overwhelming situations.
Please, somebody blog about that.
Are we so insecure and walled up that we can't really tell people who we are. I even found a blog where the blogger took great strides to tell me about her Cadillac Escalade and granite countertops. Come on, do we have nothing else to convey to the world except our material possessions?

Well, I think I'll start by telling you who I really am. Stay tuned, I've gotta go for now.

Budgeter Extraordinaire Part 2

So as promised, here are my new job duties as Budgeter Extraordinaire...
~Continue to compile my enormous list of all the regular prices of all the items I normally buy at all three grocery stores in town and at CVS Pharmacy so that I know each store's prices for every item I buy.
~Get Sunday and Wednesday's paper from my aunt so that I can get that week's coupons and sale flyers
~Try to match up my coupons with sale items to get a double discount.
~Try and find online coupons
~Call the manufacturers of all the items I regularly purchase to ask for coupons in the mail for those items.
~Plan my meals around what's on sale and what I have coupons for.
~Rather than making a weekly trip to the grocery store, make one big trip at the beginning of the month and only make subsequent trips for milk and those kinds of things that need to be restocked before the end of the month.
~Eat out once a month and Kaydn Rye shares off my plate.
~No weekend bowling trips, no skiing trips, no trips of any kind for that matter. Only our weekly game nights with friends for entertainment for one whole year.
~Ease up on driving and consolidate trips around town.
~Only thrift store clothing and shoes for Kaydn and myself.
~No water running while brushing teeth, washing dishes, ect., and baths for Kaydn Rye every other night.
~No paid haircuts - my mother is now Brandon and Kaydn's barber
By doing this, last month I saved about $200 on my monthly grocery bill.

If anyone has any good coupon sites that aren't connected to major grocery stores that those of us in small areas don't have, please post them.
I'll make sure to post links to all the "frugal living" books I've got on my nightstand right now, which I borrowed from the library rather than purchased.

Budgeter Extraordinaire Part 1

I recently drastically changed the way I run my household, which is why I'm so glad Karen with THRIFTY MOMMY
decided to stop by the blog the other day...

It all started a few months ago when my husband and I moved back to the frozen tundra of North Dakota so that he could take over as the sole agent in an insurance agency in the town I grew up in.
We moved from South Dakota where I had been working as a journalist. When I realized that the job was gradually stealing my joy so much so that I felt my soul was becoming a shriveled piece of nothing, I decided to pursue my ultimate goal of investigations for the Department of Homeland Security. Once I got through the initial hiring phase of tests and interviews, I decided that I would not take the position and therefore would not have to spend 6 months, alone, in New Mexico during my training.
So I started my own investigations and recovery company, which I love and which required much more capital than I had expected in getting started.
Also with that change I went from constantly working to working out of my house and being home pretty much all day.
Well, for the time being my husband's new job has cut our income in half - that's right - in half. And until he gets more established in his new business, which could take upwards of a year, that's just the way it's going to be. So with more bills than we've ever had in our lives, we now have only half the income. Wonderful.
So it has now become my job to not only make twice as much money as I normally do on only a part time schedule but also to save the lost amount of income on all our monthly expenses.
I now spend upwards of an hour a week in my new position - Budgeter Extraordinaire.
Stayed tuned to find out what my new job duties include.

Crazy Dog...she looks like an old chinese man

I couldn't resist posting this video of my crazy dog, Gertie. This is a usual part of her routine - sleep, eat, run around the table, repeat, and go to bed.





She's so funny looking... we call her our old chinese man because she looks like, an old chinese man, you guessed it

THE BLOG PARTY

IT'S A BLOG PARTY!!


I figured now that I am a part of the blogging phenomenon I'd better start doing something to become involved in the world of bloggers worldwide...so I'm going to the blog party, are you?? Stop on by and connect with moms who just happen to blog in their free time, whether you are a mom or not. For many moms, that is just one of many ways of describing who they are, so they have something to talk about besides diapers and snot.

Becoming an early bird

You know that new morning routine of waking up an hour before Kaydn Rye so that I can get in an extra hour of uninterupted work time - well it's not going so well. This extra hour translates into me waking up between about 7:00 and 7:30.
I can hear the gasps now from all you morning people who wake up dancing the hula at 5:30 in the morning.
So yes, I have trouble waking up in the morning, and no I am not lazy.
But lets face it, the world is run by all you crazy morning people. Bottom line.
And for those of us self-proclaimed night owls, going to bed at 1:30 in the morning and waking up at 10 am is the most perfect day. Ever.
I guess I just assumed that after high school or atleast college, I'd get over the whole sleep 'til noon thing and move on like the rest of the world into the go to bed at 10 and wake up at 6 am routine.

I recently found an article reassuring me that my sleeping until noon isn't my fault, I'm a victim -a victim of "Delayed-Sleep Phase Disorder."

But according to this Wall Street Journal article, LEARNING TO LIVE LIKE AN EARLY BIRD
, the good news is that while morning people are generally healthy, more conscientious and more emotionally stable, we night owls are much more creative and flexible - and more caffeinated.

So while we night owls are off creating the most inspiring pieces of literature, music, art and invention of this century, the morning people are off running the world....I aim to fuse the two - just you wait and see.

The Gene Pool

On the eve of my son's 3rd birthday, I have made the official conclusion that he is an anal retentive child. And you know what, I'm actually quite impressed that he is an obsessive personality - I have continued the legacy that has been passed on for generations now.
Now, I have definitly grown in my obsessive ways, and I will of course teach Kaydn Rye a manner in which he can successfully live in the world even with his anal retentive tendencies.
For instance, when I see a piece of fuzz on the floor, instead of whipping out the vacuum and giving the entire main floor a good vacuum, now I merely pick up the fuzz, throw it in the garbage and move on. That is, unless on the way to the garbage I find another piece of fuzz. So personal growth has definitely occurred in my life in the last few years.
And I can now get dressed in the morning without my underwear matching my outfit. That is definitely personal growth. Now, you may be thinking that's the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard of, but I guarantee you, there are more ridiculous things in the world. But the whole underwear-matching phenomenon stemmed from my childhood, when someone decided it would be a great idea to buy me day-of-the-week underwear.
Big mistake. That became one more thing in my world that I needed to regulate, because of course Monday underwear could not be worn on Tuesday, and so on...
And Kaydn Rye is much the same way, especially with routine. Unless we are out and about because of my work, which isn't always totally from home, every day at 1:00, right after lunch, Kaydn grabs his blankie and we go upstairs for a story and naptime.

Today, while he's eating his dessert of cookies and marshmallows, he says, "It's time to go to bed," and he proceeds to grab his blankie and head up the stairs.
And not only is his routine obsessive, but his toy baskets are also obsessively kept. In addition to his big toy box, he also has three toy baskets, which are each for a specific kind of toy - balls, cars, dinosaurs, action figures, and so on. And each toy must be in its own toy basket. Now, I may have contributed to this in some way, but there are times when even I put a toy in the toybox that should be in one of the baskets.
But one thing I will never figure out is how this child who can spot every fallen piece of merchandise in Wal-Mart and proclaim, "Oh no, that felled, we have to pick that up," can create the hurricane-like effect that exists in my living room every afternoon.

Contact me

All desperate housewives love hearing from the outside world at some time or another. Talk to me at fromadesperatehousewife@gmail.com.
Do you have or know of a product, site, tip or trick that every housewife should know about…talk to me.
Do you want to discuss life, world news, the meaning of life, laundry…talk to me.
Heck, just talk to me. I'm super fun!