Overflow

Giving in to the "Pin"

2012-02-16T13:07:00.000-05:00

Lately, every time I read a blog orcheck out a new website, I seem to see something about Pinterest. Everyone is talking about what they have “pinned”and what they have seen that others have “pinned”. I’ve been feeling a little confused and alittle out of it as I read more and more about everyone’s excitement about “pinning”. It took me a while, but I figured out that “pinning” is something akin to “tweeting” and that Pinterest is a new socialnetworking craze. I hesitated to find out anymore. My experience of social networking has notexactly been positive so far.

I joined Facebook as soon as I heardabout it and I loved it right away. Iloved finding people from my past that I had lost touch with and seeing howthey had changed over the years. I lovedposting pictures of my family and getting positive comments about how cute mykids are or how much fun our outings looked. I loved checking my Facebook page daily, sometimes hourly, andsupposedly keeping in touch better with my friends than I ever had before. Real time updates on all the happenings intheir lives- what could possibly be better? Unfortunately, I quickly found Facebook becoming an unhealthyhabit. My self-esteem got way toowrapped up in the comments I received, or didn’t receive. My days seemed to revolve around checkingstatus updates and keeping up with the happenings in my friend’s lives more sothan the happenings in my own house. Iprayed and prayed about it and realized (sadly) that my life was better without Facebook. It was just too hard for me to live aChrist-centered life when Christ was competing with Facebook for my time andattention. Back in August, I deleted my account and havenot looked back.

Myexperience with Twitter was a little different. I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon along witheveryone else a few years back. Atfirst, I enjoyed the fun of reading what others shared and sharing my thoughts aswell. I got my followers into thethousands but after only a few months, I just got bored with Twitter. The “tweets” I was reading said next tonothing most of the time and when I went to “tweet” myself, I realized most ofwhat I thought to say had little to no relevance either. I have kept the account open but have notchecked my Twitter page in, literally, years.

So…the idea of a new socialnetworking site had me a little wary. Did I really want to jump into another internet fad, another distractionfrom my real life, another battle with the temptation to spend my days in frontof a computer monitor?

To make what should have been ashort story, a little longer….after talking to a real life friend about it, I have joined the world of Pinterest. I have resolved to keep it in perspective thistime, and to maintain a healthy balance between my new social networking and myreal life, but so far….it is such fun, I think I may be on my way to a newaddiction…..off to “pin” some more…..

World Marriage Day

2012-02-12T18:16:00.000-05:00

Back in November,Tim and I renewed our wedding vows. Itwas something I had always wanted to do but we had never had the opportunitybefore then. Thankfully, when we askedour pastor he was able to officiate for us in a really beautiful ceremony. It was just Tim and I in front of our familyand the morning was very special.

I, takeyou for my lawful *spouse* to have and to hold, from this day forward, forbetter, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, untildeath do us part.

After15 years of wedded bliss the marriage vows took on even more meaning- forbetter, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Over the years, we have seen days that havebeen better and days that have been worse. We have had times of richer (sort of) and times of poorer. We have experienced sickness (thankfully onlyminor illnesses- stomach flus, colds, etc….) and we have experienced health. As we said the words of the vows to eachother the second time around, we really knew how deep and meaningful they were.

Life has been busy since then- crazydays that are filled to capacity and weeks that leave no time forrelaxing. Tim works his two jobs, oftengoing from one to the other and not coming home until the sun has set and it ispractically bedtime. Our weekends aretaken up with activities for the kids and we are often found running them in oppositedirections. Tim and I work welltogether. We balance our responsibilitiesand juggle our commitments and make it all work so everyone gets what theyneed. The only thing that sometimes getsneglected is our time together. At theend of the day, at the end of the week- everything has been taken care of or attendedto, except sometimes our marriage. Weboth understand that this is where we are in life, and that this chapter willnot last forever. We both try to maketime for each other and make the best of the brief moments we do have togetherbut sometimes it is hard, and many days I pray that God will bless our effortsand bless our crazy life, and above all- bless our marriage in the midst of itall.

This morning at Mass we celebrated WorldMarriage Day. In the past, on thisspecial Sunday, we have been given a blessing. Our church has had all the married couples stand and the priest hasprayed over us all and blessed us all. Today, for the first time in our life together, the priest announcedthat for World Marriage Day all married couples would be invited to stand and renewtheir vows. He had us take each other’shands and repeat the vows after him all together. It was certainly a different experience thanthe first time we said those sacred words to each other, and even verydifferent than the second time when we had our own ceremony just for us.

Thistime, Tim and I had to squeeze past our five kids that sat between us and as westood looking into each other’s eyes and reciting the vows our 2 year old cameup and handed me her empty cracker package. But, it was still just as special, because it was so timely andso unexpected and the perfect reminder of what we are doing in our life togetherand why God has brought us together.

A birthday at our house- time for more balloons!

2012-02-10T11:13:00.001-05:00

Happy birthday to my 7 year old!

In our house we have a speciallittle tradition….on your birthday, the first thing you see when youwake up in the morning is a bunch of brightly colored balloons. I firmly believe no one should start theirbirthday off in a room withoutfestive birthday balloons!

Westarted this tradition when our oldest was two years old. On her second birthday, she awoke to twoballoons tied to the end of her bed. She was so excited that day to see two big balloons, just for her! Every birthday since, the number of balloons has increased by one. Her siblings have had birthday balloons fromthe very start- beginning with their very first birthdays.

Thismorning it was my youngest son who awoke to a big bunch of bright birthday balloonson his bed. Seven colorful balloonsgreeted him to remind him that today is his special day. After breakfast, he posed with his sevenballoons for the official birthday picture. This latest picture will join the others of him, one from every yearwith the corresponding number of balloons, to mark off the passing of time andthe joy of growing older, wiser and taller with each additional balloon.

Ourbirthday balloon tradition actually had its roots in my childhood. I remember only one birthday, my fourth,waking up to balloons over my bed but that early morning festivity and the cheerfulfeeling it filled me with made for such a special day that I had to make it ayearly tradition for my children.

Thepictures of each of them with their birthday balloons has made the traditionthat much more special for me too! Looking back at all the pictures and the changes in their little smiling faces is such a beautiful way to commemorate their birthdays and the growth and maturity each year brings.

Happy Birthday to my big seven year old, may your 7 balloons be only the beginning of the magic and joy of the day!!!!!!!

When we were kids....

2012-02-09T21:13:00.002-05:00

My kids, every once in a while, haveconversations about what age they consider “old.” They have some interesting ideas aboutit. My middle daughter has decided you’renot old until you reach 72 years old. Ihave no idea why she thinks 71 is still young but 72 just isn’t. Neither Tim nor I are anywhere near our 70’sbut I think we may have crossed over to officially old anyway. Lately we keep having conversations thatstart out with the words, “when we were kids….” I really did not expect to be saying things like that before my 72^ndbirthday but here I am in my mid-thirties talking about the good old days whenI was young…..

Our latest conversation about “whenwe were kids” was about how different our social lives were than our children’sare today. “When we were kids”…. no one everhad play dates. Play was not something that was scheduledahead of time and written on the calendar and worked out by our moms. Play was what we did when we walked outsideand all the other neighborhood kids were out and we all just played together-spontaneously, without adult intervention, without constant adult supervisioneven! Sometimes a friend would ring thedoorbell unexpectedly and we would invite them in and spend hours playing inour bedrooms or our basements. My momknew my friends of course, but she did not set up my play time with them or runme to play dates or offer suggestions on what or how we should play.

My kids actually do have some neighborhoodfriends and they have had the experience of walking outside and joining in agame of hide and seek or tag in the front yards but just as often their play isscheduled ahead of time by me and their friend's moms. Play dates are not so bad really, but nowthat I have five children all of varying ages and all going in differentdirections I find myself starting to reminisce about the good old days. Wouldn’t it be nice, I sometimes think, ifthe kids just played without my intervention? Wouldn’t it be nice if they could just walk to a friend’s house down thestreet and knock on the door and spend hours having fun without any adult conversationpreceding it to plan and work out the tiniest of details?

The world is not the same thesedays- we receive a neighborhood newsletter once a month that includes the numberof “registered offenders” living nearby, my children are home schooled and don’tknow many other children who live in our neighborhood within walking distanceof our house, I don’t trust the influence of just any kid they might meet andam not comfortable with them playing at anyone’s house until I have met theirparents and know what their values are.

I understand the value of play dates. I understand even the importance of them. Playdates are safe, they are convenient, they are fun- after all they are plannedthat way. But sometimes I think mychildren would really benefit from a little more spontaneous, kid-initiated,creative, not-necessarily-so-convenient fun without my influence or planning orinvolvement. Sometimes I just can’t helpbut remember the wonder and excitement of the good old days of my childhood,waaaaaayyyy back when…..

Date night for Tim and his girls

2012-02-03T11:16:00.000-05:00

The girls' dresses all laid out and ready for the dance....

Tonight my wonderful husband isgoing out on a date. He will dance thenight away and feast on special treats, and I will not be with him.

Hewill be spending the evening with three very beautiful young ladies who adorehim as much as I do and I am not one bit upset about it. It is the annual Father-Daughter dance at ourchurch and, as they have for the past four or five years, my little girls willdress in their best party dresses and be taken out and treated like princessesby their daddy. It is one of our favorite traditions forValentine’s Day.

Itsaid on the flyer that the organizers passed out after Masses the past few weekends:

“We began hosting theFather-Daughter Valentine dance with the goal of creating a ministry toemphasize the importance of father-daughter relationships. The hope is that fathers (and father figures)can help to set a dating standard by showing their daughters how they should expectto be treated on a date. That mission isbeing accomplished in addition to having lots of fun!”

How awesome is that?!?!?!? And it is so true. I tell my girls all the time that they shouldpray God will send them husbands who will treat them as well as theirfather treats me. I hold Tim up as anexample all the time and tell my girls they should settle for nothing less thana man who will honor them and respect them and love them completely. I can think of no better way to encouragethat, than to let them be the object of that honor and respect and love astheir daddy’s date for the Valentine dance. Of course, since we have threegirls they have to share daddy at the dance……. but I am pretty sure theyunderstand that on a date with a real suitor someday (in thirty years or so), they alone should be treated with honor and respect.

My girls are all still (way) tooyoung to really be thinking about dating or how a man should treat them or what to look for in a husband but it is never too early to set a standard and give a positiveexample of what a Christ-centered relationship looks and feels like.

So my girls and my husband will all set off thisevening for a night of fun together that will hopefully remind our daughters oftheir beauty and dignity as the princesses (daughters of the one true King ofall heaven and earth) they are.

Andme? I will be just fine at home, with myown dates. My two charming boys and Iwill be having a party of our own complete with ice cream sundaes and games. Afterall, the girls and daddy should not have all the fun!

Distracted...

2012-02-01T13:50:00.000-05:00

I probably have always struggledwith distractions but lately I have been noticing them more. Lately, my prayer life seems to be nothingbut distraction. Every night I sit down,after everyone else has gone to bed and the house is quiet, with my Bible andmy prayer journal. I do the Sign of theCross and then, inevitably I start to think about my grocery list, or somethingmy son said to me while we were discussing his religion lesson, or how muchlaundry I have to get caught up on, or a conversation I had a week ago with afriend, or what Tim might want for dinner the next day, or ……. whatever else might pop into my head....

Mylack of focus has been causing me a lot of stress and a lot of guilt. I want to give the time to God and focuscompletely on Him, I really, really do, but my mind seems never to stop processingmy busy life and reviewing all I encounter each day. As I have agonized over my lack of focus andfelt guilty about it, it has occurred to me that I should take it prayer.

But, if I could focus enough to do that, wouldI even need to?

Anyway, though I haveyet to actually utter the words, it seems God has seen my struggle and read thedesire of my heart. I was sitting inMass last weekend listening to the readings and the homily (feeling halfwaydistracted there as well), and all of the sudden, I realized God was speaking to all my concerns andworries. Here is what I heard in theSecond reading: (1 Cor. 7:32-35)

Brothers andsisters:
I should likeyou to be free of anxieties.
An unmarried manis anxious about the things of the Lord,
how he mayplease the Lord.
But a marriedman is anxious about the things of the world,
how he mayplease his wife, and he is divided.
An unmarriedwoman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord,
so that she maybe holy in both body and spirit.
A married woman,on the other hand,
is anxious aboutthe things of the world,
how she mayplease her husband.
I am telling youthis for your own benefit,
not to impose arestraint upon you,
but for the sakeof propriety
and adherence tothe Lord without distraction.

As I thought about what God might be trying to say to me I realized thatfirst of all, He knows my struggle. Heunderstands that as a married woman I am “anxious about the things of the world”. He understands that I cannot be completelyfree to focus on Him alone and “be anxious about the things of the Lord” only. Then as I thought more, I came to really understand that my distractions are a partof my vocation as a wife and mother. Imust try to work through them and focus on God surely, but I also must acceptthat they will always be there. I wasnot called to live a cloistered life away from the world and free from the distractions that come with marriage and family and keeping a home. My distractions area part of my life and a part of the cross I must bear. I must find peace with them and be at peaceeven in them. I must realize they are an unavoidable partof my devotion to care for my family and live out my vocation. I must turn them into a conversation with God,inviting Him into my thoughts and concerns, instead of letting them pull meaway from my time with Him, but I cannot hope to avoid them entirely.

I have, on the door in my kitchen, aquote from St. Therese of Lisieux. It says,

“For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple lookturned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial andjoy.”

I love that quote because it gives me hope that even in mydistracted state I can still accomplish real prayer as long as I remember, everyonce in a while, to glance towards heaven in between loads of laundry andcooking dinner and changing diapers and grading papers and chauffeuring kids and making to do lists and..........

God is there in themidst of it all.

Race cars, a headache, and what makes a winner

2012-01-29T15:18:00.000-05:00

We spent most of the day Saturday atthe Pinewood Derby for my sons’ cub scouts pack this past weekend. The Pinewood Derby is a pretty big deal incub scouts and is a very big deal inmy house. My boys designed their carsafter looking at thousands of design ideas online and worked very hard on thecars, eagerly anticipating the race. Myolder son, in particular, was hoping for a win and designed his car with speedand victory in mind. Just in case his wasn’t the fastest car, hemade the design fun and original, in the hopes of winning for that if nothingelse.

The "ice cream sandwich car" and the "blue ninja bullet"

The day of the race started earlywith check-ins and weigh-ins and last minute adjustments. Then we grabbed the best seats we could find towatch the races. Unfortunately, despiteour careful research and planning, neither of my boys made it past the firstheats. Their cars were both done racingby about 10:30 a.m.

Theday was far from over though and with trophies for all coming at the end of the day, we stayed for lunch andthen to watch the final heats so we’d be there for the ever important awardceremony. The whole time I was suffering from a migraine headache. I did my best to smile my waythrough the day massaging my temples and trying to ignore my throbbinghead. Finally, with only about 10 awardsto go I decided I really had to go home and take something for my aching head. We had come in two different cars so I leftin one car while Tim stayed with the boys till the bitter end.

Iwas there for the WHOLE DAY, leaving with only a few minutes left and somehow,I missed the best part! After I’d drivenoff in search of Tylenol and a few minutes of quiet, they awarded the cub scoutwho displayed the best sportsmanship of the day. It was considered the best award of the day(which is why it was awarded last), because it went to the boy who had the bestattitude. The boy who showed the true spirit of cubscouts by putting the feelings of his friends above the thrill of victory and whofocused more on enjoying the experience of the race and the opportunity to dohis best than on the importance of being the fastest.

Myson, the older one who was so careful about planning every little detail of hiscar so he would have a good chance at winning it all, ended up getting the mostimportant award of the day even though his car was comparatively slow andunimpressive on the race track.

Hewon for being the best sportsman! Icould not believe it when I heard, and I especially could not believe I wasn’tthere to see him receive his big trophy. The Pinewood Derby may not really be as big a deal as my boys believe itto be, but it turned out to be a great experience for both my sons. And, I must admit, I am pretty proud of themboth.

My younger son's car and award

My older son's car and awards

Saints Timothy and Titus

2012-01-26T18:30:00.002-05:00

One of my (very few) New Year's resolutions this year was to celebrate at least one feast day a month. This month we choose the Feast of Saints Timothy and Titus because, of course, St. Timothy is Tim's patron saint. I searched the internet for ideas on how to commemorate the two saints and how to best celebrate the day but could find NOTHING at all.

So here is what I came up with-- home made cookies with the letter "T" in icing and sprinkles. We each had two cookies, one for each of the "T" saints we were celebrating. We then prayed to the saints and talked about their holy lives of evangelization.

It wasn't much but we all enjoyed our cookies. Tim even decided, since it was "his" feast day, to have three, instead of only two. And, we learned a little more about two very wonderful holy men.

Saints Timothy and Titus, pray for us.

39 years of death and tragedy

2012-01-22T13:54:00.000-05:00

39 years ago today, abortion was made legal inthis country. It has been 39 years ofcarnage in the name of choice. 39years of the legal murder of innocent lives for the sake of convenience. 39 years of an attitude, by so many otherwisegood moral people, that the control a woman should have over her body takesprecedence over the life of her unborn child (a child who is, most often, theresult of a choice made by the woman). Attitudes that have been shaped by lies. Lies about which choices a woman should beheld accountable for and which lives are of most value. And so many more liesthat have transformed our country into a culture which promotes and celebratesdeath and ignores or remains indifferent to life.

Morethan a generation has passed since the passing of Roe vs. Wade. And I can’t help but ponder the fact that itis my generation who was the first to experience the legal loss of so manythrough the horror of abortion.

            I was born just 27 months after abortionwas declared legal.

            I was the result ofan unplanned pregnancy.

           Though my parentsnever considered abortion (and never would have no matter the circumstances)- they could have. They could have easily, and legally, decidedthey did not want me, did not want the hassle of a child they had notplanned. I could have been one of thevictims had my parents chosen that. Thankfully,they did not.

Whenthey faced another unplanned pregnancy, just a few months after my birth, myparents again chose life and my brother joined the family when I was a mere 15months old. My brother and I are amongthe lucky ones. And my parent’s beautiful choice of love andsacrifice has had lasting results, of course. I am the mother of 5 beautiful children. My brother is the father of 2, and a paramedic and fire fighter who savesthe lives of others every day.

Ican’t help but wonder what the world I have grown up in would be like had everychild been given the chance at life that I have been given. Had every parent been willing to rise tochallenge of accepting and raising and loving a child they did not planfor. I can only imagine a world without abortion- I have never actually experienced it. But I imagine it would be really beautiful..... and maybe someday I will get the chance to see a culture of life for myself......

"Be brilliant"

2012-01-18T13:50:00.003-05:00

When I was growing up my parents each hada standard good-bye for their children. Inthe morning as my sisters and brother and I would leave for school, my momwould always see us off with the reminder, “Use your heads.” My dad would tell each of us to “Be brilliant.” I could probably write a very long blogpost about the wisdom of my mom’s words to “use our heads” and the importance ofthinking before we acted. It is my dad’swords that have been in my thoughts today though.

