"In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth." ~ Google

Good day - I set up our monthly mortgage payment online.  Somehow, moving into the house was not enough to make me believe that it is mine.  I have to actually spend money out of my pocket to make it real.  (Insane thinking)  I can feel the pinch in everything that I do.  I want this to go right more than anything I have ever done.  I am terrified I will fail at being a home owner.  It is one thing to be a terrible housekeeper, which I don't seem to be.  I am not terrible.  It is another to have the great American Dream collapse on me.  

When I think about what I want my life to be like,  I want to have the house where there is someone extra at the dining room table every night.  I want to have the Christmas party that everyone wants to attend.  I want to have the most well behaved dog and cutest child.  I want family to be there constantly.  I want family to want to come to my home.  I want there to be laughter, joy and love in our home.  I want people to say, how do you do it? I want to respond with laughter and say, one day at a time - and mean it with all the serenity that fills that saying.    

My fear of failure is overwhelming.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Breath in.  Breath out.  

Flip side is, I am excited to see progress that we were able to handle all of the random activation fees, deposits, termination fees, medical bills (new year, no deductibles!) without a hitch.  Before it is all said and done, I hope to find that peace and ease of paying bills, having a family and working that just flows.  It is a delusion that I perceive others to have.  

Dear God, please help me put into action a daily reprieve contingent on my spiritual condition - Amen

Sometimes I think I am the only one who is going through this moving change, until my dog lets me know differently.

He is a high energy, Jack Russell Terrier.  He has turned into crazy, super-biting dog.  No idea why...  I do know.  He was used to running in a 65 acre pasture for a good portion of the day.  My way of walking him was to open the door and let him out.  He came back when he was done.  He would chase rabbits, ground hogs, cows.  Now he isn't even allowed to chase the neighbor's cat.  He is always on a leash or in a kennel.  He is going nuts with all the restrictions.  I am terrified he is going to bite my son.  He bites me a lot.  No punctures, just that nip that he used to give the cows in the pasture.  Just enough to bruise and hurt.  

This is the kind of situation that I am trying to adjust to in the new home environment.  Going from Farm to subdivision is crazy.  Lucky for the dog, one of my new year's resolutions is to lose 20lbs.  Guess I will be going running with him.  O my.  Am pretty heavy.  Hope I don't throw up.

Part of the problem with the dog going nuts is that my husband's solution is to give the dog away and that would put an end to the angry dog chaos.  The only place to give him (the pound) will kill him and I am anti-capital punishment.  Since I am not willing to kill the dog, my husband let me know that the dogs are my responsibility.  Sigh... more change.

Printing up couch to 5k right now.

God, grant me the willingness to run.  Amen

I am not sure if exhaustion counts in grief.  I am zapped of all energy.  As a result, I am cranky and unproductive.  There are boxes everywhere and all I want to do is take a nap.  Unfortunately, with the boxes are a toddler to be fed, cleaned and tended to with some comfort; dogs to be fed, trained and walked; a new huge house to be cleaned from top to bottom; laundry to be done; husband to support getting his masters.

 From the outside looking in, no time for naps.  Lots of coffee, no naps.

My New Year's Resolutions (yes, I have them) included all boxes unpacked and put away.  I do not think this is unreasonable seeing as I do not have 365 boxes and there are 365 days this year.  A box a day...one day at a time.  I think I will go through one that is in my bedroom tonight.

I did get the Christmas tree taken down.  Not bad if you ask me.  I had some help.  The grandparents came to play with the toddler so, I tackled the task.  It was a lot.  Dad was helpful getting the tree out of the house.  Now the great room looks empty.  O well.  I am so tired, I do not care what it looks like.  I am just glad it doesn't look like Christmas.

Here's to the working wonder woman!

God grant me time to sleep.  Amen.

I think that if I just do this one thing this way, maybe my life will get easier.  

My bargaining skills are not really all that good.  I used to pray, God if you will just get me out of this one, I promise I will never drink again.  Then I would get home to find that I couldn't not drink...

I don't bargain for cars or houses.  I paid $100 less for my house than what it was listed.  I tried coupon-ing.  I found that mostly I end up with little bits of newspaper scraps all over my life with expiration dates on them for yesterday or a month ago.  Some people talk about the great bargains they get at whatever store and isn't that amazing.  I have a story like that just for those situations.  I have ONE story like that.  I worked hard to earn that story too.  I just do not care about bargains.  

When it comes to emotional, spiritual pain, I all of the sudden become desperate for a bargain: Dear God, if you will just stop this anger, I will do this.  Dear God, if your will just make my husband do that, I promise to do this.  Dear God, Dear God, DEAR GOD!  

I have everything I need.  I have more than what I want.  I got exactly what I want and now...

I am confused.  I am tired.  I am disheveled.  I am angry.  I am lost.  I am trying.  I am trying.  I am trying.  

Dear God, give me the willingness to accept where I am and who I am today. Amen

Anger is the dubious luxury of normal men. 

Anger wraps me up like a thick blanket keeping me warm and cozy.  Sometimes I remember what I am angry about and I spew out venom all over my husband.  Other times, I forget because I am so comfortable and make passive aggressive statements that infuriate and hurt him.  I try to find someone safe to release my anger to only to find myself a weeping mess of snot and tears.  

