Tag Archives: Family

Catching up…….or not….

06 Friday Sep 2013

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As soon as I catch up, I fall behind. No, really. I spend my life like that. I’ve wondered if it’s just me. If it isn’t you can respond and make me feel better about myself, or if you are inclined to see me run in circles, as you have the last several years of my life. Then by all means just carry on with your life.

 

This really is a week in which I feel like I’m losing it. I’m not trying to elicit sympathy or be self absorbed. Honestly I know the 6 people that read this probably realize that I am a lost cause and are simply shaking their heads right now. But I am really trying. I have a calendar and everything. And I write on it. In pencil. Because nothing seems to stay scheduled. Ever.

 

I know, you’re thinking right now “what on earth does she have to do?” She has no house (living with my SIL) She has no job (sporadic substituting doesn’t really count unless it impacts your wallet) Two of her three children are out of the house and living elsewhere. (They don’t even call that often!) And I’m thinking right back at you I HAVE NO IDEA!!

 

Lest you think I am a complete lay about whining about nothing, I am working on my masters degree…..for a career I’m not even in anymore…….sigh……

 

I give up.

 

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Peace

18 Thursday Jul 2013

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“Peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of God”

J. Oswald Sanders

 

You would think I would have much more time on my hands considering I really don’t have a house to clean.  Though our bedrooms are a mess, it’s hard to keep organized when things are topsy turvy. I don’t even know where most of my stuff is. Not that that’s a good excuse for not making the bed, but I’ve never needed a good excuse for that. (I’m in the “I’m going to sleep in it anyway” camp.) My SIL is fab and we have settled into their spare bedrooms. It’s not like home, but it is a blessing. I’m just hoping we get the chance to repay that blessing to them one of these days. I’m pretty sure our dirty socks really aren’t doing the job my kids think they are.

Crazily enough though, I don’t feel like I have a lot of extra time. While applying for jobs I am volunteering at a couple of local museums, mostly to feel out their programs and see how they do things, which has been both boring and entertaining. Yesterday I spent time at a semi-living history sight. I applied for an educational assistant position last week for this museum, but didn’t realize that meant dressing and playing the part of a 1904 school teacher (right down to the slamming the yardstick on the desk and scaring the pee out of small children) I’m not sure that is going to work out…….  

But things have been busy. Kids are everywhere for the summer. Church camp, Texas, China, Montana, Manhattan and here.  Before we know it summer is gone, Em leaves for college on the 17th of August and Caleb the week after. Poor Ethan is stuck with us all by himself after that. My classes start again on the 26th.

Randy has an interview tomorrow. The position looks promising, but honestly several have at this point, only to not go anywhere afterwards. Two positions we have felt great about disappeared because the company decided not to fill them at all. He is on hold for the one in Florida where the company is going through a merge. They put all hiring on hold in time to cancel his third interview.  He interviewed with one company in KC that was all fired up about him and asking him to call next week to continue and not to take another offer without letting them know blah blah blah. When he called back no one responded to voice mails so we assumed they weirdly had changed their minds. Then a six weeks later another call saying sorry they got caught up with lower hires but were ready to pursue him again was he still interested? Then no response to emails or calls again. What the heck?! I have an all new appreciation for what people go through trying to find work.

People think they experience peace when life is in order and things are good. But reality is that peace is something offered only by the presence of a living God whether life is good or bad. It’s hard to explain really, it’s like describing ice cream to someone who can’t taste. There is no foundation for understanding what’s missing when you haven’t experienced what is being described. Suffice it to say that God is offering our family peace right now. Life is good because God is.

Sweet Freedom!

21 Tuesday Aug 2012

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Today is the first day of school. Which means sweet freedom for mothers out there, only half of whom will admit it. The other half is crying crocodile tears in their cappuccino this morning acting like they are sad for the quiet house or not trying to arrange that necessity called work around summertime schedules.

I will admit to missing them a little, the house feels emptier and I AM still in my pj’s……. Why it feels any different that I am up at the time I normally get up (working in the garden, cleaning house, trying to get motivated to do the reading for my class etc) knowing that they aren’t upstairs in bed but out actually doing something is beyond my understanding, but it does feel different. But the melancholy feeling has nothing to do with the kids being gone. Really…….

Anyway, like I mentioned on Facebook this morning, Emma’s last, first day of high school is today. Ethan’s first, first day of high school is today, and Caleb escaped the first day of class picture by going to college. I thought showing up at his dorm yesterday morning might have been overkill. My extra kid Trey (seen in the center in case you can’t discern him from my other always around kids) just thought I was crazy. Why did I want a picture again?

My first day of school was yesterday too, and after the meltdown of HOW MANY PAPERS DO I HAVE TO WRITE?!!! Brought on by perusing the syllabus. I have done what any mother with a brain like mine and gone to my children for help. I’m preparing them for college. They can put on their college applications that they helped their mother survive graduate school. I think that should count for something. I helped with plenty book reports back in the day, though my kids will tell you with a little resentment that I refused to do the project for them. This might be a problem for me now, just sayin.

