I am I

It is funny because I think we define who we are our whole life and it changes so much.  I am still trying to figure out who exactly I am and I am hoping this blog is a way for me to find that and see my life more clearly.

I am a believer
I am very thankful for my parents, bringing me up in a Christian home where besides my family I grew up with my family of believers.  It is so nice to know that God loves me the way I am, with all the bad and ugly.  Even though my walk is many times not as steady and fast as I'd like, I want to live my life for Him and more than anything I want our children to grow up knowing their Father and following Jesus.  A friend once said that even if she doesn't teach her children anything else, but she teaches them about love for Jesus it will be enough and she is so right.  Sometimes it is hard to remember that when my day gets out of hand and I am so focused on what needs to get done around the house, or the food that needs to be prepared that I miss so many opportunities to teach about what really matters in this world.   

I am a wife.
Even if we have our struggles like any other married couple (sometimes probably more than other couples), I love being married.  I love having a man by my side who takes care of me, who I can count on and who is my best friend.  I have so much to learn to be a better wife and you'd think after 11 years I would get somewhat better at it, but the truth is there is not a week that goes by when I don't hurt my husband in some way.  It is an ongoing road of falling and then getting up again, preferably in each other's arms and having passionate sex. :)

I am a mom.
We have 3 beautiful children, Kade is 7, Anika 4 and Kason is 2 and a half.  I love being a mom, watching them grow and become their own little persons.  It's hard with Kade right now because sometimes it feels like he's growing up way too fast for me and I'm just trying to catch up to him.  I love that I have a daughter amongst the boys and she is such a sweet girl.  She too is growing up fast and is in the phase of wanting to grow up so bad right now, as she tells me every day.  Our little Kason is only 19 months younger than Anika and they are becoming very close, playing together all the time and I love watching the two of them becoming such good friends.  Of course, there are the screams and tantrums and bad attitudes, but overall they are such great kids and we're both so proud of them.

I am a daycare provider
I never pictured myself doing this.  I have a business degree and love the fast pace of a business/office, where I can challenge my brain.  I really loved my job in the cities, working at a financial planning firm.  Even if not everything was great, it was very challenging, never dull and I worked with some pretty amazing people.  So coming from that to staying home was a huge adjustment.  Like every mom I was feeling guilty for being away from our son so much during the week and I couldn't really work part-time to have the best of both worlds so here I am.  I started watching my niece about a year and a half ago, then a couple of friend's children and so I slowly started a daycare business.  I am not willing to have the maximum amount of kids allowed - 10 which is just ridiculous.  So right now I have 7 kids total, including 3 of mine.  It is going well now, but it took a couple of months of adjusting to 2 infants.  Now the babies are 6 and 7 months old and are generally easily entertained by the other kids.  There are good and bad things about it but the good way outweigh the bad.  I am very thankful that I am able to stay home with our kids this way and I am also very thankful for our kids to have good friends to play with when it would be boring for them with just us.  It also makes me stay very much scheduled during the day and I like that because it helps all the kids with their attitude and behavior.  I am not sure how long I'll be doing this and I know I will want to explore my options outside of home once the kids are in school, but for now this is my job and I'll take it.  Sure, we all have those days when all the kids are crabby and all I can do at the end of the day is to sit down or go to bed and not think about or do anything else.  And then there are other days when my Anika and my niece Emily get so excited about picking up all the toys in 3 rooms by themselves and showing me what they did, or watching the kids hug and say they love each other and it's all worth it.

I am a runner
Not a very good one, but still I love running and I love having friends who love to run, even though we never get together to run together.  This last year it's been more difficult than ever to stay on the schedule for working out and running but I still managed to run a half marathon in September.  I wanted to beat 2 hours and I got 2:01.  I was so mad that I was that close, but even before the race I knew making it would be a miracle with the amount of training I did and with the few long runs I ran so really it was a big accomplishment for me.  I love reading runner's advice on training for races and stuff and just reading it gets me so motivated about starting to train.  I am probably going to try the half marathon again this year and some day I really want to repeat the full marathon, hopefully before I'm too old to do it.  Right now I don't see it happening only because to do it I'd have to devote every weekend in the summer to the training and with small children it is very hard to do.  I ran my first marathon in 2005 and it was just an amazing experience so I would really love to do it again.

I am an artist
Again, even worse than I am a runner :) but nevertheless I'd call myself that because I love creating new things.  I love painting on canvases when I get an inspiration in my head and when I have time for it in my busy life.  So far it has been all for our house.  I love thinking of new ideas for a painting, or changing wall colors.  I painted both of our kids' rooms recently and I really like how they turned out just like I imagined them to.  I do love interior design/decorating but I really don't know if I could do it for a living.  Mainly because I always want to create my own unique space and I would not want to create something that is so far off from what I like. :)  I don't think anyone would ever think of me as an artist, but that's ok.  I don't think it matters what the accomplishments of it are as long as it is something I love doing, that brings me joy and is a way for me to express myself.

I am an extrovert
a rather strange one because I can be very shy with new people or can have the hardest time to open up to someone I don't know very well.  But once I have closer friends it means the world to me to spend time with them, vent, laugh, cry and just visit together.  I am a totally different person after I get together with a good friend.  Life makes more sense, I get recharged and encouraged by just being with them.

I am I.  Just an ordinary Slovak girl.  A child of God.  A daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, friend, cook, maid, teacher, personal shopper, decorator, nurse,...How many hats do you wear?  We all have so many things we do and so many are overlooked every day and it's ok.  We just go on and hopefully we can guide our children in the right direction so they can grow up to who God wants them to be.