My sister once told me that “Bebrilliant” made her feel pressure. Notme. When I heard dad’s words I heardnothing but encouragement. As I lefteach morning, going from the security of our home and out into the world ofschool with its tests and peer pressure and teasing and long boring lessons, Iknew no matter what anyone else might think about me, my dad knew I was capableof great things. To me the words, “Bebrilliant” meant "do your best" but they meant so much more too. They meant "I believe in you" and "I am proud ofyou" and "you can do it." “Be brilliant” was a daily vote of confidence in mylife. “Be brilliant” made me believe thatI really was capable of brilliance.

As I ponder my dad’s words today, I thinkI appreciate them even more. As a child,brilliance was all about being smart to me. I thought brilliance was a measure of intelligence and it meant goodgrades and a positive report from my teachers. Now I see brilliance is more than intelligence or good grades. It is about being a light to others and a reflectionof God’s goodness and love.

It is aboutsplendor and magnificence and brightness.

Brilliance isabout learning to shine in the world.

I cannot think of a better vote of confidence
or a better way to start the day than with the encouragement to
"Be brilliant".

(thanks dad, for everything but mostly for believing in me and reminding me always to "be brilliant")

Opportunities- chocolate and movies and lots of fun

2012-01-17T11:50:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine said tome the other day, “Your children have had the most amazing opportunities to experience newthings.” It was an interesting commentbecause I had been in a little bit of a funk thinking I just don’t do thatmuch. I look at what other homeschoolers are up to and worry that my children are missing out sometimes. In the past, I have even thought about allthat “regular” school children get to do and wondered if I could ever provideall the opportunities they have (not just field trips and riding the bus butalso things like afterschool sports, clubs for debate, speech, foreignlanguages, etc. and school drama productions and even being exposed todifferent cultures and beliefs, though I did not dwell too long on that one).

Nowthat my funk has lifted and I am looking at life with a better perspective, Ican see my friend is right though. Mychildren have been very blessed to experience so many things in their younglives. It is not really home schoolingthat has provided these opportunities but home schooling definitely makes me more aware of, first of all, all thethings out there, and second of all, the importance of taking advantage of asmany opportunities as we can to try new things and learn new things and beexposed to new things. If not for homeschooling, I might not go the extra mile to expose my children to theeducational opportunities that surround us, but they are there and are rarely(if ever) open only to home school families.

Justthis past weekend, my second born had the chance to play a role in a smallamateur movie. He has in the last few months expressed an interest in movie-making so this was an awesome opportunity for him to see a little of the process and even be a part of it. He had so much fun actinghis scene over and over, which luckily included a lot of destructive behaviorbut no lines to memorize. A perfect fitfor his (very limited) acting abilities!

Then as a family, we attended “The Festival of Chocolate” at MOSI, the sciencemuseum near our home. I was SO excitedabout this opportunity because my first born has been working on a chocolateunit study all year and this was the perfect chance to see her new founddiscoveries in practice in so many new ways! We got to sample some mouth-watering treats and hear about the processand business of chocolate making. Wealso got to participate in a cookie stacking contest, vote for the best dressdesigned from candy wrappers, and sit through a talk that included seeing,touching, and smelling real cacao pods and beans. The coolest part was that we even got tobring a half a pod, full of beans, home with us. We are currently attempting to dry them outso we can roast them and maybe make our own chocolate from scratch. If weare successful, there will definitely be a post all about that coming soon.

When the science lesson crawls up on the porch

2012-01-11T18:44:00.000-05:00

We might havedecided against an unschooling approach to home schooling but that doesn’t meanwe can’t still take advantage of unexpected educational opportunities, especiallywhen they crawl right into our midst, so to speak.

Thismorning we woke to find this:

Our unexpected visitor-- known scientifically as "Heteropoda venatoria"

perchedabove our front porch.

Now, when Tim andI discussed where we might want to live and raise our family years ago, Ishared with him that I really wanted to live in the south where the weather waswarm and the winters mild. “I just don’twant to live in Florida,” I had said, “because the bugs are too big there.”

Thiswould be what I was talking about.

Wikipedia's even more impressive picture of a huntsman spider

Aftera little research via the internet, research that included viewing dozens ofdifferent spiders- wolf spiders, banana spiders, white banded fishing spiders,and others, and comparing them against our own newest ~~little~~ resident.We identified our creepy crawly arachnid friend as a male huntsman spider (Heteropoda venatoria) . Then we learned that they feed on palmetto bugs andcockroaches, which if you know anything about Florida, you know get to be verybig and very abundant in these parts. It is no wonder the spiders are so big- you should see their lunch! We also learned they can be found in Puerto Rico, Australia, and China and that some people have had them in their houses! They are poisonous but their bite is not really harmful to people.

Our lesson ended, when we tried tosee how fast the spider would move when scared by flying bits of mulch,supplied happily by my boys. The spider did movequickly. We moved even more quickly (out of his way) andafter a little screaming and a little freaking out (the children learned how squeamish mommy is around spiders, but I am not sure that was a new discovery!), we parted ways. And now we know way more about big hairy spiders than we ever cared to know......

Vocations Awareness Week- answering God's call in my life

2012-01-10T13:44:00.001-05:00

            It is "Vocations Awareness Week".

            I remember the first time I became aware ofthe concept of vocations. I was a freshmanin high school and was on a retreat that my best friend had invited me toattend with her. One of the talks on theretreat was given by a religious sister and she spoke about God calling her tothe religious life and about how, at first, she tried to ignore the call. She told us that, as hard as she tried, shecould not ignore God forever and eventually she answered His call and was now happily living out her life as a nun. I listened to her story and found myself praying that God would NOT callme the way He had called her.

I did notwant to be a nun.

I wanted to be a wifeand mother.

All of the sudden, I was afraid to try to listen to God forfear He might ask me to give up that dream for a life of habits and pious allday prayers and a cloistered existence in a convent. At thetime, I was young and silly and obviously did not really understand that thedesire to be a wife and mother had been given to me by God himself. Though, I felt a call to marriage in my heart, it took some time before I figuredout that it was the life God wanted for me as well. That it was, in fact, thevocation He was calling me to. I understand now what that nun wastrying to tell me so many years ago, that God truly does call us each to avocation and that if we refuse to listen to and answer His call we will never betruly happy in life.

Vocations awarenessis so important. It is important for allof us to be aware of our own vocation and to be aware of the vocations of others,so that we may support them in answering God’s call. Vocations awareness will help not only tobring greater openness to vocations to the religious life but also to bringgreater understanding and respect to the vocation of marriage. Both are so sorely lacking in our worldtoday.

Not surprisingly, the priesthood andreligious, consecrated life are seen as stifling and unfulfilling by oursociety that values moral relativity and a self-centered existence. And, even marriage is seen in a negative lightthese days. Marriage is considered unnecessary,disposable, and old-fashioned. As Catholics,we need to know that could not be farther from the truth. Marriage is a sacrament, a sacred covenant betweena man, a woman, and God. Marriage, if weare truly called to it, is where we come to know and understand God better andwhere we find our path to holiness. It is noteasy, it requires sacrifice and cooperation and lots and lots of prayer- but itis a beautiful vocation. One thatprovides the necessary basis of the family and that provides us the graces weneed to raise strong families.

There was a time in my life that Ipictured marriage as a blissful relationship of love and support, intimacy andempathy, that would flow naturally from my husband and me, and would fulfill ourevery need and want.

It is not reallylike that at all.

Instead, marriage is about compromisingand learning to make amends and being merciful. Tim and I spend most of our time together dealing with our high maintenancehouse and our higher maintenance kids and our tight budget and trying to manage our differentpersonalities and ideas. It is notalways fun and not always satisfying and not always easy, but it is a blessing andit is worth the effort, because it is the life God has called us to. And, though I sometimes find myself wondering if maybe a cloistered life in a quiet convent would not have been so bad, I do not really regret answering God's call in my life for even a minute.

Longing for "Belonging"

2012-01-03T19:25:00.000-05:00

I kept seeing things about picking aword for the new year and focusing the next 12 months on that word-- onlearning more about it and growing more in it and turning to God for greaterunderstanding of it. The idea intriguedme but I couldn’t decide if I should do it.

At first, I thought I would. Iopened my ears and my eyes in search of my word. And every word I heard seemed to havepotential to be “the” word.

Then, Idecided I wouldn’t because I could not choose just one word and if there wereone million words then none of them would have meaning. So, I tossed aside the idea of a word for theyear.

Thenthe word “belonging” grabbed me and it has not let go yet. So, here I am a few days into the new yearand focusing a lot of my thoughts on the idea of belonging. I have still not committed to a year of contemplating this word, “belonging”,but I am curious to see if that is what happens.

My first encounter with belonging cameas I wrote my last blog post. I had intendedit to be all about the Feast of the Holy Family but it turned out to be more aboutmy own family and where I fit into it. Abouthow, after a lifetime of feeling like I just did not really belong, I realizedI absolutely do belong and even with all our imperfections and struggles, I amgrateful to be a part of my family.

Then on New Year’s Day we went to adifferent parish for Mass, because after staying up way too late on New Year’sEve, we slept in and did not make it to “our” Church. I sat there before Mass began, feeling like wedid not really belong. Then we wereasked to bring up the offertory gifts. Ithought about all the reasons we should not do it, reasons all centered aroundthe fact that we did not belong. And asI sat there making excuses not to participate, it hit me once again-- ofcourse, we belonged there. I realized, everyCatholic Church is “our” Church and we should be honored to bring our gifts forwardto the altar and be a part of the beauty of the Mass. We accepted the invitation, and as we cameforward, I prayed that God would accept the gifts we held in our hands as wellas the ones we offered in our hearts. Itwas a beautiful moment. And, for thatsecond anyway, I understood the concept of belonging and the importance of acceptingGod’s gift of it in my life.

I think my whole life has been abouttrying to find the place I belong.

Ithink a sense of belonging is what we alllook for in life, what we all needand are made for. “Belonging” wasn’t one of the many words Ihad considered but it seems it is the word that was chosen for me, and I suspect,it will be the perfect word to see me through this year.

2011 year in review

2011-12-31T13:57:00.000-05:00

angel at "Mary, Queen of the Universe shrine"

2011 started out a little rough forme. In January, my grandfatherdied. I attended his funeral on abitterly cold day in Pennsylvania. Icame home from that trip and found out a good friend’s husband who had beensuffering from cancer was quickly losing his battle. I attended his funeral in earlyFebruary. Then in March, I was shockedby the news of another friend’s husband’s untimely death, and attended a third funeralin as many months. I was terrified ofwhat the rest of the year might hold……

Thankfully, things got better afterthat. April brought the beauty and hopeof Easter, my birthday, and a wonderful retreat with my husband and our “Teamsof our Lady” friends. In May, the children had their annual testingand did well. Our middle daughter made herFirst Holy Communion. We finished up ourschool year, and Tim found out his full time job in youth ministry wasending. June was full of worry until Timwas offered a new job teaching middle school religion. Then, a few weeks later my whole family cameinto town to celebrate my mom’s birthday and, except for a nasty bout ofstomach flu, we had a nice visit with my sisters and brother, and theirfamilies. We spent July moving ouryoungest daughter into her sister’s bedroom, and moving our oldest daughter outof the shared room and into her very own room for the first time in 8years. In August, we started back to school, and this time sodid Tim, both at his teaching job and taking online courses towards a Master’s degree, a decision we came toduring our weeks of uncertainty concerning his career. September we celebratedour oldest becoming a teenager! Octoberwas busy, busy, busy but we did find time to go camping as a family, and Timand I celebrated our 15^th wedding anniversary. November was all about writing novels withNaNoWriMo. And in December, we wereblessed to spend Christmas with extended family and lots of joy!

Other highlights include-- A day at "Mary, Queen of the Universe" shrine in Orlando, home-made butterbeer, an impromptu trip to anold fashioned ice cream parlor, watching our all-time favorite family movie andlaughing and quoting and laughing and quoting and laughing some more, a surprising e-mailand resulting three week visit from a box turtle, summer library visits all over town, postcrossing, Winter the Dolphin, trips to the zoo and science center, aspecial ~~meal~~ seat of juice pouches and nachos, meteor showers, star gazing, seeing the moons of Jupiter, Cub Scouts, Little Flowers, chocolate, chocolate,chocolate, gymnastics, art class, wood carving, our oldest son’s “weekend withdaddy trip”, learning about British foods and slang terms and customs, newblogging friends, renewing our marriage vows, making movies, sunsets at thebeach, catching fish and exotic sea creatures, math class, field trips,Starbucks book club, saying good-bye forever to Facebook, doll house fun with Chuck,Kia and friends, pen pal letters to Aunt Debbie, Great Expectations that leftus cynical, “go away baggie”, swash-buckling and air bending, a different JesseTree snack for each day of Advent…

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T11:20:00.002-05:00

This morning we woke up to a few very special "gifts" under the Christmas tree. No, Santa had not come a day early. My children had decided, after hearing one of my favorite Christmas memories of sleeping under the Christmas tree with my sister and brother one year, that they had to do it too. We had to talk Tim into it, but at his slight smile and nod, they all grabbed their sleeping bags and pillows and snuggled up beneath the festive branches. He and I heard them talking and giggling for hours after we had gone to bed. What a special treat it was for them.

The last-night-of-Advent slumber party was only the beginning of the excitement and joy...

Today is Christmas Eve and tomorrow Christmas Day, of course. The children are giddy with anticipation and I can practically see the visions of sugar plums dancing in their little heads.

May your holy-day be joyful and special and full of the love of God and family!

From our house to yours....Merry Christmas!

Can Catholic families survive public high school?

2011-12-19T12:15:00.000-05:00

This morning- I wrote this:

When we first started home schoolingand joined our Catholic home school support group we were invited to an openingschool year Mass and pot luck dinner at the home of one of the families. We showed up, with our four young children, notsure what to expect and probably looking a little shell-shocked, because afterentering the house we found ourselves wall-to-wall with a ton of otherpeople. There were lots of familiesthere, and it being a Catholic homeschooling group, many of the families had lots of children. There were people of all ages: babies,toddlers, elementary-aged children, middle schoolers, high schoolers, and adults,crammed into every ounce of empty space in the average sized house, andspilling out into the backyard.
If we had had any doubts, orbeen at all unsure about our decision to home school, that night put all ourfears to rest.
Wecelebrated Mass in the living room, again packed tight together with people webarely knew, who helped us with our kids and illustrated beautiful reverenceeven in that over-stuffed room. Then weshared a huge meal with them and met so many kind, welcoming faces. The older children doted on and helped outwith the younger, the younger children played happily and safely together. It was truly beautiful.
I knew, in that evening, thiswas where I wanted to raise my children, as a part of this community, amongthese families.
There were several other familyevents that year- hoedowns, an All Saint’s party, a Christmas caroling party-all just as well attended, all just as family-friendly and fun.

Fast forward seven years. My children are no longer the little toddlersat the home schooling events. I am nowthinking about how I will approach home schooling a high schooler (in only ayear and a half!) and we now have 5 children in tow when we show up at eventslike the Christmas caroling party (like we did last night). Lots of other things are different aswell. Those parties that used to bewall-to-wall people—have now dwindled to two or three families. Last night’s party, an annual event whichused to draw a crowd of close to 100 people, literally ended up being only 3home schooling families- and one of them was the host family! This happened at the All Saint’s party this year, as well. And our opening schoolyear Mass is no longer even planned as a family affair on the weekend, but amom and kids event on a weekday morning.

“Whathas happened?” I can’t help but wonder. Where are all those wonderful families I felt so blessed to be raisingmy children with? Of course there is asimple answer to the question- I could easily list the families who have movedaway, or the ones whose children have graduated and are no longer home, butwhat I really wonder is how the face of Catholic home schooling has changed insuch a short time. We still have lots offamilies on the list for our group, just as many as before, but now, like therest of the world around us, they are pulled in so many different directions thatattending family events seems to be a luxury they cannot find time for. These fun family events used to be thepriority and something everyone in the group looked forward to, but now theseevents are just another thing on everyone’s calendar and very susceptible to berejected in favor of something else.

Ifear this is a symptom of not just busyness but a different attitude towardsCatholic home schooling altogether, and a whole different reason behindit. Now, instead of home schooling beinga conscious decision made in an effort to raise children in a Christ-centered, family-focusedenvironment, where they will grow up practicing their faith in all they do andsharing the beauty of it with others, home schooling seems to be just anothereducational choice. It has become, Ithink, a somewhat trendy choice of late, at least in this area. Lots of people jump into the home school ringfor a few years and then jump back out when their children get to a certainage. In fact, it is highly likely that in a year and a half when my oldest begins high school (at home with me) she will be the only high schooler in the home school group. Home schooling, for many families, seems to be more about flexibilityand educational freedom (really great things), but less about faith and family (evenbetter things).

For Tim and me- it is still about Godand about family and about raising our children to be strong Catholics, livinglives that are counter-cultural and Christ-centered. It is hard to do that, and especially becausewe no longer have a large group offamilies supporting us in this journey, but though it saddens and upsets me, itdoes not deter me. We will march on,with the few families who feel the way that we do, and trust in God to lead us,and our children, closer to Him through the experience…

Then, I debated whether or not to post it. I was afraid it might come across as negative, or judgmental, or unsupportive of the other families in our home schooling group. I do not want to hurt anyone, or judge anyone else's heart-felt decisions for what is best for their families but then I read this (please, please, please take the time to click and read, it is so important for us as parents to be aware of, no matter how sickening, disturbing, and disgusting we find it) about some of the things happening in the public schools in this country.

So, to make a long, agonizing, discernment short, I am risking offending my friends because I believe so strongly in the importance of strong families and in the importance of protecting our children from the horrors of this culture we live in. We have only one chance to raise our children, only a few short years to teach them right from wrong and give them a strong foundation. I believe, without a doubt that the best way to do that, maybe the only way, is in strong families! Clearly the state run educational system is doing nothing to build up families, and EVERYTHING possible to break them down. So, I wonder.....why would anyone want to risk their children's salvation by throwing them to the wolves of public education?!?!?!?!

Searching the skies

2011-12-15T13:14:00.002-05:00

Back in August we heard about thePerseids meteor shower. We had juststarted our science book for the year, Exploring Creation with Astronomy fromApologia. We were in the very beginningof the book and had not learned about meteors yet but a meteor shower stillsounded very cool. My son and I were soexcited, we vowed we would not miss it, even though the best time to view themeteors was about 2 am. So, in the weehours of the morning, on a humid summer night he and I sat out in our frontyard watching the skies hoping for meteors. We had to be very patient, the stars overhead were silent and blinking,and for the first twenty minutes or so, alone in the heavens. Then all of the sudden, my son pointedexcitedly, he had seen a bright line appear, then quickly disappear in thesky. His first meteor sighting! A while later we both saw another one, andbefore the wall of clouds rolled in, at about 3:30 am, we were both treated toone more.

When we heard about Geminids,another meteor shower that sounded worth catching on December 14, all the kids were interested. I told them we would go to theirgrandparent’s house for it (they live practically on the beach and the beachseemed the best place for star gazing).

As it turned out, the trip toGrandma and Grandpa’s (known around our house as Mama and Papa) did not workout. Still, I had promised the kids atrip to the beach for star gazing, and since this meteor shower could be seenas early as 9 pm, it was an easy promise to keep. I put the little one down to bed (daddy stayedhome with her) then we piled into the minivan with blanket and beach towels anddrove to a little stretch of beach to scan the skies.

