Truly Excited About School

There is a moment in whatever it is where you have that "ah ha" moment. Yeah yeah I quote Oprah. Don't hold it against me. For the last 5 years I have homeschooled. We did fine. The children have learned to read. And add. The have good handwriting. They're learning grammar. We've been getting the job done. But that's what it's been. Getting the job done. And that is okay. But it's not what I always wanted for them. Getting the job done isn't enough for me. At least not right now while I'm not pregnant or sick :)

I have some friends that school with a strong Classical leaning. They are inspiring ladies to say the least. Go check them out. Dell and AmyKate truly amaze me in what they do with their lovely families with ease. Over the years I have watched and listened to what they were doing and always felt that there was no way I could school like they do. But I was always in awe of their use of living books, their children's writing, and general passion for learning.

So I went and got The Well Trained Mind from the library. I started to read and was absorbed. It was almost obsessive! I read. And read. Then it lived in the bathroom. Yeah maybe library books in the bathroom is bad form. I never thought about until this moment. *blush*. Every chance I got I read that book. Here's a link to a page that gives the basic premise. Classical Education ala WTM. It was as if the heavens parted, a lightbulb went off over my head, and everything just fell into place.

I could do this. I could teach my children the way I wanted to. I didn't have to just get the job done. I "got it". I had already started Tapestry of Grace (love love) which is a classical curriculum but I started adding in more suggestions ala WTM like copywork, narrations, memorization in younger ones, her writing suggestions for older ones, and more. My children are thriving. She explains the three stages of learning and how to teach children based on their developmental stage. Blew my mind in the clarity it brought me. I could WHY to teach my 6yo one way and why I have to teach my 10 yo differently. I understood how to teach writing. That was a biggie. I have developed this love, no PASSION, for books. I've rethought Science. And am actually thrilled about it instead of dreading change like I always do. I hate change. I do. And I am now revamping lots of things! Yeah it really was an "ah ha" moment.

But more than anything, I am excited. Which makes them excited. I am thrilled to understand how all the pieces of what we're doing work together and how that works as they get older. It's not just a day by day thing. I see our future goals more clearly now.

Tab Check Tuesday

http://livingaslights.blogspot.com/2009/11/yelling-kids-in-line-of-fire.html
Did a little tab check. Here are some random websites open in tabs in my Firefox right now. Enjoy.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/GarlandsOfGrace

http://visionarydaughters.com/quiz/

http://mcpactions.com/blog/2009/11/19/over-300-incredible-photography-tips-from-mcp-fans/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mcpactions+%28MCP+Actions+Blog%29&utm_content=Bloglines

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/

http://bluebehemoth.com/

http://needleinahaystackstitchery.blogspot.com/

http://jenniwren32.blogspot.com/

Beauty in the little things

Go here first and see her oh-so-lovely laundry room.

http://pleasantviewschoolhouse.blogspot.com/2007/04/beauty-in-laundry-room.html

Just looking at that makes laundry not seem so bad. I can see myself with sunshine beaming through the window as I iron Clay's shirt on that floral ironing board cover.

Oh to make my surrounding such that I can't stand to see them messed up. Oh to make the little things beautiful. To have my laundry soap in a cute metal bucket with a metal measuring scoop. To have large floral ribbons weaved through my laundry baskets so that when they're filled with homeless socks they aren't an eyesore but an addition to my bathroom. I want to make or really should I be wanting to SEE the areas of house as beautiful and lovely; places that I straighten up as I walk by to keep them looking beautiful.

On a side note, this is a great idea to me:
See how she uses an actual bed pillow with on the couch? How much easier would it be to try and find cute vintage pillowcases than pillows? I actually love this and will be doing it ASAP!

Honestly though. Run on over to PleasantVilleSchoolhouse. She has post after post showing the beauty in the little things of her life, of her home. Inspiring.

If you blog...

