Mom

Something in us as women changes and becomes innate when we give birth to a child. While I recognize that there are exceptions to this in the world, I respect the fact that God designed me this way as a woman and that the first time I saw my children in an ultrasound, felt them kick, or looked into their eyes as I held them for the first time, something changed within me. This was the beginning of motherhood, a journey, and adventure! And I realized what my own mother must have experienced when she looked at me for the first time, and then of course all 4 of my siblings in the 16 years that followed...this blog post is about the greatest example of a mother I could ask for.
Though I recognize that some women feel that they must work outside the home every day, my mother and father felt that God wanted my mom to stay home with all of us kids. So she chose not to finish nursing school (but ask her if she has ever used her 'almost-nursing-degree' raising 5 kids???) and be a full-time mama to all 5 Rucker kids. Now, as a stay-home Mom myself, I know this is NO easy feat! But Mom has always done this with grace, humility and a passion for leaving a legacy far greater than what this world expects of us.
Daddy worked when I was little and then sometime when I was in elementary school started his own business and worked from home, and he worked hard! So we were blessed to have both parents around a lot, but with one parent working, finances were often a struggle. Did we know this growing up? Nope. We never wanted for anything! Mom has been a yard sale queen my whole life and is seriously the best 'stretcher of a dollar' I have ever witnessed! We lived in midtown Memphis most of my childhood and then moved to Southaven for better school options. Mom has made every home I've lived in a safe haven and a cozy environment for learning and loving and home is truly where I have always felt most myself. Mom was always up with us in the mornings, even if just to sip her coffee by the front window and just 'be present' for us and then she was always home in the afternoons when we returned! She carted us everywhere for our many activities, but also encouraged us to be independent and self-sufficient as we got into our teen years. We began hating the school bus, but instead of catering to us, taught us that if we got a ride we didn't have to ride it. So we did! 
I don't remember spending a lot of time at friends; houses growing up, with the exception of a few church friends, but I do remember having get togethers and having so much fun at OUR house! There was always a houseful! And my parents were always THERE. Mom was always cooking something, the house was never immaculate but it was always clean (I mean, honestly how clean can a house with 7-9 people living in it be??) and cozy. We called it "the Cracker Barrel" look because of Mom's way of decorating, which I wouldn't have traded for all the matching trendy decor in the world!
On a serious note, my mother's faith in the Lord has continued to strengthen my own faith and teach me through the years. Mom has birthed 5 children and lost 6 others. This alone would cause most women to crumple and question the Lord, but not Mom! She has always been so strong, even when inside I know she must have been dying from sorrow. What an example of faith!!! She always knew that while we don't understand God's plan, we should trust that He always does! 
When Micah was diagnosed with cancer, I leaned on my parents so much. I do not know how I would have survived such a terrible ordeal without my Mom. While she was still a Mom of young children at home, school and a couple already in college she had also become a grandmother. Yet, she was still somehow able to balance being Mom to me, and Nana to her very sick grandchild. What an amazing balancing act! I'm not sure I could ever thank her enough for the guidance and prayer and everything else that she provided during such a traumatic time in mine and Micah's (and all of our) lives.
As I close, I realize I haven't even mentioned that my mother is hands-down, THE GREATEST COOK OF ALL TIME, and I believe that! She can provide a meal every single Sunday for our whole family, plus spouses and kids, my grandparents, a few extra friends, plus often a new family from church each week. And it tastes AWESOME. Then she can whip up a meal in like 5 minutes if we're ever over there at lunch or dinnertime and hungry. It truly is an art, and I am so inspired by her abilities in the kitchen!
She sews, she cooks, she is crafty and thrifty, but most importantly, my mother has prepared me for my own adventure in motherhood by providing a phenomenal example that I will never truly be able to thank her for.
Mom (aka "Nana") I love you and I am so thankful for you and the Proverbs 31 women that I see in you! 
"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy!" Phil. 1:5

