Long Ago and Far Away

Since I am so far behind on my blog, I decided that I can go back as far as I wish to catch up!  Hee hee.  

I am going back 30 years (and 9 days).

Sweetie and I were 18 & 19 years old and oh, so grown up.

A few rivers have flowed under that bridge.  Wow!  The list would fill 3 blogs.  A few rivers even dried up.
Thankfully, we have been so very blessed.  We still like each other, even!

Unfortunately, I have no up-to-date photo.  All our photos now are of our two kiddos.

Thank you, Lord, for such a precious you have given my in this man.  You did good with this one!

Seasons - They are a Changing

I was TOLD that I had to post today.  The 11 year old was right....again.  So much has happened in the 3 months since I have last posted that it became overwhelming to even TRY to post.  

We went through at least 3 seasons in those 3 months in our family.

Season 1 - My husband quit his job of almost 4 years and spent 7 weeks working on a building project.  During those 7 weeks he finished the two kid's bedrooms, and mostly finished the new family room (the fireplace isn't quite finished).  He also worked on the new bedroom for us and a second bathroom.  Both of those rooms have a ways to go.

Season 2 - Moving and adjusting.  We got moved out to the house that my husband was working on.  We had lived here for 11 years before moving into town for 3 years.  Now we are back in the house, but we have tried to let the house grow up since the kids are more grown up, too.  The adjusting comes from having to stay in town from Monday afternoon until early Wednesday morning.  Thankfully, my mom has space for us to invade and we do not have to make the 2 hour round trip drive to town and back each of those days.

Season 3 - My husband has recently taken a new job, BUT...  This new job is located 2 1/2 hours (one way) from home.  It is a Monday -Friday job, so it was cheaper and more fuel efficient for him to get an apartment there and come home on the weekends.

In between all of the seasons, we had mini-seasons.  Our local homeschool group had their 9 week co-op, we had 3 more birthdays in our house, my girl made all-region orchestra, my girl and I got to go visit our most favorite friends, I had a part-time job that took more than part-time, Thanksgiving, and we are trying to prepare for Christmas.

Oh, and, my boy is now employed by his dad to help his grandfather around the family ranch.  It is a wonderful time for him to get to learn some man skills alongside a Godly man.

I do believe that we will get to slow down just a little as of today.  I am claiming that!!  

My goals for the new year include:
Doing my best to keep the weekends more low key so I can enjoy my husband
Keeping the weeks less busy so I can enjoy being a family
More time to relax at the park on Tuesday
More time to visit my mama. 

Teenager or Young Adult

Yesterday was the day that my boy anxiously awaited and his mother dreaded.  15 happened yesterday.

Now, I know that he has been a "teen" for a couple of years now, but 15 just seems like a bigger milestone.  Maybe each one is that way, and I forget from year to year.

15 is a difficult age in many ways.  Not old enough to get just any job, not old enough to drive, not old enough to handle some things on his own.  However, he is too old to stomp around the house, too old to hang with the little kids (for long periods of time, anyway), too old to "act like that".  Old enough to have thoughts, feelings and emotions, but not old enough to just spill them out.

15 seems to be even more "tween" than 12 was.

I remember that age and the awkwardness of it. 

We are attempting to train our Teen and our almost Tween.  Wow!

I am hard on them because I do not allow them to treat each other or others around them (including their parents) like "everyone else" does.

In fact, I am very aware that I am not training a Teen, a Tween, a son or a daughter.  They do a GREAT job fulfilling those roles. 

I am, in fact, training future citizens, future parents, future spouses.  The childhood home, in my beliefs, is the training ground for adulthood. 

I have to train them in the ways they speak to one another, ALWAYS.  Even on the bad and grumpy days. Just like they are being trained to learn, clean house, cook, do laundry, they have to be trained in how to related to others around them.  That doesn't always come naturally.

Hmmm, what we do naturally actually comes out of our nature, which I believe is a sin nature.  We are suppose to all be learning to follow after the new nature given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ.  That means it is difficult to lay down our "naturally" and look beyond ourselves.

Diligence in seeking after the God of Love, day-by-day, is the only way our old nature dies and we actually learn to live in the new nature given to us as a gift.

That same training has to happen daily, all the time, for my sweet children.  To train them, first requires that Mom be disciplined.