There's this post. This one here at Rocks In My Dryer. Go read it. It says things like this:

"But there is undeniable part of blogging that feeds a part of us (me) that is, perhaps, not the most sensible part: the part that craves to "measure" ourselves, the part that is naturally drawn to a false sense of urgency, the part that needs to be heard even when there's not really anything to say. "

Then you move onto the comments. READ THE COMMENTS. Yes, that was a command. Heed it. But you move onto the comments and you read things like this:

It was feeding something unhealthy in me - mostly a whole lot of narcissism. It was hard to admit that to myself, that I was wasting so much time on something that was essentially just a big ego booster. It felt awfully self indulgent.

I have felt God yelling at me to 'find the quiet' (yes, I see the irony in that statement). Blogging has started to feel like a highschool clique, and I'm certainly not part of the in group. I had started to wish I was the popular blog out there instead of just enjoying writing when I was inspired and had something to say. I was starting to fret if I hadn't blogged for a few days, worried that I was losing readers.

What was supposed to be a place to practice my writing sort of morphed into a journal and then a place to complain about anythign and everything. And then suddenly, I become more concerned with catering to the people that I thought might be reading my blog and I worried about what would draw them in and keep them

Seems like lately I come across a lot of blogs where the writer starts by saying that they don't have anything to blog about however they manage to write a very lengthy post about nothing

WHY do I do this? Is it pride? Is it making friends? Is it wanting to feel interesting or needed?

My post from last night and then reading this made me think. I haven't been posting because things aren't perfect. In fact, they're far from perfect. Really far. From here to China far. I haven't been doing great things. I haven't been canning or gardening. I haven't been finally conquering the behavior problems with the kids. Or keeping the bathroom spotless because of some great inspirational cleaning routine.

I started this to document things for my family. I could have stayed on my other blog with the readers I already had. Comments everyday sure are nice and who doesn't love the pat-on-the-back of loads of comments? But I moved. To start a blog more for our family. More about our family. And SO fast I came back to this place where I was blogging for other people, and hey, NOT blogging because of other people. In the same respect, I haven't been blogging real life BECAUSE family reads this blog. Who really wants their Grandmother (Hi Gramma! IF you've gotten this far and haven't turned back because my ramblings are too weird and annoying, I'm waving to you *wave*) but who wants their Gramma to read that they just can't seem to climb Mt. Laundry?

But if I don't mention Mt. Laundry I never post. lol!

SO what's the answer? I'm not sure. Part of me wants to not blog at all. Part of me wants to just cut this internet off and be done. Part of me wants to be able to just throw it all out the window and blog like a journal. Part of me wants to limit the blog to family stuff and farm stuff with no ramblings. Who knows. I don't. I know myself well enough to know I won't stop 100%. I know myself well enough to know I won't stop being on the internet. I wish I would. But I won't. Just won't happen. BUT I need to do something about my internet addiction. Maybe that should be the first step. To step back. Now how to do that? I'm an all-or-nothing gal. I'll pray about it and talk about it tomorrow. I've been thinking and praying about this internet thing for a while.

But for now you get my "I'm doing a blog post about whether or not to do a blog post" post. Which brings me back to another great post from the original post here

(In other words, I think writing a 47-part blogging series about Why We Probably Shouldn't Be Blogging So Much might be a little disingenous, don't you think?)

Hmm... blogging about why I blog. Blogging about whether to blog. Spending time on the internet debating whether to be on the internet. Ever wonder if because you're wondering you should just get up and stop?

See ya.

Late night bits

It's been a while. And I know why. I don't want to admit it, but I do. At first glance it feels like I have the whole "I have nothing interesting to blog about" syndrome. But deeper, it's not that. Not that at all.

I know I'm not the only one who feels like I do. Like at the end of every day there is disappointment. Just that feeling of not having given 100%. The feeling of not having done enough, not tried hard enough, been selfish, been on the computer too much, or too much tv. Too many times where a child had to ask me something 4 times before I responded. Too many times where I said "no". "No" we can't play a board game. "No" you can't play playdough. "No" you can't sit on my lap. Too many dishes undone before bed. Too much laundry piled up. Too many chores undone. Too many times I was not the mother the Lord wants me to be. Too many times I was not the wife the Lord wants me to be. Too many times I didn't speak with kindness. Too many times I was actually mean. Too many times where I saw behaviors in the children I did not address. Too many times where I saw my behavior mirrored in their behavior. Too little prayer. Too little time in the Word. Too many times where guiding was really nagging. Too much laziness.