I think the word I am looking for is seething.  Anger lies just below the surface.  I smile and fain sanity to those I pass in hallways, on sidewalks.  It is like the skin with the hot milk.  The skin creates a layer between the air and the boiling milk.  The boiling milk just boils rough and hot beneath. 

Anger makes me believe it is everyone else's fault.  Everything that does not meet my expectation perpetuates this anger.  If you dare to enter my sphere, be prepared, it is your fault.  I don't care what it is, it is your fault.  Anger is so self destructive, overwhelmingly immense and uncontrollable for me.  I don't know it's there until someone asks me.  

God save me from being angry.  Amen. 

They say there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, sadness, bargaining and acceptance.  I know I have studied about it along the way.  I know I have experienced it somewhere before this Great Event.  I somehow, do not remember it being so fierce.  

We left a shack.  When I say "shack," I mean a Laura Ingles Wilder, shack in the middle of 65 acres.  We are now in a relatively newly constructed home.  The shack was built in 1843.  This house is 2004, maybe. The contrast between the two is drastic.  We moved the Saturday before Christmas.  It was traumatic.  The whole experience has left me spinning.  

I have this innate response that when people ask me how I am doing to say "Good!" with all enthusiasm that makes them believe I am okay and not to inquire further.  They ask, "how's the new house?" and I respond, "it is still being unpacked, but great!"  They laugh and leave me alone.  This is my denial.  It is my most powerful weapon.  It is my great lie.  On some level, I believe no one wants to know the truth, most importantly:me.  

I rationalize that the move is a step up: why should I be experiencing grief?  Stop the whining.  God gave me this amazing Christmas gift of a better place to live while in the existence of this world of flesh.  Shut...up.  It is a good thing.  

Denial is a beast.  

I justify that people are experiencing death, dismemberment or tragedy of global proportions.  There is nothing wrong with moving from one home to another comparatively.  

Denial the dinosaur.  

I have to concede to my innermost self a rigorously honest response.  Gratitude is important.  Gratitude is an action.  Gratitude is my goal.  Today honesty is the spiritual principle I have to dig out.  If I am honest - moving is hard, it is a major change for me; it is something I am grieving.  

Dear God, help me to be rigorously honest with myself and others. Relieve me of this burden of self.  Amen  

There are times like tonight when I like the massive change. Tonight my son went to bed in his own room. I let the dogs out in the backyard to go do their business. I had to run out in the cold rain to get the damp dog blankets from the kennel. I got to come back inside to take a hot shower, listen to my Mark Knoff radio station on Pandora. I started another load of laundry and snuggled into my bed. None of that was feasible in the shack. I would've been freezing the entire time, worried about waking my son and wondering if he was warm enough. The dogs wouldn't have been left out in the mudroom sure to be caked in crap. 

I am so grateful for central heat and bathrooms indoors, cleaner dogs and privacy. O...privacy. 

Dear God, thank you for the awesome new house. Amen

Being in a new place is so confusing.  I feel like we are in a temporary place until the real thing is provided.  Our bed is on the floor (bed was broken in move).  We have no couch.  I have no system for laundry yet.  Boxes half empty are in every room.  Boxes still unopened are in every room except the kitchen.  Our food stays fresh longer, not sure why.  There are toys everywhere, not sure why.  There are no pictures on the walls.  Dog kennels in the dining room.  Train tables in the living room.  

I feel like I am constantly cleaning up.  This is not including regular chores such as dishes, vacuum or cleaning bathrooms, which I do.  There is always something extra.  Something to put away or worse - not put away because we have no furniture to house it and back to the garage it goes.  While I work on a small section in this room or another room, there never seems to be anything clean.  Even after I have finished, it looks like a make shift set up for a stranger passing through.  

I looked at homes to see how to decorate a home yesterday.  I was searching for some inspiration or a look to have, a goal to achieve.  There were all of these pictures of professionally interior decorated homes that looked as though no one actually lived there.  Magazine picture homes that are four times as expensive as anything I own.  Then I looked around my own new home and see the moving truck splayed out on the floor.  Not only do we live in this new house, we are living all over it.   

God, grant me clarity - grant me cleanliness.  Help me each day to continue to do your work. Amen

I am redefining my spirituality again.  While I stay within the confines of my religion (which is roomy and broad), I continue to strengthen my conscious contact with God.  Each Great Event that comes to pass, challenges my character.  

We bought a home (Great Event).  The home is not new or old.  It has very little character, "cookie cutter" is the term, I think.  It is apparent to me the house desperately needed someone in it to make it a home.  It has been a rental all this time, thus it still has some new house look to it.  The walls are builder bland.  The carpet needs to be replaced, but matches the walls.  It is a blank canvas.  I am guessing the guidance is that I get to create?

I have no idea if we can even truly afford the home.  The bank thinks we can.  My parents are encouraging us with a little help.  The bills seem to be intensifying each day and surprisingly our income is not equally increasing!  haha.  On some level, I am surprised by that.  Guess part of my character is a dash of delusion.  I have so much fear when it comes to money. 

Fear is a primary cord-cutting of my hope, my line to God.   

Dear God, 
Please remove my fear. 
Amen

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