Disclaimers: Life's Band-Aids

Disclaimer: 

All bets are off if you get pregnant while trying to do something mad like simplify life, get out of debt, and quit consuming. I mean really? Quit consuming? That's rich. Pregnancy ALWAYS wins. 

Baby Rhett

Hey remember me? It's OK, I kind of draw a blank too. I feel like I've been dead for the past three, no, make that four months and am just now experiencing resurrection. I've been either barfing or sleeping (thankfully never together) because it seems that when I start something substantially crazy, the Lord thinks it droll to jack up the straight, short and direct path I think I'm on with some rocks and hills and...scenery. It must be His way of getting back at me for the difficulty and unpredictability of my character. I think I must have been the last one to consider the possibility that I would get pregnant when we've been actively trying to do the opposite and UN-complicate our family's life.

Remember when I said this?

"As long as I remember to plan for the off-kilter days, things roll smoothly."  -Myself

Don't get us wrong, we're thrilled! But it was a shock, all the same, considering we weren't exactly being careless in the baby-making department. TMI? It's probably pointless to say then that I planned for one or two days, not three and a half months of anarchy. So naturally I've been beating myself up for losing steam like I said I was going to, for not being able to maintain my blog or keep a solid focus on our goals, and for letting my kids watch TV 5 hours a day. My husband had to remind me that the lack of motivation was because I was attempting to adapt to pregnancy-with-two-other-kids-to-keep-alive, not because I really just wanted to be a gratuitous patsy to Human Nature. Yes, I accept this alibi. 

That said, our spending did momentarily skyrocket. And by spending, I mean emergency trips to the closest Thai restaurant and pounds of chicken tacos from the local Mexican joint. There was a notable evening when I required that we pack the kids up at bedtime to drive across town to the natural food grocery store because if I didn't get every ingredient for banana splits I was going to die, and they had to be organic.

I think this is as good a time as any to throw another disclaimer out there that we are NOT legalistic, even though we do ask the hard questions, like, "do we really need toilet paper?" Regardless of our life choices on any given day, I am confident that the need vs. want dialogue is essential to have periodically, if we want to be aware of how those choices and actions define us. At the end of the day I want to be able to say that, "my choices today were intentional, and that sits well with me."

In hindsight it's easy to say that I feel God was telling (OK forcing) me to stop for a minute; He was slowing me down, allowing me to listen. I wasn't getting the whole message.  I have been seeking a new way of life for my family, but I haven't been fully seeking Him FIRST along the way. The control freak that I am, I usually try to take the lead. I was reminded that I need to allow Him to speak to me instead of just trying to guess what he's going to say. When I originally started writing, I was the first to point out that my initial desire to get out of debt was impulsive and was also almost instantaneously usurped by a stronger pull to a simpler life, with more freedom to just simply live. Obviously, this requires us to be free from our arrears, but I had such blinders on to this larger perspective that I only saw the one small element of not having a credit card payment. Re-calibrating my compass has begun to re-clarify our family's purpose and because of this, our focus has been able to shift to that bigger-picture idea.  

Eliminating our encumbrance to society is still a huge goal, and we are, miraculously, halfway done paying off our debt which puts us on target for blotting it out completely by the end of the year. But, this debt-resolution plan which has been our foremost project, is shifting out of the spotlight and onto the top of our to-do list as we focus on the bigger picture: freedom. We're once again seeing the details and promise in this radically straightforward concept of living a simple life, and since I've been on hiatus from, well, basically any kind of life, things are coming back into focus. After all, money isn't the only thing that encompasses simplicity.

Just as our family has been beautifully altered with the addition of one more, so have our dreams. So, forgive my truancy, but I'm back, contending with the feat of once again incorporating my blog into our ever crazy, ever evolving life, while also trying to remember to let the Spirit of the Creator lead us where He wants us to go. I am likewise praising Him that my goals now consist of more than making it to the bathroom before I vomit. 

"If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."

-Woody Allen