We parked the van right on the sand,laid our blanket out and saw our first meteor of the night almost immediately. A big white streak of light appeared,stretching over our heads across the clear night sky. We only stayed a little while, less than anhour, but in that time we saw more than 10 meteors. It was so much fun to be there, lying on thebeach in the dark with my giggling, talkative children watching our sciencelessons come alive before our very eyes.

Itis in these moments I most love the flexibility and family-centeredness of homeschooling. What could be better thanlearning together all about God’s wonderful, beautiful world, all while lyingon the beach on a warm December night?

"The Wreath Game"

2011-12-13T12:45:00.000-05:00

We have a lot of special Advent andChristmas traditions. Most of them, Timand I thought about and planned, thinking about the true meaning of the seasonand ways we could prepare for and celebrate the birth of Jesus.

One of my children’s favorite traditions thistime of year, however, did not arise from calculated forethought. Somehow, all on their own, they decidedseveral years ago it would be fun to count wreaths. They watched out the windows of the car as Idrove around during December and started noticing all the festive decorationsaround town. I do not know why it wasthe wreaths they decided to focus their efforts on but as I said, somehow a traditionwas born. It is known affectionately as "The Wreath Game" around my house.

one....

Thisis probably the fourth year of wreath counting, and so far, it is off to agreat start. The tallies, marked onpieces of scrap paper retrieved from the floor of the minivan, are risingquickly. “I have seen 24,” one childwill shout and the others will chime in with their latest numbers. I must remind them repeatedly that our wreathcounting is just for fun, not a competition. Yet, they seem to be trying to top each other’s numbers constantly. We have, thankfully, had no real fights overwreath numbers though there have been a few claims that have been disputed. “You did not see seven more wreaths in thelast two minutes!” So far, we have beenable to handle all disputes peacefully, mostly by my reminding them again,that wreath counting is for fun and not a competition.

two....

Anyway, this morning alone, as we drove to math classand back, the children saw upwards of 140 wreaths adorning the doors and windowsof our friends and neighbors houses. Wetook the long way around two different neighborhoods to give them anopportunity to look for even more wreaths. It is such a silly meaninglesslittle thing, but they all get into it and enjoy it every year. From the 13 year old to the 2 year old (whocannot really count at all) it is fun for all. I’m hoping that people will keep their wreaths up long enough that the 2year old will start counting properly any day now and maybe by next year she’llbe ready for adding and subtracting, maybe multiplying and dividing, maybealgebraic equations ….

three....

Celebrating Mary

2011-12-08T14:16:00.001-05:00

December 8- the Solemnity of theImmaculate Conception, which means today is the day we, as Catholics celebrateMary, the Mother of Our Lord, being conceived without sin. Today we honor Our Lady mindful of herpeace, her meekness, her holiness, and her obedience.

Themorning found my house looking anything but peaceful, meek, holy, orobedient. Mass was at 8 am and I had thejob of rousing the children and getting them all ready- dressed, hair brushed,shoes on, and out the door in time. Mychildren, much like their mother, are not morning people. I started the process of waking them at about7:20. “We have to leave for Mass in halfan hour,” I warned pulling up the shades in their dim bedrooms and tugging attheir covers to awaken them. It was afrigid Florida morning with temperatures topping out at 43 degrees, so surelystripping them of their comforters would get them moving. Yet, my oldest uttered not a sound, she simplypulled the blankets back up to her chin and went right back to sleep. My second child yelled from his bed, “It doesnot take a half hour to get ready for church!” and also lay back down toslumber. The 8 and 6 year olds did get upbut for a few minutes wandered drowsily around looking lost, and the littleone, my two year old, blinked her eyes in a daze as I took her out of her cozycrib and to the bathroom to fix her wild hair. Two little ponytails, a bag of oyster crackers to take along for nibbling during Mass, rufflebottom tights to go with her long sleeved shirt and green plaid jumper, little shoes buckled on her little feet and my toddler wasall ready to go. By that time, the threemiddle children had also found their way and gotten themselves ready. It took three more tries and, I admit, a bitof yelling, to finally get my oldest up though. She dragged herself out of bed threw on some clothes and yanked the hairbrushthrough her hair, presenting herself in the family room just minutes before we really had to leave. The scowl never left her face, even as Ithanked her for finally obeying.

Massof course, was beautiful- peaceful and holy and a true celebration to honorboth Mary, and her son Our Lord, Jesus. “Peace be with you,” the priest said (and with your spirit)..... and for an hour itwas.

Backhome to rush and get the children fed so we could get the oldest to her mathco-op by 9:30. Everyone needed hotchocolate to combat the “freezing” weather and everyone was staaaaaarving for breakfast, so we tripped over each other in the kitchento get something in our bellies before jumping back in the car and setting offfor math. We set off, steaming to-gocups in our hands, toast crumbs on our chins, to fight the traffic on the wayto get one child to class, then back home for the rest of us for an hour or soof our own work before going back outto get their sister from her class.

AsI was contemplating the chaos of life, in light of the beauty of the Feast wecelebrate today, it occurred to me how blessed we are to have the Queen ofHeaven watching over us. How, like Masswas a moment of peace and tranquility in the craziness of my busy morning, Maryis a beacon of peace in the world. She is,for me, the perfect example of meekness and obedience. Whenever I turn to her she always offers me abit of peace and serenity. When I go toher in prayer, she gives me rest and quiet stillness and her intercession,always leading me closer to her Son, thePrince of Peace. When I pray theHoly Rosary, honoring her and remembering her in the prayers, she fills myheart with overwhelming peace.

Godknew we would need a mother interceding for us from Heaven, He knew we wouldneed her example of holiness, He knew we would need her peace, especially inthe madness of preparing for Christmas. This feast celebrating Mary, the ImmaculateConception, is so perfectly timed-- a little reminder of peace and of whatmatters most, in the midst of the busiest (sometimes craziest) time of theyear.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

2011-12-06T13:20:00.001-05:00

St. Nicholas visited our house! The children were thrilled with their little treats today.

After checking out all the goodies left in their shoes they all had a chocolate coin ~~for~~ with breakfast and tried out their new things. The girls got the "toe socks" they had always wanted!

Then we colored in the beautiful St. Nicholas paper dolls I had downloaded from Paper Dali for the occasion.

They did a great job with their coloring.

Feast Days are such fun!

St. Nicholas, pray for us, that we may live our lives with as much generosity, humility, and faith as you did.

Tending the Temple- a book review by my husband

2011-12-03T11:08:00.001-05:00

The following was taken from my husband Tim's blog (Salvation is an Adventure). My thoughts about this wonderful book mirror his almost exactly, so I thought it was worth sharing here as well.

When I found out about my good friend Shane Kapler writing a new book I was very excited! I had read Shane's first book, The God Who Is Love, when it came out. Tending the Temple: 365 Days of Spiritual and Physical Devotions is a devotional put together by Shane, Kevin Vost (Fit for Eternal Life), and Peggy Bowes (The Rosary Workout). This book provides a spiritual devotion for every day of the year. What is amazing about this devotional is that the authors were able to find a saint or a feast for every single day of the year! I have never seen a saint devotional before that had an entry for every day of the year. The well known and popular saints, like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Rose of Lima are represented as well as lesser known saints, like Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and his wife Blessed Maria Corsini-Quattrocchi, who in 2001 became the first married couple to be beatified together! Our Catholic faith is rich with wonderful saints, feasts, and holy men and women and this book provides an opportunity to learn more about them and discover new ones that we may have never heard of before.

In addition to providing us with spiritual food to enrich our lives, the book provides a unique second set of devotions--physical devotions. Each day the authors give the readers advice and suggestions to take what was learned about the saints and carry it out in some sort of action. It may be an exercise to assist the reader in becoming physically fit or it may be advice on how to live a life of holiness.

Learning about the saints of our Church means nothing unless you carry what you learn out in action. Tending the Temple provides us with an opportunity to not only learn about the saints but also gives us advice on how to take what we learn and carry out into some sort of action in our lives.

A little like Scrooge

2011-11-28T18:51:00.001-05:00

I have a confession to make. I have not been really looking forward toChristmas. Back in October, when thefirst realization of the upcoming Christmas season hit me, I felt a sense of milddread. All I could think about was:

· thesame old Christmas music on practically every radio station on my car pre-sets(does anyone else loath that upsetting song about the dying mother and herspecial Christmas shoes, or that inappropriate song about “Baby, it’s cold outside” as much as I do?),

· thecrowded traffic I would have to fight and the long lines I’d have to stand in atWal-Mart when all I need is a bottle of shampoo or a case of diapers,

· thestress of trying to find time to do some shopping when my children are with meALL THE TIME,

· trying to find a better place for the Christmas tree but probably having it take up all the space in my classroom, forcing the kids and I to be creative in wherewe do our work each day,

· to-dolists, and Christmas card lists, and the children’s wish lists, and junk mailasking for charitable donations for charities I have never and would neversupport, and special Christmas sale coupons and catalogs, catalogs, catalogs, etc. etc. etc. cluttering mycountertops.

I was feeling quite a bit like Scrooge asI thought about all the chaos and madness the season brings with it.

Then,last week after Thanksgiving had passed, I started really thinking about everything I needed to do to get ready forthe rapidly approaching beginning of Advent. I had to get the Advent wreath out of the storage bins in the garage, pull out our Advent prayers, find our versionof “O come, O come Emmanuel” amidst my children’s recent MP-3 downloads on thecomputer, and get our Jesse tree ornaments ready. As I thought about it, I realized-- I was notdreading these things at all. In fact, the more I thought about praying ourbeautiful Advent prayers before our wreath with (this week) one purple candleglowing and our Advent music playing in the background and the scent of incensewafting through the kitchen, the more I was filled with joy. Whenwe went to Mass on Sunday and sang (just like we would later at home) “O come,O come Emmanuel” and saw the church all decked out in purple and listened asthe priest blessed the Advent wreath and watched the lighting of thefirst candle, I was filled with even more joy.

Itseems a little silly because it should have been so obvious but it was notChristmas season I was dreading, it was all the distractions that come with theseason. I was dreading the busyness andcraziness and materialistic commercialism-- not the joyful anticipation of ourSavior’s birth, or the beautiful, peaceful preparations we make in our Church,our home, and our hearts. It is thepreparations that are spiritual and meaningful that I look forward to each yearand it is all that other stuff that Isometimes dread.

I still wish I could avoid the streets andthe stores this month but since that is probably not possible……. I guess I should just offer up thoseunavoidable trips to Wal-Mart for diapers and focus most of my energy on the stuffthat really matters this time of year.

We did it! and more....

2011-11-25T12:27:00.001-05:00

Ifeel like I’ve been gone for weeks- busy in a sort of fog of accomplishing alife-long goal of writing a book. But,today it is official— I wrote a novel!

Iactually met the 50,000 word goal on November 17, and finished up the story onNovember 20 but today the NaNoWriMowebsite validated my novel and pronounced me a winner amid the cheers of thewebsite staff! Then I proceeded to entermy children’s novels (with their help, of course) into the system and hear theshouts of joy all over again- because theytoo met their goals and wrote whole novels successfully in *less than* one month! The experiencerequired lots of prayer and lots of creative time management, but we didit! It was quite a journey and SO MUCHFUN! My son is already planning hisnovel for next year. I am too busyediting, editing, editing to worry about that yet.

Believeit or not, life did go on in the midst of the writing and a few significantthings happened between plot twists and character development.

So here is a sort of catch-up poston our November happenings….

Tim and I renewed our wedding vowsin a beautiful ceremony with our children and my parents present. I have always wanted to do that and, as Isuspected, the words meant every bit as much, maybe more, the 2^ndtime around!

My oldest daughter decided to haveher hair cut and since we were doing it anyway, we looked into Locks of Love and ended up donating her thick, curly, auburn ponytail to them to be turnedinto a wig for a child in need.

Of course, yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving. It was a lovely day that we spent with myparents and a few of their wonderful friends. We got to try real English Yorkshire pudding for the first time. My children took advantage of the gorgeousFlorida day and went swimming in the heated pool for quite a while. Then, too full to drive home, we spent thenight there, which is always another super special treat for the kids! The only down side to it all was that ouroldest son woke up this morning not feeling too well. :( Iguess we can all be thankful his tummy did not hurt on Thanksgiving Day.

Now, we are all looking forward tothe beginning of Advent and the changes at Church on Sunday as we start withthe New Roman Missal.

There is justnever a dull moment but, still mindful of yesterday’s day of giving thanks, Iam grateful for the love of God and family to see us through it all.

Show me the smile!

2011-11-18T09:04:00.001-05:00

Mylittle one, now 2 years old, is a very serious little girl. She has always been very serious. When she was about 2 months old I rememberanxiously watching for her first real smile and trying many days to coax oneout of her, only to be met with a stern glare or a curious stare. Her siblings could do it without any trouble,but for me her smiles have always been fewer and farther between. If it is difficult for me to get her to grin,it is impossible for people she doesnot know. Little old ladies stop us inthe store to tell me how cute she is and she glares at them. Friends smile at her and ask how she is doingand she stares back blankly. OnHalloween, all decked out in her furry Elmo costume and receiving candy from countlessfriendly faces, she walked straight mouthed along not showing any signs ofenjoyment.

Lastsummer we spent a day at my parent’s house. They had invited a lovely British couple who they had become good friendswith as well, and we had a great day of swimming and eating and fun. The woman, who had never had any children ofher own, loved kids. Really loved kidsand spent as much time playing with my children as she did visiting with theadults present. She tried everything toget my little one to smile for her. Shesang her songs and played crazy games with her but my daughter would not crackeven the tiniest of smiles. At best, shegave her a concentrated look of interest. The man later commented to my father that something was wrong with ourbaby. It just wasn’t normal, he said,for a child so little to be so solemn. My dad assured him the baby is fine. And she is. She is not an unhappychild just serious and VERY wary of strangers.

Istarted playing a game with her when she was about 18 months old. It was my sneaky way to trick her into smilesbut don’t tell her that! I would say,"show me your silly face" and we would, together, stick out our tongues and rollour eyes. Then I would say "show me yourscary face" and we would both make monster faces at each other. Then I would say "show me your sad face," andshe would stick her bottom lip out and look as though she had lost her bestfriend. Then I would say "show me yourhappy face," and voila-

A SMILE!!!!!

She is alot bigger now than she was then but it still works every time! I wonder sometimes when I see thoseoh-so-rare, oh-so-beautiful toddler grins-

"show me your.......shy face"

Is it wrong that I love this kid somuch?!?!?!?!?!?

It is all for Jesus

2011-11-08T08:26:00.001-05:00

I was super surprised the other day to see a comment on mylast blog post informing me that my blog had been given an award! Gardenia, who blogs at My Little Flower, has includedme in her nominees for the “I blog Jesus” blog award.

As far as blog awards go, I cannot think ofone I would be more honored to be given. To be recognized as a blogger who writes to spread the love of Jesus isthe greatest award I can think of. Now,I have the fun of passing the award on to other blogs I think are worthy. Here is my list of “I blog Jesus” blogs ….

Jamie Jo @ Lord, Make me a Saint

Valerie @ her Little Ways

Sr. Ann Marie @ Franciscan Life

Jenilee @ Our Goodwin Journey

Thank you to Gardenia, and to Monica at Equipping Catholic Families who created the award.

A quick word about the 1st 3 days

2011-11-03T17:33:00.000-04:00

November 2011 is here! In our Church this month, we remember thesouls of the faithful departed and prepare for the upcoming changes to theRoman Missal. In our country this month,we focus on thankfulness. In my housethis month, we write!

We are on day 3 of the crazynovel writing endeavor my children and I have undertaken as part of NaNoWriMo(national novel writing month). The goalis to write an entire novel in one month’s time. The kids and I have been counting down tothis month since late August. We had originally planned to stay up and startright at midnight on October 31st, figuring the candy from trick or treatingand the excitement of finally being able to start would energize us. We scrapped that plan early on in the day onMonday. I could tell that no amount ofHalloween candy was going to sustain me through an all-night writing session sowe went to bed about 9:30. I did notsleep well, so at 6:20 the next morning I got up and snuck out to the computerto start. The first two sentences hadbeen written in my mind for weeks and I just had to get them down on “paper”. Of course, from there I really did not knowwhere I would go but the words have been flowing pretty well since.

The kidsand I are taking turns in front of the computer. Most of our conversations become discussionsof word counts and last minute character additions. My 6 year old, feeling left out, has decidedhe will write a novel in December. Henow joins in when we talk about plot twists and turns. I asked my 10 year old son this afternoon ifhe felt like he was only half here because his brain was focused half on hisnovel every minute of the day. Hisanswer? “¾ of my brain is in my novel!” Thatpretty much sums up how our first three days have gone.

So far, it really is as muchfun as we’d hoped but I keep warning the kids at some point it might startfeeling more like work. Still, we arecommitted to seeing this through and are here to support each other. Now, I have more writing to get to and the 406words here are doing nothing to get me closer to my 50,000 word goal…..

Battling for the saints...

2011-10-30T14:15:00.001-04:00

Some daysof my life feel like nothing but a battle. It is a battle to get my 2 year old to eat anything healthy. It is a battle to get my 13 year old out ofbed in the morning. It is a battle toget my 6 year old to focus on his school work. And my 8 year old daughter and 10 year old son seem to constantly be in battleover something. Ever hear the phrase “pickyour battles”? That has sort of becomemy motto. The 2 year old and her pickyeating habits are a battle I do choose to fight. The 6 year old and his desire to play Lego’sinstead of work on math is another battle that I fight. I’m not fighting with the 13 year old about sleepingin, (she is responsible enough to decide if she wants to get up with enoughtime to eat breakfast and get herself dressed or if she wants to go to mathco-op in her p.j.’s). My ten year oldson’s sloppy hair is another battle I just am not going to fight.

So, whatelse is important enough to fight for around here? Well, Mass attendance is tops. And not only attending Mass, but doing soappropriately dressed and as a family. I used to let it slide if the boys came out oftheir room Sunday morning in a pair of nice clean shorts, or a neat, spotless t-shirtbut lately they have been required to wear long pants and collared shirts. The girls, including me, wear dresses orskirts. I have a friend who shared her battleto get her kids to sing the songs and audiblypray the prayers during Mass. I haveto admit that is one battle I have never worried about. I guess I have been too concerned withwhether or not they were sitting still and being quiet to worry about thesinging. So, that is one I really haveto think about….

When I was a teenager,I often skipped Mass. I just didn’t wantto get up early so I stayed in bed and missed Mass. (yes, I,like my daughter, am more of a night owl than an early bird) I got away with it. In Tim’s family, Mass attendance was expectedbut he would often go on his own to a Saturday Vigil Mass or a later Sundaymorning one. While that is veryadmirable of him, I want to do things differently for our family. We will go to Mass together. Our faith is something we share. Our Church is more than a building. It is acommunity, it is the Body of Christ. Wewill share the experience of worship as a family.