I'm sure by now you get it. And no, it's not a pity party. It is what it is. At the end of the day when I usually blog, it feels fake to talk about the little things done when everything else is left undone. It feels fake to do homemakery posts when I feel like a struggling homemaker. Same with fun children stuff when all day I was a "No" Mom.

So I'm going to work on crocheting this snood for myself, wait for Clay's clothes for work to dry (yeah he needs clean clothes for tomorrow and there's none in the closet. Sue me) and then set the alarm to go off at a reasonable time, spend time in the Word and start afresh tomorrow with a new Make and Share Monday scrapbooking post and you can pretend this didn't happen.

Odds and Ends

A few minutes before bed to blahbitty blah blah.

A, have you been getting turkeys? Cheap turkeys? What? You haven't? It's pre-Thanksgiving time people. Right now at Walmarts all over the country there have been reports of 40 cents a lb turkeys. The turkeys have been around $5.50. Yeah 5 big bucks. Now there's a 2 turkey at a time limit. Over the last few days we've gotten 8. I sure wish I lived closer to town. I want 30 total. It's not looking good. But I've got my mom on the turkey hunt and she's going to be getting me 2 a day when they have them. Go Team Mom!

And in case you didn't know, turkeys are great. Yeah I wish I could afford nice free range turkeys (we raised our own this year, and unfortunately didn't take good enough care of our baby turkey poults this Spring) but at $40+ a turkey for free range, it's not in the budget. But 5 BUCKS?! Dude. And turkeys go so far. Far far far. See next paragraph. :)

So we cooked a turkey today. Actually it's me cleaning out all of last year's turkeys. We had a huge Thanksgiving turkey meal. Ahh the wonders of my mom coming and making homemade stuffing with sausage and mushrooms. Yum. But we ate loads of turkey. Then I stripped loads of turkey meat off. LOTS of it. And I put the carcass in the crock pot for soup. I easily have 2 full meals worth of shredded turkey meat. And more for soup. All those meals include a full dinner, lunch for Clay, and leftovers for us at home the next day. So that's how many meals? 8 meals in total? For $5 for the meat? Understand now why I want so many? 2 turkeys a month. Wouldn't want one every week cause we'd get sick of them, but every other week? Go budget, it's your birthday.....

What's that sound? You running to Walmart? Pick me up one while you're there eh?

*note* some Walmarts have been selling out of turkeys. The manager told my mom to call ahead of time. Might be worth a call if you live 30-45 minutes away like we do.

*note 2* if I were a cool blogger I would have taken a picture of the turkey and crock pot and whatnot. Does it ever feel ODD to take pictures of things like cutting meat off a turkey carcass? Sometimes it feels way too weird. When you're ripping tendons and hacking away at the turkey it feels pretty full of myself to take pictures of that grossness and feel like people will care about them. **Then I type out my post and wish I had taken the weirdness, narcissistic pictures to make my blog post look cool.**

B, Forget my old Last Hoorah post. I've had many of them in the last week. I'll touch on that Monday. Or late tomorrow night. Blasted weight loss. I hate it. Why can't I look like a goddess at 200 lbs? Why? Or live in one of those countries where they love their women fat? Now that, THAT would be nice. To weigh 200 lbs and be thought of as the most attractive woman in the room. Okay I don't seek to have men look at me, in fact I try to dress modestly so they don't. And the heavier I am the harder it is to dress modestly and feminine. It's not easy to find feminine modest clothes at Goodwill. So maybe the other country business would be even worse? um...No. It wouldn't. Where ARE these magical places people talk about anyways? And anyone want to make me some nursing jumpers or find some XL blouses for me at Goodwill? Okay. THis is it. So this is the LAST Last Hoorah Day LOL! Time to lose this weight. It wasn't so bad really. Some homemade stevia chocolate before bed. But let's not forget that I ate a plate and a half of Thanksgiving dinner. Even it being 5 hours ago and it was still Last Hoorah worthy. If I lived in that magical Fatland would I eat Thanksgiving every week? Do you think women specifically TRY to get fat there and being skinny is considered the state in which women are to strive to not be? That would be weird right? "Ew look at how skinny she is. Blech. Honey I love your fat." Okay enough. Must go to sleep. Can you see my tiredness morphing into madness? Eh... ignore my ramblings. This is just the tiniest glimpse into the rambling nonsense that makes my sweet rational, reasonable husband roll his eyes at me :) I love him.