A quick complaining blog

First, I'm convinced no one reads my blog so I feel confident that complaining for just a little in writing won't really matter much and sometimes you just gotta' get it out so I'm choosing here!
I feel yucky. I feel like a giant, achy, grumpy mess that has a litter of squirmy puppies tucked inside my belly that never stop moving. There are parts of my body that have not stopped hurting for 27 weeks and a drainage situation that literally makes me want to consider taking up chewing tobacco when I have the baby since I'm already used to spitting 100 times a day.
My body is protesting the things that I love, like teaching and inspiring my students in my group fitness classes and its making me crazy. I want to be superwoman and teach til the end, or at least the month before but I can tell that that is probably not an option the way I am feeling after I teach now days.
And my house is not sold. We have people coming to look and yet no on out of all the people who have seen our house since February 1st have placed an offer. Why? Does no one love my house as much as we do? I have been in HUNDREDS of homes over the years (due to my Premier business primarily) and I feel that my home ranks pretty high in comfort, style, and cleanliness comparably. And  yet, here we still sit. And my baby has no where for his little self. Sure, the pack-n-play will suffice for the first several months (or like Haven, a year) but then what? And what about the cute little boy clothes and stuff I'm buying and getting from my showers? How long will storing it all in a clear plastic bin in the bonus room last? Especially once he gets here? He has no furniture, because Haven is still using it all in her room. The girls are too far apart in age to put in a room together, we've already experienced what happens when Haven gets into Micah's stuff. And I need an office for legal reasons for my business. So we're stuck. And we don't know where we'd move right away if we did sell, because we stopped looking--for obvious reasons.
*Please Lord, provide as you always do! I thank You so much for all you've blessed us with and am so honored you would choose me, however tough it is, to carry another one of your children into this world. Father, I am anxious when I shouldn't be, and stressing where I know you will take care of us, but you also know my heart and know what is best for the Barkers and our unborn son! I love you, my Dad and King, and I ask that you allow our house to sell soon and show us the right house for us to choose soon after! You're awesome and I am so grateful that you care about the little things like houses and body aches and grumpy hormones when you are such a big God! In Your amazing name, Amen.*
Oh, and we're out of toilet paper. Talk about a day-ruiner! 

My first Blog Award!

I am so excited and honored to receive my first Blog Award: The Master in Karate and Friendship Award! This award was given to me by my sister-in-law, Anna and her sister, Corrie through their blog: "My First Friend and Me" www.myfirstfriendandme.blogspot.com . I am supposed to blog about 6 things that I am a master at and then pass the award along. So I'm using this opportunity to update my blog since February! I've got to get better at this! haha. So here it goes:

1) I am a Master Planner - I got this one from my sister-in-law's blog, but I am definitely a different type of planner. I have to have my planner calendar in order to commit to any events or activities otherwise I would go crazy. Plus, I have to SEE my plans laid out in writing on my calendar, I have never been successful at putting them on a calendar on the computer, or a Palm Pilot--which I did try, and I have a feeling I wouldn't be good at doing it on an iphone either if I had one of those. Its something about writing it down myself, whiting things out, moving my little color-coded post-it tabs around, etc. that makes me feel like my life is in order.

2) I am a Master at Self-Discipline - Okay not in ALL areas, but the majority of time, if I want to do something or if I commit to something, I am going to stick with it. Even as a child (with the help of my parents of course, who didn't want to raise quitters) I played the ENTIRE season of softball (two years), basketball (two years), soccer (one year), etc. until I found what I was good at enough to stick with it for 12 years: martial arts. Once I discovered the world of competitive Shotokan Karate, no one ever had to tell me or remind me to go, I went 4 days a week and my goal was to get my black belt by the time I was 16, which I did. It took me 5 years, because in Asia where martial arts originated, no one got their black belt in just a couple of years which apparently is quite the trend in America, but that is another whole blog post. I competed both nationally and internationally and also in the Junior Olympics. I chose to commit and definitely put the self-discipline into it that it takes to train in anything for 12 years with the majority of those years being the flaky teen years.
Another couple of ways I feel that I am self-disciplined is through  my diet: I've been a vegetarian for almost 17 years and living in the south, you HAVE to have some self-discipline to make it in this area! I own my own business, Premier jewelry and have worked hard for the past 9 years to build this business to the level that it is now so that I am only gone once, sometimes twice a week, and supplement my husband's income with fun easy money that I earn and am rarely away from my family. No one can be their own boss with out self-discipline, that is for sure, I can't rely on anyone else to push me, or make me do what I need to do, this is where being my own boss can certainly be tough.
Some areas I need to work on in the self-discipline area: the snacks I eat (if you are a chip/dip, we are well acquainted already), exercising (I believe I'd still be in the gym every day if my name WASNT on the schedule, but I've never really tested this theory in the past 12 years that I've taught group fitness), doing my quiet time consistently (I've gotten better, but always fall short), and probably some other areas.