Whichbrings me to another battle I have recently had to fight…. in our Catholic homeschooling group we celebrate All Saint’s Day with a family party each year. The year we started home schooling it was oneof the first events we attended. I wasimmediately impressed with the group. The atmosphere of that wonderful family party full of strong Catholicmoms, dads, and kids celebrating and enjoying the beauty of our faith together reallyhit me. This was where we belonged, this was where I wanted to raise mychildren, amongst families who valued their faith, valued their families, and valuedtheir time together. Unfortunately,as my children have gotten older, they have decided they no longer love the AllSaint’s party like they used to. They used to get excited in October as weplanned for the upcoming party by choosing which saint they would learn aboutand dress up as on (or around) November 1^st. Apparently, they are not alone in their new oppositionto saint costumes and presentations. Itseems it is the age. Saint costumes arefor little kids, the older kids would rather just come to see their friends, andeat the yummy snacks and desserts, or not come at all.

I havereally thought about it. Is this a battle worth fighting, really? Much to my children’sdisappointment, I have decided it is.

Here is why…. This is one of the only events throughoutthe school year specifically planned for families that celebrates ourfaith. Our home school group has a tonof fun activities each year. We have anopening school year Mass and picnic. Wehave a May Crowning Mass and picnic. Wehave park days every week where we have, in the past, prayed a Rosary or Chapletof Divine Mercy. We have a St. Valentine’s party and more, but none of thoseevents are planned at a time that many dads can come. So, though we have fun and share our faith atthem, we do not do it as families. We dohave some fun family events each year. We have annual family hoedowns that are a ton of fun, and family Christmascaroling parties. These are wonderfultoo, but they are not particularly spiritual in nature. The All Saint’s party is really the one event each year where we cometogether as families and share the joy of being Catholic. The reason Tim and I decided to home school wasto share the beauty of our faith and to make our life and family Christ-centered. So, we will attend the All Saint’s partyevery year we can. We will be there as afamily and each of my children will learn about a saint, and present theirsaint to the group. If they balk at theidea that is okay, it is a battle I am willing to take on….

Happy 15 years!

2011-10-26T12:33:00.003-04:00

Today my wonderful husband and I celebrate 15 happy years of marriage. There is so much I could say about the life we share and the love between us, which is truly a gift from God, but this song by Brooks and Dunn seems to say it more perfectly than I could (it is almost our story exactly except my father is most definitely not a farmer and we got engaged in my tiny studio apartment instead of a field)...

"I would never..."

2011-10-24T18:18:00.001-04:00

When I wasexpecting my first child, I worked in a children’s clothing store. In my oblivion about the realities ofparenting, I often looked at the parents shopping with their small children andthought, “I’ll never be like that.” There were quite a few parenting decisions I disagreed with, but worstof all, in my mind, was laughing at children’s misbehavior. The store had a few little plastic rocking chairsthat sat in front of a television set and, at least once a week, some childwould pick up one of the chairs and head out the door of the store withit. Most parents would react by laughingat their child’s antics. Now, I wouldstand there and smile along with them as if I got it, but inside, I waswondering what was so funny about a child stealing a chair? Their child had not done something cute orfunny, or even original, and did they know they were only encouraging thebehavior by laughing about it as though swiping a chair was a good thing? I vowed when my child was born, I would neversmile at stealing, or saying bad words, or hitting, or any misbehavior my childmight attempt (of course, I was still under the delusion that I would be aperfect parent and my child would be perfect as well but if it came up, I would not laugh).

Of course, the first time my adorable little one decided to take somethingof her father’s or mine and run out of the room with it in an attempt to makeit hers, what did I do? I laughed! The first time she muttered a swear word (thatshe certainly had never heard from me), what did I do? I laughed! Evenwith my fifth child, after years of seeing each of my older childrenmake those first connections and try to get away with those minor infractionsof toddler-hood, I still laugh at her misbehavior at times. It is not that bad behavior is funny, itis that watching your own precious child discover the many choices of life and watching them try out new things, good and bad, is excitingand joyful and, well, sometimes funny. I would never have understood that before I had children of my own though.

You'd think I had learnedmy lesson about saying things like, “I’ll never….” But alas, I had not…..

When my first son was in pre-school I went to a talk athis school by a wise and wonderful deacon. He spoke about family life and about not over-scheduling children. He talked about the importance of down timeand family dinners and a slower paced life for kids and parents alike. I satthere thinking again, “I would never over schedule!” You see, at that time our life was stillquite simple. We had four young childrenbut did not have them signed up for sports or classes or any extra-curricularactivities. We did not have a fullcalendar but instead spent our time with each other at home most days. I patted myself on the back for keepingthings simple and went home feeling great about myself.

Now,somehow I find myself eating my words again. Though, we still do not have the kids signed up for any sports and wekeep the extra-curricular activities to a minimum, somehow our calendar hasfilled up nonetheless. Somehow, each dayseems filled to capacity and each week is scheduled out way ahead of time. We are so busy at times, my mind cannotsettle and I feel perpetually rushed and overwhelmed. I wonder how this has happened but I ampretty sure it is just life with 5 kids. I honestly don’t feel I’ve over-scheduled things, the calendar is actually clear on quite a few days this month, but somehow, our life has ended up in overdrive anyway!

The good news is despite our busyness, we do stillhave dinner together almost every night. And, I have finally learned to be VERYcareful about saying, “I’ll never do that!”

To get where we're going

2011-10-21T11:47:00.002-04:00

    It is still relatively early in the day and already today has been an adventure!   Friday is our busiest day, with the children all enrolled in classes at a nearby community center. It is so nice that they offer a great variety of classes and we have found something for everyone at our house there. The only problem is that the classes all start at different times. My oldest son needs to be there by 9:30 for his 1st class, my oldest daughter starts hers at 11:15, and then all four older children have classes at 1 pm.
    The first week, the littlest one and I just hung out at the community center all day long, watching her siblings dart from one classroom to the next and admiring their work in between. It was a long day of sitting around trying to entertain a 2 year old with very little to work with (how many times can you read the same Family Fun magazine before you start to go completely crazy from Kleenex box crafts and animal-shaped desserts?) The next week we decided to drop off the older kids, run a few errands, and then come back to meet them in time for lunch and the afternoon classes. This worked out much better, though it was a lot of back and forth and in and out of the car for my youngest daughter and I. Still it was the best scenario and so we have kept it up over the weeks.
    This morning, I pulled out of the driveway not even thinking and was halfway down our street before I realized I had headed off in the wrong direction. Turning around would be more trouble than it would be worth, we would just have to go the long way to our classes. Then when we were almost there we reached a long line of traffic at a complete stand still. It was much too late in the day for rush hour and though the “snow birds”, Florida’s winter residents, have started coming back there are not enough of them around yet to account for so many cars backed up. I pulled off onto a side street to avoid whatever was causing the traffic jam and ended up meandering through a residential neighborhood that I was not quite as familiar with as I had thought. I drove along, blindly following the car in front, assuming they knew better how to get back to the main street than we did.   Thankfully, they did and my son darted into his class right on time. The younger children and I set off for our errands and drove right past the cause of the traffic problems, a big car accident at the main intersection closest to the community center. At that point, I realized my wrong turn out of the driveway earlier may have been for the best. Had we gone our normal way, we might have happened upon that accident as it was happening, we might have even gotten mixed up in the middle of it.
    We were lucky to not be involved but only inconvenienced a little. Our morning commute ended up taking twice as long as usual and necessitated quite a few detours and unanticipated twists and turns though.   At one point, a policeman directed us to turn on a road we had never taken, at another, we had to turn around and go back the way we came for a time before getting back on track. As I drove, and tried to keep all the hassles in perspective, it occurred to me that my drive this morning was a lot like my journey in life.
    Sometimes, as I try to follow Christ and find my way closer to Him, I end up running into road blocks, problems and obstacles that I cannot see the end of and that seem impossible to get through. As I search for the right way, I end up following the paths of others, hoping they know better than I do. Sometimes that works out, sometimes not.   Sometimes I am directed to go in new directions and must trust those in authority, again hoping it will get me where I want to go. Sometimes, I feel like I am heading backwards and I wonder if I am making any progress at all.   Sometimes, days that start out with mistakes turn out to be God steering me away from dangerous situations.
    The road to heaven is never a straight, easy path. It always seems to be full of dangers, detours, and wrong turns but, like my little expedition this morning, if we follow the road set before us and trust in the One in charge all will turn out just fine and eventually we will make it to our destination….at least, I hope.

A peaceful Mother

2011-10-12T15:46:00.000-04:00

    Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in Fatima, Portugal. Tomorrow, in our Church and in our home, we will remember and commemorate the miracle and we will turn our minds and hearts to Our Lady of Fatima. I don’t usually share about our family’s celebrations of feast days for 2 reasons. First of all, I am not great about keeping up with them all. Usually, I will remember that it is a special feast day at about 3 in the afternoon (if at all) and then I will casually mention it to the kids without any special celebrating.   Second of all, when we do remember to acknowledge the special feasts of our faith, our celebrations hardly seem worth mentioning to others. They are not very significant, not very creative. Yesterday, for example, to commemorate the Feast of Our Lady of La Leche, we drank milkshakes together before bed. Will milkshakes encourage my children to be better Catholics or increase in them a devotion to our Blessed Mother? Would other families be inspired by our idea of celebration? You see why I do not share more often…..
    The story of Our Lady of Fatima is one of my favorites though. I love the simplicity and innocence of the three little shepherd children.   I love that they never wavered in their insistence of proclaiming Mary’s message to the world. I love the accounts of the Miracle of the Sun, witnessed by thousands in a little sheep pasture in Portugal. It was an amazing event that changed hearts and brought about the conversion of many.
    Earlier this week, I heard about a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Fatima, that was going to be traveling to different parishes in our diocese this week to celebrate the miracle and, hopefully, inspire greater devotion to Mary.   The statue would be at a parish very near to our home on Wednesday, but just for the morning and early afternoon. I made the decision to take my children to see the statue, hear the stories, and pray before Our Blessed Mother. But then yesterday, Tuesday, we had a very long and exhausting day.   Before bed last night (and before our nighttime snack of milkshakes) :) I told the kids I had changed my mind. We would not attempt to get up early and out the door to attend the Mass and presentation. It would just be too much.
    This morning, (by the grace of God?) I had another change of heart. Despite our busy, overwhelming week so far (or rather, because of our overwhelming week, so far), I really thought we should be there. So, I woke the children early, practically having to drag them out of bed, and we made it to the 8:30am Mass, where Our Lady’s statue sat in silent peacefulness up front. After Mass, we moved a little closer and listened as a woman spoke of the miracles that had followed the beautiful statue of Our Lady as "she" had traveled the world. The parish priest joined us and added his own spiritual miracle to the list, sharing his own devotion and attributing his vocation, at least in part, to his connection to Our Lady of Fatima. Then, the children and I got a few moments to pray before the statue while holding 1st class relics from Jacinta and Francisco, two of the young shepherd children Mary had appeared to for the last time almost exactly 94 years ago.
    It has been one of those weeks. A week, not only of busyness and chaos, but also of questioning myself and doubting myself and looking for God but not feeling like I was finding Him. But, today, as my children and I knelt in prayer before that amazing replica of Mary, the Mother of God, I was at peace.   Through the beautiful example of His mother, Jesus gave me just the renewal I was so in need of.   And He reminded me, once again, how important it is to trust, to let go of my perfectionism, and to believe in miracles, even little miracles like peaceful home schooling and a calm, relaxed mommy.

On tolerance....

2011-10-09T13:08:00.000-04:00

    “Tolerance is so important.” I heard this this morning at Mass. It is a sentiment one hears everywhere these days. It is a sentiment I disagree completely with, however. Tolerance, to me, is a problem. It is not the answer to all of the world’s problems as it seems to be, to so many people. We are told that what the world needs is more tolerance. We, as a people, are encouraged to tolerate people’s differences, tolerate the choices of others, whatever they may be, tolerate new ideas of good vs. evil (ideas which change and vary from one person to another). Tolerance, it seems, has become synonymous with acceptance, and acceptance, synonymous with peace. Tolerance is held up as the ultimate expression of morality.

    But, no matter what “the world” wants to believe or to preach, tolerance is not synonymous with love. To tolerate means to withstand the unpleasant effects of something, or to be willing to allow something to happen or exist.   It has come to mean further, to recognize other people's right to have different beliefs or practices without attempting to suppress them. Whatever definition you prefer, tolerance is dealing with something, living with something, but it is not the same as embracing something, or for that matter, someone.

    Jesus loved but He did not tolerate. He loved all people, called all people closer to Himself, reached out to all people, but never once did He tolerate. He went way beyond acceptance of each person He encountered, He loved them. He loved them right where they were, and just as they were, but He never let them stay there. He called them all to something more, something better. He called them away from their sinful ways and mediocre existences. He pointed out their areas of weakness, of misunderstanding, of sinfulness. He told them to rise above it, to turn to God and live a better life. He would never have tolerated, nor preached a gospel of tolerance. Because tolerance, especially in today’s definition of it, means allowing, even encouraging sinfulness. It means leaving each other alone to do right or wrong (most often wrong it seems to me) without ever trying to help anyone to do what God wants of them. Tolerance is not about helping others to heaven, or even helping others to happiness. It is about leaving others to wallow in their weak, sinful ways without helping, without loving.

    I think Jesus would be incredibly disappointed in a society that stops at a level of tolerance, that does not strive for so much more. True love never stops at mere acceptance. Tolerance is such a cop out in many ways. We are called to love and love means wanting what is best for others. It means we must never tolerate the sins of others, sins that hurt and affect us all. We must do all we can to lead our friends, family members, neighbors, and even strangers, if we can, to a life that rejects sin, not a life that celebrates it. Jesus teaches us to love the sinner and hate the sin. Our worlds seems to ignore the sinner and embrace the sin.   If that is tolerance, then tolerance is selfishness.

    I would never allow my children to simply tolerate each other. In our home, we strive each and every day to love one another. It is not always easy. There are all those little annoyances, all those petty disagreements, all those opportunities to criticize and tease and stir up trouble. Maybe if my children could just tolerate each other things would be quieter at my house. But quiet can be quite overrated. Quiet is not the goal. Simple tolerance is not an option. I expect love. I want a family full of love. Love, kindness, joy, and true feelings of gratitude for one another. I am hoping for, praying for, real Christ-centered love that manifests itself in an enduring desire to help each other to a place of growth in holiness and virtue in my home.... and in the world around it.

A novel experience

2011-10-07T10:48:00.000-04:00

    Back in August, I heard about a website, and a contest, and a chance to try to fulfill a dream of mine. I ran across a brief reference to “NaNoWriMo” on a blog I found and I decided to try to figure out what the heck it was. As it turns out, NaNoWriMo is not a strange old Native American word. It is a sort of abbreviation for “National Novel Writing Month.” It is also a website, and a contest. The idea behind it is to encourage members to write a novel, a whole novel, start to finish, in a month. After visiting the website, I thought about it for a while.

    I’ve always loved writing. I’ve always wanted to write a novel. I have always had stories weaving their way through my thoughts whether I’ve invited them or not. Stories are such a part of my thoughts and my life and I’ve always wanted to get them down on paper and share them but I have never been confident enough, or had the time enough, to actually do it. So, crazy as it sounds, I signed up.

    November is national novel writing month. So, on November 1st (and not a minute before) the contest officially begins. The challenge? To write a 50,000 word novel before November 30. The website provides support, encouragement, and the official word count. The participants must provide their own stories and their own time.

    I am a home schooling mother of 5. My husband works about 60-70 hours a week outside the house, and is pursuing his master’s degree in an online program that requires some 10-15 hours of work each week from home. I am responsible for shopping, cleaning, cooking, educating, caring for, and chauffeuring to gym class, art class, cub scouts, etc….   I have trouble keeping up with the laundry and dishes.   Where I will fit in time to write 1667 words of original, interesting, coherent narration each day for a month, I do not know. I am so excited to try to find out!

    I shared my goal and excitement with my children and they too were intrigued. So, on November 1st the biggest challenge may not be whether or not my story is any good, or whether or not I can even find time to sit down and write. It may be, whether or not I can get near my computer to do my writing. You see, NaNoWriMo has a young writers program, too. My two oldest children have signed up. My middle daughter will join us in writing a story also, though not officially through the website.

The four of us have spent the last few weeks working on our story ideas, developing plot lines, and naming characters. Everyday lately one of the kids will ask, “How many days till we start?” Then we go check the countdown at the website and feel nervous and excited and anxious all at once.

I am not sure I will make it to 50,000 words. I am not at all sure it is even possible, there just might not be enough hours in the day, or days in the month. But, if nothing else, the attempt to complete a whole story in a month, with my children, will be such a novel experience, it is sure to be worth a try….

Another close call

2011-10-03T21:42:00.000-04:00

On our latest camping trip…. As soon as we arrived, my oldest son jumped out of the car and ran quickly to our campsite to start exploring. All of the sudden, he went from running excitedly to stopping dead in his tracks. We weren’t sure why until he ran back to us and informed us that he had almost stepped on a snake. Here is a picture of the “welcome committee” that greeted our son with a venomous smile!

The snake at our campsite- alive and well

Thankfully, our slithery little friend showed no sign of aggression. It also showed no sign of fear, and did not even flinch when my husband stood far away and threw sticks at it in the hopes of spooking it and sending it slinking back off into the woods. Instead, the snake sat unfazed basking in the sun and “standing” his ground. I, meanwhile, looked for the number of a park ranger who could come and help us out, while the children huddled fearfully in the back of the van next to all the yet unpacked camping gear. All the children except for my oldest son, that is. He stood on the picnic table nearby and watched his father continue to battle the snake. My husband, armed with nothing more than a few sticks and logs, which he threw repeatedly at the snake, finally triumphed. It was not until the poor reptile was already gravely injured, that it shook its tail warningly and reared up, opening its mouth to show sharp little fangs and hissing loudly. A few more direct hits from the big campfire log and there was no more hissing, no more tail shaking, no more chance of danger. Then, we were able to commence with the camping. When we finally caught up with the park ranger and showed him the picture I had taken, he informed us that what we had seen was a pygmy rattlesnake. I shudder to think what could have happened, and just thank God my son wasn’t bitten.


Smashed under a log, no longer a threat to anyone

My son pointing out a picture of the snake he saw.

    This was not the first time he has had a close call in life. My now ten year old son was born with his umbilical cord tied in a knot and wrapped around his neck. It was at that moment, I figured he had not one guardian angel, but a whole army of them, all watching out for him, and somehow, keeping him safe.
    At about 9 months old, he scaled a book case in the family room. The shelves were the adjustable kind that just sort of sit on the case, not firmly attached, and the top one tipped up knocking my baby boy to the floor and dumping an entire shelf full of heavy books on him. I was terrified. He was fine. So fine, that he was back to climbing up the book case almost as soon as I had put everything back together again.
    At about 2 years old, he refused to go home with me and his sisters after a little walk around the block. I tried that old, “If you won‘t come, I‘ll just have to leave without you” trick and I walked slooooooowly off, assuming he would follow as soon as he realized I was serious. I was only about one house away when I glanced back to check on him. He was standing on the sidewalk at the end of a driveway not paying any attention to me or anything else, when I noticed a minivan in the driveway starting to back up to leave. Just before I was able to scream in terror, the driver happened to look back and somehow, though it doesn’t seem possible, see that short little toddler in the rear view mirror. Once again, I was traumatized, my son was completely unscathed. Needless to say, I have never tried that trick again!
    Leading up to the rattlesnake encounter, there have been other, thankfully less dramatic, moments too. I’m thinking God must have some pretty big plans for this kid. Plans that must surely require a lot of courage on my son’s part, a lot of trust on mine, and a whole lot of overtime on the part of the legion of angels watching over him!

