"Oh! I could NEVER DO THAT!"

“Oh, I could NEVER do that!”

Let me tell you a little bit about myself.  Not to be self-righteous in the very least but to come to you humbly; possibly explaining where this blog has come from and where it, my family, and the future of our family businesses are going.

I’m 37 years old.  I am mother and wife and I live in a very nice suburb in Texas.  I love to cook, grow things, make things and I love being outside.  We homeschool, I’m very traditional and a very odd combination of emotional and pragmatic.  These things you probably know.  Let me tell you what you might not be aware of. 

I have a scar on the right side of my mouth from being bitten by a dog when I was 7.  It was repaired and stitched up hours after the event actually took place in an ER in Albuquerque by a doctor that looked like Santa Claus.  He asked me if I wanted a straight stitch or a cross stitch. 

It makes my awkward, under-bitten smile even more crooked, I’m a little self-conscious of it but I don’t know that I’d ever want it “fixed”, it’s just my face. 

I have always had dark circles under my eyes.

 I’ve had years upon years of financial screw ups.  I have made stupid mistake after stupid mistake, sometimes because I just didn’t know any better and sometimes because I was too scared, too anxious and sometimes even too proud to admit that I was failing and needed guidance. 

Sometimes I fight with my husband.  I know all the good couples don’t, but we do.  We love each other and are loyal to a fault, but when we don’t see eye to eye it gets rough sometimes. 

I was once left on the school bus in a small East Texas town when I was 5 because my brother and sister thought I got off with them at our stop.  I had to be picked up by my mother, who was fit to be tied, when the bus driver’s route was over and he ended up at the bus barn.  After that I got good at remembering things like addresses…

I thought I had locked myself in an airplane bathroom as a little girl and after sufficient freak out and pounding on the bathroom door I was told it was in fact, unlocked and then escorted to my seat by an annoyed flight attendant.   

I once ran over my old umbrella stroller in the church parking lot after picking kids up from preschool.  I didn’t realize it until I had drug it for quite a ways only to have to stop and pull its mangled metal remains ashamedly into my trunk.  Praise the Lord, there wasn’t a child in it. 

I’ve yelled at my kids.  I’ve cussed. 

Sometimes my attitude stinks.

I’ve sinned.  I’ve lost my way at times and prayed my way back on track only with God given strength and diligence. 

I am a severely flawed human being and I am mostly anxious about those flaws. 

I could go on and on about them, there are too many to count. 

I’m telling you all of this because you’re flawed too.  You know it, more than anyone around you sees it. 

That’s probably what’s rolling around in your head when you hear of someone else doing something you admire or dream of doing and you tell yourself you could never do that! 

After that initial recognition of your insecurity, you broadly claim you could NEVER do that and then you don’t have to think of it again.  The other person, doing things that you admire, must be some sort of super hero.  If not, then they must at least be more talented, more organized, more blessed, have more time, be more creative, more flexible, more gifted than you.  At least some of that, right? 

Wrong.

I want to tell you that when you try something challenging it is empowering far beyond you can imagine. 

Let me fill you in on where I’m going with this. 

I love to cook, mostly from scratch.  I love putting something together, start to finish, without anything premade.  If I could grow my own flour for wheat, grind it out, brew beer and use its yeast, put the two together and make wholesome bread for my family’s table that would make me oh so happy.  That’s just me and what I like. 

When I tell people I made fried chicken from scratch I hear, “Oh!  That’s sounds good, I could never do that!”  Friends, I am not that special.  I am not that gifted.  One day, I saw something I really liked and I tried it. 

I just tried it.  Am I some super special super mom because I cook mostly from scratch for my kids?  NO.  It’s important to me, and I enjoy it so I sharpen that skill. 

I like to cook.  So I cooked and I got better and better at it. 

We homeschool and it’s hard.  We love it, but it is a challenge.  I hear, over and over again when I tell people this, “Oh, good for you.  I could never do that.”  Great.  If you truly can’t, it is important to know when to say “no” and to go with whatever you think is best for your family.  Sometimes though, the only thing we really lack is encouragement and faith; enough to give something a try. 

There are some things, especially when our kids are involved that are BIG things.  We don’t want to veer away from our comfort zone because we’re so afraid of messing up.

If something is on your heart, something is pulling at you but you think you are incapable, I would encourage you to try.  Just try.  Don’t expect yourself to be good at it at first.  Great empowerment comes from getting your hands on something and trying, not from actual or immediate success.

Whether it is homeschool or something else, I empower you to try.  Own it. 

So often these days we live as if we are in this passive process.  WE do what we perceive we must do.  We buy all our food at the grocery store because that’s just what you do.  We send our kids to public school sometimes (not always, I WILL NOT HAVE A DISCUSSION HERE ABOUT HOW WONDERFUL SOME SCHOOLS ARE, they are wonderful full of great teachers, etc. Not the point here) because that’s just what we’re supposed to do.  That’s what everybody else does, that’s what we’ve always done, and that’s what’s most convenient….

Please don’t live passively.  My kids are so very, very tired of hearing one of my favorite points from Genesis.  God created man.  He made this lush, wonderful, beautiful, miraculously verdant place for him to live.  God does not slap him down in the midst of the Garden of Eden and say, “Adam, dear.  Here’s a hammock, enjoy.  Take it easy.  I’ll have some monkeys peel some fruit and feed it to you as you sway in the breeze in this paradise.”  God tells Adam as he places him in the Garden, “work it”. 

If you live in a situation similar to my own, first world, suburban, privilege; a lush, blessed environment in which to raise your family, work it.  Work is good for you, accountability is good for you, getting your hands and heart, engaging in what is going on around you is good for you.

Try something.  Challenge what you have been told and what is accepted as the norm.  Do some scripture study; pray.  What are you not trying because you think it’s too hard?

What calls are you not answering because you think only people better than you can answer them? 

I am a messed up, flawed, crooked smiled girl from Texas.  I have a long list of flaws and insecurities but a few years ago I decided to just try.  There is so much power in that.  Now I look at everything and I see it as a challenge.  Could I make that?  Could I do that? 

I love to cook so I’ll use food examples again.  If I buy something at the store I wonder, could I just make this? 

Ok, to sum up this crazy rant I want to encourage you to try.  What’s holding you back?  How much of your life is under the control of society, friends, your history, the economy simply because you’re not owning it?  You’re living passively? 

Our family businesses, Texas EDC and Texas Deb’s are growing and changing and developing plans.  That’s what I and our family businesses are all about, my friends.  Empowering YOU. 

Texas Deb’s will not just be salsa and will probably bet getting a new website where there will be blogs specific to encouraging you, empowering you.  We will hopefully incorporate this into Texas EDC, offering more firearm instruction specifically to women, wives, and mothers.  

A lot of us are descended from American Pioneers and Patriots.  Let’s not lose that spirit.  Make things, do things, go places.  God has given us pretty specific instructions and never does he say, just give up and do what everyone else is doing because it’s easier. 

For your viewing enjoyment I took a non-brushed haired, no make-up, crooked smiled, one week post jaw surgery, past-due furry eye-browed old me in the back yard.  I am flawed, but I try.  Trying makes me capable and I like myself more when I do.