15 years has sure gone quickly.  I hope the next several slow down a bit, but I don't see that happening.  I only have today.

What a precious adventure it has been!  I look forward to more!

I love you, Punkin!!

Our 2012-2013 School Year

I was challenged by my Grateful friend to tell about our home school for this year.  Of course, she was more wise than I and divided her postings into 3 different ones.  All of mine will be reduced into one.

First of all, our school is actually called Rock Castle Academy.  My husband came up with the name of Rock Castle Ranch for our property years ago and we use it for all types of things.

We started school a couple of weeks ago, but are just beginning to get in full swing.

My students are:

My boy (looking a bit goofy) will be turning 15 in 12 days (egads).  He is doing 10th grade work.

My girl is 10 years old and is doing 8th grade school work.  (She has her own long story on that one.)

We do history, science, Greek, spelling, Bible and Easy Grammar together.  They have separate math, Wordly Wise, and critical thinking books.

Together we are using Notgrass Publishing's "Exploring World History" (so far I am enjoying this one!); Apologia's Biology; Elementary Greek is the title of the book in which we are starting on Year Two (of 3); spelling on Spelling City (online); and Easy Grammar.

For Bible, last year we started reading a book called "Parallel Gospels in Harmony".  We only ready short passages (and spent a lot of time talking about them), so we didn't finish it.  We are working on finishing that one and then we will start on the "Victor Journey Through the Bible".

For math the kids are using Math U See.  He is finishing up Algebra I and will head into Geometry soon.  She has just started Algebra I.  We made the switch to this curriculum last year and have found it a good fit for our family.

For Critical Thinking, she is doing Analogies 1 and 2 this year and he is doing one called "Critical Thinking: Readings in Nonfiction, High School".  They also have to read and document at least two current events each week.

The history has writing assignments that they will be doing, and they both practice writing skills in their personal (very supervised) blogs.  His is Creator's Son and hers is A Kid's Life.

Our school space is....our house.  Mostly the dining room.  

This buffet belonged to my husband's grandmother, so I feel so privileged to be able to use it.  His books are on the left, hers on the far right, in the middle are the ones we use together.  So of our most used resources are on the middle shelf.

Last year, when we started learning Greek, I actually broke down and purchased a workbook for myself.  I wasn't going to learn it like I wanted to unless I made myself do so.  It was one of the best purchases of the year.  Therefore, I didn't even hesitate to purchase mine for this year, too.  It has made a difference in getting Greek done each week, too. :-D

I do have an extra shelf in a corner that we keep notebooks, dictionary, spare books for later in the year, papers, our "finished shelf", etc.

 Then, we also use our sofa quite a bit.  Since we do History and Biology together, we like reading it aloud together.  It takes us longer to do that because we are constantly talking about the lessons, but we all enjoy it.  I don't read it all to them.  We take turns reading aloud, so they get that practice, too.

And then, of course, the kids spend a lot of time reading on their own.  Sometimes in not so conventional ways.

 I suppose this marks our official 12th year of homeschooling.  I very diligently did Pre-Kinder with him so that counts as one year.  I have loved every bit of it.  Yes, we have our days (and occasionally a week) where it is tougher than other times.  However, after teaching in a public school for 12 years before my boy was born, I am SO convinced that they would not be as wonderful if they weren't at home.

The Lord has been so faithful to guide Dad and I each and every step of the way.  When we forget to ask, He thumps us and puts us all back in line.  

Busily Blessed

I have to say that this was the busiest summer I remember in YEARS!

The kids and I went to my grandfather's memorial service in June.  We got to see lots of family I hadn't seen in forever, and then we met some that I had never met before (and some of those were my age).

My girl got to attend Junior Citizen Police Academy, an mini art camp, and then orchestra camp.  My boy  attended a theater camp.

So far, that sounds like a pretty normal summer at my house.  That usually leaves plenty of time for my most favorite of all my quirks.  Cleaning THOSE spots.  

Now, I must, almost shamefully admit that my favorite way to start the summer is to list each room in my house and assign a week to that room.  During that week I break that one room into sections and go through everything I possibly can.  Closets and drawers, corners and crevices.  Nothing is suppose to be safe during that week.  Of course, time gets past me and some of those closets still have some STUFF in there that should have gone.  But, I do find joy in this methodical restructuring.

However, this summer, that did not happen at all.