The great outdoors

2011-09-30T10:58:00.000-04:00

We bought a tent about 4 years ago. Camping with the family sounded like so much fun. Our first camping trip, though, was not exactly the fun we were hoping for, disastrous is probably a better word…..

We went to Orlando and decided to “rough” it at Disney’s Fort Wilderness “resort”. We are not that adventurous and, e-a-s-i-n-g into the whole nature thing seemed like a good idea. We arrived in the late afternoon. After, pitching our tent and carefully arranging our air mattress, sleeping bags and pillows, we headed out to explore the campgrounds. We checked out the huge pool, the horse corral, the restaurants, and the “general store”. It was all so nice and clean and so Disney. We heard there was a nightly campfire with Chip and Dale the chipmunks. Along with a beautiful big campfire there would be s’mores and campfire songs. It sounded great to us! So that evening, we anxiously arrived at the campfire ring a little early, excited for the festivities to begin. But before Chip and Dale arrived, the rain did. Lots and lots of torrential rain, pouring down in sheets, as we sat under a shelter by the pool. Chip and Dale would not be coming-- instead we got a little old lady dressed in plaid with a guitar, who would lead us in camping songs. Unfortunately, she was having a bad day. She informed us that it was the anniversary of her brother’s death in Vietnam and she could not help but dwell on it. I’m pretty sure if Walt Disney would have known what a breath of fresh air she was that day, he would have made sure to have given her the day off. With all the rain hammering down around us, we were stuck. So we listened to her sad story and watched the rain come down, down, down for about two hours. Finally, the rain slowed, then stopped. Finally, in the darkness, we gathered up the kids and set off for our campsite, catching drips from the trees but trying to make the best of things. On the way back we got turned around and lost. Hopelessly lost. We wandered in the cool, wet night with our (then) four young, tired children wondering if we would ever find our way back. We did, eventually. Not surprisingly, the tent was soaked. Everything in the tent was soaked. Our sleeping bags, our pillows, our p.j.’s --dripping , sopping, wet. Puddles collected in the corners of the tent. After a quick snack of raw s’mores (from our own supplies) we put on the soggy sleep clothes, climbed under the soggy covers and laid our heads on the soggy pillows. We lay shivering in our tent wondering what else could go wrong, when the frogs started. It sounded like thousands of frogs, all surrounding our tent, singing and croaking loudly all night. As we shivered and listened to our amphibious serenade we also sunk, deeper and deeper. No, not in the various tent puddles exactly, but into the slowly deflating air mattress. After a few hours, Tim decided we’d be better off just deflating the thing ourselves so he pulled the plug. The rest of that long, cold, loud night we spent on the hard, gravelly ground. It was a long night to say the least, but we survived, and amazingly, with our sense of humor in tact. We all agreed that though pretty much everything that could go wrong did, we still had a good time.

On our second camping trip we were practically blown away by blustery winds, and just missed another rain storm, that hit full force in the morning, as we were pulling out of the campgrounds.

On our third, I was recovering from a bout of stomach flu so we cut things short and headed home to sleep.

Our fourth was cancelled at the last minute because of my grandfather’s death, and I spent that weekend at a funeral instead of in a tent.

We did have one successful, uneventful camp-out last February. Two nights of family fun and games and lots of great memories.

This weekend we will attempt another trip to the woods for s’mores, scary stories, and sleeping among the wild animals.

I guess, as it turns out, our family does have a spirit of adventure, or maybe we are just crazy…either way, we are ready for more. Bring on the adventure!

Just a reminder

2011-09-26T14:35:00.001-04:00

    My sacrifice beads hang on a peg in my kitchen. They have been there since I made them with my Little Flowers group last winter. I planned the craft for that meeting, so many months ago, as much for me as for "my" girls. I knew having the beads would remind me to offer up little sacrifices throughout the day. I knew, as soon as I finished stringing them all together and tying on the medal of St. Therese, right where I’d put them. The visual of that humble little string of dark brown beads hanging by the light switch in the kitchen would be the perfect inspiration to do all things for Christ. I could easily slide a bead up each time I washed a sink full of crusty dishes that had sat a little longer than they should have, or cleaned out a sippy cup of sour chunky milk, that had been found behind the couch after a few days. After wiping up another spill or wiping the little one’s sticky hands for the fifth time or finally finding a few minutes to pick up the cheerios we’d all been crunching under foot for hours, it would just take a fraction of a second to add another bead to the side of sacrifices and remember why I do the things I do.

    It worked so nicely for a while. For a few days, I was very conscious of sliding beads and offering sacrifices and serving God in the big and little ways each day. But then, the string of sacrifice beads seemed to fade into the background of the kitchen, like the inevitable piles of papers and the overflowing junk drawer and the numerous colorful refrigerator magnets all over. The beads hung there, quietly, unnoticed. Now, of course, I did not forget to wipe off sticky hands or wash the dishes or clean up the scattered cheerios but some days, lots of days, I forgot to offer those little things up to God. I lost sight of the value of my little acts of kindness, my little ways of serving God each day. Today, somehow I remembered those beads. I looked behind the set of keys that got hung in front of them and there they still were.

Sitting quietly, just waiting.

So, I moved the keys aside, and then slid a bead for pulling myself out of bed at 7:30am when I wanted nothing more than to sleep in a little while longer. It was not a big thing but it counted, because I did it for God. It was a exercise in discipline, a little sacrifice of rest, a little chance to grow closer to Him. I did it because I knew it was what He wanted me to do. I have since slid a few more beads, made a few more tiny, little sacrifices. I don’t know how long I will remember the beauty of those little beads this time around, but at least today, I am remembering to serve God in all I do.

My favorite books

2011-09-21T13:40:00.000-04:00

I have been invited to take part in a blog "meme" on my favorite fiction books. Books, being one of my very favorite things in the whole world, are something I am always thrilled to share. :) I did discover, however, as I looked at each of the categories, that as an adult I have spent a whole lot more time reading non-fiction than fiction, and many of the fiction books I do read are my children’s books that I just happen to pick up or that I am “previewing” for them. I've discovered that even in adulthood though, I actually really love reading books intended for children. Oftentimes, they have a lot of depth and meaning and are usually innocent and inoffensive, something many secular fiction books I've read that are more "age appropriate" for me, are not. As a fellow book lover once told me, children's books often have more "heart." Of course, there have been a few more grown-up selections I have loved, as well. So, without further ado, here is my list:

Favorite books from my childhood:

We Love Kindergarten by Clara Cassidy
All the “Ramona” books by Beverly Cleary
Daphne’s Book by Mary Downing Hahn
Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Cheaper by the Dozen by Ernestine Carey and Frank B. Gilbreth
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg

My favorite books to read to my children:

Yertle the Turtle and The Sneetches and pretty much everything else by Dr. Seuss
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Goodnight Opus by Berkeley Breathed
All the “Ramona” books by Beverly Cleary
Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
The “Little House” books (especially On The Banks of Plum Creek and Farmer Boy) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty G. Birney
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
So, so many more……

Current read-alouds:

String, Straight Edge, and Shadow by Julia E. Diggins
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Clown of God by Tomie De Paola

My Favorite Novels:

The Genesis Code by John Case
Three by Ted Dekker
The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint Exupery (a novella?)
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
The Witch at Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Novels I’ve enjoyed recently:

The Bicycle Man by David L. Dudley
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Flowers for Algernon (a novella?) by Daniel Keyes
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Year Money Grew on Trees by Aaron Hawkins

Novels I am currently reading:

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore

Novels I’d Like to read:

anything by GK Chesterton
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Jeweler’s Shop by Karol Wojtyla (aka Pope John Paul the Great)

For more wonderful books, be sure to check out all the meme participants over at Sue Elvis' blog "Stories of an Unschooling Family" and feel free to join in with us as well!

To school or not to school?

2011-09-17T20:49:00.000-04:00

    In my son’s first grade math book he is working on measurements. His book shows little pictures of scales with weights on one side and assorted objects- fruits, school supplies, and the like, on the other. I’ve explained to him how the scale is supposed to balance. It was a meaningful lesson, though not so much for him. He did well filling out the little blanks with the correct weights of each of the various items and then we closed the book, and I am sure he moved on in his little mind. I, however, have been thinking a whole lot about balance lately and so the lesson has stayed with me, lingering in the back of my mind as I grade the children’s math work, and encourage them to keep up with their writing, and pull out their science text to read another chapter with them.
    I have thought and thought and thought about natural curiosity and learning through experiences and self-directed discovery. I am fascinated with unschooling and the idea of being less of a teacher to my children and more of a facilitator and fellow student in this world of new and exciting things. But I worry about balance. I worry about lack of discipline, on their part and on mine. But what I really, really worry about most, is giving my children the wrong idea about what life is really like and really about. As Catholics, we know the value of obedience, the value of suffering, and the value of sacrifice. I worry unschooling takes the focus off things like that and puts it on self-centeredness, and the pursuit of pleasure. “You don’t want to do math? Don’t worry about it.” “You think spelling is a waste of time? That’s okay.” It's not the academics I worry about in unschooling though.   I really do trust that my children would learn what they needed to know academically through living a life of discovery and curiosity. What I fear, these days, is whether or not they would learn to live a life of virtue. Would they understand that obedience will lead us closer to Christ, keep us authentically Catholic, make us holy?   Would they experience the beauty of offering things up for the good of those less fortunate than us? Or would they wake up each day thinking only of themselves and what they feel like doing?
    I have read opinions on both sides of the argument. I have heard it said that unschooling is not actually teaching, and therefore not exactly educating, and therefore not living up to the responsibility of parents as the first educators of their children. I have heard it said that, as Catholics, our tradition is to be rigorous in our pursuit of knowledge and unschooling is not acceptable because it is too laid back.   But, I have also read beautiful accounts of very successful people who learned about the world through their own discoveries and initiation. I have seen my own children produce the most amazing projects all on their own.
    So, how do I make learning a beautiful experience? How do I instill a love of it and encourage my children to find their passions and talents while still being a responsible parent? How do I raise my children to put God first and be willing to trust in Him for all things and be obedient to whatever He asks of them?   How do I teach them that life is not always fun and easy and enjoyable but that the difficult moments, the challenges we face, are what stretch us to be better people. Learning is sometimes difficult but the lessons we glean through the challenges and struggles are often the most valuable. Where is the balance I so desperately seek?!?!?!!?!?!?
    Ironically, though I constantly worry and question, our school year is going well, so far. The children are obediently doing the work I require of them and are still finding time for the “fun” stuff they are interested in. We spend our school time on the traditional subjects of math, science, history, grammar, religion etc… but with some input from the children on what they want to learn within those subjects and how they want to learn them. They have some assignments they must do and expectations they must meet but also free time to explore extras and create their own projects. They have unit studies they have chosen to do, that I have given directions, suggestions, and, yes, some requirements for.
    So, have I already found the balance I seek? I do not know. I still worry and fret about it often. But, the atmosphere of our home seems to be more peaceful and more relaxed and the children, despite my mistakes over the years, always seem to be learning one way or another. Maybe I am teaching them, through my constant re-evaluations, that learning never ends and sometimes trying new things is the best way to figure things out.   At least, I hope….

The next adventure begins....

2011-09-15T08:14:00.000-04:00

Thirteen years ago, as I looked into the beautiful face of my newborn daughter I could not picture her with hair and teeth. That she could someday be a tall, lanky teenager seemed as unbelievable as time travel. Now, somehow, it seems both have come true. Somehow, time has traveled a million times faster than I ever thought possible and my newborn is 13 years old (and almost taller than me). I lived through those first few months when we got no sleep and she cried for no reason, and the toddler years with their unreasonable emotions and loud violent temper tantrums, and the experience of potty training, when life was measured by how long it had been since the last accident. I’ve helped her through loose teeth, and learning to ride a bicycle, and memorizing times tables. I’ve been through her first sleep over at a friend’s house, and watching her get braces put on her teeth and then taken off again. I survived her pre-school years when she was away from me for hours doing all sorts of new and exciting things that I was not a part of, and a few years later, her first days of home schooling when she no longer went anywhere without me and, all of the sudden, I was responsible for whether or not she was properly educated.

And now, I stand on the edge of parenting through the teenage years.

I’ve been told that this is the time when formerly agreeable, pleasant children become moody and sullen, when obedient little angels become disrespectful know-it-alls, when emerging independence collides with an attitude of self-importance and life becomes a battle of the wills like no other time before. I’ve been told the teenage years are God’s way of preparing us to let our children go out into the world and make their own way. That the battles, and struggles, and difficulties of growing up all come to a head and after all of it, we are ready to see them off and wait with baited breath to see who they will become. Right now, the vision of that beautiful little newborn is still so vivid in my mind, I cannot imagine ever getting to that day… but I guess this is where it starts....

Today, my baby is a teenager.

I don’t know if I am ready for this, or if she is for that matter, but here we are. She is still very sweet, still very innocent, still willing to hang out with her mom and share a laugh or talk with me in her room at bedtime as I tuck her in or listen to my advice on what she should wear or how she should fix her hair or what she and her friends should do for fun. I wish I could freeze time and keep her little just a little while longer, but time doesn’t freeze. It travels. Quickly. So quickly.

It may not be easy, but I hope and pray I will enjoy her teenage years and cherish the time as I get to witness her transition from a beautiful little girl to an even more beautiful young woman. Like her childhood so far, it is sure to be an adventure, with ups and downs and twists and turns. And, I hope, a million more moments worth savoring and delighting in.

Always watching over me

2011-09-10T12:40:00.000-04:00

    At about 10:30 last night, as we were finally heading to bed, I smiled at my husband and asked, “So, should I blog about today?” He shrugged and sort of smiled back. We had been doing anything but smiling earlier in the day but sometimes, when life is at its most unbelievably craziest, you get to a point when all you can do is step back in ironic appreciation of how things sometimes end up....
    When I started my blog, almost three years ago, I wanted to write about the times in my life where I could see God at work. The ordinary moments and extraordinary moments when I see God’s hand on me and my family. Now, I believe, without a doubt, that God is always at work in my life and always with me. So I guess every story is valid. If my criteria for what makes the cut on this blog is just that God is working through the events and happenings I write about, than everything potentially makes the cut.
    Anyway, yesterday was not one of those days I was feeling very blessed, at least not at first but maybe it was one of those days that God really blessed me most……..
    The day started with the air conditioning repair man coming. It was a long stressful morning that resulted in a hefty bill to fix the a/c for the 4th or 5th year in a row. Both the manager and the technician admitted it was a bit unusual to have so much trouble with a 6 year old system and that something seemed not quite right about it. Neither one would take any responsibility for it though, nor would they offer to do anything to assist us in solving the bigger problem of why things keep breaking. They were “kind” enough to give us a 10% discount off the current repairs, bringing the final bill to $530. Tim was at work, virtually unavailable, and I was trying to juggle school work with the kids in between phone calls to the a/c company, conversations with technician, and freaking out about yet another repair bill that was not in the budget. In the end, I just put it on the credit card, offered my worries and frustrations up to God, and then quickly proceeded to get the kids ready for their home school P.E. class.
    Once the kids were all signed up and settled in at their class, I took the little one and headed off to do some birthday shopping. My oldest is going to turn 13 next week and I’ve found one of the greatest challenges of home schooling is finding opportunities to shop for Christmas and birthdays. It may seem silly but I really do have to be creative about it because the kids are always with me. This seemed the perfect opportunity though. I went quickly, visiting three stores, and making various purchases. It was fun to be out with just the 2 year old, chatting with her about all the things she saw- “mama, doggy,” “mama, shirt”, “mama, baby!”
    We rushed back to P.E. with 10 minutes to spare and I was met at the door by a friend. She informed me that my 8 year old had fallen during class and hurt herself. They were getting her ice and she was pretty upset. I went to her quickly and looked at the scrape and bruise on her right eye. She would not tell me anything but seemed to be okay. I snuggled her a little while, trying to cheer her up. Then I gathered her and her siblings up and we headed to park day with our home school group. We were not there long when my poor little bruised and battered girl started throwing up unexpectedly. “Uh-oh, she must have hit her head harder than I realized,” I thought to myself. I called the pediatrician right away and was told to take her right to the ER. So, in the car again with the 5 kids and off to the hospital, calling Tim along the way. He promised to leave work and meet me there to pick up the 4 healthy children. Of course, he works about 45 minutes away.
    In the end, all was fine. My daughter got a CT scan and was checked out by the doctor. She was diagnosed with a concussion but was discharged and we headed home for a late dinner. We watched her closely all evening and I got up twice in the night to check on her. By this morning, she was back to her old self with barely a headache to remind her of her adventures. The bruise will be around for a while but that will just remind me that, though it was an insanely crazy (not to mention expensive) day, it could have been much, much worse. I am so grateful she got away with just a concussion and not a more serious head injury. I am so grateful for all our home school friends who were praying for us at the park while we were in the ER and who later called to check on how my daughter was doing.   And, I’m so, so grateful that even after the most chaotic, unpredictable days I get a little quiet time to pray and thank God for being with me through it all, even when I am too crazed to even notice Him in the midst of it. Though the day was a roller coaster of stress, worry and fear, I ended it feeling grateful for the blessing of my (overall very) healthy children all snug in their beds, and the amazing perspective that only the craziest day can give...