C, Why am I up this late? Oh yeah, babies who don't sleep. Or prefer staying up until 1am and then sleeping til 9. I've never had a baby sleep through the night before the age of 2! And here I have this baby that sleeps 8 hours at night. But seriously me not being able to go to sleep until 1-2am isn't a huge help. I really need to buckle down and get working on him going to bed earlier. The first key is... NO, I don't want to say it. I can't. Sigh. Getting him *cough Me cough* up earlier.

D, Thanks mom for coming over and making a pre-Thanksgiving meal with me.

E, and because I read something that said people hate blog posts without pictures... I leave you with this. Garrison...
And that headdress thing was brought back from Egypt, real Egypt by my mom. Why Garrison is wearing it and why he looks so grumpy in all the pictures I found of him wearing it, I don't know. But it just feels like this post. That's what I should be wearing right now as I typed it. And I leave with that look on my face.

Sleep. Must. Find. It.

Our Hospital Stay....

I've been missing this last week or so. You know you were thinking I was going to get back into the blogging almost every day thing again. And I am. Unless we're in the hospital with the baby that is!

Early last week Cassie and Adric had a little bout of something or another. They both had little fevers. But it all lasted just a day or two. Adric was sick for only about 12 hours! But because of the baby, my great mom came and took the fevery children away from the house until they were well.

Thursday Garrison had a little of an off day. He slept most of the day. But Friday he was feeling fine so I just figured, hey, normal baby stuff. But then Saturday mom came over and we were going Goodwilling. But Garrison wasn't feeling so great. He was fussy fussy. He would fuss when I picked him up instead of being comforted when I picked him up. I realized he was hot. So I took his under arm temperature. It was 101.5. I immediately called the on call nurse for the pediatricians and she said "Take him to the Emergency Room right now". Sigh. Just what every mom with a 5 week old needs to hear to make her a worried mess.

So we went.

And it turns out that with babies that age, it's a 100% "Better Safe Than Sorry" policy. Because newborns can go downhill so fast when things ARE serious, they treat things like they are serious until they find out they're not. So they take a spinal tap, blood and urine to culture all three to rule out any sort of bacterial type infection.

Ahh spinal taps in little babies. Not the best thing to watch. But I'm not one to be squeamish, so I watched all his procedures. Did you realize that little itty bitty babies have litty itty bitty veins? Yeah, 2 HOURS, 4 sticks, and 10+ people later, Hartley got his IV in. And he was a tad too dehydrated from his fever to get spinal fluid. He'd need ANOTHER spinal tap later. Great...

I did get to go in an ambulance. They transferred us from our local hospital to the Children's Hospital in Nashville. Mandatory 48 hour stay. There they did another spinal tap, got all his IV antibiotics going and by 2:30AM we were in a room. Poor Clay. He probably got to sleep at 3:30 and his alarm went off at 5 to go to work.

So I spent the next two days in the hospital. Let me just say, it's like Grand Central Station in the hospital room of a baby. All.... night.... long..... And let me also say that antibiotics make my baby Hartley gassy. And that gassy Hartleys stay up most of the night fussing.

Oh and they also give you meals if you're breastfeeding the baby. Nice. And you get to order off a stacked huge menu. Nice again. And let me give you an idea of how good the food is. I ordered PORK LOIN in the hospital. Twice. And it was fantastic.

But after 2 days, the cultures came back fine and we were discharged! I've spent the last week glad for a baby with no fever, trying to get the children back into normal life, and get my sleep schedule better again.

To all my friends and family that prayed for Hartley and sent well wishes, it was more than appreciated. Love you.