My girl and I were given the most fabulous opportunity to spend almost a constant month or more with two of our most favorite people (outside our family).   Thankfully, it is a mother and daughter pair so our time wasn't divided very much. What a blessing to be able to spend this precious time with them!

Unfortunately, most of the time was spent packing all of their entire house into a storage facility so they could join Dad where he has been working four hours away from us.

There is not one single drawer or closet in my house that is sorry it got overlooked as we did all of theirs instead.

My Abba Father was so gracious during the whole time to encourage and exhort all four of us to be able to enjoy the time (almost) to its fullest.  Only occasionally did my girl or I have to focus on the loss before us.  What a faithful Father He is!

Hopefully, in this techno age, I will be able to keep up with them better than other people I have lost.  

We continue to ask Father, "What do You have for us in this situation that You could not have provided any other way?"  He continues to answer.

Bless you our dear, dear friends as you are faithful to follow where the Lord sends you. 

Summer Project

I think my children are strange.  Maybe that is why I like them so much.

On our last official school day, my son brought me a spiral notebook that we had worked on maybe two years ago.  It was a writing project, just for funnsies.

The basic gist of the project is for us to switch off in writing a story together.  I started writing a story that I thought he would enjoy.  I write my portion setting up a scene change or a plot change.  (We often try to leave cliff hangers for one another.)  Then I leave the notebook out for him and he takes over for a bit.

Creator's Son's story notebook

He has to keep the same story line and work it from that point, guiding the plot in a direction that he more prefers.

Yes,  Firefly and I are doing one also.  For some reason, the son and daughter have EXTREMELY different types of stories going.  Ha!

 

Firefly's story notebook

As I said, we had started this idea a couple of years ago.  So when we picked it back up last month, we had to start whole new stories. 

They are challenging me even more than ever before.  They know so much more about their topics than I do.  I think they are having as much fun stumping Mom as they are doing the writing itself.

It is one of those small things that I can do to let them know that they are important to me and I am trying to keep up with them.

We are not doing any spelling or grammar corrections.  (I am making note of spelling words to put on the list when we get back in school.)  I am watching for those things.  (I do make those corrections and instructions before each they post each blog, however.)  We are keeping this light and fun.

Now I just have to make sure I keep up with it.

What We Are Learning This Week

1) I am learning that this is a really good excuse to sit down and actually update my blog.  It also provides a way for me to slip little tidbits in that I want to remember.  Kind of like a mini-journal.

2) Being privileged to hear a good story in person (like GFG's Crater and Crazy), makes it twice as much fun to read to the kiddos.  THEN, the kids can more easily spend the next two days being "Jill" to each other about some rather silly things.  Sweet, goofy, and very silly.

3) Factoring polynomials wasn't so bad after all!  Koine Greek is really very interesting and we are not dreading Year 2! 

4) 5 inches of rain in one week is such a giant blessing after last year's severe drought.  We still refuse to complain about the mud.

5) We counted and we only have 8 more school days before we can say we are done this year.  Woo hoo!  (I usually have it counted out and marked in red.  I have been too afraid to look this year, and we are still finishing well!)

6)Watching my two work together is still just as sweet as it was 8 years ago.  I am so blessed to get to school at home with them.

7) End of season is always so busy, but it can be so rewarding.  And just think of the two evenings a week I get to be home now!  This weekend marks the end of the last extra class.  We are sad to see it go, but looking forward to the break.

The Mysterious Gentleman - Mr. Mumph

Tap Dance

Violinist

What We Are Learning This Week

In our house, we are pressing "toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."  Truly!

Some days, especially in the springtime, it is all we can do to remember that we aren't just doing this to mark of the plan book.  We really have a purpose for learning all these things.  It is our calling for this time in our lives to prepare us for the next part of the calling.

Now we just have to remember that.

Other things we are learning are:
1. Seemingly horrible and potentially embarrassing disasters, like Firefly experienced on Tuesday night, can be real blessings in the long run.  First, our friends have a chance to stand beside us and lift us up instead of beat us down (Thank you, Lord, for the heart of home schoolers!!) Second, it gives us the opportunity to rise over the tribulation and be true victors. 

2. Creator's Son had the opportunity to share his story even more publicly than his blog.  Boy, what a rush to share things from your heart!

