Overwhelmed

So many things I truly want to do. . .
So many things I think I ought to do. . .
So many things others expect me to do. . .

And right now I'm feeling overwhelmed.

• Let's get this house in order. If I could just have a system and everyone would know what to do when. I need to keep the house clean, food prepared, and clean clothes in drawers. I read Large Family Logistics and there are great tips I want to implement. I make a list of what constitutes 'clean' in each room. I develop and type out a morning routine, an evening routine, and table chores for each meal. I'm going to make a household management book and have a great routine in place before school starts. Yet the papers for the book are piled on my desk and nothing has yet been implemented. . .

• I'm going to lose weight. It's time to get this under control, to remove the idol of food from my heart. Read Made to Crave and blog through this journey with a friend. Make one meal for my family, and another for myself. Learn what hunger feels like again. Fight the lack of energy and temptation to irritability and feelings of being deprived. Don't give up when it's hard, when I'm traveling, when I eat something that wasn't on "the list".

• Read from Ezekiel and study Philippians. Every day, because the Word is the source of Life and I want to study it and I know I ought to read it. . .but somehow it becomes one more thing on my list.

• Raise these kids to love and obey the Lord, to be compassionate and servant-hearted. And then I start reading Give Them Grace and realize I'm doing it all wrong. She says I'm not supposed to encourage them to "be good", I'm not supposed to express personal disappointment when they disobey, but I am supposed to give them a two-paragraph lecture about how they can't be expected to do what is right because we are all sinners, here is the gospel, and only through Jesus can you be good. And while I'm not sure I agree with every word, I see the merit in what she's saying as I look back over my pitiful attempts to "point them to the cross" (a la Tripp's Shepherding a Child's Heart) which have, over the years, been far outweighed by my impatience and selfishness when I just want them to "be good."

• I said we were going to start school August 1. I have all our homeschool materials--I spent much time researching various options and curricula. I spent time finding the best deals. I spent time ordering them. Now they're all here. . .and so is August 1 (well, it's really, really close!) And I have no lesson plans--not one day. Multiply three kids by I-don't-even-know-how-many subjects and figure out when I'm going to get this done.

• Big kids volunteering, serving, starting their own businesses, fellowshipping with friends somehow balanced with little kids learning to share, to use their words instead of their fists, surviving ear infections and playing with friends.

• My constant love/hate relationship with pictures. I take the pictures, wanting to preserve and share the memories. I order prints of the pictures. And now they sit, in a box, on my desk, waiting for me to write on the backs and put them in the photo album. And my little one turns one and the pictures sit on the camera, waiting to be downloaded to the computer and emailed to his birthmom so she can vicariously celebrate his birthday. And my five-year-old still needs his annual portrait taken, now my one year old is ready for his, and my mother-in-law is still reminding me that two children have been added to our family since our last family picture.

• Oh yes, and my husband. . .

A partial list of the many things consuming my time and thoughts these days. I need to add one more month of summer.

Wake Up Call

Well, I've had a shocker of a wake-up call. I don't know how this has happened and I didn't realize how bad it was. I'm usually the one behind the camera so I very rarely see pictures of myself. This summer, friends and family have caught a few shots of me--and I don't like what I'm seeing.

I would love this picture my sister got of me with my precious girls--if I cropped the bottom third off the picture which is just a little too revealing of the situation I've gotten myself into.And it's rare to get a picture of me with my husband so you would think I would cherish this shot. But this picture is what woke me up to the realization that I have gotten so overweight that he can't get his arms around me. Ugh
And a friend was trying to get a family picture for us one day. I didn't realize until partway through the shots that this arrangement simply was not going to work. I really didn't intend to frame my fat gut with my children's heads!
Thanks to the research and encouragement of my good friend Kristina, I am now on a mission to get rid of some of this excess weight. I know I will have more energy and be a better wife and mom when I have lost 20-25% of my weight.

If you're curious, I am doing what is called the hcg diet. In brief, hcg is an abbreviation for the hormone that is found in pregnant women and gives you a positive test. According to Dr. Simeon, when this hormone is present is the only time a person can cut way back on calorie consumption and prevent the body from going into starvation mode or taking calories from (needed) structural fat or muscle tissue. Instead, the body gets calories (at the rate of 3500 calories per pound) from stored fat. This method is also reputed to reset the metabolism, making it easier to continue weight loss after using the hcg and maintain the weight loss. I am really hoping it works!!

