Tempted and Kicking Temptation in the Butt

There are times when I just get so frustrated in life, that I'm ready to "throw in the towel." No, not commit suicide, just have a...to quote Victoria Beckham, "MAJOR" hissy fit.

When I'm dieting and I see amazing food that I "can't" eat...

When I'm frustrated trying to get pregnant and it's not happening...

When I'm taking classes and the end doesn't seem in sight...

I just want to explode and give up, all at the same time (is that possible? And if it was, it might be messy...)!

I'm tired of dieting, tired of trying to work things out when I have relationship issues, tired of sacrificing and compromising and going the second mile... and sometimes I lose little battles. But you know what? When I give in, I'm the first one to suffer.

That's why I have to suck it up and keep on, keepin' on....#1 because it's the RIGHT thing to do and #2 it's probably best for everyone else that I do. :)

So how do I deal with stress?

1. Go for a run or a walk (exercise boosts good feelings and gets out aggression)


2. Watch a movie that makes me cry or gives me warm fuzzies (also promotes good feelings and cries out the bad ones)


3. Call a friend that will listen and encourage me (not one that will gossip and add fuel to the fire, but a mentor, one that will offer perspective and pray with me)


4. Try and take a nap (get enough rest)


5. Step back and examine the situation (after the emotional storm subsides and I can view something logically)


6. Check my diet and make sure I'm getting enough protein and good food to eat.

Those are the biggies.

What do you do when you are ready to burst?

From One Perspective to Another

I was having a chat yesterday afternoon with my friend Dorothy R. I needed some advice and a perspective check. She shared with me about her missions trip to India. She told me about how she used to complain about her feet, but when she went to India, there were people there, without feet.

Everything is relative.

I talked to my friend T about his situation. He's got 6 mouths to feed, and a salary that can't allow his wife to stay home with the kids any longer. She has to go back to work to make extra income.

And everyone has different priorities. I choose to spend $300 on bootcamp (and I plan on signing up again in January 2008, oohrah!), but I don't own a cell phone. We have internet, but no cable TV. These are our (my husband's and my) priorities and part of our perspective on life.

My husband just swapped his old truck for a smaller, more fuel-efficient car with a guy he found on Craig's List. Sure, the car has some dings in it, but it runs well and it was already inspected. (Incidentally, my car is leaking oil and my husband had to put 4 quarts of oil in it this morning. Dang.)

It's good to get a perspective check every once in awhile. What are the things God is blessing you with right now? It helps cut back on the list of things you complain about when you think of all the good things you have going for you. And don't wait for good things to happen to you, make good things happen. You're not getting any younger.

Finding Your Happy Place

Do you remember that part in that movie where the guy curls up into the fetal position and repeats over and over to himself, "Find a happy place!" Sometimes, when life gets tough, that's exactly what I tell myself...

But in all sincerity, I think that too many of us go through life not knowing what are talents, preferences and abilities are...we don't know until we've stepped in #2, or gotten in over our heads, how we could have avoided it in the first place, and been on our way sooner to finding that "happy place."

I'm an advocate for personality testing. My friend Heather was a Psych major in undergrad and now she's getting her MA in Counseling. She ran the gamut of self-testing in this one class she was taking, and let me tell you, she came out knowing a lot about herself. I told her I was going to call up her professor (an acquaintance of mine) and tell him I'd pay him to let me take those tests. It's THAT great getting to know all the stuff about yourself. Sure you could discover some of the same stuff through life experience but WITH testing you can discover those things and more, sooner!

Why waste years of your life slogging through professions that make you unhappy when you could be in a job that works with your talents and abilities? Why pay thousands of dollars in school loans for a degree you won't ever use? Get your butt to the school guidance counselor and ask for advice. Visit your college career center and take some tests. And good gracious, do the internship. You have everything to gain by taking the time to find out who you are and a glimpse at who you can be.

These self-evaluations tell you who you work better with, and with whom you are most likely to have conflicts, based on your strengths and weaknesses (a lot like your Chinese horoscope, except more accurate). They show you areas where you could stand to grow! Imagine that!

Go. Learn. Grow and get a better job! Do things right the first time, and save yourselves the time, money and energy you'll have to expend to reinvent yourself in your late 20's or 30's.

Take this free assessment to find out if your current job is a fit for you: Run with the Bulls Assessment

Other personality and career tests

The Generation Gap

Jeff and I watched a documentary on WWII Sunday night. It was amazing. If any of you have ever watched a movie on this war, or read any books about it, you can begin to imagine what this war was like for our fighting men. It is no wonder that Tom Brokaw named his book "The Greatest Generation." These soldiers, sailors and support personnel were true survivors and some were heros. But war is ugly and can twist men into monsters.

"To find yourself in a situation where your life is of little value is the ultimate in lonliness," wrote one soldier in his memoirs. Marine lives, used as cannon fodder to take or hold a position wasted on the beaches, their blood running freely and mingling with the ocean waves. Feeling the terror of knowing that you are being deployed to a combat area knowing that you most likely won't make it home....saying goodbye to loved ones for one last time before going to their deaths, and knowing it was so.

While this is not the fate awaiting the majority of our fighting men and women today, for some it is still a reality they must face. There are still men and women laying down their lives for us overseas, in the name of the U.S. of A.

We are now in the midst of a new war against "insurgents" and "terrorists." Again our GI's are fighting for freedom and the interests of our country in a foreign land. Let's remember to pray for them while they are preparing to deploy and leave their families for a year or more, while they are in harm's way and when they come home when they are either injured or finishing a tour. They need our support.

