Updated Tori

Who is Tori!??

I'm striving to be a woman of God.  My first and highest calling and priority is to become as He would have me be.  It's difficult, of course, but all the changes He has wrought in me through my willingness thus far are awesome and amazing - at least to me!  :)  As awesome as they are, I want to see what else the Lord would have me become.  So, I'm ever striving to understand His Will for me and mine AND THEN apply my understanding.  (That last bit is THE most difficult part of the process, at least for me!)  ^_^

I am wife to the awesome Chef Jessie or JG of JG's Pantry.  He is my King.  When we got married he wore an orange tux (because it's his favorite color and representative to the sun), (so he could realize his dream of being part of the "Dumb and Dumber" duo for a costume party - which movie is definitely appropriate to understanding some of Jessie's sense of humor - often to my chagrin, but I love him!) with a crown covered in blue felt on his head.  The crown, of course, was the part of the costume that represented my nickname for him: My King.  He called me his angel, so I, of course, had some angel wings tied on over the blue (because it's my favorite color and representative of the moon) beautiful old style gown I chose and had specially made for my wedding.  We are a symbolic couple (and family).  :)

I'm striving to be a Joyful Mother of Children.  We have three daughters and a son. I am recently (as of June 2012) a member of the club no woman really wants to join, but all too many enter: the Sisters Who Have Passed Through Spontaneous Abortion.  We lost out 5th pregnancy at about 7 weeks.  It's been a painful Club to enter, I must say (literally and figuratively)!

I am quiverful.  When my eldest daughter was around 2 years old I started asking her how many siblings she would have - just as a sort of joke and because of all the stories I've heard regarding "out of the mouth of babes."  Well the first 2 or 3 times she said, not fully comprehending numbers and definitely not knowing any Math, "I think I will have 3 sisters and 4 brothers."  By the last time that she gave me that answer, I had convinced  myself that her answer simply meant that I would end up with 4 girls and they would all get married, thus providing us with 4 sons.  The next time I asked her (after I'd come up with this explanation to myself) her answer changed.  Now, mind you, I never shared my self-explanation with anyone.  Her answer this time was, "I'm going to have 5 sisters and 2 brothers."  And that remained her answer until she was about 5 and began to make jokes about having 12 sisters and 5 brothers and other such nonsense - which she would say with a smile, a giggle and sometimes an elbow nudge.  ^_^  Notice anything about her consistent answers?  I have!!!

I am a bit of a Jackie-of-all-trades-master-of-none kind of girl. I am pretty darn good with a hook and yarn, though. I've been crocheting off and on (but mostly on) since I was about 11, I think. I'm 36 now. That's a good long time! I made a little matching jacket, hat, blanket, and a Pooh-n-Friends stuffed animal for each of my first three children. Number 3 and 4 are still waiting for their hats and jackets, but I did finish the blanket for each and a Tigger for Tea... I already completed a blanket for #5 baby, which was spontaneously aborted.  So, maybe I'll have time to make #4 his hat, jacket and doll before the next baby is born.  Never can tell.

I'm striving to forgive myself for falling short of my own expectations AND not accepting others expectations of me unless they match what I believe the Lord has in mind for me.  Not an easy task, I must say.  Afterall, I am an American woman, brought up from birth to be a "yes" speaker and too proud to say no.  Well, I am learning how to say no to others AND myself.
I love to write. My blog is a place I am able to release and enjoy this passion. I have finally begun to use my blog (May 2012) to get out a story out of my head and into reader's heads by way of words!  I love it!  It's sorta frustrating, too, though because I really haven't had any feedback about the story itself from anyone but my Mom.  I love and appreciate and treasure my Mom... but she would say she liked it (in her way) whether she did or not.  Because she's my number 1 fan, afterall.  :)  I find I have a VERY hard time being interrupted when writing. Blogging is much more conducive to little ones needs... at least, most of the time.  I do get pretty intense, even in this formatt of writing, and dislike being interrupted.  But it is MORE conducive.  ;)

Painting, drawing, and sculpture are some of my "lost" hobbies. I still yearn to work in them, but the ability and time elude and escape me, for the most part.  Back between February and March 2012 I completed around 5 paintings.  It felt REALLY good.  But I was able to do that because I couldn't sleep ALL night (and was still up during the day), the computer was down, and I wanted to use my time productively.  It was really healing.
I'm becoming interested in baking a lot more.  I'm still striving to understanding Heavenly Father's health plan for me and mine.  I'm also striving to inform myself with regard to other aspects of our eating so that I may lead our family into healthier paths.

My husband is a Chef. So, I don't attempt much in the way of time consuming (read gourmet) food preparation. I'm much more interested in crowd pleasing (the crowd consists of my four table-food eating kiddos). Thus, the limits on time spent in preparation!
I sometimes enjoy watching movies.  It's sorta cyclic.  I'll go through a phase and watch a bunch and then won't watch one for a year or more.  We don't receive stations on our TV.  So we use that box for watching DVD or VHS movies (mostly the kiddos), educational films, and Jessie uses it to play games once in a blue moon. 

Although I really used to enjoy TV serials, I began to see more and more often that the caliber is just  very poor.  It's not edifying.  And in my effort to become a Woman of God, as I progress in my effort to that end, I find there is less and less room for the frippery of effortless entertainments like TV and movies.  I also believe that Television, movies, Facebook, video games and other mindless mostly electronic media is the middle class "man's" opiate. It enables us to escape, more easily, that which we would rather not face in our own lives. I'm trying really hard to face all that I used to avidly avoid.  I still don't - I'm on the internet enough to provide me the "opiate" I desire (though I don't want to desire it).  Also, for me, movies, especially, offer an opportunity for my brain to be a bit more quiet and slow, which is really wonderful at times of great stress (if only you could FEEL the way my thoughts churn sometimes... though SO much more rarely anymore than it used to be!  And I attribute THAT to our AWESOME God.).
I'm a skirt wearer.  This is a newish thing.  After Jmy (#4) was born I felt absolutely hideous.  So, I started wearing skirts.  Slowly, during that time of feeling totally dispicable and horrible about my physical self I became convicted that I should always wear skirts.  And so I have.  Since about May 2011 to now (June 2012).

I've begun meditating and it has been doing wonders for me!  I'm so grateful to our Awesome God for leading me in this direction and only wish I would've started when I first heard the whispers to begin it.

I'm working to improve my balancing skills.  This includes improving in all the following areas (though not all the time because I'm simply not perfect!): scripture reading/study, focused and purposeful prayer, homeschooling, housekeeping, frugal feeding, building food storage, broadening my preparedness skills, eliminating plastics (ever so slowly!), exercising, relationship improvement and nurturing (ALL of them), and (most importantly and probably inclusive of all previously mentioned) following the Lord's Will and becoming a TRUE Disciple of Christ!