Back to regular blogging tomorrow.

Beautiful Results!

Okay sometimes we need God to show us that what we're doing is working, that what we're doing is important. I'm so dorky to be excited about this right?

So since I originally typed my beauty post, which was a handful of days before posting it, I really have been trying hard to get the house in order and just looking nice. This morning I awoke to THIS email:
Making an effort in the little things does NOT go unnoticed even if you never get a thank you email.

What is even more lovely to me is how working on the little details adds to the big picture, making Clay think to thank me for the things I have done for a long long time.

There are some things I normally do to show Clay how much I love and appreciate him. I gather Clay's clothes before bed so at 4:30 in the morning he can just walk in the bathroom and take a shower. He has an ironed shirt everyday. And I make his breakfast and lunch everyday. I make a container of oatmeal, a quart of unsweet tea, a quart smoothie with raw milk and strawberries, a lunch, and now that he's working until 9:30 at night, a dinner as well. And I set up his coffee maker, grinding the beans, setting it up so her can just turn it on, setting out a coffee cup.

And if you rolled your eyes thinking how old-fashioned that all is, and how I'm giving into male/female stereotypes, that's good!

To see the beauty....

Clay loves Fall. He loves it. Every time we step outside he revels in the beauty of the colors of the trees. He'd live somewhere that was Fall all the time. I can see awe in his eyes at God's creation.

And there's me, looking, thinking it's pretty and all, but...

There was a time as a young wife that I was SO focused on bringing beauty to every area of our lives. At that time, Clay and I lived in a schoolbus. It was a rockin' long schoolbus. And I made it home. We had a bed, a dresser, a rod for our hung clothes. It had a wood stove and a propane stove and oven. It had recliners and a small couch and a bookshelf. Everywhere you looked you could see touches of beauty I had tried to instill in our little humble abode. Curtains, doilies hung over backs of chairs, random little things here and there that as a new wife were my ways of showing love for Clay and bringing beauty to our simple lives.

After we moved here to TN, as a young wife I wore lovely skirts and dresses everyday. I did my hair and wore a nice floor length floral apron. We lived in a.. hmmm what's the word for it? Very hillbilly looking shack I mean house. And still again it was lovely in it's way. I had nice curtains, throw blankets on our free stained couches to try and cheer them up, a nice green rug on the floor, everywhere again there was me trying to bring beauty in the little things.

Now as Clay looks with wide eyes at the glory of the leaves changing color I sit and ask myself "Where's the awe?". As I sit in my nonfeminine grey sweat pants, needing a shower, with not a single picture of my children on the walls, and ask myself again....

"Where's the awe?"
(okay it's not a picture of Fall, but man, the beauty of that simple little creek running over rocks!)

Where's the awe in how amazing it is that the Lord blessed me with a husband to love and care for, truly amazing children to train and love on, a home in the country to tend, just a life that is so overflowing with blessings I can't number?

Somewhere amidst laundry piles, dirty walls, diapers to change, tangles to comb out and school to do I forgot to look around and see the beauty in life. And it shows. I no longer get up and put on lovely feminine clothes. I no longer leave scriptures in Clay's lunch. I no longer try and make little corners of my house lovely. I no longer plan meals ahead to be 100% sure we have nutritious meals for our family. I no longer keep the house in the beauty that is order and cleanliness. I no longer make it a priority to keep my body beautiful and slim.

I've officially let myself go. And everything else in a way. I've stopped appreciating the beauty in an organized closet, in not only clean dishes but an empty dishdrainer (*gasp*), in a mopped floor (do people actually still DO that?), I've stopped appreciating the beauty of straightened books on a shelf, of colored leaves strung on strings around the house for Fall (do I have to actually DO that now that I've posted it? *help*).

I've heard it a gazillion times about learning to love homemaking, learning to love the little things like laundry and dishes. Honestly I don't love those things. I may never. BUT I purpose to start seeing the beauty in them well done. To look in the mirror with a nice skirt on in the morning and see the beauty the Lord sees in me, that Clay does. I purpose to not just look in the mirror and see the overweght woman, he one that doesn't need to look nice because what difference does it make? I purpose to smile when I smooth out wrinkles in our bed in the morning. I purpose to cover that bulletin board with pretty fabric and hang it up. I purpose to empty the dishdrainer, wipe down the counter and see it's beauty.