Do you know anyone who is serving our country in this war? I'd like to give a shout out to Luke and Chip in Iraq and Jared in Kuwait. Stay strong boys and come home safely!

Movies I recommend on WWII:

Saving Private Ryan
Band of Brothers

Enemy at the Gates
Pearl Harbor

Flags of Our Fathers

What is common to man....

I Corinthians 10:13 "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it."

I speak for myself. I am tempted to do all kinds of things everyday. Somethings I automatically recognize and resist, others I habitually fall prey to...like the temptation to gossip. Oh my word! There is nothing so tempting as a juicy bit of news! But when do we cross the line between sharing news and trading gossip?

Wikipedia says,

"Gossip consists of casual or idle talk between friends. While officially value neutral, the term often specifically refers to talk of scandal, slander, or schadenfreude relating to known associates of the participants, and discussed in an underhand or clandestine manner. Compare backbiting.

While gossip forms one of the oldest and (still) the most common means of spreading and sharing facts and views, it also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information thus transmitted. The term also carries implications that the news so transmitted (usually) has a personal or trivial nature. Compare conversation."

When I am angry about something someone has done to me, or I am having a bad day, there is nothing so satisfying as channeling it into gossiping about someone that has annoyed me. This is a HUGE temptation for me. While I may not initiate a conversation like this, I enjoy becoming involved it it. I revel in evil!!!!! AND IT'S WRONG! I will admit it.

Beyond the question of why it's so fun, I should ask myself, why do I continue to do it? Is it foolish to admit I struggle with this sin on a blog? :0

Different Strokes for Different Folks

To begin with a cliche...It never ceases to amaze me how...two people can look at something and see different sides of it. Like that group of blindfolded people who grope that elephant, feeling different parts of it and coming to various conclusions on what it is they are feeling.

My idea of a vacation has changed since I married a Schoonover. P.S. (pre-Schoonoverization) I was content with a book and a vacation by the lake, without too many activities to do. Now A.S. (after-Schoonoverization) I want a plan and an itinerary of activities in addition to down-time.

Through this vacation experience I have learned that going on vacation with small children is not relaxing at all. Everything you do revolves around them: where you will go, how long you can stay there, feeding times, when you have to be back from your activity so they can be back in time for their nap...Perhaps, I am not ready or cut-out for parenting.

People keep telling me, "Oh you'll be great parents!" But when you are a parent your whole life becomes your children and their needs and wants and trying to train their naturally selfish behavior. It's one long life-lesson in self-control.

You can't sleep in anymore. You can't go out to eat at nice restaurants. You have to save the money you would normally spend on other things, on the baby. Everything revolves around them and their short attention spans and their unnerving ability to be fully awake in less than a minute. They don't have any morning fog they need to conquer, not like adults. Their eyes open, and BLAM! they're awake.

Is there life during parenting? Help me my friends with kids...you're my only hope.

Do Over

Have you ever wanted to have a "do over"-A moment in time when you could repeat a scene in your life and do things differently than how you did them the first time around?

Thinking about turning 30 has forced me to look back on my life thus far, and to think about how much time I may have left (on average40 to 50 years) and to take stock of things up to this point. I realize that there are so many opportunities I've let slip by because I was "afraid to try" or "worried about looking dumb." There are also situations in which I didn't comport myself in the best way possible. I've said some stupid things to people that have hurt them. I said them to win an argument, or out of revenge, or just because I didn't think through the ramifications before I opened my big mouth. All moments in my life, I wish that I could re-do.

Take the time I had the opportunity to go para sailing for free...

My in laws, some cousins, aunts, uncles, and my husband and I were at Lake George in upstate NY. My father-in-law was paying for those who wanted to go para sailing because his mother who was in her late 70's early 80's wanted to go. It was one of the things she wanted to do before she died. My mother-in-law and I were the only ones to stay behind because we feared to leave the ground. (Incidentally, we are both control freaks) Everyone else chose adventure, and I chose shopping because I was too chicken to leave the ground. Boy did I miss an experience! The next time I'll choose the para sailing...I hope.

Sometimes, I am compelled not only by guilt and remorse, but by a desire to make up for a less-than-spectacular performance or because I perceive people will/have thought less of me. If I can't look back and say, "that deserved an A" I'm not comfortable. I don't like making mistakes, and what's worse, I don't like it when people point them out to me, rubbing it in like salt in an open wound. Dang. It prompts this weird, yet common response in me....making excuses. "Perfectionist" you say? Perhaps. I do love to critique and to be critiqued. I don't like being torn down. There is a difference between admonishing someone and criticizing them. However, it is through learning through our mistakes that we become stronger people.

By screwing up and being humble and learning from our mistakes we develop character, make amends, forgive, achieve, grow and do better the next time around. We endure the pain of defeat, or we repent of some awful sin we have committed and we grow! It's amazing. Life is a series of negotiations and committments. I want to be a better person and to carpe diem a bit more and hang back on the sidelines less often.

It's like that Tim McGraw song, My Next 30 Years. I leave you with the lyrics to that song:

I think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age

The ending of an era and the turning of a page

Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here

Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

Hey my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun

Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done
Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears

And I’ll do it better in my next thirty years

My next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores

Cry a little less, laugh a little more

Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear

Figure out just what I’m doing here In my next thirty years

Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight

Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late

Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers

Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years

My next thirty years will be the best years of my life

Raise a little family and hang out with my wife

Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear

Make up for lost time here, in my next thirty years In my next thirty years