Choring in my PJ’s

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

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Just FYI, I’m staying in my PJ’s all day. I’m telling myself it’s so I won’t be tempted to leave the house since I have so much to do here. We both know it’s because I’m too lazy to get dressed, but I like my first bit of reasoning better so that’s what I’m going with.

Usually on days like this, where I have so much to do and looming deadlines, I justify a nice morning Diet Coke on the porch time. When I got up at 6:10 this morning it was 85 degrees. Sadly that really did feel cool in the wake of the 106 degree temps we have had all week, but not cool enough to be sitting on the front porch. Instead I took care of my morning chores in my PJ’s (I tell myself the neighbors don’t see me) and came back to bed. The computer is here with me so I’m getting some of my work done. I’ve made my list of things to do and I just wrote blog at the bottom of the list and marked it off, so I feel like stuff is getting done!

I’m working on a study about running from God. (OR the alternate title, Avoiding God, Wandering around with my eyes closed hoping He doesn’t see me) God always kicks my tail before I teach, and I’m finding myself in the middle of this issue getting my tail kicked with the ways that I avoid God, or just flat out run away from Him. Help me? How do you run from God?  

 

Summer

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

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 If not blogging when I promise that I will makes me a bad person, then I think I might be in trouble. I had a vision this summer of sitting down and documenting the chickens and the garden at least once a week. Mostly because I was sure there were going to be funny and interesting stories. Sadly there weren’t. The chickens have been fairly uneventful, and after the first deer in the garden and the resulting electrical experiment, the garden has gone quietly. So I have been a complete slacker in the blogging department with the result being that all five of my dedicated readers have missed out on………absolutely nothing.

Here is my little catch up.

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I got the garden in a little late this year since I didn’t want to plant without a fence. So our tomatoes have just started to really produce. We have been anxiously waiting for the first BLT’s and I think tonight is the night! We have had lots of zucchini. (If you want some contact me) and a mess of okra when my sister-in-law and her husband were here last weekend. Sooooo good.

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 I feel like I have so much going on! But there is so much more I want to get done before the summer is over! Like every summer it seems to be slipping away so quickly.

Em and E went to Mobile Alabama on a mission trip and got home a week ago. They have been having trip withdrawal think. It’s hard to get back into the pattern at home when all you want to do is go back to the camaraderie of working with friends. We will get it all back together then they will go to camp 🙂

We have a small getaway with friends planned in August. Not the big camp trip, which everyone is a little sad about. But that will make it sweeter next year when we get to go back.

My classes start the 20th of August. I’m struggling to decide what to do about a job. Count on what might happen with the ideal situation or go with the less ideal for sure? In my innocence I thought things got easier as we got older. Hmmmm.Image

 

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May, Thank Goodness School is OUT!

28 Monday May 2012

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Life has been pretty adventurous lately. If you consider doing laundry; hoeing the garden; feeding the chickens; going to a multitude of end of school year events, and making decisions, adventurous. Decision making is always the hard one for me. When my brain is working hard I don’t really have time to do the other stuff. I mean I can DO six things at once, I am a mom after all, multitasking is my middle name, just don’t ask me to do six things and THINK at the same time. So here is a short cover of our last month or so.

A couple of these items are pretty big for us so they will deserve their own post.

• We had a deer incident in the garden, so the electric fence is up. They haven’t been back to visit since, probably since I left them a nice treat of peanut butter on tin foil and attached to the electric fence. Wish we had set up a video camera for that. 

 • Randy is building a gate and arched entry for the garden. It’s fantastic, and built will wood we had around here. No new purchases. By the time we get the whole garden done it will be magazine worthy. I consider this picture a halfway done garden. I have a before picture on a post a couple of months ago.

• Randy and I start Foster Parent classes June 4 as we explore that option and what exactly God has for our family as we reach out to kids in need. I think this is worthy of a whole blog so I will say more about that later!

• I am going back to school. The debate has raged in my head for months (years). I have often said that I’m forty something and I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up but I think I’ve finally figured it out. Randy hopes I’ve finally figured it out! It looks like I will be starting with all the other cute co-eds this fall. (Caleb and I can meet for lunch on campus! HA!)

• Caleb survived his first year of college. He is home working at Game Stop and Dillons and taking Calc 2 over the summer.

• Em is now officially a senior in High School (gulp). She took the state test to be a Certified Nursing Assistant last week. Now she is on to college and scholarship applications and college visits (gulp)

• Ethan “graduated” from 8th grade which seems to be a big deal here. He is officially IN High School and getting his drivers permit.

• WE HAVE INTERNET AT HOME! So this entire post was done from the comforts of my own desk 