When I think of the Lord's creation, the tiny details He made with such loving care, I am reminded that I need to treat the little details of life with such loving care whether it's combing tangles out of 8yo hair or stacking cups in the cabinet. Beautiful.

Tuesday's Things To Do

Last night Cassie and Adric both had fevers so my amazing Mom drove 45 minutes to come pick them and take them to her house to keep the baby safe in case of them having the flu. Thankfully they're feeling better this morning, with Cassie only having a slight fever this morning. They're still there and enjoying being spoiled by their Nana. We all like a little Nana spoiling now and then right?

That leaves me with Frankie (9), Garrison (2), and the baby. I'm kind of letting Frankie have a free day today. He will work with me tonight on the kitchen but for now he's having a free day. The baby's asleep and Garrison's laying down for a nap.

So now what do I do?! I'm never without children. And it's not just not having lots around to deal with arguments or boo-boos or special drawings to look at. But it's also not having them to HELP me with the things I need done. I am looking around at some things and I realize I never clean them! Like the bathroom. I only do once in a blue moon and it's when I'm doing deep cleaning with Bleach and tea tree oil. Or straightening the blue desk. Or anything on the floor :) What a blessing having older children is in terms of house cleaning. They all make more mess but they sure clean well too!

On top of it, Clay's working late (until 9 or 9:30pm). I miss him so when he's gone.

*note* to make myself actually DO this, and for some sort of accountability, I'm going to post before and after pictures of some of these areas. Kind of scary posting this for all to see. But hey, I'm not perfect. And um... Grandma.... ignore the pictures of the mess. Just come back later to see the pictures of my nice clean house. Got to keep up appearances and all.

So the plans for today:

Watch V the series that's on Sci Fi today :) DONE! LOL!

Deep clean the kitchen counters. - DONE! Before:
After:

Clean out the baking pan cabinet, wiping and reorganizing. Before: status - job for tomorrow.

Clean bathroom (not sparkling, but normal day to day cleaning). - DONE! Before:
And After:

General straighten - DONE!

Fold all the laundry. Before: - status report: In fact that laundry pile grew more than twice it's size! It now fills the whole couch AND the coffee table has three laundry baskets of clean laundry on it. Now how did THAT happen?

Put laundry away

Straighten living room bookshelf. - DONE! Before:
After:

Cut out the pieces of Cassie's skirt - didn't even think about this! There most definitely wasn't time to find to do this. I wish I would have though!
Twirly Skirt Free and Easy Pattern and Instructions

Okay off to start. I'll be back to post after pictures as they come!

My Last Hoorah

We all have done it. The last hoorah. You know what I’m talking about. The night before your new diet, and all bets are off. The night before the new diet. Pizza at 10 at night, followed by a couple cookies, the bottom of a strawberry milkshake (okay smoothie but still) a bowl of ice cream. And on and on. I mean tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of your life and all that jazz right?

Until tomorrow comes :)

Then you screw up and eat whatever. Yesterday’s long awaited tomorrow just became the new last hoorah because you’re starting OFFICIALLY this time, tomorrow. And you just had two, count em two, binge nights. Then two turns into three and instead of skinnier from this new diet, your new diet made you GAIN 10 lbs.

Help. I need to stop. Tomorrow’s the beginning of the best of the best food life. I hope. Well either way, tomorrow’s the beginning of no more last hoorahs. It may not be a perfect eating day but it won’t be a last hoorah day.

I hope.

Hey wait does that make today’s last hoorah the last hoorah of last hoorahs?

Help. I need help.

