Wait... Stop Everything. I'm not ready for the 4th!

Yeah yeah, I know it's here already... but I'm not ready for it. 

I'm having a bit of a rough morning. I'm trying to ignore the shadow of impending doom that keeps following me around this GOSH DARN house but it's hard. 

So I'm about to pop in "I Love You, Man" and start on another painting. 

Then off to a birthday party, then maybe home? Not sure what after that. 

I'm just hoping and praying that this shadow goes away. 

1st Annual Mommy Blogger Scholarship

So, I just found this on Twitter...

The 1st Annual Mommy Blogger Scholarship

(please note the badge on the right side of this blog... it may be towards the bottom)

As a new "mommy blogger", I think this scholarship thing is AMAZING and just finished my application. I wanted to share a bit of it with you if you don't mind...

The very last question on the application was

"What do you need most as a mother?"

And my response?

Charity - pure unconditional love.

I need this from the mothers around me - Do not judge me because I don't mother the same way you do. Do not judge me because my kids get high fructose corn syrup. ;) Love me because we are sisters. Love me because we both understand what it feels like to have our hearts and souls walking around outside our bodies. Love me because I need to know that I'm not alone, that I'm not the only one who's ever just thrown a towel on a pee stained bed and waited til morning to take the sheets off, that I'm not the only one who has gotten so frustrated at my kids I wanted to drop kick them. I need to know that I'm not the only one who would lose it all if I ever lost my children.

I need Charity from my children. I need for them to love me no matter what. Love me when I lose my patience. Understand that I'm not perfect, but I'm trying my best. Love me when I struggle to get off the couch to make them breakfast. Love me because I tease them about being zombies and bite their pudgy little cheeks. Love me for making them stick to their responsibilities and for not doing things for them that they can do for themselves.

I need This kind of love from my husband. I need him to support me... again understand that I'm not perfect. I need him to feel just as passionately about me as I do him. I need him to realize that the number one way to take care of our children is to take care of each other. I need him to be forgiving when the dishes and laundry aren't done. I need him to not care about the chaos of having 9 of our nieces and nephews spend the night, and for him to jump in and play right along with me and the kids. I need him to love me in spite of my depression and anxiety, my constant questioning of him. I need him to love me for my craziness. I need to know he will always be there, right beside me, supporting me, as I support him.

I need Charity from myself - and this is the hardest one of all.  I know my faults, my weaknesses, my desires, how often I give in, how often I feel guilt. I don't feel worth of those around me, my friends, my family, my children, my husband - heck even my house and my dogs. Being able to love myself regardless of all these things is one of the hardest at all, but the most desperately needed. You must love and take care of yourself in order to love and take care of others. It's not being selfish... it's appreciating this wonderful gift of life that you've been given. It's hardest to be compassionate and understanding with yourself, but it's the most crucial. This is something I have been learning over the past few months, and have tried to include in my blog. It's something I want other mothers/women/girls/humans to realize.

Love is what I need most. With that love from those around me and myself, I can do what I need to do to be the mother/woman/human I want to be (not perfect, but trying my hardest.)

If you are also a fellow mommy blogger, go check out the scholarship and apply.  It couldn't hurt, right?

Pranking...

Today's NaBloPoMo prompt is "Talk about the best prank you ever pulled."  


I'm not really sure that I've ever truly pulled a prank. But here's the closest I've ever come.


Years ago (okay, so it was a decade ago... holy crap I just felt old) there were these missionaries who were serving in my parents church. They were two young men... one about 23 or so and the other was 19. I had been having a very difficult time in life and became very great friends with these fellows. We would have some great talks that lasted way too late, and we wrote back and forth at least once a week.  These guys played a very significant role in me turning my life around at a crucial moment. 


Anyways - my mom taught an early morning bible study class to high school students called Seminary. These missionaries would come all the time. I think my mom became a bit like a mom away from home to them. We pretty much adopted these guys into our family. I'm not quite sure how it all got started, but we ended up pranking each other back and forth. They would do something to get my mom, we would do something to get them back. 


I think at one point they filled large cans full of dry beans and set them on top of one my mom's cabinets, or right inside the door, so when she opened it, they went flying EVERYWHERE. It wasn't hard to get these guys back... They left their apartment unlocked - ALWAYS... (me and some other friends even snuck in in the middle of the night one night to bring them a christmas tree while they slept. They weren't very smart about safety.)  So me and my mom and my sister loaded up a bunch of stuff and drove over to their apartment. And we rigged it.  My mom smothered their toilet in molasses... I think we may have done powdered sugar on their sheets... or maybe corn flakes.  We even went through their clothes and set up a dummy on their couch using a basketball as the head so they'd be freaked out when they came home and saw this person sitting there. 


We got the guys pretty good. They ended up taking a photo with the dummy we made while they held up a sign saying they were going to get us back. 


I remember them asking me to help them get my mom back and of course I obliged. They wanted a picture of my mama's booty. So one day after my mom was done teaching her class I grabbed her and hugged her and pulled top half down so that her butt was up in the air. I wasn't quite sure what they had planned to do with the photos but it wasn't too long after that they came back to class one day wearing some very special shirts they had had made... Featuring my mama's booty all blown up and saying "WE LOVE BECKYE!" <--(my mama if you couldn't figure that out.) 


I still consider those guys some of my best friends and pretty much family. We had a blast hanging out with them and I will always smile when I look back on those times.

I found photo evidence of the shirt these guys made of my moms behind