Our Little House, and theirs

2011-09-08T14:18:00.000-04:00

    Years ago, I started reading the “Little House” books with my oldest daughter. We read a couple together but then, she was so enthralled with them, and I was too busy to read them fast enough for her, she finished the rest of the books on her own. I, too, enjoyed them thoroughly and so finished reading them on my own as well. As I read the true stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life, I could not believe all the hardships her poor family endured.   They built a life for themselves in Kansas with a nice little house and a beautiful piece of land only to be kicked out after a year of back-breaking work, because the land belonged to the Indians. They went north and settled again, starting over to build everything they had left behind in Kansas. They built another house, planted more crops, and made a new home for themselves. Then grasshoppers came and ate their crops. All their hard work was undone and they had no choice but to start over again. They dealt with fires, blizzards, illness, loss, more blizzards, and more blizzards. They did not ever have a truly successful year of farming. They never got to really enjoy the fruits of all their labors. There was always something to take away their rewards, or ruin their work, or destroy their plans. Always. Yet they never gave up, they never lost heart, they never felt sorry for themselves. It was pretty amazing really. They walked around feeling blessed despite the hardships and difficulties of pioneer life.
    Tim and I are not farmers. We have never built anything with our own hands or moved with our family to a whole new place. But today, I find myself thinking about the Ingalls family and feeling a lot like I can relate to them.
      Our house has been a challenge since the day we moved in ten years ago. We have had problems with the air conditioning, plumbing, air conditioning, electrical system, and air conditioning. We have replaced doors, carpeting, duct work, windows, the roof, and the air conditioning. Every time we make a list of things we’d like to do in our house- things like re-paint the family room, buy a new kitchen table, upgrade the cabinets, get a new fence in the backyard, etc…   something else goes wrong and we pour more money into the house without ever really getting ahead. The maintenance is killing us. We can barely keep up, and yet things keep going wrong. Last weekend, Tim spent his Labor Day working on the house. Tuesday evening, I put our dinner into the microwave expecting it to be hot and delicious in just 25 minutes. 40 minutes later, our potatoes were still crunchy. They hadn't cooked at all. The microwave was clearly broken. This morning, I noticed the air conditioner did not seem to be kicking on. I checked the thermostat, and went outside to check the unit. Everything seemed to be fine but there was no air coming through the vents. None at all. This is the fourth or fifth year we have had problems with the air conditioner that we just replaced 6 years ago. As I held my hand in front of the vent that no cool air was shooting from this morning, I felt my spirits sink into a state of deep depression and self-pity over the whole thing. But then, (maybe it's message from God?) the old Little House stories popped into my head. I feel like the Ingalls, trying so hard to get ahead, trying so hard to do the right things for our family and make a nice safe home for our children, only to be hit with bad luck at every turn. The Ingalls learned to persevere despite their struggles. They appreciated the gifts of family and friends and the opportunity to start over when things went wrong. Like the ideas of embracing my suffering, praising God in all things, and finding joy in even my challenges, I am just not there yet. But God sure does keep giving me opportunities to try to get there…..

Following joyfully?

2011-09-04T20:56:00.000-04:00

    My children and I have been talking a lot about virtues lately. I’ve decided we will focus on learning more about virtues in school this year. We even read about the four cardinal virtues in the Catechism the other day. I decided to focus on virtues with my children not because I observed a lack of virtue on their part but because I desire so much to grow in virtue in my own life. My hope is that my children and I will learn together how to be more virtuous and more holy.
    There are many virtues I struggle with. But, perhaps the one I struggle most with is joy. Over the last year, a good friend and I have discussed the importance of joy in following Christ. She has reminded me that we are called to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church and to try to imitate Christ in all things and to do so with joy. I am not naturally a joyful person. I am relatively happy, I am mostly content with my life, but I am not filled with joy. Instead I am often filled with anxiety, worry, fear, and insecurity. I try really hard to do as Christ wants me to but I do so with a heavy heart at times. I walk around overwhelmed and bogged down with the stresses in my life.
    In my spiritual reading and my prayer time, it has come up lately that I should try to embrace my suffering. Now, I really do understand that in life we must suffer. I see that it is unavoidable, and even that it is redemptive to suffer. Suffering unites us with Christ. I know that, I believe that, but still I have not figured out quite how to embrace it.   When life gets difficult, when I am suffering, I cannot seem to rise above it. I endure it surely, but not with joy. I have been told that, in addition to embracing our suffering, we should praise God in everything. In everything!!?!?!? I praise God often when life is going my way. I thank Him for the blessings in my life and for the good things and good times. When life is not much fun though, the last thing I feel capable of doing is praising. I turn to God in my struggles but usually to complain to Him or simply to beg Him to take away the difficulties and make life easy.   I never turn to Him in praise when life has gotten me down.
    I do really want to grow in virtue. I want to exude Christian joy and peace but it is so hard to do at times. Maybe I should go back to the Catechism and those 4 cardinal virtues…. maybe if I can ~~master~~ grow in fortitude, justice, temperance, and prudence the other virtues will someday follow…..and, of course, I'll keep praying, praying, praying….

More special memories...

2011-09-01T13:59:00.001-04:00

    My last post was about my oldest child’s 1st memories and how (pleasantly) surprised I was at what stood out in her mind from her younger days. After her special treat of staying up late with just Mommy and Daddy, her ten year old brother wanted a turn too. So, last night, he had his “stay up late” night. We talked about other things for a while, but then I posed the same question to him as I had to his sister. “What is your earliest memory?” I asked. His answer? The time a lost puppy dog found its way to our backyard. He and I sat by the window watching the confused pup for a while wondering what to do when finally, all on its own, the dog re-discovered the hole in the fence that had facilitated its coming and it left. At most, this took 5-10 minutes but it was the closest we ever came (or ever will come) to having a dog. My son was probably not even 3 years old at the time but he remembers watching the little dog wander our backyard. He remembers going to the neighbor’s house afterward to borrow some dog food just in case the dog came back.
    Like his sister he remembered an ordinary day at home with Mommy. He did not remember his little sister’s birth when he was 1 ½ years old or his little brother’s birth two years later. Going on long car trips to visit his grandparents and cousins in St. Louis did not come to mind. Instead he remembers a regular day when something, a very little something, special and unusual happened.
    We have had so many significant moments in our life, so many life changing events, but it is really the little things that just happen in our everyday moments that make life something special.
==============================================================
    Incidentally, I was curious so I asked my 6 and 8 year old’s the question this morning. Their answers were just as surprising, but only because they were so different than the older two. My 6 year old son said, watching his dad, brother and sister canoeing down a little stream while camping at Disney World. My 8 year old daughter said, a surprise weekend at a resort with friends. It is quite ironic to me that they would remember the big exciting moments we had saved and prepared for, while their siblings remember such mundane things. Maybe it is because the younger children have had so many fewer vacations and trips, so they mean so much more to them. Whatever the reason, I guess it is good to have a balance in life. Those rare excursions to fun, exciting places are worth saving up for and enjoying when you can, but real life at home is just as important and special. As for the little one’s 1st memories-- I am pretty sure if she could truly understand the question, her answer would be the time she got a bug on her arm at Wal-Mart. It happened a few months ago but she still tells us quite often, “bug, arm” and points out the spot where he was.

Making memories

2011-08-30T22:10:00.000-04:00

The day we moved into our "new" house.

        A long time ago, back when there was only one little child running through our house, we used to do lots of fun things. Not that we don’t do fun things now, but back then, in those early years of parenting, we did things like go to Disney World, go on trips across the country, and go out to dinner all the time. Money was tight but we were able to find enough to treat ourselves fairly often. The other night, Tim and I were talking to our oldest child. Our first born was the only one to ever have our completely undivided attention for years, the only one to know the joy of being the center of our world, all alone in the limelight of parental love. Its been a long time since she’s had us all to herself, but for once, we let her stay up late without her siblings and it was sort of like going back in time for a minute. Somehow we started to reminisce, reliving those old days of her infancy and early toddler years. I asked her what her earliest memory was. She thought and thought and had trouble remembering anything from her only-child days.   She remembered pre-school, but by that time she already had a little brother and a little sister. The first early memory she had was the time we brought her best friend a fortune cookie to try. We had to give it to her friend’s mom in the morning before school because there was a rule against sharing lunches. As she thought some more, she remembered one little thing from before the other kids came along. She vaguely remembered laying on the couch in our kitchen while we moved into our house. We moved in when she was 2 ½, just a few months before she became a big sister.
    It is so funny what our kids remember. She does not remember going to the Pacific Northwest and seeing Mt. St Helen’s and the Pacific Ocean. She doesn’t remember meeting Mickey Mouse at Disney World or her first birthday party with the whole extended family in attendance. She remembers the fun of watching t.v. in the kitchen because the house was a mess of boxes and disorganization. She remembers sharing a cookie with a friend at school. It makes me wonder why we, as parents, bother making fancy plans and doing big, exciting things. The moments that stand out in our children’s minds are those simple things that we don’t even really plan but just happen in everyday life.
    A few of my friends and I were recently discussing that old debate about quality time vs. quantity of time. We all agreed that the idea of quality time being enough was a little bit of a delusion on the part of super busy parents and child-rearing “experts”. In our experiences, as home schooling mothers, ~~many~~ most of the quality times with our children come in the midst of our long, busy days, completely unplanned and unexpected. Quality time comes out of a quantity of time spent together, and only out of quantity. It cannot be planned, it cannot be forced, it cannot be manufactured. I don’t doubt at all, that once my children are all grown and on their own, they will remember the simplest and most ordinary days much more vividly than the vacations and trips to amusement parks. It is in the ordinary days, we build memories that are not artificial but real. We have fun that is not planned out and organized ahead of time, but spontaneous and natural. We seem to laugh so much harder and act so much sillier on our ordinary days than we ever do on vacation. It is in the everyday that we build memories of being together and talking together and living together, sharing our lives and our time and our love. So, though my daughter’s earliest memories were not what I would have expected, I cherish them as she does, for they are the memories of what life was really like when she was little.

Chocolate-covered Saturday

2011-08-28T15:34:00.001-04:00

    Hershey’s, Godiva, Ghiradelli, Wonka, Cadbury, Nestle-- all this and more, laid out before me for my tasting pleasure. No, it wasn't a dream, it was school. Really. A few weeks ago I asked what my children most wanted to learn about this school year and my younger children all answered with subjects they knew I planned to cover. I heard, “astronomy,” “writing,” and “reading.” Then, I turned to my oldest for her answer. She smiled and said, “Chocolate. I want to learn about chocolate this year.” She may have been joking at the time, or testing to see what my reaction would be, but who am I to stand in the way of my children’s academic interests? If the child wants to learn about chocolate, then let her have chocolate….
    I told her she would have the wonderful privilege of diving into all things chocolate and leading her willing, anxious (and, very possibly, salivating) family along the sticky, sweet path along with her. She was to put together a unit study on chocolate. I wanted to know the history of chocolate, the science of chocolate, the geography of chocolate. I wanted to see her reading chocolate literature and writing essays about chocolate. She has happily taken up the challenge. First, we scoured the library shelves checking out books with titles like Chocolate: A Sweet History and The Official M & M’s History of Chocolate. She has taken notes and made fabulously delicious discoveries and some not-so-appetizing ones as well. Did you know the first chocolate consumed, was in a drink that was thick and bitter?
    As part of her research, she insisted we had to have a taste test. Yesterday, I took her along on my weekly shopping trip and together we picked out 10 different types of chocolate. As long as we were going to sample chocolate all evening, I figured we might as well make it a chocolate themed night. So, we also picked up some mole, a Mexican sauce made of unsweetened chocolate, and the old Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie.

Once home, my daughter sat down and wrote out a survey for us all to fill out as we taste tested all the wonderful chocolate. With her dad’s help, she created an Excel program to tabulate the results. After our lovely dinner of Chicken mole, which all the kids (but the ever-picky littlest one) enjoyed, we turned the kitchen table into a market research facility and commenced with the sampling. I went first and was surprised by the difference in flavors and the ultimate results. Who would have thought I’d like the plain old Hershey’s milk chocolate bar better than all those fancy expensive ones? The whole family took their turns eating chocolate and filling in their paperwork, and the results were processed. Then (after a quick family walk around the block to promote a healthy balance in life), we sat down to watch our movie in a state of chocolate bliss. Here are our final overall scores:

She has just begun her unit study on chocolate but already my daughter has learned so much. She has collected information, organized her plans and ideas, and conducted a well planned research project. She has learned about the Mayan and Aztec cultures, read about the first explorers to visit South America, found out about rain forests where cacao trees are native, the difficulty of growing the fragile trees, and the challenge of introducing them to different parts of the world. She has read about the process of turning the bitter cacao beans into sweet, rich chocolate, and found out the countries that produce the most. She has sampled the wonderful results of the long process of chocolate production and shared the yummy-ness with her family. And, I’m pretty sure she has learned that education can be a deliciously rewarding process.

Practically the same

2011-08-25T21:04:00.004-04:00

    Tim’s 1st week of teaching! So far, he loves it. Our 2nd week [of our 7th year] of home schooling. So far, so good for us, too. For the first time ever, Tim and I are spending our days in similar fashion. So I was thinking about the things that are the same and the things that are different....

Tim teaches middle school, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, at a Catholic school.
    I teach multiple grades too, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and a toddler, who though she may not have a corresponding grade level is learning a whole bunch right along with the rest of us, at a home which strives to be authentically Catholic in all we do.

    Tim works long hours, getting up at 5:30 am, driving 45 minutes to school and not getting home until after 4pm (when he then heads to job #2 for the evenings).
    I put in lots of hours too, getting up a little later but spending all day with my “students” and not getting “off duty” until around 9:30 pm, that is assuming there are no bad dreams, no little voices crying out in the night, no illnesses etc… that require me to “work late”.

    Tim teaches religion, passing on the truths of our beautiful faith.
    I teach religion also, but not always out of a textbook. We pray through math, spelling, history, etc…. relying on God’s grace and strength to make it through each and every crazy, chaotic day.

    Tim has to deal with distractions like: the bell ringing before he is quite done with a lesson, fire drills, and disruptive students talking in class.
    I have very similar distractions-- like the phone ringing, diaper changes, and disruptive children laughing, crying, or even climbing on the table spilling crayons and screeching, “done, done, done!” (that would be my 2 year old)

    Tim has to shift gears going back and forth between the various lessons for each grade level.
    I have to shift gears constantly too-- slow down enough to sit and read with my 1st grader, be quick enough to grab the glue stick out of the 2 year old’s hands before she decorates the wall with glue or sticks all the pages of our books together, wrack my brain to figure out how to solve pre-Algebra equations with my 7th grader, explain sentence structure to my 3rd grader, discuss once again why playing Legos cannot constitute an entire curriculum, even though it could possibly encourage a future career in architecture, to my 5th grader.

    Tim has to attend open house tonight, meeting his students’ parents and going over his plans for the year. He will have to have parent/teacher conferences throughout the year, as well, keeping them informed of all they do in the classroom.
    I had to attend a meeting for our umbrella school last night, making sure I know how to stay on top of record-keeping and learning about tons of great resources at my disposal. Throughout the year, I constantly question and re-assess my teaching methods and parenting abilities especially when the atmosphere of the classroom is somewhat akin to the monkey house at the zoo.

    Tim is excited about his year. He has a great group of students and the support of his co-workers and principal.
    I am optimistic about our year. I have the very best students in the world, who I love more than words can express. I have the support of many great home schooling friends and, of course, my fabulous husband who understands what I deal with now better than ever…….

An answer to prayer: a rich young me?

2011-08-21T12:21:00.000-04:00

    Tim and I have been a part of “Teams of Our Lady” for about 7 years now.   It is a wonderful faith sharing group for Catholic couples. Last night we had our monthly meeting for August and somehow during the meeting, in the midst of discussing the convenience of following the teachings of the Church and whether or not we allow selfishness and misunderstanding to cloud our relationship with Christ and our spouses, the topic of Facebook came up.   I have had a love/hate relationship with Facebook since joining the sight in 2008. I love that it connects me with friends I would otherwise not ever hear from, and I love peeking at it throughout the day when I am feeling bored or lonely. I hate that I feel the need to peek at it throughout the day when I am feeling bored or lonely and that it seems to stir up feelings of inadequacy quite often as I see what is going on in everyone else’s life as I am feeling bored and lonely. Anyway, I was sharing my internal emotional battles concerning Facebook and one of the members of our group, who incidentally is not at all involved in Facebook, asked me if the positives were really as positive as they seemed. “Are you really connecting with others?” he asked.
    After the meeting, Tim and I always continue the discussion. So we drove home, once again talking about the pros and cons of social media. I decided I really needed to just pray about it. In all my stressing over whether I was keeping my internet usage in perspective and had a healthy balance in life with it, I had never really asked God what he wanted from me. When I sat down to pray last night before bed, as I always do, I just ask God to enlighten me.   “Help me to know what you want for me concerning Facebook, God” It was a strange prayer, I suppose, but one I think He has been waiting to hear. I, then, looked down at the list of scriptures given to me by my spiritual director and opened up to the next one on the list. Mark 10:17-22.   Now, God does not often answer my prayers so definitively or so quickly but the Bible reading was about “The Rich Young Man.”   The story tells about a man who comes to Jesus asking Him what to do to gain eternal life. Jesus answers that the man must give all he has to the poor and follow Him. The man leaves sadly, not willing to make the sacrifice. He is too attached to his worldly comforts. I’ve read the story many, many times and it is one I really like. This time, it spoke to me even louder than ever. God was clearly asking me to sacrifice my Facebook usage because somehow it was keeping me from completely following Him. I knew I had to quit. I went to bed resolving to deactivate my account in the morning.
    I did not sleep well. Somehow in my sleep, and the waking moments in between, I was thinking a lot about giving up Facebook. I kept thinking about all the good things. The friends who I only ever communicated with through the internet. The ones I had found after losing contact for years and years. The encouragement I sometimes got, or gave ,when life was hard and struggles were shared through status updates. The joy of seeing new babies and wedding announcements and milestones in life on Facebook. The cool videos and pictures and website links I had learned about. Did I really want to give it all up? It certainly wasn’t all bad. But, in my heart I felt like the rich young man. Jesus had told me what to do, after I had come to Him asking, and now I had a choice to make. Would I go away sad, or would I leave it all behind and follow Him?
    I woke up in the morning to a list of notifications on my Facebook page. People had responded to things I had shared and said nice things to me. Yet, with Tim’s help I deleted my account. I did not just de-activate, with the option of logging back on at anytime I wanted. I deleted. The account is gone, with all the cute little pictures of my kids, all my status updates and message history, and tagged notes, and videos, and friends list and more. Instead of feeling relieved or spiritually uplifted. I felt sad, like the rich young man, even though I did what I felt like I was supposed to do.
    In my sadness and unsettledness I went back to the Bible story. I just needed a little reassurance, and since I could not put it on Facebook and get the feedback of my friends, I went to the scriptures for the comfort of my Lord. I re-read the story. It says, “Jesus looked at him (the rich man), loved him, and said to him, ‘You are lacking one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give it to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come and follow me” (Mark 10:21). I read it more carefully and noticed, Jesus loved the man. Before He spoke and asked the man for his sacrifice, He loved him.   He said to the man, you will have treasures in heaven. Jesus was not asking the man to make the sacrifice as a test or as a punishment. He loved him and wanted what was best for him. Jesus knew the earthly treasures, though they in and of themselves were not bad, were not what was best for the rich man. The treasures in heaven would have more than made up for the sacrifice. He wanted the man, and me, to sacrifice the good things in life for the better things Jesus has to offer. It is never easy to sacrifice, at least not for me, or apparently the rich young man, but it does allow God to fill our lives with better things. So good-bye Facebook, if you need me you’ll find me right where God wants me, trying to follow His Son, Jesus, without my earthly treasures….

Just dibby dabs....