Blogging is an interesting thing

I used to have a blog, long ago, that had a much larger and loyal (now note I didn't say MORE loyal!) audience. I loved that blog in so many ways. One is because my audience was different than what I perceived my audience to be when I switched to this blog. There were things I posted there daily that somehow didn't become part of my postings here. I didn't ever really stop and think about it purposefully. But over time I found myself posting less and less on this blog where on my other blog I blogged regularly. With a focus here on mostly homesteading, I had stopped posting unless there was a picture, I stopped posting about the simple things of our days, I stopped posting about weight, and what we ate, homeschooling, God, and on and on. I had stopped posting about most of what made me me and what made our life one that is my joy. What have I been thinking? I should just give it up if I'm not going to be all of me. What fun is that anyways? You're missing out on how utterly cool I am. Well and crazy and you'll get that too as I get back to posting about the realities of our life. But ce la vie. What's cool without a little crazy anyways?

I hear women talking about blogging all the time. They don't feel they have anything worthwhile to say. They make comments about how no one's reading their blog anyway... Many of us have felt blog jealousy at either how perfect someone's life 'looks', how gorgeous their blog is, how successful their blog is, honestly it's never ending. As women our insecurities come blazing out guns loaded for lots of us when it comes to our blogs. When honestly the blogs we really love the most are women (or men) just being THEMSELVES. So how did I get where I wasn't just BEING? Not just being myself but just being? Bah. Stupid self-conscious self.

After having started this and not having the chance to return to finish it, honestly it made me chuckle to see how flawed and neurotic I can be. Blogging? Ah yes, something definitely worth fretting and overthinking right? :) :) :) You'd think I didn't have children and animals and weight and homeschoooling to overthink and fret about. Well at least I got a momentary self-conscious, overthinking, not-really-that-deep ramble off my chest so that I can move on to blogging the way I want. Blogging about the things that matter to me whether they matter to anyone else. Blogging because I want family to know about our lives. Blogging because I have friends that do as well. Blogging because I want to write memories down before they're gone. Blogging because there's a community of online bloggers that I enjoy being a part of. Blogging because I love my life and hope that a glimmer of the joy of my life helps someone be able to see the joy in theirs. Blogging because it gives me a chance to get some of my neurotic ramblings somewhere then just unloaded on my hardworking not-too-verbal husband who lovingly listens to me go on and on. Enjoy lol! AND you know you love a good neurotic Christian homesteading homeschooling lack of sleep having needing to lose weight Mom ramble. You know you do. Admit it.

It's these moments

After a long, hard day, the kind of day where you really start to think you are the worst mother in the world and are more than ill-equipped to raise these children to love and serve the Lord, it's these moments that make it all worthwhile.

Background - early this Spring we had the money to get a beehive and start with bees. Clay's realllly into getting bees. But it turns out that Frankie didn't realize that all the trial month games on our phone that he was ordering cost well.... money. My cell phone was on my mom's plan for next to nothing. But it's not next to nothing when your 9yo runs up a $300 bill in ONE MONTH. Sigh. So bees were out. We paid my mom back and Frankie well... was in debt. Over the course of the Summer he's sloooooowly paid off $50 or so of the debt. (He's not so into paying it off). But now he wants to pay it off so that he can do odd jobs to make a little money to buy some hens for his banty roosters.

More background - Adric (5yo) has this jar lid of money. It's his most prized possession. Every penny, every nickel goes in there. It's something special I tell ya. The lid. God forbid anyone even looks like they're by the lid.

So tonight after my "insane, no-good, horrible mom" day, Adric out of the blue walks up to Clay. He says he wants to pay off Frankie's debt (the $250 debt BTW). He explains how he must have enough in his lid to pay it off. He says that it makes him sad to think that Frankie will be working it off forever and asked if he paid Clay the money if Frankie could be free of the debt. *insert mom tears here*.

So Clay has him go get his money. They count it out. $2.95. Turns out that's just how much was needed from a 5yo little brother to pay off a $250 debt. *insert more tears here*

Maybe I won't ruin these children after all.

Here's the sweetest 5yo in the history of 5yos.

Stinging Caterpillars Batman!

So after Clay took Adric on a rockin 4wheel drive trek through the woods they went out to check the corn field/pumpkin patch. Suddenly they come in saying Adric got stung by a caterpillar. A caterpillar? Seriously? After I put a paste of meat tenderizer on it because I found it before the bentonite clay, they proceed to tell me tales of the weirdest looking caterpillar they've ever seen. Spots and horns and poison hairs. Treks through corn jungles to find the allusive horned poison hair spot caterpillar. Yeah yeah guys. Men and their fish tales and all that jazz.

