Musings

For the past 2 or 3 years I have been able to read the average of a book a day--that is 365 books a year or better. This year, due to laziness, illnesses like sinus problems and migraines, or the busyness of life I have not as yet been able to reach that goal. I have been beating myself up about it mentally for the last couple of weeks. I think I may have to be a little more forgiving of myself. I sometimes expect the impossible from myself, things I maybe would never expect from another person. I cannot predict whether or not I will reach my desired total this year, but I hope to not beat myself up about it if I do.
Another thing I beat myself up about is my inability sometimes to exercise the way I would like to and feel I should. I would like to be able to do the 3-Day walk, but again, illness primarily has kept me from it. I was doing well a while back but was sidetracked by a bout of bronchitis. Last winter I had a serious UTI. Again, I hold myself to impossibly hard standards.

Family craziness

This morning my 7 year old grandnephew came in my room and asked me for 2 pieces of bread. As I was talking to him about it I asked him why he yells so much. (He screams like a banshee a lot, especially at his father.) He said he doesn't; I raised my voice at him to demonstrate how I hear him talking a lot--our whole downstairs area is open, so I hear a lot of what goes on from my lower story room. He got upset that I raised my voice to him and ran off in a huff, crying, which is another common occurrence. I don't know if this is normal or abnormal for a child his age.
This afternoon we all went to Wal-Mart. En route my grandnephew was playing with my mother's bag; she got onto him and I tried to tell him that he hates it when one of us touches anything of his, yet he continually does it with our things. Of course I got scolded for saying anything. Sometimes I feel like it's 3-against-1 at our house. Everyone is on his side. What I have to say is a valid opinion and may even be right, but if I'm right then he's wrong, and they're not having that. It's kind of like Obama and the media right now--they thrust him into power, so he can do no wrong.
I feel so disconnected from almost everyone I am related to. I act differently, I apparently think differently, I find different things entertaining and interesting, etc. A great deal of this is due to the Lord, but some of it is just my personal preferences. I feel closer and more connected to my church family than I do almost everyone I'm related to. When I hear the word brother or sister, my church family is what I think of, although I have 3 natural siblings and 4 step siblings. I feel sometimes I was switched at birth with someone, and that person lives now in a household of believing scholars and totally sticks out there, the way I do here. I wish I could make myself like things like barbecues and long boat trips and things, but to me they're just uncomfortable places where you roast in the sun and get bug bites. I don't like the food that much, and I don't drink, so that eliminates a real reason to go there. Also I feel awkward and uncomfortable around them, with the exception of my teenaged and young adult nieces. A lot of them are crude, and I don't especially like that. But as Jesus said, "Don't think I've come to make life cozy. I've come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don't deserve me." (Matthew 10 34-37)