3. Adding and multiplying polynomials isn't as bad as we were afraid they would be. :-D

4. Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Anthony, and Herod the Great had great big problems, but still did some interesting things.  God turned all things they did toward the glory of the manifestation of His son, Jesus.

5. "The Door Within" trilogy is almost as good as the "Wingfeather Saga".  Of course, Mom has only just gotten a good start on the first book and the other two might debate which is better.

6. The "Little House" series is still a great set of books to read aloud.  Even to 7th and 9th graders.  And even if Mom's copy is falling completely apart from age.

Next week marks the beginning of the end of numerous things (including having our Grateful friends nearby).  Should prove to be busy.  But at least we get to do it all together!!

What We Are Learning This Week? Really?

This has been one of THOSE weeks. And I am not even sure why.

We really didn't have a ton of things going on or lots of meetings (that is next week).

Everything just seemed to take longer. Everything! From our morning chores to getting ready for bed.

Who knows. Maybe it is springtime and that makes us want to do something different.

Of course, we are always learning something.

1. The Ancient Greeks, well the whole ancient world, seems to have been in quite an upheaval, but it did take 4000 years for most of it to happen. That is a long time after all.

2. Diligence really does pay off toward the end of Algebra I. It isn't quite as hard as when we started out. However, the further you get into Pre-Algebra, the more time it takes to get it done.

3. Even weeks with one of the greatest holidays in the weekend can be just another week on the list. Except when we stop and read through the stories every morning to keep it "new every morning".

4. Circle skirts are fun to wear and make, even the third or fourth time around.

5. A day spent with friends flies past way too quickly!

Things on the list can get checked off, but the most important things sometimes just go past and we don't always notice.

What We Are Learning This Week

Okay, so it is Thursday instead of Wednesday. I hope Grateful for Grace will forgive the one day delay.

We have been busy this week with all types of learning! What fun it is!

1. Wild horses really go up for auction and they are awesome to spend time watching. Even if we can't buy any.

2. Baby miniature horse are absolutely adorable!!! And twice as awesome when the momma actually lets you pet the baby.


3. Pericles, Frankenstein, geodes, how algebra is actually used to solve coin problems, the Greek word for soul and how to make it plural and possessive, centrifugal force is not a real force, and blogging is still fun and educational even after 5 months. Here are Creator's Son and A Kid's Life working on today's blogs.



4. Birthdays are fun, even if they belong to a good friend and not just in your house. A full day of birthday is fun to share! However, the next day it is sometimes hard to get back to the business of school.

5. Planting tomatoes from seeds is fun, but trying to "harden them off" so they can be planted outside is hard work. This picture makes them look a lot more healthy than I think they are. They are suppose to stand up tall instead of being brushy like this.


6. Blogspot has changed a lot of the way things are done from the time I set up my account to when the kids set up theirs. My girl couldn't help me with captions because mine doesn't do that, but she can't just move her pics around. Interesting.

7. Babysitting is interesting. Even if it is Nana's cat. Everyone's house is run SO differently. It is actually kinda cool to think about.

I wonder what fun things will we get to enjoy next week.

Where I Got My Name

I have been wanting to share with you about where I got the name "Rockcastle Blessings". Let's see how well I can explain.

As long as I have known my husband, he has always wanted to build a spectacular house, an unusual house. So, after we moved to the Hill Country, 13 years ago, he thought one of his building materials would be rock. Even though we haven't gotten that far, we continue to dream.

He came up with the name of Rockcastle, which I love, and we have used it for several things. Our homeschool is even called Rockcastle Academy.

The Blessings part started some years back. We heard a sermon in which the sentences, "Blessed people bless people. Cursed people curse people." Wow!

I have always wanted to be a person who blesses others, but first the Lord had to take me through years to teach me how blessed I am. It has been a wonderful journey. I don't even know what all the steps look like since some of them were so gradual.

Then six years ago we were introduced to Dave Ramsey. He changed our lives. We had just lived the American dream of stuff and debt. We took the Financial Peace University together and changed our dreams.

It took us five years to be completely debt free, but now we have been for 8 months. I look forward to the day I can say it had been 8 years and we are still debt free. :-D

Anyway, I love Dave's carefree, heart-felt way of telling people that he is doing "better than (he) deserves." I was at a stage where I was tired of people at church and other caring places just casually asking, "How have you been?" each week as they come in, but don't really want to hear it all. So I began looking for a phrase for me. I finally settled on answering, "I'm blessed!" (Cuz I couldn't steal Dave's.)

