good morning campers......so i just had a revelation.....crazy...right?...but so i don't know who knows this but i am sort of a control freak....ok well not sort of, but pretty much am......i try to let go of the control....and i think i am letting go of the control.....when i realize that i am still firmly attached to whatever i am trying to let go of....it's not pretty......my big issue has been for awhile...what does God want me to do?.....so i ask Him....all the time.....and it goes like this....

​this is me," hey God...how are things?....groovy....ok so could you tell me what you want me to do with my life?".....
God answers, " ok, so for sta...".........
me again, " i mean God, what is my purpose?".......
God again, "well what i wa...".......
me again, " so i mean could you send a fax or something cause i'm really hard headed"........
God again,  "well if you le..".....
me again, "i guess you know i'm hard headed, you made me"....
God again, "my tho.."......
me again, "i'm having a hard time hearing what you want me to do"........
God again, "......."........
me again, "i really don't understand, i'm really trying to understand and hear you but i can't seem to get it"
God again, "....."
me again, "could ya just make it real obvious where i need to focus my attention"
God again, "you really opened that do...."
me again, .....................
    
          well this could go on for a long time, switching between God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit.....they kind of tag team....i know God has unlimited patience, but even i can't take me sometimes......so my big revelation is not really a revelation but more of a revealing of the obvious, which has been right in front of me all this time.......but yeah, gotta let this control thing off the hook.....stop planning so much......right....
         it's like an addiction.....hi, i'm bobbi, and i'm a control addict..........so how do you let go of control?......interesting question.........first i guess is  what controls you?..........a habit, a thought, an action, control itself.......can control really control what i am trying not to control?......boy the word control looks really weird right now...........i'm sure i get it naturally from my mom........cause my dad was the opposite of a control freak.........i have passed it on nicely to some of my kids.......and passing it on would be nice if it meant i gave it away completely and  i didn't have it anymore....but it seems to multiple all by itself....as in..."but wait there's more!"
          like, i tend to hang on to things that are memorable to me.....and i swear the stuff in the attic keeps multipying..........i have tons of bins in the attic that have every drawing all the kids have done at one time or another.........even when they wrote their name, made a pasta drawing (yeah those are in really bad shape now), really anything they created i have saved......so i had my oldest daughter go through some of the bins with me to see what she would want.....because of course,  i saved them for her to  enjoy later.......so i pull down 3 or 4 bins....my daughter is sitting beside me, i am pulling stuff out and going down memory lane...."oh remember when you drew this?....remember when you made me that?....here are your worksheets from 1st grade".....meanwhile, my daughter is just throwing away everything in the trash can behind her as i hand them to her.....i'm so focused on all the stuff i didn't see what she was doing.....revelation again- me being so focused on the stuff i miss the actual life............ok back to my thoughts.....when i realize what she is doing i'm like "what are you doing?".....as i'm digging through the trash to get the stuff back out to put back in bins......."you can't through this stuff away??!!...it's important stuff ...it's your stuff!"......and she throws the bin in the trash can and says i need to get help....help as in clearing out the house attic and in clearing out my attic........very funny...how droll.....obviously she doesn't want the stuff....these mementos i have collected for years are not as treasured to her as they are to me.......who is this daughter i raised???......the funny thing is all of my kids are not memory keepers, or stuff collectors,  like i am....they are all basically matter of fact, let's enjoy it for awhile and then recycle it.......i mean a couple might be more apt to keep something for a bit, but in general, not so much....the youngest is brutal with not saving things....very similar to the evil older sister whos mantra is  "if you haven't used it in an hour, out it goes"........it's heart breaking....and also very liberating i guess....cause i can finally let go of some stuff......ok not all of it ....4 bins came down and 3 went back up.........baby steps.......
        but if i can let go of 1 bin of stuff....ok so i did try to stuff all the stuff ....ha ha very funny....stuff the stuff......from the 4th bin into the other 3.....but some things got thrown away........a couple papers.........but if i am able to get rid of a couple papers....then the world is my oyster.......what does that really mean?........but anything is possible....including letting control take control of the control i keep taking control of.........what?!...... so basically  i don't need to understand my underlying need to undertake control and underestimate Gods ability to get control under control......that's alot of unders.....which is understandably overkill.....ha ha....... let go and let God......be groovy!

     good morning campers.........oh my gosh....i was almost completely done with my blog when something went caflooee and i lost everything......arrrrggghhhh......... always save....always save....always save.......so frustrating...........moving on....
       so..... happy voting day!!......when i started to vote...they used to have curtains that you pulled around you to hide spying eyes on who you were voting on.........not that anyone could really see, but it was kind a neat.....and  kids loved to play under the curtains and the little voting booth thing....which reminded me of my mom taking us to the store....lazarus to be specific....and not the lazarus that was miraculously brought to life after being  dead.....which was kind of like how i felt after the shopping trip....well not the miraculously alive part but the other.............so lazarus was part of northland mall in columbus, ohio.........the mall wasn't an inside mall but just stores near each other with walking paths between them........ lazarus was kind of like walmart where it had everything... but a lot of different floors and it was a more upscale place.....not a place you went to everyday......special occasions...well for us......
         so my mom brought me.....i don't know why cause i could have stayed with the neighbor......but anyway....so it's my mom, with my bratty baby brother in a stroller, and the evil older sister.....who because she's in middle school gets a clothing allowance, .....i was rolling my eyes there........which basically gave her enough money to buy fabric to make an outfit..........store bought dresses were a little pricier.....so she was off to the fabric section....top floor i think.......and we were looking through clothes....and i was bored.....so remember, i was a spy at that time.......i see the round clothes racks and decide to work on my spying skills......so off i go.......the round racks are great cause you can get under them in the middle and nobody sees you......i was stealthily moving from one rack to the other and having a grand time......my mom finally realizes i'm not to be seen, starts calling me.......well i'm just getting my spy skills going now, so not being flippant, but i ignore her..........my mom gets more worried and gets others involved.......ya know sometimes just answering right away saves a lot of pain.....and then there's me........so i continue on with my spy games and now my mom is in a full fledged panic......by the time i got snatched up and my mom saw me, panic went right out the door.........and "the look" showed up.....ya know "the look"....it says so much with out saying anything....and yet leaves a lot to the imagination....and i have a great imagnation.........so my mom leaves the store quickly, with that fabulous smile on her face.....thanking everyone for their help..."thank you so much, i was so worried" ( i'm beyond furious), "i'm so glad yall helped me to find her" (i'm so embarrassed that i had to ask for help in searching out this child that makes me look like an incompetent mother), "she is just such an inquisitive child" (who's gonna get her rear end worn out for the trauma i just went through) (and the salespeople are saying to themselves " she's gonna get her rear end worn out when she gets home") (and i'm giving the pleading eye look to the sales people saying" can't i stay here, life is not gonna be good when i get home")...as my mom is dragging me out of the store with a fury that you should be able to bottle and sell........
            so yes i did get a spanking and had to do extra chores......did i deserve it?....probably.......wasn't the first, wouldn't be the last.......it wasn't that i was a bad kid, i just always went a different path......i would say i drove my mom to drink, but she didn't drink....she did have a nervous tic that appeared during my high school years....hasn't quite gone away yet...........my mom always said that i stayed up at night thinking of ways to drive her crazy........she gave me too much credit....in reality i didn't think that far in advance........chaos and mindlessness were my running mates......the former proceeded the later, but it was always very interesting...well for me.......
       have a super groovy voting day!