Here are my tools, some of which crack me up. The hcg has to be diluted with Vitamin B and that's why the syringe is pictured--for the mixing process. I had to buy a whole pack even though I only needed one (so if you need any, give me a holler, chuckle). The kitchen scale was a must to keep to my 3.5 ounces of meat per meal and the cute little calendar. . .well, that was an impulse buy to keep track of how many pounds I'm losing, my hcg dose, etc. Call it an incentive. . . :)
I am doing very well so far. I have lost TEN POUNDS!!! It hasn't been easy, because it's called "very limited calorie diet" for a reason, but I'm motivated. . .for now. I've had some challenges and encouragement from friends, including a night at Bunco when there was tons of delicious looking and smelling food, but I brought my meat, apple, and cucumber. I cheated a tiny bit by taking three bites of fried chicken (but it WAS the breast!) and I had good friends "giving me the eye" to stay out of it. :) (Thank you--I really need all the help I can get!) And we had several people here last night for Bible study and ice cream and I didn't even lick a spoon!

But as I said, I'm motivated "for now". My willpower is atrocious, I love food, and have a really hard time saying 'no' to things like pizza and chocolate (sigh). If you are around me and there is food, please encourage me, tell me you're happy for me that I've lost some weight, and even give me "the look" if I'm starting to succumb to temptation! :) My friend Kristina and I are blogging our hcg adventure to daily encourage one another and reading through Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food. The blog is set to private (hey, we have our weights and before pictures up! emBARRassing!!), but we are thinking about inviting a few supportive friends and family to read along, comment, and encourage us. If you want an invite, shoot me an email and I'll think about inviting you. . .lol, blush.

Prayers requested!!

Reaping the Harvest

In many ways, this is a fun time of year to me. It's so rewarding to harvest food we've grown, and it tastes soooooo much better than what we can buy in the store. Besides that, we know exactly where it has come from, and I'm pretty sure it's healthier besides. No picking food early and letting it ripen without the vitamins from the sun, no pesticides, no msg added.
We had lots and lots of broccoli this year. We ate big messes of it everyday (we all love it!) and I froze several gallons for later. I'm newly amazed every year at how much greener our broccoli is than the fresh (or frozen) broccoli we buy in the store. Green is good--it means vitamins, right?We're really enjoying the cucumbers right now and everybody joins in on the bean snapping parties we keep having.
Yes, even Tyrell! He wants to be right in the middle of everything. If you eat canned beans at our house this winter, I apologize in advance if you get one with a bite mark in it! :)
Snapping beans makes me think of my Grandma who passed away nearly four years ago because I spent innumerable hours snapping beans in my childhood with her. One day as I had many beans to can, I pulled out her pressure canner which I am storing for my mom so I could have two canners going at once. When I opened the book to make sure the directions were the same as my canner, I saw her handwriting with the page numbers of some of the things she cans most often and little notes summarizing for herself: green beans 10 # for 25 minutes. That brought tears to my eyes that I had to look through for the next few minutes loading the canner.
As much as I'm enjoying the harvest of these vegetables, I'm especially relishing the memories we are making as a family when we work, talk, and laugh together

My Hero

Today I am especially thankful for my husband and
all he does for his family.

Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come home and to hear his voice.

Only a dad with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd,
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it for the love of them.

Only a dad but he gives his all,
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage stern and grim
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.
--Edgar Guest

Buy Now With One Click

Yes, that button is my current nemesis.

It's just too easy.

"Buy now with one click"

And there goes the money. We set aside money each month for home school supplies and it is the season to deplete those savings.

It's really a lot of fun. And there are many things I'm excited about. I have received a few packages and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of several more.

The Life of Fred books are here and I have both the lapbook and the schedule for our biology course. The microscope, textbooks, and dissection set will soon be arriving.

I have all the books for our worldview study--How to Read Slowly, Answers for Difficult Days: Surviving the Storm of Secularism, The Deadliest Monster, Know Why and What You Believe, Assumptions that Affect our Lives, Never Before in History, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (shiver of excitement)

Easton is eagerly anticipating his butterfly garden, Destry and Briana (oh, okay, and Mom too!) can't wait to receive Discovering Music, and Briana was excited to receive the rings for her new sling-making business. Then there are the snapfish prints and a couple books from Amazon. . .uh, yes, I think I need to avoid that magic little button for a while.

