Week in Pictures

  Stuffed Animals ~ Guardians of the Sleep

 Like Father ~ Like Son

 Little Man's First Sloppy Joes

Do you see two monkeys in the tree?

Today

Today was a good day. It was a different sort of day, not way out of the ordinary but just a little out of routine, a brief respite to the end of the week.

Hubby didn't have to leave early so I got to spend time with him this morning before he left.  Then I spent some quiet time by myself, first with my Bible and then with my computer.  I was able to read, contemplate, comprehend and then reflect a little.  That is something I have been missing with my Bible lately.

After that I was able to interact with friends far and near all without climbing from my warm, welcoming bed.  It was during that time that I was reminded that 25 years ago today, was a Tuesday and the State of the Union address was scheduled for that night, not that my 11 year old mind really cared about it.  That speech didn't happen that night, instead the news was taken up with the tragedy that unfolded 73 seconds after the final lift-off of the Space Shuttle Challenger.  THAT was something that interested this 11 year old girl.

The discussion of that event would open up several discussions throughout the day, and was a catalyst to further renewal of an old friendship.  But that was later.

First I woke the kiddos, and after a rush to get ready, I treated them to breakfast before a morning of errands, which needed to be done but working together we made it fun and everything got done.  Returning home to school lite, Friday's are like that around here and then lunch.  We settled in for an afternoon of laziness, relaxing and then of more work, this time of the housecleaning variety.  We actually got quite a bit done, which was a pleasant surprise.

Once Dad returned home, also fairly early, Pumpkin went to a sleep over and the boys were treated to some much deserved outside time, while Mom cooked dinner.

Today while filled with the ordinary, but yet put together in different ways, made it unique and good, really, really good.

Waiting............

Quite frankly waiting is the pits.....I wanted to use stronger language but I won't.  I commented to a friend of mine that I am still floundering when it comes to my writing, and well to be honest, my theme too.  And she so gently? reminded me that maybe I'm not floundering, but in reality waiting. And that comment almost brought tears to my eyes.

Not because she made it, nor how she made it, nothing about her at all.  But because of me. And the fact that I don't.like.to.wait.  I hate it.  Especially for something that I know nothing about, but someone else does.  To me that is the hardest kind of waiting. To discover, to find out, to understand......

Let me explain, if you have a surprise for me,  just surprise me with it. DON"T tell me you have a surprise for me and then tell me I have to wait to find out what it is. If the surprise is something in my future let me be in my own little life until such time that you can reveal the surprise, THEN tell me about it.  It is that unknown thing again.  That fear.

Isn't however, just like God, to use the thing that drives you nuts the most to teach you something.  So I decided, right here and now to wait on Him, whose Will is perfect and for my good and His glory.

And of course the verse I was meditating on as I went to sleep last night comes to mind

Be Still (sound like waiting some more), And Know that I am God.   Psalm 46:10a

quotes

If I could go back and do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing because the path I took (though a little bumpy) led me to the life I have today!

The above quote is something I read on a FB status today.  It has given me a lot to think about.  

First of all, I wanted to share it myself and point out a few people that I wanted to read it.  Recent events have given me the opportunity to reevaluate choices I made in my life.  And some of those choices caused me some very very bumpy places in my life.  Put me in some uncomfortable places. But, in those choices, were some very important lessons learned, even 18 years after the fact.  

However, as I sat down to write this, I decided that if I had sought and followed God's plan, I wouldn't have made the  mistakes   And though that I would not have had some of the heartaches that I experienced along the way.  And of course that thought gave me pause to think.  Why was I trying to glorify mistakes that I have made?  Why was I making a point to point out those mistakes?

However, I don't think that it was the mistakes I should concentrated on, but the lessons learned along the way.  God can and will used mistakes for our good and His glory.   

Anne~with~an~e

I have been taken back to early teen years lately.  Early childhood was taken up with Little House on the Prairie.  I read those books ravenously and repeatedly from the third grade until about the sixth grade.  My beloved grandmother fed my book addiction, she bought me my first complete set of Little House books and replaced two I read to tatters (On the Banks of Plum Creek, and Little Town on the Prairie).  She also bought me the complete set in hardback once I got older.

But that is not what this blog is about out.  One summer Grandmother (and that is what she was, not Grandma, Granny, Nana or anything else, she was and always will be Grandmother) introduced me to Anne.  That summer consisted of several trips to the neighboring town to buy the next book in the series, for she would read them first and then would give them to me.  I also have the complete set of Anne books she inscribed to me.  I have since read them repeatedly both the original set and another of which I have purchased myself, so as to save the set she gave me.

Just this past Christmas, I received a Kindle.  and I LOVE it.  And I also have the Anne books on Kindle, as least as far as I have reread, I am up to Anne's House of Dreams.  They are my very first collection of books on my Kindle and I felt it appropriate to christen my Kindle with some of the books that my beloved Grandmother who fostered my love of reading, and of Anne, gave to me.