3) I am a Master of Creativity in the Kitchen - I sincerely enjoy cooking and making new recipes up. I get this from my Mom for sure! I also tend to take a recipe, tweak it, and then take it on as my own recipe. We were just laughing about this this past weekend, but I actually have to say I don't do this just to get the credit, I do it because I'm usually missing an ingredient or two, but want to make it anyway. Some of my top recipes are:
*Sarah's Kickin' Corn Chowder (I legitimately made this one up!)
*Sarah's Red Beans & Rice (I jokingly say I stole this one from Mom and then made it better, haha, just kidding Mom!)
*Sarah's Zesty Corn dip (I also made this one up by accident one day, but know some folks who make something similar)
*Sarah's Zesty Greek dip (Mmmmm I haven't made this one in a while)
*Sarah's Cake balls (okay I can NOT take credit for this one, I got the recipe from my friend Nancy, but I make them so much that I totally act like this is MY recipe when of course it is not! haha!
*Sarah's Pizza dip (another one I tried and then tweaked, making it my own and its always a hit!)
*Sarah's Fried pickles and Sarah's crab-stuffed mushrooms (I couldn't find a recipe I liked so I made my own)
*Sarah's Tangy Sauteed Veggies (a fave and good on baked potatoes, as a side dish or on a sandwich!)
Okay, so these are just some examples. I love easy recipes so everything I make is pretty much easy and I have made several things that I probably can't duplicate. But rest assured, that anyone who has somehow acquired the world's PICKIEST eaters (Gary, Micah and Haven), I have REALLY had to be creative in the kitchen! And now I'm hungry.

4) I am a Master List-Maker - I live by lists! I make one almost every day and sometimes will work on the same list for an entire week! I also have grocery lists, lists of people to call, people to write notes to, lists of things I'd like to do in my life, a list of fun things I'd like to buy with my Premier money over time (an all-out Disney trip is on the long-term list and I can't wait to pay cash to take all 3 of my children to Disneyworld!) and of course Things To Do, which never ends, the lists just keep overlapping each other. However, the best list I ever made was as a younger teenager when I wrote a list of qualities, both physical and spiritual, of what I prayed God would provide me someday with in a husband and sure enough, God came through with fulfilling the things on that checklist! I praise and thank Him for that! :)

5) I am a Master Multi-tasker - which I attribute to being 100% ADHD all the time! lol. I can be doing laundry, fixing breakfast for both girls, making lunch for Micah, getting her backpack stuff ready, cleaning the kitchen, making a 'to-do' list, checking facebook, and having a text conversation all in the span of 20 minutes and by 7:30 feel that I have gotten my day started right. And the bed will be made, I will be dressed and ready for the gym, and will have Haven dressed and ready. I believe that most mom's are great multi-taskers, and it gets better with practice! I read a book once called Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti and I admit that I am truly like spaghetti! All of my tasks and activities during the day flow through each other, touching each other and entangling with each other, and yet it still gets done. I may not be Super Mom, but at the end of the day, I can rarely lay in bed next to my husband and say the words, "Wow, I literally got NOTHING accomplished today". And for all the cynics out there, my baby girl has her head on my shoulder right now watching Dora as I type this on the couch and she is fed and fully-dressed and content so spending time with my kiddos and taking care of them is top-priority regardless of all the things on my to-do list.

6) I am a Master Friend - I truly believe this. I am definitely an acquired taste, but the people that I call my close friends have taken the time to get to know the real Sarah Barker and look past the rough, mouthy, loud exterior and I am so grateful for that! God is of course still working on me and my flaws, which are plenty, but I feel that when I consider someone my friend, I will do whatever it takes to preserve that relationship. I believe I am quick to apologize when I am wrong (and even when I'm not) to fix conflict as quickly as possible--though the area in which I still struggle with this is with my husband, and I admit this weakness! Despite being very opinionated about soooo many things, I can keep that opinion to myself when it comes to hurting a friend, though sometimes I subconsciously do so. I make a solid attempt to keep in touch with the people that are important to me, even if its only via text and facebook. If I see something that I know a friend would like, I either buy it or text them about it (if its too expensive or if I can't duplicate it myself) just to let them know I think about them, I go out of my way to take care of my friends if I can and this is where my busy schedule can always allow room for something important if at all possible. I am also honest, something that I also value in a friend, even when we sometimes don't want to hear it at first...Anyway, there are so many areas in which I fall short, but I thank the Lord for gracious, forgiving friends and family, and I also thank God that He is continuously doing a work in me! Thanks to those of you who take me with a grain of salt and love me despite my flaws, which are many!

Okay, so now that I'm done with my super long bragging session, I will pass this award along, even though I really don't read anyone else's blogs very often unfortunately!
I pass this award on to:
Danielle Peacock http://prattlingpeacock.blogspot.com/
Jacob & Jessica Schwegel  http://finleyrs.blogspot.com/
Brittany Dalomba http://jobandbrittany.blogspot.com/

You guys have earned the Master of Karate and Friendship Award!!! (I am still trying to figure out the title of that award, its so funny!) Thanks again to Anna and Corrie!