But it was fun while it lasted!

Managing the Home

A textbook for managing your home. That's how I would describe Large Family Logistics: The Art and Science of Managing the Large Family by Kim Brenneman. I know it talks about large families, but really, what is a large family? Some might say with seven members ours is a large family, while others with ten, eleven, or twenty one might says ours isn't large at all. In truth, I wish I had implemented many of these these ideas and principles years ago when I had only two children. I borrowed this book from a friend and read about half of it in a week, then I ordered my own copy because I realized it would be an excellent resource book to implement little by little rather than just reading through once. After finishing the book, I determined that it will serve as my 15-year-old daughter's home economics textbook this year. Yes, it's that good. Just think how far ahead she will be if she already has her attitude in place, a home management book organized, and habits and tips up her sleeve. (Okay, the truth is she is already way ahead of where I was, say, five years ago, but this will propel her even farther along).

The first part of the book shapes our attitude in our management of our homes. It is filled with Scripture and encouragement, and gives tips for setting goals, gaining self-discipline, some child-training, and putting self in its proper place. She encourages hospitality and taking care of ourselves.

I especially liked her suggestion to take stock of how I am spending my time right now. She suggests carrying around a notebook for a day or two and quickly jotting down what you do and how long it takes to evaluate your stewardship of your time.

I also appreciated her transparency as she shared "There are days when things just don't go according to plan. . .When this happens, just adjust. Change your plan, or take a break. Gather everyone together, offer some encouraging words, pray, take a nap, get a drink or a snack, or read a story. Take the time needed to get everyone back on track, and then get back on track" (109). Phew! I was glad to know it's not just our family who has those days, and I am more inclined to read and attempt her suggestions when she is real about life.

I was encouraged, convicted, and inspired by her summary of motherhood:

Motherhood is a life of sacrifice; it is a life poured out for our children. So what are we to do to get some space from it all? When we are honest with ourselves, we know that it is not "Me Time" we need or a "Girls' Night Out". Children are not a burden to escape or endure; they are a blessing that drives us to Christ because we are incapable of parenting well without Him. God is who we need. While there are helpful strategies we can employ in order to have a more peaceful day with our children, the number one thing we must do is to deny Self and cling to the cross" (87).

The second section is chock full of practical ideas and tips. Most of this section focuses on creating a Home Management Book. I have played around with this concept for some time as I have a three ring binder that contains our monthly budget, menu planning, shopping lists, etc. But she takes it to a whole new level as she encourages lists of chores in each room of the house, daily schedules, and a rotation for each week such as Monday is laundry day, Tuesday is kitchen day, etc. She breaks each day down itemizing and sharing tips for laundry day, office day, or whatever.

There are chapters which are unique to individual families or seasons of life, such as homeschooling, times of pregnancy, and several little children. But there are many more chapters which apply to households across the board.

I really like her conversational tone throughout the book and while she is obviously adept at running her home, she still makes it seem attainable even for the organizationally-challenged. I also really appreciate that most of the chapters are short so a busy woman can grasp a complete point in one sitting.

My goal is to have my Home Management Book completed and this household running itself by the end of the summer. (gales of laughter--I have many lofty goals like this for the summer, and I usually accomplish approximately ten percent of those goals. But any little bit I accomplish is better than just sitting around reading cozy mysteries during naptime, right?? a-hem) Someone hold me accountable. . .well, on completing the Home Management Book at least.

New Instrument

Destry has grown--a lot. And oops, a three quarter sized violin was waaaaay too small for this young man! So, after a few months of saving, we were ready to begin shopping for a full-size violin for his playing pleasure.

His violin instructor directed us to Claire Givens violins where we were able to talk with a salesman sharing Destry's preferences (and our price range) and they sent us two violins, two cases, and three bows to pick what he liked best. The timing was a little crazy as they arrived right before Independence Day and we had a mere week, but he still had fun contrasting the different instruments to choose which would be best for him.
I'm amazed at how much louder the larger instrument is and Destry is happy with its deeper, more mysterious sound.
And now for a nostalgic trip back in time. . .There's my little boy, about six and a half, at his first violin recital using a 1/16th size violin. I love the stance in the cowboy boots! :) Now he's progressed to a full-sized violin and his hands and arms are hairy and corded--the hands and arms of a man. sniff, sniff

You've Gotta Read This

Designer Babies, Designer God

It's a little bit long, but you don't want to miss it. Thought-provoking and convicting on more than one level.