In the days and weeks since Christmas I have revisited several memories and spent a lot of time with Grandmother, even though she is no longer here, and I have Anne~with~an~e to thank for it.

25 minutes

That is how long I have to get this entry posted while today is still called today and not yesterday.  In reality this is the third time that I have tried to start this entry.  And it hasn't gotten any easier to get past the first few lines. But I promised I would and so I shall. 

Why did I promise that I would write?  What do I have to say?  Who do I think is going to read this?  I don't know the answers to any of those questions.  I just know that I am drawn to write, but yet I don't because I don't have the answers to those questions.  Those answers represent the great unknown to me.  And the unknown is something that I fear.  That fear keeps me enslaved.  Keeps me bound to the comfortable world of what I know.  The world of what I was brought up on, being safe, secure, take no risks that could land you in places that aren't 'safe'.  And I am finding I don't like that.  Not that I don't like being comfortable, or safe.  Those are things I enjoy very much.  But I don't like the feeling of being bound, the enslavement that goes along with it, the suffocation and the feeling that I am not really living.  So I am going to face that fear,  make a stand, step out and do something about it.

That is why I am writing.  If no one reads it, if no one responds to it, well maybe, I chose the wrong venue or maybe that writing was just for me.  I don't know.  But I know one thing I have discovered in the few minutes since I started this writing.  That writing fuels my thinking. And with that fuel I was able to realize yet one more thing about myself.  And that 15 minutes was 15 minutes well spent.

Where I do what all good teachers do and piggy back an idea.

There used to be a time that I blogged almost daily.  I loved coming to the computer and relating parts of my day or lessons learned etc.  But that has been long ago.  I have tried to do so again and again but live has gotten busy. But I want to I want to have a voice, to use this, to help someone if it is only me I help.  But if this is going to happen I must actually blog.  And I know enough about myself that if I don't schedule a time and make it a priority it won't.get.done.

So like dear Dana  I am going to challenge myself to blog something, a thought, a picture, a list, a recipe, a thought provoking post, everyday, between now and the end of February (there is one weekend I will be gone and I may not have internet access but all other days are fair game :-) )

And also like Dana, I will take requests, I may need material, so leave any you may have in ye olde comments sections below.

Daily Routine

One of my goals for the new year is a daily routine that lets me get everything done and still have time for me etc.   So I have sketched out one that I will be working on the next few weeks, tweaking as I go

Mornings
*up early, Bible Reading (notes and reporting)
                Email and FB check (since my reporting is done in both places)
*shower/dress
   make bed/ start laundry

* Kids up dressed and beds made

*breakfast for all/ Clean UP

* School and computer time

* Lunch

* Down Time

* Daily Jobs/Special Jobs -- to be determined daily

*Afternoon down time

* prep/ dinner/ eat

*Evening act (usually out of the house)

* Night jobs (clean up - prep for next day etc)

* Bed -- Boys 9 - lights out 9:30
              Alli 10 - lights out 10:30
              me lights out by midnight

routines, resolutions and responses

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. I haven't since the 11th grade when I was in creative writing class and was learning to write feature articles.  It happens that that lesson was shortly after the new year in 1991 (yes that'd be 20 years ago) and I chose to research and write about resolutions.  It was then  that I made the decision with which I ended my feature article, that I would make goals instead of resolutions.  Because if I am honest, and if most people are truly honest, I can't keep resolutions at all.  As proof, I still have no fingernails to speak of.

So I started working on goals,  Where do I want to be by this time next year?  What do I want to have accomplished?  What do I want to be working toward? And other questions along the same line.

Goals represent processes, steps I have to take to get there and they aren't absolute, at least mine aren't.  Mine tend to be fluid changing as life changes.  But one thing always remains,  If I want to move forward I have to have a goal in mind to get there.

The problem is that lately, I have had not really had any goals.  I have been hit and miss in many, many areas in my life.  In fact, if I was totally honest, one big idea has totally consumed my thought processes.  The fact that we want to go to Officer Training (Seminary), and in order to gain the necessary recommendations we must become Corps Assistants (Church Interns) first. However, much of THAT process is out of our hands.  So I have been sitting in a holding pattern for much of the last year.  And THAT is not good.  So as I turn to look at the new year. I look at it with new eyes, and have decided I must look to improve me, because if I choose to remain stagnant, what I am really choosing is to fall backward.

So I am going to start with some broad general goals that I will refine as time goes by.

*Daily, weekly etc. routines for everyone, that we all know, which can be followed easily
*Read and Study more ~ there are several areas to which this applies
*Better health ~ including weight loss and exercise in some form
*Write, write, write, more.  here, journal, with the kids etc.