Now I have had to learn to say it with conviction. Sometimes I have to say it to remind myself.

I do still hesitate to always give that answer because I don't want it to sound so trite, and yet I LOVE the reminder of how blessed I am. It always, without fail, causes me to pause and remember how blessed I really am. I also love the pause it tends to give the asker. It is kind of fun!

On our recent 6 day vacation, we stopped in a Christian bookstore. I had so much fun pouring over all the homeschool curriculum and shopping for a t-shirt with my son. I had no intentions of purchasing anything. It is just fun to look. Suddenly, I found the one thing that made my heart swoon and brought a tear to my eye. Something put there just for me.

Now I have another gentle reminder that I truly am blessed.

My Father loves me!

What We Are Learning This Week

My friend, Grateful for Grace, challenged her readers to post about what they are learning each week on Wednesdays. Here is my observation.

• HOME schooling has seasons of being a misnomer. One must be home to HOME school. Some schooling travels well, but sometimes life is the school without books.
• Five and half inches of rain accompanied by hail, thunder, and lightning is incredible in many ways. Awe-inspiring during the storm, sleep-depriving (if it keeps up all night), and way cool when you get to visit the rivers and creeks then next day.
• When you have a span of time for no blogging, the ideas pile up and you have to choose just one.
• All those weird named books in the Old Testament were real people, written during a real time in history, and have real significance.
• Pluto helped open better categorization of our solar system. Planets and dwarf planets (like Pluto) now have a more clear definition.
• Beyblade tournaments are just as much fun as My Boy had hoped, and swollen creeks are even more fun than My Girl had hoped.
• Even after all these years of home schooling, we continue to get confirmation on how blessed we are to be allowed to spend these years together. Drawing close to one another and living as a example of chasing after the Father's heart.

Now I just need to make sure I learned how to link it to Grateful for Grace. :-D

25 Random Things

A friend of mine linked to posts in which people listed 25 random things about themselves.

I am not sure that I even HAVE that many, but I suppose.... I will have to see what happens.

1. I love to cook! Baking is my favorite.

2. Knitting is relaxing to me.

3. I have to read before I go to sleep.

4. I really enjoy reading aloud to my two children.

5. Ya gotta do the voices if you are reading aloud.

6. I like to grow plants, but I don't know much about it.

7. I have become the plant rescuer for my mom... her cat eats them.

8. Italian and Mexican are at the tops of my food lists...IF we eat out.

9. I actually cook breakfast for my kids every weekday....weekends are out.

10. I am a rare breed that even cooks breakfast for hubby each weekday at 6 am.

11. I really don't like Facebook. It is visually too busy. I am too busy.

12. I have never even looked at Twitter.

13. My 14 and 10 year olds still let me read to them at bedtime. We like to find weird, cool books like the Wingfeather Saga.

14. My husband is funny....most of the time.

15. I play too much solitaire on the computer at times.

16. I cannot just sit and watch a movie. I must be knitting or doing sudoku or something.

17. I love routine! Not a strict schedule follower, but the order of the routine is peaceful to me.

18. I have kept a written daily journal almost everyday for the past 6 years. It's kinda boring, but I use it to remember some special events.

19. I am usually mesmerized each Tuesday during my daughter's music lesson. Watching her attention and diligence is humbling.

20. My son's sense of humor is both annoying and captivating. Depends on the moment. :)

21. I LOVE to hang out with my kids. They are fun people.

22. I cannot read a short sentence with comprehension if someone is talking to me. Yet, I am a perpetual multi-tasker....go figure.

23. I get up at 5:28 am just to have time to write in my journal and read my Bible before everyone is up and talking to me.

24. I have been making my own laundry soap each month for the past 4 years. (Even though my son says it makes me sound like a Beverly Hillbilly.)

25. I do not like to talk. I much prefer to listen. Please talk to me. :)

Wow...I didn't think I could do it. (Though I cheated by putting the kids in there. But they count...right?)

Planning

I LOVE planning.

Putting things in order, finding a place where things belong, figuring out a great way of doing something...oh what fun!

Really, I do.

I have always delighted in digging through all of the marvelous material available to us as homeschoolers. Reading, downloading sample pages, putting prices in the spread sheet to fit the amount of money I have. Oooooo, it gives me shivers of joy!