My Backyard

We've seen a couple of cool things right in our backyard here recently. One evening after a rain we were privileged to witness not only a full rainbow, but a double rainbow.
It was gorgeous and inspired the entire family to stand outside admiring it and reviewing the promise God gave Noah thousands of years ago.
It even inspired Destry to climb up on the roof (hey, a 13-year-old boy jumps at any opportunity, right?!) and take some pictures. I rather enjoyed this bird's eye view of our farm. Above is the view to the southeast, below is the view due east.
The picture below looks to the northwest from the roof of our house.
Then another evening as we were eating supper Kiana excitedly said "Hey! What's that?!" Right out our dining room window we saw a hot air balloon lazily floating along in the sky. (Destry captured this shot as well--I think it's really cool the way the balloon is contrasted against the blue sky between the full green trees).Our delicious supper (rotisserie chicken, homemade breadsticks with fresh pesto, carrots and lettuce) was temporarily abandoned as we all headed out to the deck to watch it. It looked so relaxing to drift along with the air currents on such a beautiful evening. The kids were hopeful it would land in our pasture, but of course it didn't.

What fun memories of dropping everything to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of a moment.

Got 'Er Done

I am so proud of Briana I could absolutely burst. She finished her first quilt and I think she did an outstanding job.
She cut the blocks and stitched them together to complete the top, and then hand quilted it. It's really neat to see her first few blocks with their large, uneven stitches, and then see the progression of her skill develop.
I find it very touching that she is continuing this family skill which I don't possess. My maternal grandmother quilted, as does my aunt, and Alan's mother and sister both quilt. It's truly an amazing art, working with the different colors and fabrics, but most amazing to me is the perseverance and commitment required to complete such a project.
I love to look at the back of the quilt at all the stitches. Isn't that amazing? I'm so proud of Briana that she stuck with it and "got 'er done!" She's already got a plan for her next quilt. . .

Nobody Warned Me

If I survive until August 23, I will be 38 years old. And being the nice, helpful person that I am, I am not going down without warning other unsuspecting women about the Psycho Cycle. I never used to be psycho or have major cramps or any other serious issues, but I'm guessing age is having her unpleasant way with me.

After this last weekend, I suggested to Alan that he build me a padded room. I would only need to be ushered into this safehouse (safer for both me and my loved ones!) about every third or fourth month, and only for about 24-48 hours. Roughly 355 days a year I am a pretty normal person, level-headed, caring and compassionate. But there are a few days in there. . .well, these last couple years have featured eyes rolling wildly to display the whites of my eyes, head banging against the shower wall accompanied by insane sobbing, and perhaps a little head spinning.

I don't know who that crazy lady is. She's melodramatic, mean, and a freak.

If she were confined to a rubber room and someone pushed chocolate under the door along with a couple fluffy (twaddle) books (I discovered Sue Ann Jaffarian through a couple Kindle freebies this weekend--great escape), this world would be a safer and happier place. I'm getting kind of scared at the prospect of menopause. I like being me, not a scary, out-of-control wreck.

As I apologized to Alan this morning and suggested he commence to building a padded room, he said he would rather build me another bookshelf! Sweet, but I did notice he left for work earlier than normal. . .

He Loves Me

We all know the Five Love Languages, right? Well, I'm starting to think Dr. Chapman missed a very important language. I know my hubby loves me. He speaks in bookshelves. It started with the hole-in-the-wall-turned-bookshelf and continued with my entire south wall of the dining room.

Then I asked for a shelf to go under my dining room window to hold all the Kindergarten and preschool puzzles, games, activity books and reading books. I wanted three spots to put one-foot-square totes in (hello Target!) to hide all the miscellaneous card games and flash cards and other stuff that doesn't look nice on a shelf. I asked for three short shelves for educational puzzles and games. I needed a couple small cubbies for wrap ups, counting bears and other pattern and sequencing activities. Then of course we needed a couple shelves for books.

I said I wanted it the entire length of the window. Have I ever mentioned I am challenged in the skill of estimating size? I had no idea it would be so huge--look at all this space!
I have room for everything I wanted to put on there--and there's still empty space. Guess it's time to go shopping. . . :D