my panoramic view on life

I moved the keyboard up to my bedroom because the basement is totally messed up now with saw dust and tools and stuff all over because they had to rearrange some plumbing down there... and so just to be silly, I tried taking a panoramic shot of my bedroom while sitting on my bed. Pretty stinking cool, huh? Maybe tomorrow I will take some shots like that of the downstairs so you can get a feel for the chaos here.

So, I was able to practice songs on the keyboard for singing at church.  I will be shocked and amazed if I can really pull this off.  Personally I don't much like the way I sound.

I just have to say that God really surprised me today when I found tile that I liked WAY better than the stuff we lost....AND we got a MUCH better price on it.  It was a huge blessing all the way around.  No spoilers though.  You must wait till the job is done to see what I picked.  hehe...

I think tomorrow the guys are definitely taking out my sink and my stove.  Gearing up for some emotional eating.

You know how it is when people have a certain view of themselves due to past experiences, or things that have been said to them?  Like for example, sometimes people who are overweight still see themselves as fat after they lose weight?  Or people who have been ridiculed or called names still think of themselves as "stupid", or whatever they were called?  I realized how easy it is to have a certain mentality that we fall back into when we least expect it.  For me this happened recently when I found myself giving more thought to money than I should.  It took me a few days to understand what had happened, and this is it:  When I was growing up we had very little money.  There were not really any vacations to speak of (2 in my lifetime), very modest amount of clothing, etc.  Much worse yet were my 13 years of being a single mom.  I was broke all the time!!  No money, no food, no gas, no furniture, cruddy clothes...  I really can't begin to tell you how bad things were for me during those years.  I literally don't know how I scraped by.  Welfare and WIC tried to get me to take money from them but I refused it.  I had a great work ethic and I didn't believe in handouts.  I was the one who made a mess of my life and I wasn't going to make someone else pay for it.  In fact for the most part no one ever offered to help me except for the occasional bag of clothes.  Ok, well, point is, I had no money most of my life.  It is weird how living life a certain way makes us programmed to think certain ways, like only buying bargain items, or from thrift stores, or not going out to eat, but being frugal and pinching pennies wherever we can.  Being poor becomes the only way we know how to live.

So then fast forward to today.  I suddenly was in a position to be frustrated about a certain situation  involving money.  In retrospect I can see now why I handled things the way I did.  It was because my mentality has always been towards working, earning, saving, and fairness.  You get the picture, right?  But in my world today I don't need to worry about money because my husband is a good provider, and I no longer have to work a full time job to be able to feed my kids.  I am blessed enough to be in a position where I can be  the one giving instead of the one who has nothing to give.  I don't quite know why sometimes our old thoughts take over like that, but I guess it's because of years of being ingrained in us.  Life doesn't have to be fair.  It is possible to give more than you receive and still have a good attitude about it.  It's a decision that I have to make and thank God I am able to do that.

I don't know how many times this "poor" mentality will haunt me, but I think now that I've identified the culprit he will be less likely to cause trouble for me.

Acts 20:35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”