2011-08-20T09:06:00.000-04:00

    My mom has a language all her own. Growing up I, of course, did not realize that many of the words we used at home regularly were not, in fact, words in the English language at all. It was strange, the looks I got when I said something was pa-cucked, or someone was acting nerky.   Apparently my friends had never used such phrases, never even heard them. Dibby dabs was another one. On leftover night at our house my mom would lay out the dibby dabs of this and the dibby dabs of that and we would finish up what was left. In case you, too, are unfamiliar with my native language, dibby dabs means little bits of things.
    Today, I thought about dibby dabs and how, now that we are back to schooling and I am consumed with academic endeavors and educational pursuits again, my blogging is probably going to be reduced to dibby dabs. As we have been absorbed in our busyness this week, my mind has been composing lots of long fascinating and meaningful blog posts. Now that it is Saturday, and we do not have school work to tend to, I would love to sit and write all day. But, of course, there is grocery shopping to do, bathrooms to scrub, floors to mop, laundry to catch up on, and countless others things that also fell by the wayside this week. So all that is left for blogging is dibby dabs.
    So, with not much time left for writing, here are the dibby dabs from our week:

    Tim started his teaching job on Monday. It was “teacher work week” so he did not have any students yet. He came home from work feeling a little overwhelmed and a little lost. He asked my opinion on decorating bulletin boards and classroom rules. That was certainly a first. On Friday, the kids and I went to see his new school, which is about 45 minutes south of us. He did not happen to take my advice on the bulletin board design but....still, his classroom looked great, all ready for school to start on Monday. The smell of the buildings reminded me so much of my own first days of school so many years ago…..
    My oldest daughter started a co-op type math class this week. A wonderful friend of mine, out of the kindness of her heart, offered to teach pre-Algebra to any student in our home school group who was interested. Math is not my strong point, and my daughter and I struggled a lot last year trying to make sense of the numbers and formulas in her textbook, each of us as confused as the other. My friend’s offer was truly a God-send for me. My daughter was not feeling as blessed though. She was a little nervous. She has not had a “classroom” class, or been taught anything besides art and church history from someone other than me since kindergarten. She came home on day one smiling though and has not had any trouble with math yet. Of course, it is only week one but it looks like this is going to work out really well….
    My littlest one got a potty. Again, thanks to the kindness of a friend, whose three year old was finished with it, a nice shiny plastic potty was dropped off right in time for baby’s 2nd birthday. She is having such fun with it. She sits on it whenever anyone is in the bathroom. Usually fully dressed, though she inevitably asks to be “nake, nake”. If her 8 year old sister happens to be the one currently using the bathroom, she can usually get the help she needs removing her shorts or if she happens to be wearing a dress when the desire to sit on the potty strikes her, she has discovered the joy of pulling off her own diaper. I keep looking up and seeing a little tushy (is that a mom word too?) running down the hall and a little voice saying “pee-pee potty.” She has not peed on the floor during these little escapades….yet. She has also not succeeded in peeing in the potty at any point. I have come to realize that though she may think she is ready for potty training, I know I most definitely am not. Maybe around Christmas break. In the meantime, I might start using duct tape on her diapers. I‘d like to see her rip that right off...
    So much more in my head….but no more time, the cleaning and errands await…..

Pictures of my Scholars

2011-08-14T18:26:00.009-04:00

I had so much fun participating (and browsing through the other participants entries) in the NOT Back to School blog hop over at Heart of the Matter. This week is student photo week. I do try to take pictures of the kids on our first day of school every year but, for the blog hop I decided to try something a little different. I wanted to see my children as they see themselves. So, I ask them to make self portraits. Each of them sat down in front of our full length mirrored closet doors and drew themselves as they look at the start of our 2011-2012 school year. The results turned out super cute, as cute as any photo I could take. I also asked each of them the following three questions.

What are you most looking forward to this year?
What is your favorite subject?
What are you interested in learning about this year?

Their answers follow their pictures.....

1. park days with our home school friends.

2. art

3. chocolate :)

1. writing a novel at Nanowrimo young writers program

2. writing

3. astronomy and moor hens

1. journals

2. writing

3. the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO

1. park days

2. reading

3. astronomy and science

I admit, this is not a self-portrait of my 2 year old. I drew it, but the hands are hers. She loves to have her hands traced and we have little outlines of them on every piece of scrap paper all over the house. :) I guess that is what she is most interested in these days?!?!?!?

Wishing you all a joyful and productive school year!

Birthday Fun!

2011-08-14T09:29:00.001-04:00

So what have you been busy with this hot August weekend? We have been celebrating. No, not the start of school, although our first day is tomorrow. And, not the start of Tim’s new job, though his first day is tomorrow, too. We’ve been celebrating our baby’s birthday!!!! Yes, though I still refer to her as “our baby,” she is two whole years old already! On Friday, her actual birthday, we had a family party. My parents came to party with us and we had pizza, “ducky” cake, and loads and loads of presents. The house looked like Christmas morning with wrapping paper and toys everywhere. On Saturday, we headed to the zoo for more family fun. We rode all the rides, saw all our favorite animals, and got soaked in the fountains. All in all it was a great weekend of fun and a beautiful way to celebrate the blessing of our youngest little gift from heaven. Now, to gear up for all the firsts on Monday…..

Money matters, but not THAT much

2011-08-10T08:34:00.003-04:00

    Tim and I got married young. Neither of us had graduated from college. Neither of us had much experience living on our own or supporting ourselves. (I had had my own tiny apartment for a few months and was sort of making ends meet, if you don’t count unpaid credit card bills. Tim lived with his parents until the day we married, except of course, for a year away at school and a year and a half in the seminary). Neither of us was anywhere near having a career. We were probably very naïve about the realities of adulthood and the cost of life. We started our family less than two years into marriage. We had another little mouth to feed. Still, neither of us had a college degree. Neither of us had what you could call a career yet. I quit my job right away, but really, I wasn’t making much money anyway.   Tim went back to school when our first baby was 6 months old. He was still working full time to support us, so finishing school took a while. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree literally weeks before our second baby was born. Our story sounds very irresponsible, I guess. And, maybe from a financial stand point, it was. Tim has struggled to support our family over the years and has worked two jobs for four years, at least, in order to allow me to stay home. His jobs have always sort of played second fiddle to our family. They paid the bills but were never our focus. For that reason, the jobs never really provided much more than what we needed to pay the bills. We’ve never had a lot of savings. We’ve never had a lot of luxuries in life. We’ve never had many extras. That has really been okay. Of course, there have always been brief moments here and there when we have wished for more money. But, overall, I don’t think we regret any of the choices we’ve made.
    The economy is bad now. Everyone knows that (well, except the politicians and the mainstream media). We have seen friends struggle. We, too, ~~have been~~ are being effected. In many ways, we’re better off than others though, not because we had more to start with or because we’ve had something to fall back on but because we didn’t and we haven’t. We were already used to a simple life.   We’ve always made sacrifices. We’ve always had to have priorities. There have always been things we couldn’t do or couldn’t have because they just didn’t make the cut on the final budget. That’s the way our life is and it is a life we are very content with. Sometimes I wonder how some other people do it, really. I hear of people who claim to be in dire straits financially but their lifestyles don’t seem to change. Now, obviously it is none of my business where and how people spend their money but sometimes I feel bad as I see people struggle yet see them still feel the need to keep up with others, or with the life they used to have. I wish I could say, “It is okay to do without. Your kids will be fine without art camp or dance class or ice skating lessons or _____ fill-in-the-blank. Your kids will survive without organic foods. Your family’s peace is what matters. Trust God to provide but be willing to suffer the consequences of living within your means. It is not so bad. “
    There are blessings in doing without. There really are. Tim and I have built a life together. We have always strived to live within our means and we’ve really done pretty well with it. We have been creative and frugal and we are proud of and grateful for what we do have. It is not fancy but it is ours and it was earned and it was bought without putting ourselves into major debt. Our children do not expect to have everything they want in life. They are content with what they have. They can see that God’s blessings are not bought at any store and that, though their friends have a lot more toys and are involved in a lot more extra-curricular activities, they have a strong family who loves them and a ton of joy and fun in their simple lives. They do not feel they are missing out, though they do, in fact, miss out on certain things in life. (We don’t have a Wii or any Nintendo DS’s or a flat screen t.v. or memberships to any pools or organic food in the pantry or any extra-curricular activities currently or etc….) Our family really and truly is our focus in life and that is something we would not change for the world.
    They say money is the root of all evil. I am not sure that is really true but money certainly can have a greater control over us than it should. Money can change our focus, change our priorities, change our values if we let it. A lack of it can fill us with worry, anxiety, and fear. A little financial struggle in life can do wonders for our perspective. It keeps us humble. It keeps us grounded. It keeps us grateful. I’m not sure why the economy is as bad as it is (nor do I even care to find out) but I do know God is using this as an amazing opportunity to teach us so much about life and about Him and about what is really important in this world. Lessons that will benefit us so much more in the long run than big bank accounts ever will….

My Classroom

2011-08-07T12:33:00.011-04:00

There once was a classroom in Clearwater,
It was much loved by my sons and my daughter(s),
They would go there each day,
Make a mess with their play,
And never clean up like they ought-er.

So, I went there to plan for our year,
And I could not believe all their gear,
It was scattered around,
Oh, the stuff that I found!
It would never come clean was my fear!

Still, I jumped in with both of my feet,
I cleaned up until it was neat,
I worked very hard,
While they played in the yard,
And now I deserve a big treat!

School will be starting in one week,
The classroom? I won’t let the kids peek,
It looks really great,
But they’ll just have to wait
“Cause if it gets messed up now, I will freak!

I am linking to the "Not" Back to School blog hop at Heart of the Matter. Be sure to head over and check out lots of other classrooms too!

Monkey see, monkey do

2011-08-05T11:15:00.001-04:00

    I’ve spent a lot of time this summer reading about educational theories and philosophies. I have spent a lot of time learning about how kids learn and thinking about how kids think. I have discovered, in my extensive reading, that most of the popular and not-so-popular educational philosophies out there start from the same point. Every “expert” acknowledges that lots and lots of learning happens way before the traditional school age of 4 or 5 years old. They all seem to agree that children learn naturally in the early years, that children are curious beings capable of taking in and processing enormous amounts of information and stimulus from their very first days on the planet. From there, the experts go in a million different directions. But in the beginning of life, most experts admit that children learn an awful lot by observation and imitation.
    Now, as I read all this this summer, the truth of it was blossoming right before my eyes. My youngest child, at nearly two years old, is displaying a learning phenomenon my mother always referred to as “monkey see, monkey do”. I’m sure the experts have a much more clinical term for it. My mom’s terminology fits well though. My adorable little genius has been watching all the “big people” around her and has become a perfect little mimic of it all. When I talk on the phone, she has to talk on the phone. When I cook dinner, she climbs up on a chair next to the counter and stirs and chops with her little plastic spoons and forks. When her 6 year old brother plays with his action figures, staging elaborate battles between the “good guys” and the “bad guys”, she grabs a “man-man” (her name for any plastic man toy) and makes him yell and pounce on the enemy. When her 8 year old sister plays baby dolls, she will run to get a doll of her own, wrap it up in a blanket, and feed it with a plastic baby bottle. When her 10 year old brother goes outside to ride his bike, she wants to follow. She knows to put a helmet on and buckle it under her chin, then she will sit on her little push along bike and head off down the sidewalk after big brother. When her 12 ½ year old sister curls up with a good book, she will find a comfy pillow, pull a board book off the shelf, and bury her nose in it. She tries jumping when they jump, she sings all the silly little songs I sing to her, she repeats everything she hears.
    It is all so cute, and so frightening. Watching my little one copy everything she sees reminds me, over and over again, of how impressionable our children are. How observant they are- they don’t miss a thing, and how, at least, in the early years, they look to us as the experts. The beauty of it is we are able to pass along our values, modeling a Christian life and imparting beliefs and virtues we want our children to have. The fear-inducing reality is, of course, that we also pass on our areas of weakness and our vices.
    While the youngest is just now picking up all sorts of fun new skills. Her siblings have already learned a lot in life. Unfortunately some of the things they have practically perfected are a tendency towards minimalism, negativity, and impatience. I can’t help but recognize my own struggles in them. They learned many of their bad habits the same way their little sister is picking up her ever-growing vocabulary and her ability to quote movie lines so well. They watched the “big people” around them, and I, the most prominent “big person” in their lives, tend to be a little minimalist, a little negative, and at times, a little impatient.
    Now, I may not be an expert with my own educational philosophy but I can’t help but wonder if God is using my children to teach me (again!). It seems He has been sending me a message this summer, a little reminder, of how important it is to strive each day to walk closer to Him and to fight the temptation to sin because little eyes are always watching…..watching and learning.

A life of purpose

2011-08-02T10:40:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, my girls and I watched "The Sound of Music". We love that movie and have watched it together countless times. Even after viewing it so many times though, there was something new that struck me this time. Captain Von Trapp, while talking to his new fiancée, the Baroness, says, “Activity suggests a life filled with purpose.” That Captain is as wise as he is dashing! He is explaining why he attends party after party in the city when he is really much happier out in the country in his own home. I could relate, not because I have a beautiful estate out in the country where I like to relax after weeks of partying but because as I look around me at other people and their busy, seemingly exciting, lives and I compare them to my own life of changing diapers, refereeing childish arguments, and trying to stay on top of the inevitable messes in my house, well… I can see his point. I’ve been pondering the Captain’s bit of wisdom for weeks now, looking at my life. I have to remind myself, often that God has blessed me with this life, with a vocation to marriage and motherhood and that this is what my life means. This is where I serve God and find holiness. It may not be exciting, but it does have meaning. It is in wiping the table over and over that I learn persistence. It is in changing diapers that I learn selflessness. It is in sacrificing salon trips and manicures that I learn detachment and gratitude for what I do have. It is in refereeing my children’s disagreements that I learn patience and mercy.
I continue to struggle some days, wishing the activities of my life suggested more meaning, but at the same time trying to find peace in the purpose my life does have. My husband says, "Sometimes activity distracts one from their purpose in life." Maybe he is even wiser than the good Captain in "The Sound of Music". For, it is a life of repetition and monotony that all great holy monasteries and convents encourage. It was lives of sacrifice and uniformity that led some of the greatest saints to heaven. Perhaps my life of monotony and repetition will lead me there as well...

School Year's Resolutions

2011-08-01T08:58:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the Immaculate Heart of Mary home school conference in Tampa. A good friend of mine was one of the organizers and she had expressed the desire to schedule the conference earlier in the year next time around. Ideally, March or April, at the very latest June, to give us all the chance to plan ahead a little more. I, for one, thought the timing was perfect though. I was glad to have the inspirational and encouraging words of all the talented speakers so close to the start of our school year. It was just what I needed to give me the confidence and motivation to begin another year of teaching my kids.
One thing that came up in the talks was the idea of setting goals. I have done that the last few years but this year I decided to try a new approach to goal setting. All of my goals in the past have been for my children, things like memorize the times tables, master long division, or write a report a month on a different saint. This year, I am going to make a list of goals for me, as their mother and teacher. A list of “school year’s resolutions” for our upcoming year. So here goes: This year I resolve to:

Read aloud to the children everyday without fail.

Make our learning space a place of beauty with great religious artwork, classical music, more poetry, and, most importantly, a peaceful, patient attitude.

Take the children to daily Mass at least once a week.

Spend more time talking to my children and listening to them, and less time worrying about providing perfectly planned out lessons and fail-proof curriculum choices.

Focus more on what my children are learning and less on whether they can get perfect scores on their workbook pages. I’ve noticed the two are not synonymous, often my children will ace a workbook activity only to be clueless about the skill it meant to impart.

Let my children make mistakes and try new things without feeling the need to step in, remembering they will learn from their mistakes and even more so, from the opportunity to work things out in their own way.

We started out last year with critical thinking activities every Wednesday. By the end of the year the kids called it “game day” instead of critical thinking, whatever it's called we will continue our Wednesday activities. Teaching my children to think is the best thing I can do. BTW, they, scored off the charts for research skills on their annual testing- game day worked!

A few years ago, before baby #5 was born, we used to take nature walks once a week. We did not keep journals or take notes along the way we just walked and talked and enjoy the scenes around us. Sometimes we stopped to watch an animal or listen to a bird, but there was nothing formal about it. Weekly nature walks are back this year!

There may be more but for now…that’s a start…

Anonymous

2011-07-29T09:17:00.000-04:00

Last year, I was invited to take part in a “blog hop” on Fridays entitled “kids say the darndest things.” It was fun while it lasted but then the host disappeared from cyberspace abandoning her blog, and the Friday fun ended. For a while, I kept saving my stories of funny-kid-sayings just in case it started up again. This is an old one I found but never posted. Since it is Friday, I thought I might share it even though there is no “hop” to link it to:

Tim and I were discussing finances at dinner the other night. Usually a depressing conversation around here but this time we talked about the mysterious credit we have had at the pediatrician’s office for the last few months. Neither one of us can figure out how but every time we have taken the children in for check-ups we have been informed that we have a credit and have not had to pay our co-pay. Obviously this has been helpful if not completely baffling. Anyway, I suggested that maybe we had an anonymous benefactor helping us out. My youngest son listened to the conversation for a while and then said, “What if someone named their baby ‘Anonymous’?”
Where does he get this stuff? Unfortunately for any future children we may or may not have, Tim loved this idea! He loved the idea of someone signing their check “Anonymous”. Someone filling out job applications with the name “Anonymous”. Someone named “Anonymous” trying to buy a house, obtain a driver’s license, write a letter to the editor. Poor person would never get any credit in life, or maybe would get credit for so many things he or she might not want credit for! The thought that Tim would actually consider naming one of our children “Anonymous” just for all the fun and confusion it may cause in the world may be enough to convince me that we are done having children….

Finally, some good news

2011-07-26T12:52:00.000-04:00

It was about 2 months ago now when Tim got the news that he was being “laid off” from his full time youth ministry position. He was told he would have a job only until the end of July. We were scared, not knowing how long it might take to find a new job, especially in the horrible job market we are experiencing. But thankfully, he was able to find something else almost right away. After just a few weeks of applying for any and every job he could find, after a ton of phone calls and quite a few interviews, he was offered the one job he really wanted. The one job that wasn’t just, “well, this would work in the short term, to get us through until something better comes along.” The one job he was actually excited about, and really, really cared about doing.
So, in a few weeks, my husband will go from being a full time youth minister to being a middle school religion teacher. He will still be blessed to work with young people. He will still be able to share his faith with them and teach them about the beauty of the Catholic church. He will still be able to support our family, paying the mortgage and putting food on the table with no break in income. We are very blessed to have found gainful employment so quickly and so easily. God is good and has provided as we knew He would. But, I can’t help but wonder if the school even realizes how very blessed they are as well. How lucky they are to have found such a wonderful new religion teacher. How fortunate they are to have such a strong Catholic man to guide their students in learning about the teachings of our Faith. How passionate he is about the subject matter and the importance of sharing it with the kids. I’m not sure who is luckier, them or us, but I sure am glad we have found each other. May we all be blessed abundantly by this next step in the journey of life.

