The Box

I remember watching Little Women back in 1994 and during the movie the main character, Jo, tries to get her writing published.  It's her dream to be a published author.  She tries to write a fictional fantasy about dungeons and dragons a story where Lords and Ladies go on a quest to find love, slay dragons, and more.

She approaches publisher after publisher and each time she's turned down because her name is Josephine March, she's a woman and women don't write.

I think the movie had a large impact on me growing up.  I see myself as a lot like Jo but also like the oldest child in the story, Meg.  I don't fit into any particular mould of who I feel I should be as a woman and especially I find, who I am as a Christian woman.  I'm feisty though I appear quiet. The difference between me and Jo is that Jo's character is outspoken and pushes boundaries and takes her own path despite the risks where for myself, though internally I may feel a certain way, I also feel a certain pressure to live up to other people's expectations.  I guess I'm a people pleaser, but despite how I try, I fumble like Jo, and I don't necessarily live up to everyone's expectations.  

It's hard being a passionate progressive Christian woman.

It's possible that all of us experience these kinds of feelings at one time or another but maybe we don't talk about it when we don't quite fit in a box.  We're kind of between a few different ones. Too conservative for one, too progressive for another.  Maybe it's more common than I imagine and we're all sitting around feeling weird and slightly out of place at times or like we don't really know what we're doing?

This could be partially why we often find ourselves on Pinterest clicking through pictures of other people's perfect houses, perfect cookies, perfect children, perfect. . perfect. . perfect.. .

Which box will we fit in today?

Do we really have to choose just one?

I often feel a deep burning in my heart.  It's a passion perhaps a strength but at times a curse. Sometimes I say something really stupid because of it but, like I said, I'm feisty and sometimes I just feel angry about some injustice or just mildly irritating and slightly disappointed like yesterday.

Yesterday I was looking at Christian women's retreats online and I realized why I don't fit in. I'm not in the box.  My box is perhaps orange and their box is, I don't know, purple.  Their idea of fun is sitting around making crafts and painting their nails and although I wouldn't be totally against those things should the opportunity arise where I was already somewhere it wouldn't be on my top 10 list of things to do with my time and it's unlikely that I would travel somewhere specifically to do those things.

Well, I read the retreat form wrong.

I started reading the women's retreat information and my eyes skipped a few lines and I saw "skeet shooting" and "riflery" and my heart skipped a beat.  Although it's not really something I would think to sign up for regularly it sounded totally interesting! I was pumped!

. . And then I saw that I was reading about the men's retreat. . . 

Yup, don't fit in any of those boxes. . .

*sigh*

Wise Men Hide and Seek - Day 9

Technically today was supposed to be our daughter's turn to hide the wise men but I had an idea that I wanted to try and she was excited to see it.  I had her go into another room where she counted to 10 and then came out.  When she saw them she thought it was so funny!!

Wise Men Hide and Seek - Day 8

Today it was my turn to hide the wise men.  Our daughter thought it was hilarious when she found them relaxing in her doll house.

Wise Men Hide and Seek - Day 7

Our daughter is getting pretty good at hiding the wise men as well.  This time she hid them under her bed with her stuffed animals and other toys.  I found it kind of cute and funny she set them on top of a shoe box with the words "Never Stop Exploring" written on it. :)

Wise Men Hide and Seek - Day 6

Today our daughter found the Wise men hiding on her Thomas the tank Engine boat in the bathtub.  She almost missed seeing them because the shower curtain was closed. :) They're pretty good at hiding. :)

Wise Men Hide and Seek - Day 5

It was our daughter's turn to hide the Wise men tonight.  She is clearly very creative. . .she decided to hide them in the kitchen cupboard among the dishes.  I think they look pretty good hiding out with the rainbow of colours. :)

Unfortunately we couldn't find the camel's saddle tonight in time to hide them before Daddy caught us. . .hopefully the camel won't look so naked tomorrow night. :)

Wise Men Hide and Seek - Day 4

I wouldn't normally post a picture of this chair since it's our cat's chair and the only chair in the house with a ridiculous amount of cat fur on it, but my husband decided it would be a good idea to "hide" the wise men on the chair, should have picked the living room couch in my personal opinion, or really anything that wasn't covered in cat fur because personally I think it looks gross, lol, but this is where he hid them and our daughter thought it was so cool!  I would never let anyone sit on this chair lol and it's hidden from view of company normally. .  .oh well. . .

It's our daughter's turn to hide them tomorrow night. . .once again, she's super excited.

Wise Men Hide and Seek - Day 3

Last night was our daughter's turn to find the Wise men.  It took her a while but she found them and was very excited when she did.  Tonight it was my daughter and my turn to hide the Wise men again for my husband to find when he gets home.

Our Advent Calendar has large pockets at the bottom so we thought it was the perfect spot!

Wise Men Hide and Seek - Day 2

Wise men hiding in my fairy collection

Well, my husband has taken my daughter to dance class tonight and I've been left alone to hide the Wise Men.  When they return, the two of them will go searching.  Do you think they'll find them?

Wise men Hide and Seek - Day 1

Wise men hiding in the blanket box under our daughter's bed.

