Here I am, standing at the precipice of blog publishing…

Ok, I’m sitting in my bed next to a sleeping toddler, the hairbrush bandit…

Curious? Keep reading!

I have a confession to make…

You see, the cover picture for my blog is staged.

Yes, staged, but at least I admit it.

It all started a few months ago…

I think…

my days run together…

I sat my children down to a snack of apples and peanut butter then set about doing something or another…at least I think I did…I must have…I don’t recall a hairbrush having ANYTHING to do with snack time…AT ALL.  I had to have been preoccupied doing something.  Maybe I actually went to the bathroom alone OR maybe I didn’t…perhaps I went to the bathroom, thinking I was alone, and after being followed into the room, a toddler slipped the hairbrush from the drawer (that she is now able to reach) and returned to the snack table with it for some REAL fun.  However it went down, all I know is after said snack was complete, I found my hairbrush in the middle of the kitchen table…covered in peanut butter.

I don’t remember it being too funny at the time.  In fact, I may have even cried a little.  It was probably several hours before I found any charm or humor to the incident What. So. Ever.  I know eventually I came around because I specifically remember telling myself that if I ever did actually start the blog that I had been considering, I was most definitely going to name it Peanut Butter in my Hairbrush.  That name HAD to be original.

All that being said…

I did NOT, at the time, find the hairy, peanut buttery mess to be anything even remotely entertaining enough to take a picture.  Bad idea.  Always take a picture of crazy stuff…you NEVER know when you will need it.  So, here I am today, staging a peanut buttery hairbrush so you guys will have a cute visual to go along with the new blog that you so kindly have decided to follow…at least I HOPE you will continue to follow it.

It’s amazing how different a peanut buttery hairbrush can be when you simply change the perspective.  Today, it’s kinda cute.  During its original debut…not so much.  Isn’t that how life can be?  When you are in the middle of the storm, it is so much more intense.  The wind seems stronger, the rain harder.  You vow that you will NEVER ride another storm out.  After it’s over, when the sun is shining the next day, you realize that you made it and it didn’t seem so bad. 

In the middle of the night, each strange sound can send you into a panicked crazy state…especially when your husband is not home and your kids look to YOU to look out of the window to find out what the crazy knocking sound is that you know none of you are making because all of you are in the same bed, smooshed as close to one another as you can get with the covers up to your eyeballs.  Ok, so it was just the gate that my dad had yet to hang on my deck for me, beating against the side of my house, but I didn’t know that at the time and it scared the living daylights out of me until I made the discovery.  It’s quite an entertaining story now, kind of like many others that I will share with you along the way.

 

2 Corinthians 4:16-18New International Version (NIV)

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

 

I’m trying my best to remember the perspective thing.  I am trying to step back and remove myself from my immediate situations and see them from the outside.  Please note, that I am using and reusing the word TRYING.  Sometimes the revelation doesn’t happen until AFTER my husband has witnessed the crying jag or my kids utter the words, “there she goes again,” after I go on and on about something that…in the grand scheme of things…REALLY doesn’t matter.  I usually come around.  I see that God’s timing IS perfect and, well, mine is not.  So…if you dare to join me on this wild ride, please don’t think I’m preaching.  I’m simply sharing…sharing to help me, to hopefully help you.  I want to let you know that you are not in this crazy parenting thing alone.  There are lots of mama’s in the trenches with you.

 

James 1:12New International Version (NIV)

¹² Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

 

And I’m over here LETTING my child put peanut butter in my hairbrush…for the 2^nd time.