SOS Conference Giveaway!

I would have given my left arm to go to this conference. But winning the Audio CDs of it would be the next best thing! Honestly the line-up of speakers is like no other conference. Voddie Baucham, Ken Ham, Paul Washer, Doug Phillips and more! We'd never have been able to attend. But you can buy the Audio CDs here: http://ncfic.org/conferenceaudiopreorder BUT first, the lovely family over at Inashoe is giving away 3 FREE sets if you follow the guidelines on their blog Inashoe . So whether you order them or get them free, it will definitely be a blessing! Wish me luck! And you luck!

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.