So practically everyone I know seems to have an Elf on the Shelf so I guess I started wondering if we were missing out on something.  Elf on the Shelf specifically is not my cup of tea because Santa doesn't visit our house.  Our daughter will tell you that Santa is imaginary if you ask her.

For our family, we have chosen to make the birth of Christ the focus of our Christmas celebration.  We do, however, still exchange gifts and we still have stockings hung on our fireplace.  They're just not from Santa. Our daughter helps us choose gifts to put in our stockings and we give her the gifts in hers.

So, this year I came across an idea on Pinterest called Wise men's Adventures.  A Catholic mom wrote up a blog of a set of Playmobile wise men getting into trouble around her house daily.  Her idea was similar to Elf on the Shelf, in that, the wise men came to life every night and her children woke up to find them getting into trouble.  She took pictures of the trouble they got into.  Each night they got closer to the manger scene as they were on their way to see Jesus while they got into this trouble.

I thought it was a cool idea.  However, the more I thought about it the more I started worrying that we were literally just replacing one for the other.  The only thing that was different was that nobody reported back to Santa, which was often part of Elf on the Shelf's job.  However, these wise men still came to life on their own and I still felt like I would be lying to my daughter if we did it that way unless she knew that it was just pretend.

So. . .here's what I came up with. . .

Wise men hide and seek.

Our daughter is nearly 4 and LOVES Hide and Seek so we decided that instead of only us making the Wise men get into trouble/ hide, we would include our daughter in this.  So today my daughter and I "hid" the wise men together and her dad will have to find them when he gets home from work.  Tomorrow he will hide them for us to find.

She was IMMENSELY excited by this.  It's allowing her to be creative and imaginative.  She came up with where to hide them today!  I'm hoping this game will continue to be a lot of fun as we continue to play it throughout December.

30 Day Blog Challenge - Day 4

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

I think it's pretty obvious to most people who read this blog that I'm a Christian.  I've always been a Christian for as long as I can remember but I didn't always have the relationship with Christ that I have now.

Initially when I was introduced to Christianity it was the hell and brimstone kind.  I feared Him.  I feared being struck down by lightening if I did anything wrong and it's hard to share that kind of faith with others.  Though I believed I didn't really have an understanding of what or why I believed.  I knew the stories as they'd been ingrained into my head with preaching over and over again but I couldn't stand on my own independently and support what I believed.  I would have to turn to my pastor and ask for his opinion.

My faith has grown tremendously in the last few years as I learn to put more of my trust in Him and worry less about menial things.  I know now to turn to the Bible and prayer for advice more often.

I don't think this post can purely be on my own religion though as there are many other ones in the world.  Yes, I am a Christian but I have complete respect for all the religions of the world.  Although I believe that the only way to Heaven is through Christianity, I don't believe that jumping down someone's throat and beating them over the head with a bible is going to get them any closer to a belief in Jesus.  I try to live my life by example and as the opportunity arises I share my faith with the hope that someday that person may ask if I would mind elaborating a bit or ask to come out to church with me.

My life has a lot of stress lately but things have come together too well at times for it to just be a coincidence.  I feel like this:

Amen :)

It Just Flew By

Well, it's hard to believe that it will be August in a couple of hours! The summer is just flying by!

We aren't planning any "summer" holidays this year but we are hoping to have a holiday in September if it's financially possible. Around here we don't have to worry about when we specifically take our holidays as hubby is both self employed and works in a fairly flexible side job (where as long as his hours are covered he can leave) and I'm currently a Stay at home mom.

I still am not mastering the "homemaker" portion of the stay at home mom job description. The meals I make could use improvement - they're nothing fancy; the time I spend cleaning could probably stand to be longer and I'm no Martha Stewart or Bree Vandekamp lol. The house is a mess but the Munchkin and hubby are happy so I guess that's what should matter in the end.

The biggest problem around here, as I may have mentioned before, is the tornado of toys that always seems to accumulate in the living room. No matter how often I seem to clean them up they always seem to be there. However, I think I may have come up with a solution!

I'm planning to buy a few dish washing bins. I'm thinking of the style of bins we had for camping as kids, (they were plastic and rectangular) and I'm planning to separate Munchkin's toys into these bins so she has a rotating toy stash. Each day I will give her a different bin to play with! Hopefully this will cut down on the "ooooh I could play with this" toss on floor, "oooh this looks fun" next toy, "ooooh forgot about that. . ." tornado that happens every day. lol.

The last couple of weeks hubby and I have been working on a website for Canadian Christian Moms. It takes up a lot of my spare time but so far I'm really enjoying seeing it come together! We have a few members right now. It's by no means a huge community yet but it's exciting to see it grow a little each day. :)

I'm hoping that eventually it will be as large as some of the other forums I belong to and I'm hoping that it will be a great place for support and encouragement in faith and love toward one another. In the meantime I'm just trying to figure out how to tell people about it and get it out there without spending any money. lol.

If you want to take a look feel free: http://www.christianmoms.ca/

Anyhow, I should probably go to bed. It's almost August. . .;)