I am a little bummed this year. I really don't need to go do all of that searching. *sigh* I already know what we will be working on for next year. *sigh*

I am perfectly happy with the choices, since they are all continuations of what we are doing now. I have really enjoyed the choices we have for this year. I see no need for change.

All that is left to do is compare prices on a few websites. *sigh* There is little thrill in that. Necessary, but not challenging.

Of course, I have a history forum that I read in which all the parents of their 3rd and 4th graders are pushing them to get tons and tons of material under their belts. I did those same things.

Now that we are at the "high school" stage, I know the course work my boy needs to cover. I wonder why I was stressing over all of that stuff then. THEY told me not to stress, but I did anyway.

Well, the planning is mostly done and I won't even need the next material until August. We will go ahead and purchase it in April or May anyway.

I guess it is time for me to try to plan a family vacation. Except that is planning for someone else. Not near as much fun...

At least I know I will enjoy the company along the way.

STUFF

Do you have any STUFF?

STUFF is different than stuff, some how. Stuff is the accumulation of things I need now.

STUFF is the accumulation of things I once thought I needed, but now just don't have the heart (or guts) to pass on.

In 28 1/2 years of marriage, we have done a lot of things. We used to take vacations, I taught first grade, we were part of a fun-family-style church, we had pets, we had extended family. Then after 14 years of just the two of us, we added our boy. We moved from a mostly rural area to the Boonies. After 4 more years, we added our girl.

All those things add up to some really wonderful memories.

We had people live with us for short periods of time. We added on to our house down south. We had some fun vacations. Our nephews and nieces grew. Our children are growing. We are aging.

I don't even remember much of my life without my precious husband. I was only 13 when we met, after all. We attended the same high school and college. We were part of the same youth group at church and did all those things together. We have worked together in praise and worship for over 20 years. We like doing things together.

However, as I look around here, at our rent house, and then more out at our property. We have a lot of STUFF. Some of it is good stuff that I would never get rid of.

How could you ever get rid of your personal testimony translated into Portuguese for that mission trip you took when you were 16?

I have gotten rid of a lot of things. How did we ever accumulate so many THINGS? We never have been very rich, even when both of us worked full-time and we had no children.

Some things are well worth keeping, like my great-grandmother's tea cup collection. Books, now those are hard to part with.

I am slowly, so slowly, chipping away at the STUFF. But I sure enjoy the memories that STUFF pulls up.

Even if my kids do roll their eyes and wonder what I am talking about.

Communication

I love my family!

I am so blessed to have the four of us. Then we are triply blessed since we have 3 of the kids grandparents living close by. Wow! The kids have never even had to have a baby-sitter. And the legacy of watching and learning from them first-hand is even better than just what we tell the kids.

However, we do have quite a bit of extended family, too. Most live in this same state, but we don't see them often enough.

How do I attempt to keep in touch? Well, unfortunately, I am not very good at it. I try to send email birthday cards (since I don't think about it the week before).

But, some of the family only seems to be on Facebook (which I only go look at and don't spend time there), one has a blog, some only do email but don't have 'real' Internet access. I even have one person that doesn't even have a computer at her house! (Can you imagine that?)

In the past few months, I have been making an attempt to actually sit down and write a real letter to my non-electronic family member.

When my boy was little, and even for the first couple of years of my girl, I regularly sent out an email to family that I called "Boonie News". I always got comments when I saw family, but I didn't hear much from them. Mostly, I did it as a journal for myself, I thought.

Recently, I have been asked to do a similar thing at least once a month for some of my email family.

Now, letter writing, blogging, journaling and emailing..... Are folks really that interested in us? I suppose it doesn't even really matter what I say, just that I thought of them when I sent it.

Hmmmm....that's worth writing for.

Bindings

Happy New Year! I do hope to be better at blogging. Maybe once a week?

Bindings... We all seem to have them. Things that we do that we blame on our childhood, or how we were traumatized, or something else that happened TO us as some point in time.

I have begun to wonder more and more why it is that I have to be bound to things from 20+ years ago.

Really? I mean, I have been married for 28 1/2 years. Why am I still categorized, labeled, and think of myself as that foolish, floundering teen? And I do it to myself.

II Corinthians 5:17 says, "...all things have become new." New? One of the definitions for new is "not known or experienced before".