Home with my baby

2011-07-21T14:23:00.003-04:00

My kids and I are together all the time. Really, I don’t leave them very often. I get an occasional night out with my friends at Starbucks but I almost always leave the house for our "mom's night out" after putting the kids to bed. Tim and I get dates once in a while but “once in a while” means four months sometimes go by between our dates. So, I am with my 5 beautiful children ALL the time. They go to Wal-Mart with me, they go grocery shopping with me, they sometimes go to the bathroom with me (in all honesty, only the baby is ever permitted into the bathroom with me, and then only if she really insists). But, you get the point. The only consistent break I get is on my nightly walk, and it is not at all unusual for one of the the older kids to join me even then, biking alongside as I stride briskly around the block several times. My walks, which last about 45 minutes or so, are a very traumatic experience for my youngest child though. She is almost 2 and still in that crazy mommy-love stage where it pains her to be apart from me for even a minute (thus, the insistence that she join me in the bathroom sometimes). Anyway, when I leave for my walk my baby stands at the door crying as it shuts in her face. She is fine, of course, as soon as the door clicks shut and I set off down the driveway. The tears are for dramatic effect, as with all toddlers. Recently it got to a point that every night upon my return, the dramatics would start again though. Not dramatic crying and carrying on, but a dramatic reunion, as though I had been gone for years. As soon as I’d open the door the whole family would look to the little one and say, “Mommy is home!” and she would smile and run to me and want to be picked up. She would snuggle with me, no matter how sweaty I was from my workout, and wrap her little arms around mine and say, “home.” At first, this little scene only ever occurred after our long nightly separation. But lately, it has been happening more and more. If I go back to my bedroom to talk on the phone in peace for 15 minutes, leaving her in the family room playing nicely with her siblings, she will come to me as soon as I emerge and hold my arm tightly saying, “home”. If I manage to take the laundry out to the washing machine without her following closely on my heels, she will find me as soon as possible and look up at me and say, “home”.
Lately, when we are out she will look up at me and say, “uppa” (which means pick me up). Then, when she is as close to me as possible, she will clutch my arms and say, “home”. She has done this at church, at the store, in line at the post office. Wherever we are together and she can hug me tight she will look at me and say, “home” all comforted and happy. It is the sweetest thing. My oldest daughter thinks her little sister is adorable and hilarious. “Wherever you are is home for her,” she tells me laughing. My daughters are both right. The little one is referring to being with me as being home. And, home is not at all about the place we are or the walls around us. Home is about being with the people we trust, the people who love us and care for us. Someday, the word “home” may no longer be associated with me in my little girl’s mind, but for now I am just grateful to be able to be home with her everyday.

Friends all over the world

2011-07-19T12:58:00.001-04:00

    Getting the mail at our house has become such an exciting endeavor the children fight over who gets to check the box everyday. It is not that they are excited to peruse the mountains of junk mail that are stuffed there daily by our friendly postmistress. It is not that they are anxious to collect the bills that seem to come in a never ending stream of white envelopes with little plastic windows either. It is because lately, in the midst of the piles of boring deliveries there has been, for the child lucky enough to make it to the box first and brave enough to burrow through the store circulars, brochures, flyers, and requests for money, a few little postcards from exotic locations. Yesterday we received one from Australia and one from Germany. We don’t actually know anyone in Australia or Germany. We don’t even have friends that have been traveling there on overseas vacations. Yet, the postcards we received were addressed to us and included personal hand written notes.
    So, how did our postcard pals from the other side of the globe ever find us? From a little website we heard about recently that is connecting people from all over the world. We discovered postcrossing.com after reading about it in a magazine. The magazine featured an article about fun ways to teach children geography. Postcrossing was just one of the suggestions. It was, to us, the one that sounded the most fun, so we signed up. I can not tell you how much we are all enjoying it. I am so glad we decided to try it out, despite our fears about sharing our address with complete strangers around the world (as Tim pointed out our address is already on the internet, everyone’s is. At least, postcrossing has allowed us to remain somewhat anonymous by making the use of real names optional and permitting usernames of our choosing instead). You create a profile where you can share as much or as little as you want about yourself.   You can use your profile to request certain kinds of cards as well, though there is no guarantee your requests will be honored every time.
    You must send out a postcard before you are eligible to receive one. So we requested our first address and sent off a card to far away Russia, hoping our words about life in Florida would be well received. We quickly sent off 4 more cards, until we hit our limit of 5 traveling at a time. It took awhile before we started to receive cards but finally one arrived from Great Britain, then another from the Netherlands, and then, yesterday, the two I mentioned from Australia and Germany.
    So far, we have had no problems. One of the address’ we were given to send a card to, included a profile asking for cards with pictures of tattoos. Our children found this surprising and unusual but we simply explained that while we would never ever get a tattoo, other people had other ideas. We sent her a card with pelicans on it. Her message to us upon receiving the card was very sweet and appreciative.
    It has been such a great way to learn about and connect with people from other lands. I actually made up a jar of little slips of paper with ideas like: "learn about sports native to that country", "eat a food from that country", and "find out what their major industries are", written on them. When we get a new card, we pull out a slip of paper and learn something extra about the country. We have had English tea biscuits while listening to Beatles music, watched youtube videos of fierljeppen (a fascinating sport from the Netherlands), and learned about organic farming in Australia.
    We love postcrossing.com!!!!

Book Review- Homeschooling with Gentleness

2011-07-17T09:20:00.001-04:00

    I love home schooling books. I love them almost as much as I love desserts. I find myself craving home schooling books like I crave chocolate. Over the years, I have found a steady diet of successful home schooling stories is the healthiest way to sustain me through my crazy journey of educating my 5 children. So when the cravings come, I satisfy them as best and as quickly as I can. When I am feeling insecure about my teaching (or juggling) abilities, I rely on my home schooling books. When I am in need of encouragement, I turn to my home schooling books. When I want to be inspired, it is my home schooling books that inspire me most. My shelves are full of them, yet each summer, when I have more time to read and am preparing for another school year, I always look out for new books to add to my home school library.
    I ordered Homeschooling with Gentleness, after hearing author Suzie Andres’ name on more than one occasion, and was so excited to receive it in the mail. It was like anticipating a bite of birthday cake or an ice cream sundae.   When it arrived, I dove into it with gusto. The book is organized into three parts. As I read Part One entitled “Unschooling”, I was disappointed. Instead of being inspiring or encouraging, Ms. Andres came across just as insecure and unsure of herself as I often felt, at certain parts, maybe even more so. She referred so often to a Mr. John Holt and his writings, quoting him at length over and over again, I wondered if I should put her book down and read one of his instead. She reminded the reader, often, that she was writing as much to reassure herself as to inform and inspire others. Her need for reassurance showed.
    Part Two addressed the Catholic outlook on home schooling in general, and then, more specifically, an unschooling approach. Her writing style still did not particularly appeal to me because she continued to write about what she was writing about, explaining herself over and over. However, her research seemed solid and her arguments appropriate. Her confidence seemed a bit stronger as she shared her own family’s experiences.
    Though Part Two is heralded as the “heart of the book” it was not until I reached Part Three that I felt I finally got a little of what I was hoping for. It was as she wrote of “trusting in nature” and “trusting in God” that Ms. Andres’ passion finally shone through. It was in Part Three that I began underlining line after line and feeling more excited to face my own home school again.
    In the end, I found more of a kindred spirit than a mentor or expert in the pages of Homeschooling with Gentleness. Overall the book was a letdown, yet I saw enough enthusiasm and zeal in its last few pages to whet my appetite for more. Strange as it may sound considering my disappointment, I am curious to check out Ms. Andres’s second book, A Little Way of Homeschooling.

You can purchase this book here. I wrote this review for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods, your source for Baptism Gifts and First Communion Gifts. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.
Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.

I receive free product samples as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River.

Harry Potter, welcome here...

2011-07-15T15:30:00.001-04:00

     We are a little Harry Potter crazy around here these days. There was a time when Tim and I were very anti-Harry Potter. When the books first came out and we had only one child, just a baby, we heard so much about how the books glorified wizardry and the occult. How they were a bad influence on good Christian children and good Christian parents should not allow their children to read them. We decided, then and there, that we would be good Christian parents and ban the books in our house. Even as my parents, siblings, and nephew delved deep into the world of Harry Potter, raving about the stories and the characters, we stood firm. We would not go there. We would never allow anything that promoted anti-Christian values and pro-witchcraft into our house.
    Fast forward a few years. A blog Tim followed, a good Catholic blog, featured a post about Harry Potter. The blog author had read the books, all 7 of them, one after another, in about a week’s span. He wrote about how he had heard the negative impressions from other Christians but went ahead and read the books himself to see if he agreed. In doing so, he discovered wonderfully written stories exploring themes of good vs. evil and, in his opinion, promoting the noble values of sacrifice, love, and friendship. Now at the same time Tim happened upon this blog, we were struggling to find worthwhile books for our (then) 8 year old son. Our son, like the rest of us, is a voracious reader, flying through books at an alarming rate. He also happens to read at a reading level about 6 times above his grade level. This presents quite a difficult dilemma. I want to encourage my children to read books that challenge them, that teach them, that help them to be better people and that help them to understand themselves and others better. For an 8 year old who reads like a high schooler this is a difficult challenge. He had read all the Narnia books, he had read the Hobbit and he had read countless other books, many of them mindless, that we found along the way. It was getting to be very hard to find books that were worthwhile. He was, at that point, spending most of his reading time with his nose buried in Hardy Boys books, age appropriate maybe, but certainly not very educational or literary. So, we considered Harry Potter. Was it possible these books we had written off as evil, could actually be acceptable? We researched as much as we could, browsing Catholic website after Catholic website to get as many opinions as we could. There were, as expected, various viewpoints and mindsets.   We decided there was really only one way to find out for sure if the books were good or evil, Tim and I would read them first. Neither he nor I really wanted to. I had no interest in wizard books. He had little time for pleasure reading. But, about three pages in, each of us was hooked. The stories are well written. They do explore the battle of good and evil. And like good stories do, they suck you in. With rapt attention, Tim and I both flew through the books, all seven of them, on the edge of our seats the entire time. After we finished each book we would anxiously await the other finishing so we could discuss the twists and turns of the plot and speculate about the characters.
    Needless to say, we have decided that Harry is welcome in our home. We have allowed our oldest to read all the books, though we were still cautious about it.   After the third book the themes become much darker and more disturbing. So our son, who is now 10, has only been permitted to read the first three books. He has read them each several times over. Harry Potter is not a perfect role model for children. He is sneaky at times. He is disobedient quite often. But in the end he chooses good. He chooses sacrifice over personal comfort. He chooses to care for his friends rather than do what is easy and safe. He chooses to stand up for what he believes in. The stories do promote the values we want to encourage in our children. They have opened up a lot of discussion about good vs. evil and about magic and the occult. They have offered Tim and I the opportunity to teach our children things about our faith and the teachings of our Church that had not yet come up in life before reading Harry Potter.
    The last Harry Potter movie debuted today. We were not quite so Harry-crazy that we were in line at midnight to see it. In fact, our children have only seen the first two movies, so far. Though we love the stories we are not quite ready to expose our little ones to the intensity of the later movies. Still, Tim and I do hope to get to the theater sometime in the next few weeks so he and I can see it.

Meeting a movie star!

2011-07-12T10:56:00.003-04:00

Winter the dolphin and her "adoptive mother" Panama

Three of my children watching Winter up close!


Winter shows off what is left of her tail

The river otters were pretty cute too

Two of Winter's prosthetic tails- her current one and a "baby" one

Florida has always been known for beautiful winters. It is warm and sunny and wonderful here in winter. For the last few years, Clearwater, in particular, has become a little bit more famous because of its Winter. In 2005, a baby dolphin was found entangled in a crab trap and sent to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA), just 15 minutes down the road from us. The dolphin was named Winter and, though she eventually lost her tail due to her injuries, she is doing fine today. Winter’s story of adapting to life without a tail and then being given a prosthetic one has been featured in a book and even on the national news. We had visited Winter’s home at CMA years ago, long before she was even born but this past weekend we finally had the chance to go and see her for the first time. The aquarium, which is really more of a sea creature rehab hospital, has not changed much since our last visit. It cost a whole lot more now but that may be because there are a whole lot more of us now. It was also a whole lot busier. That Winter sure knows how to draw a crowd! Still, despite the crowds we had a lot of fun learning about Winter and her “family”.
In September a movie all about Winter will be coming to a theater near you. It was filmed at CMA and stars Winter as herself. From the trailers, it seems Hollywood has, of course, put their own spin on things but the aquarium staff assured us that though the people parts are made up, the dolphin parts are still true. I don’t usually “plug” movies on my blog but that little dolphin was so darn cute and her story is so positive and sweet. You can check out the trailer here, and see more about CMA and Winter here.

Ten!

2011-07-11T09:17:00.003-04:00

It doesn’t seem possible that ten years have passed. There is just no way it was a decade ago that I went in for a doctor’s appointment and was told it was time to meet my baby. It was on July 11, 2001, that my midwife told me she wanted to induce labor and gave me the choice of that very day, the next, or the day after- but no later than that. I was not ready to have a baby that day. If I waited two days, my baby would be born on Friday the 13th. It was an easy choice, I opted for the next day, the 12th of July. Tim and I went to the hospital first thing in the morning, after dropping our 2 ½ year old daughter off at a friend’s house. They hooked me up to all the I.V.’s and we were off and running. Labor progressed nicely. I made it most of the day without an epidural and then, just 45 minutes after I got it, they turned it off because baby’s heart rate was dropping dangerously. Thankfully, at 5:01 pm, our baby boy was born perfectly healthy- with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and tied in a perfect knot. He was a monkey right from the start- and not much has changed. He loves climbing trees and, at times, walls. He seems to take pleasure in pestering his siblings, and stirring up trouble around here. Yet, he is also sweet and charming and impresses us all the time with his spirituality. He is inquisitive and creative and so smart I sometimes have trouble keeping up with him. He shares with me more than any of his siblings do, telling me all the time what he is thinking and how he sees the world. He often asks deep or interesting questions I don‘t have answers for, so he and I discuss what the answers might be or learn together about new things.
Tomorrow we will celebrate the milestone of double digits! It really does not seem possible that it has been ten years since I held my first newborn son in my arms. When I look at him now though, with his mass of auburn hair, his mischievous smile, and his insightful ideas, I realize he really is growing up. If only it wasn’t happening so quickly!!!!!!

Families share...unfortunately :(

2011-07-02T13:13:00.003-04:00

    It all started with my youngest niece. It may have been a little carsickness, she had been strapped into a car seat for about 12 hours (on her way to Florida for our family reunion) when her little tummy revolted. But then her cousin, my youngest nephew, fell victim, all over my mom’s carpeting. After that it pretty much rampaged through the entire family. Our family reunion, a week we had hoped would be spent sharing joy, turned into a bit of a plague. 22 people, half of them sleeping together in a two bedroom condo, sharing beds, sharing laughs. Of course, the stomach bug would be shared too. I had thought my own branch of the family tree might be spared. We were not sleeping at the condo with everyone else. We made it through most of the week without even a tummy cramp, but alas… Friday night, all was quiet in our house. The kids, our own plus two of their cousins, were all quietly, peacefully sleeping in one room, all cramped together, sharing beds, when our oldest daughter came to our room and announced she didn’t feel well. She looked a little green. Her baby sister joined her in nauseous fun an hour or so later, and when morning finally came, after a long and messy night at our house, we found out my brother-in-law, sister, and the littlest niece, who we thought had started it all, had spent the night in similar fashion, back at the “condo of infirmity.”
     Families share, I always tell my children. I, of course, don’t mean viruses when I say it but….   I guess it is true in all things. Families share, whether you want them too or not. This was one week I actually hoped to be a little left out.
    Despite the illness, our reunion was not totally ruined. It really was a lovely week. There were many fun moments between the tummy aches and we did make memories, as expected. Not the ones we expected but memories just the same…

Family Reunion-- chaos and joy!

2011-06-28T15:10:00.001-04:00

    Growing up, the third child in a family of four children, I had some “middle child” issues. Sometimes, I felt a little left out. Sometimes, I felt like the “black sheep” of the family. I was always a little shyer than everyone else, a little nerdy-er than my popular, social sisters and brother. Still, my family has always been pretty close. And though I didn’t always feel like I fit in with my siblings, I have many wonderful memories from my childhood-- of family vacations together, family holiday celebrations, family parties and even plain, old family dinners at home.
    This week, my whole family is in the same state for the first time in years. We are celebrating my mom’s birthday with a family reunion. My sisters arrived with their families over the weekend, but we have yet to be ALL together. We are scattered along the Gulf Coast of Florida-- my brother & his family live in the Ft. Myers area and my closest-in-age sister is staying there with her family. My parents live on beautiful Anna Maria Island and my oldest sister and her family are there. My family, of course, is here at home in Clearwater. Even when we are all within a mere 3 hours of each other, it is hard to get together. Thursday is the “official birthday party” but Tim has to work and cannot make it, my sister-in-law has jury duty and may be unable to attend also. There are just always so many unavoidable things pulling us all in different directions. Friday we have planned a family photo with EVERYONE in attendance. We did this one other time, about 7 years ago, but between my sisters and I we have added 5 more children since then. There will be 22 of us, all dressed in blue jeans and white shirts, hopefully smiling happily, despite the inevitable chaos of getting everyone ready and in the right place on time. I am praying it will work out and we will get our picture. It is what my mom wants most for her birthday, next to having all the whole family together to celebrate.
    It has been two years since we have been able to pull off a whole family get together like this. We celebrated my dad’s birthday in Gulf Shores, AL in 2008, renting a house that fit us all (only 20 ½ of us then, oh and my grandmother- so 21 ½. If you count Ike, the hurricane that blew by a few hundred miles to the south, the number goes up to 22 1/2). We had a whole week ALL together. It was a wonderful week of happy chaotic fun. My kids still talk about it all- swimming with their cousins, staying over night together, and playing, playing, playing.   One afternoon , my sisters, mom, and I talked about leaving the men with the kids and hitting the outlet malls. Our husbands warned us if we tried it they’d give the kids beer and cigars all afternoon. Of course, we assumed they were joking. A few days later we followed through on our shopping plans, only to come back to pictures of the kids all lined up on the front steps holding plastic beer cups and cigars, as promised. My nieces and nephews were happy to pose, excited about holding cigars and pretending to drink beer. My own children were traumatized by the whole event though the cigars were wrapped in plastic and the cups were completely empty. Years ago I would have seen this as another example of me being a little different but this time, Tim and I just laughed. It was nice to know we were raising our kids with such strong views of right and wrong that they were afraid to go along with the joke, but it was just a joke, and a funny one at that!
    Anyway, I’m not sure any of us appreciated our growing up years when we were all under the same roof-me, least of all- but now I can see just how precious time together truly is. Despite our differences, I am so very grateful for the family God has made me a part of. And, I am looking forward to all the memories we will make together this time around!

Seeing clearly

2011-06-22T10:23:00.000-04:00

    Things are not always as they seem. One of the most valuable lessons to be learned in life. I’ve encountered it over and over and yet still don’t always “get it.”
    That person I admired in the past, the one I thought was perfect, always so put together, always smiling so happily. In truth “perfect” turned out to be a gross exaggeration. “Normal” may have been a better description. “Troubled” even fit at times. Struggling, just like me.
    So many events in life that I viewed as tragedies later turned out to be nothing. All I needed was a day or two, and a little perspective, to see it all clearly.
    Bad news so often turns out to be good news in disguise.
    It all comes down to just letting go. Trusting everything, EVERYTHING, to God and taking life as it comes, one day at a time. I have heard people say to expect miracles in life. I may not be quite there yet but I have learned to believe that good things are to come. God really does want to bless us. We just have to learn to see the blessings for what they are-- sometimes unexpected, sometimes surprising, but always what is best in the long run….