Then Clay shows me this picture:

And suddenly I realize how glad I am to have missed the grand adventure because I don't have any desire to get stung by that thing. It's a Saddleback Caterpillar by the way.

*note* Adric normally is very sensitive to things like bites. But we dabbed tape on the sting to check for poison hairs and put the meat tenderizer and he doesn't have even have so much as a bump. When he came in he had a big spot where the main sting was and a red ring around it, but getting the hairs is key and sucking out the poison with clay, activated charcoal, plantain, or meat tenderizer.

The Makings of a Great Day

Fabulous breakfast of Whole Wheat Dutch Pancakes with Amish Apple Butter and Raw Whipped Cream Sauce.

Church at home with Dad that including fun singing, laughing, a good Bible story and children inspired enough to make homemade paper puppets of the story of Zacchaeus and give Mom and Dad a puppet show (pictures later).

Lovely time hanging out on the front porch while Clay grilled. Hot but a nice breeze blowing, me crocheting a dishcloth, children sitting nicely with us, being great. Loving front porches lately.

Great lunch. A cookout with BBQ chicken drumsticks with Grillin Beans, chips, corn on the cob from the garden and stevia lemonade. With coupons I had, all that cost me $6. And let me say, I LOVE BBQ chicken legs.

Me, going to see Julie and Julia by myself. Clay even feeding the little people dinner while I was gone.

Finishing a scrapbook layout that night.

Great day.

I guess I'm not ready

To live without electricity. I want to. BUT last night... the storm knocked out the power. And this big pregnant woman, with a headache, lay in bed drenched in sweat with no A/C, tossing and turning most of the night cursing the fact that the electricity was out, cursing the heat, cursing this dream I have of living with electricity. The dream was shattered.

Until tomorrow when I forget how hot I was.

Laziness

This is a few weeks old, but Clay went on the roof for this shot. Since then, many things are considerably bigger. Tomatoes are huge, cucumbers spilling over the trellis, winter squash is vigorously spreading out and filling every available space. As are sweet potatoes, as are.... weeds. Weeds weeds and more weeds....

A garden is a wonderful thing. It's taught me SO much this year. So many lessons learned in a garden. Some good, some bad. Of late it's taught me that I am a lazy person. Oh yes, the era of not just blogging happy go lucky stuff for the fam has begun.

I'm not being hard on myself, I'm not. Gardens that go untended, lack of clean laundry, no plan for dinner, worse yet, Bible not read, yet all message boards checked and scrapbook pages made. Honestly I feel that the list of things going undone applies to every area of my life right now. Oh how many women get to this point where they feel overwhelmed by everything, where everything feels and IS out of control. But the Lord doesn't want this for my life, for anyone's life really. He doesn't want us to drown under being a mom, a homemaker, teacher, and wife. He wants us to thrive for HIS glory. And hey, it's not what I want for myself, my husband, not what I want to model to my children, not a good witness of the Lord's power and strength, and just drains me. Oh how I cry out to the Lord this verse today!

-For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
-If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
-Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
-For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
-For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.Now if -I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
-I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
-But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
-O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
-I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Romans 7:15-25

Now my nature is to now come up with a huge list of schedules and whatnot and try and get crackin. But that hasn't worked in the past and won't work now. I need to start where I should have always started. With the Lord. Period. What that means, I'm searching out. Sure there's all the "DO" things that I want to assign myself.... read the Bible X amount, start reading the Bible from the beginning, setting up devotional time, doing memory verses, listening to sermons, turning off the tv, etc. etc. All those godly things that surely will fix me right up. Right up. Before you know it, I'll be the perfect godly wife.......

Stop Kim, stop. There's nothing wrong with those things. I'm sure they will find their place as thing change here. But there is one thing to do. Fall on my face and pray. Pray for wisdom, guidance, for strength. Tell the Lord my troubles. Go the HIM in all this. Because "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".