Who am I?

I feel like I often hide behind the perception of me that other people have. Many of their perceptions are false. Here is the truth of who I am.

Wife

Mother

Woman

Yet I don’t think I’m good at being any of these.

I’m 31 and married to a man who is 30, my kids and husband love to razz me about being the oldest member of the family.

I've been married for 11 1/2 years to my high school sweetheart. We got married at 18 and 19 and I love him more than I ever thought possible.

I’m introverted, I usually only leave the house because I have to and it’s usually only once or twice a week.

I home school my two oldest, I don’t really enjoy it, I’m not very good at it, but I feel like I’m called to do it during this point in their lives and I can’t even imagine sending them to school.

I have 6 kids and feel like God is prompting us to once again expand our family. I am also starting to have a growing heart for adoption but have also been told that my family may already be too large to be approved to add more children to it.

I love babies and want to somehow be involved with them for the rest of my life. I dream about being a midwife, or doula, or NICU nurse but those seem impossible.

I don’t enjoy playing with kids or playing kid games.

I enjoy sewing, but don’t do it very often. I have a lot of material and patterns purchased for all these projects I want to do someday.

My kids wear disposable diapers, I use paper towels and paper napkins. I don’t really care about being green, recycling or eating organic.

I like to save money. Even if it means shopping at 4 grocery stores a week.

My furniture doesn’t match, almost all of it was given to us, I have very few pictures on my walls, decorating is not important to me.

I don’t wear makeup, I feel like I don’t know how, but even if I did, I feel like it’s expensive and my husband doesn’t really care. I’ve never plucked or in any way shaped my eye brows.

I don’t really know how to make my hair look cute. I would love a cute cut, but have no idea what would look flattering.

I wear dresses or skirts to church because I like to even though most women in our church do not. In no way do I feel pressure to do this, and the rest of the week I am typically in sweat pants or pajama pants unless I have to leave the house then I wear jeans.

I am overweight (actually obese according to our Wii) and care only minimally. If I see pictures of myself I think, “Wow, I should lose some weight” but other than that I’m generally happy with myself. It helps that my husband doesn’t seem to mind or care.

I eat when I’m stressed or depressed. I started gaining weight after breaking up with my first serious boyfriend and then gained a lot after my dad passed away. Don’t tell Jillian Michaels, I think she’d yell at me.

I don’t think much about my dad. He passed away 11 years ago, and I don’t think he’d be proud of who I am today, but it’s easier to just not think about it.

I am adamantly opposed to Halloween celebrations in any shape or form including church sponsored Hallelujah nights. I never celebrated it as a child, my children will never celebrate it, but I don’t like conflict so I rarely discuss this with anyone.

My kids watch Disney, PBS shows and Dream Works movies. We don’t have cable, so they don’t watch much else. I think Word World on PBS taught my boys how to read.

My kids play computer games and have club penguin memberships.

My house is almost NEVER clean. Many people say it’s because we have 6 kids, but our house was a mess before kids and I’m sure it will be a mess after kids, of all the rooms in the house our room is BY FAR the worst.

My kids eat sugar cereal for breakfast almost every morning. My kids eat chicken nuggets or corn dogs most days for lunch.

My kids love fast food and have had plenty of happy meals in the lives.

I don’t mind making dinner every night as long as we have a plan in place. I don’t like coming up with a dinner idea at 4 in the afternoon.

I like to have something sweet every day, usually at night after the kids go to bed.

I’m a hypocrite because I make my kids make their beds every day yet my bed is almost never made.

I’m lazy.

I'm not a morning person. My kids wake me up most days and I have a hard time getting out of bed until 8:30 even if they get up at 7:30.

We are in debt. We are working at getting out, but we have more debt than we should and a lot if it is because of foolish selfish impulse purchases.

I spend way too much time on the computer, especially facebook and e-mail. I’ve given up facebook games, but it’s been hard.

I watch T.V. I enjoy Survivor, The Amazing Race, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, The Modern Family, Lie to Me, Hell’s Kitchen, The Biggest Loser. I know I need to give up some of these shows, but so far have lacked the self-discipline to do so.

I don’t have daily quiet times. I know I should, but I don’t.

Every friend I’ve ever felt close with has either left me physically by moving away or emotionally. I’ve mainly felt rejected and shunned by most women and really struggle to make friendships or trust women.

I have a strong and overwhelming fear that Joel will pass away leaving me with all these children to rear. I’m not worried about the financial burden thanks to life insurance, but I do fear the loneliness that losing him would bring.

I’m not sure I truly believe that God cares about me or my life. If I did I think I’d live differently.

I miss my sisters, even though we’ve had rough relationships at times, they are really the only women I know I can trust no matter what. I wish they didn’t live so far away.

I’m not putting this out there to get any kind of pity, I just felt like maybe it would be freeing to let the truth be known.