One teacher said, God doesn't just refurbish us. He doesn't just take our old junk and turn it into something that might be reusable. He actually makes us new.

I am slowly learning that when a brother hurts me, I have a choice. When my husband disappoints me (only about once every 10 years, ya know), I have a choice. When my children frustrate me, I have a choice.

I can choose to be new or I can choose to be bound. I can choose what God is doing in me or I can choose to take up the mantra of the enemy that has been whispering since my teens, or before.

I am trying to make those choices that will allow me to choose to be new.

Mom's Special Day

On this day 14 years ago, I officially became a mama at home. By that I mean, I actually got to bring my 3 1/2 month old son home from the hospital.


He was a whopping 4 lbs. 4 oz on the day he came home. He had been in the NICU 103 days. It is amazing to think that he doesn't hold the record. He did come close, though.

We had real concerns. He was on oxygen for over 6 weeks. How would that effect development? Was his vision okay? Was his hearing okay? Would he be functional or have special needs?

At that point, I didn't really care either way. I was just so thrilled to be a mama!


It took him quite a while to start catching up in development. He was so tiny. In this picture, at about 7 months old, he was weighing in at 8 pounds. But he still liked to explore and check out his toys.


In this picture with Dad, he was about 8-9 months old. That means he was weighing about 9-10 pounds. He was getting stronger and stronger.

I have tons and tons of pictures (Dad found my CD!!!) The kids and I could spend all day pouring over them.

After 14 years of marriage and 2 miscarriages. We were just so amazed to have baby at all.

Four years later, that boy began praying for a sister. So when she arrived, he was thrilled to pieces. And I got double blessed.


I do get tired. I do get frustrated. I do stay confused. I do try to stay on my knees knowing how to the next stage.

However, this has been an amazing, thrilling, precious, precious adventure.

Here he is at 14 laying on the crib mattress before it was sent away. Boy, has he grown!


I am so thankful that there is still more of this journey to be had!

Photos - My Age is Showing!

I LOVE photographs!

My husband and I have at least 3 photo albums (the old kind) full of photos from our high school years together.

Of course, we have an album of wedding pictures.

Then we have double albums of some of those vacations we took since we didn't have children to spend our money on.

My son has one big, full photo album of just him during his first 6 months or so of life (including the 3 months of NICU). Very humbling, but now it is delightful.

However, about the time he was born, the world was slowly making the shift from film to digital. We compromised during that time and had our film developed AND they put the pictures on disc for us. That was wonderful!


By the time Little Girl came along, 4 years later, most of the world had gone digital and I had not had time (or money) to figure out how to do anything with all of those digital images. Honey burned some CDs for me, but I am not sure if we know where those are.

Now I know how to transfer them from my digital camera onto my computer. I even know how to Photoshop them enough to make them a decent size for sending in email. (But I don't know how to make me look better in photos.)

But I really miss photo albums! At this point, I can't just take these thousands of images in and have them printed. My honey doesn't make enough in one year to let me do that. *sigh*

I do flip through my photo files sometimes. The kids and I giggle and retell stories. But it isn't the same as being cuddled up on the couch to do that.

My kids roll their eyes at my moments of longing for the "old" ways. And please tell why the old ways are so bad. Thank you very much!

I Love Games!

I just might have to find a Games Anonymous group.

I have always liked games and puzzles, but I haven't always had people around who would play with me.

My girl loves to play games with me! We have enjoyed "Buzz Words", "Clue", "Monopoly", "Pictionary Junior", "Chinese Checkers", and many more. We also love to have a jigsaw puzzle out on a table.

Now I live in an age that allows me to play against an impartial opponent. Computers. But I think they cheat sometimes.

My favorite types of games are thinking games.

I have done Sudoku puzzles a plenty. Solitaire is on my computer, but I have a version that has MANY different types of solitaire games. I don't have to get bored with one type.

Now, Kindle has put out several free games. I have enjoyed "Every Word", "ThreadWords", "Pirate Stash", and "Grid Detective". There are several others, but those are my favorite.

My niece just showed us a cool website - www.coolmath.com - Oh my! Now we are really in trouble!! There are hundreds of fun thinking games. Yes, they are in cartoon format, but they are not just for kids. I promise!

My kids have beat me on "Gluey" so far. I better see if I can catch up with them.