Wow, blogging twice in one day- what's gotten into me? Well, the termite guy just left and I'm very thankful-happy-ecstatic to say that it's only a superficial wall wound. Except for the hole I knocked in it, that is. Apparently the termites just ate the paper underneath the paint so fixing it is going to be pretty inexpensive. And what I thought was black mold is just residue from the termites eating the paper. So the termite guy (Clay) said that we could just use dry wall mud to go over it or use 1/4 inch dry wall and cover over the whole thing which would mean no more wall paper stripping in that room, hmmm, maybe I'll do that in the whole house? Or my Realtor (Lisa) who knows that I love to be creative suggested maybe doing venetian plaster in that room. That way it wouldn't have to be perfect and that look is very in right now. Of course it doesn't really fit in with the cottage theme we're going for in this house and everything we do is only about resale value so I'm completely open to suggestions.

OK, so things are not devastating; actually I didn't think for a second that they would be, so we can move on now.

Last night Travis and I went to Life Group ( basically it's a small group church meeting every other Wednesday at a Life Group leader's house) for the very first time and it really was completely amazing. God moved in such a real way during worship and I don't think I need to tell you that we needed it so much. We had been putting of going for months now and in prayer God basically smacked us and said "get to Life Group". And we really felt like the Life Group that we went to is the one for us- because there are probably 2 dozen that we could try out. I sense that there is a "divine-appointment" for us there and I'm very excited to see what that is all about.

I'm very excited about life in general actually. I've been doing some soul-searching for some time now. You know- what should I do, what is my calling, what am I supposed to be doing right now. It was really driving me crazy because to be honest I need to get a job. We've had some unexpected setbacks that I won't go into but the end result is that I need a job. But I didn't want to go back to being an administrative assistant or retail or waiting tables. So I thought about graduate school- but what would I study? Music would be fabulous and I looked at Belmont's requirements and it looks like I meet them and (with some brushing up on Music Theory and Music History) I could do it. But the practice time requirements on top of studying would be massive and I'd end up missing as much of Chloe and Halle's growing up as I did with Amanda. So maybe Theology then? Are you kidding? It's 96 hours for a Master of Theology degree and 120 for a M. Divinity compared to 30 hours for something like, say English! So maybe English then? If you've noticed my punctuation I'm sure you could answer that yourself. Then I though about design school. In other sould searching I'd come to the conclusion that I don't have to be "Pastor Amy" (my former title) in order to minister. In fact I led as many people to the Lord when I worked at Target as I did when I was on staff at a church. So if it doesn't matter what I do- as long as I'm in the Lord's will- then I could be anything and minister to people. So being an interior designer sounds like something I could do day-in and day-out without being miserable. And I was praying all this time and thinking about different tragedies that I'd seen recently involving young people and God broke through my "thought-prayers" and reminded me of the scripture that says "train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it". And I felt God say to me "minister to your kids". And then just a couple of days later we were at church and Pastor Dale said in his sermon "it's not about doing what you want to do but wanting to do what you're supposed to do". And then everything became abundantly clear to me- I'm called to be at home. I've been praying for years about what I'm specifically supposed to do. And if God had answered me years ago and said that he'd called me to be a stay-at-home-mom I would have been devastated. It's not that I feel it's beneath me or anything like that, it's just that I had much bigger dreams for myself. And I don't know if this is a for-the-rest-of-my-life thing but I do know that it's a calling. And I've never said that before. I've always wanted to stay at home because I'm so in love with my kids that the thought of someone else caring for them for 50 hours a week just felt awful to me. So now that I know that it's a calling it gives me more purpose and makes me more determined to stay at home to the best of my ability. Of course that brings us back to the fact that we can't afford for me to stay at home. But you know what? I'm not worried- I'm excited! Because I know that God is going to make a way. So, who knows? Maybe one day I'll design things. Or better yet maybe this weekend I'll take my lazy little behind to the library and check out books on designing and I'll do it as a hobby rather than getting a degree in it. But it doesn't matter if I'm Martha Stewart or Suzy home maker as long as I know my creator. Because then I'm not defined by my title; I'm defined by Christ.