She loved dancing and twirling. We had just been to the Nutcracker – she was flying high.

Look at the sparkle in her eyes. That is her baby doll my dad gave her for 1st or 2nd Christmas. The beautiful crochet (knit?) coat, it is over a beautiful red velvet dress -both from goodwill. {When thrift/consignment store shopping, I would buy clothes for her doll – preemie size fit the best. :-D}

She used to LOVE to dress up pretty. {Now, she’s the ripe old age of 12 and wouldn’t dream of dressing up. :-(, someday I hope it changes again.}

 Yes. Parenting is hard. But it is so worth it. We’ve had a hard day, but a good day. A day that will probably shape her friendships for the rest of her life. I do miss those days when the kids were younger – I’d go back and repeat them any day. However, I am thankful to see them grow and make mature choices, even when it is hard. As I wrote earlier this week about trusting Him, shame stemming from words, the importance of watching the words we say, and then about our voice. I had no idea the week would wrap up like it has. {Actually, last night I wrote a paragraph about being nervous as to why I’d dwelled on studying our mouth & tongue all week, then I removed it…now, I wish I’d left it in. I shoulda known something was coming! 🙂 Today I found out why the Lord was preparing me a.l.l. week. Yes, I’m thick-skulled – my parents called it stubborn, I call it slow.}

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I don’t often succeed {at staying so well focused on Him} – but that doesn’t make it any less my desire. I am actively working to not feel as if I’m drowning in burdens. After all, each burden to me is as a dry leaf to my Heavenly Father. Little weight. Crumbles without much effort. Pretty insignificant, when there is a big pile they might look bad, but they really aren’t they will disperse quickly. Yet, even when they look like a big pile, they are really nothing. These, to me, are an incredibly comforting thoughts. Some burdens have been particularly awkward to hold up to Him. Medical, friendships, parenting {making me particularly weary}, waiting on decisions to be made {also making me particularly weary}, repercussions of other decisions {again, making me particularly weary, not all my decisions} – just to name a few. It makes a person very weary. The weariness tends to cloud my vision.

What I really want to remember is I have so many blessings. My children are with me. I live in a free country. My memories are in tact. My house is in tact. There is not water where it does not belong. There is not sand where it does not belong. My home and so many of the sights I’m familiar with were not destroyed by water, rain, and wind. I’m not having to start over right now. My mind is trying to grasp so much devastation, so many people, and in general trying to make sense of Hurricane Sandy. The pictures are mind boggling to me. I can not even imagine. I just keep reminding myself – He is in control at ALL times. None of this comes as a surprise to Him. I can do nothing physically to help anyone – yet there is one thing I can do, and it is the most powerful, I can pray.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

And because today proved our FALL IS OVER:

• It never warmed up – {I did not get the shed painted, by the time it quit raining and dried out it was too cold to paint.}
• It’s been cold {as in 8*} for lots of days, it has been too cold to snow.
• The winds have returned. I’m eternally tired of wind. I’ve taken to running a fan at night {even though we are not hot} so I hear the wind less.
• Fall is OVER. There isn’t hope of it warming up to be fall’ish any more. {Reality is it’s been over for a couple weeks – I’m just finally admitting it.}
• It did warm up enough to snow this morning. The sun did not come out. The snow is here to stay. Now I just hope we gets lots more of it so it can at least be pretty out.
• I have resorted to wearing my winter jacket.
• I discovered this weekend my children do not have snow gear :-(.  As in, no snow pants, boots, or mittens. How did they grow out of everything?! They are fine for short errand trips, but this is not a good thing. We get stuck. It’s too cold to do much without the right gear – especially with the wind.
• I can not get warm.

So….rewind several years & here are a few pictures of when the kids were supposed to be raking leaves. Ya, right! They were having way too much fun :-D!

Pure pleasure. I love this smile. I love this girl – greatly. I am blessed to call her ‘my’ daughter.

{I say ‘my’ because she is a Child of God, I’ve been entrusted to raise her here on earth to look to Him for everything. It is my job as her mother.}

Well — I have several other pictures ready to go. But apparently WordPress has decided to not upload them. I’m tired of fighting it, so I’m giving up. Vince was there with her and I have such sweet pictures of them as ‘babies’…..but I guess I won’t be posting them.

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Each day for the last week I’ve planned to “take” some types of learning tests about my kids & I.  I haven’t tried this since they were too little to really answer for.  I figured I’d like to see how the curriculum I’m planning to make use of fits {or not} before starting.

Well, you learn really interesting things when you check some of those things out —  I’ve always known I had to see it, hear it, & do it in order to “get it”.  So what did I learn?  I learned we are all visual learners; Christine and I were really close with Kinesthetic & Visual and Auditory was no where close. {her: strongest in Visual; me: strongest in Kinesthetic} Vince was so strong in Visual that it was 19 points to Auditory for him, and almost no Kinesthetic.  Interesting.  I love this kind of thing.  What will I do with the info?  I.have.no.idea.  However, I do have a little more understanding of what those three terms mean now. 😀

For example:  I know now why I frustrated Vince soooo much when he was in Kindergarten {uh, yes that was 10 years ago!}, oh bless our contact teacher’s heart for stopping me.  She did it so lovingly I didn’t even know I was the problem.  She blessed our family with the gift of continuing homeschooling because she encouraged me to let him be.  Let him learn by what he is interested in.  I was “doing” Thomas Jefferson education before it was the popular way of doing things.  Much to the dismay & speculation of many around me.  I’m here at the other end to tell you – IT WORKS!  Because I restrained myself, he doesn’t hate school.  Because I didn’t force what he “had” to learn, he wants to learn.  Christine isn’t quite to the wanting to learn stage, she’d still draw and listen to stories.all day.every day.  However, she doesn’t have a ton of self-discipline…so we’re working on character building.  Some days, that just looks like — “is this the best use of time?”  Also, I’m super excited to use Well-Planned Day’s software this year.  I anticipate a whole lot less of my asking, “did you finish…?” – because they’ll have the power to pre-answer me by finishing & checking it off……oh, I love lists. 😀

So….a little bit of update since I wrote the above.  Vince is totally into his education this year. It is awesome! We have a new member of the family {more on this later}. The schedule for the school year includes 3 music lessons, 2 youth groups, 1 math class, 1 science class, 1 gymnastics class, and I’m in a Bible Study this fall. We are running. A lot. {Even with 2 piano lessons & the science class here at the house.} This is way more than I like for us being scheduled, but that is the time of life we’re in I guess.  We’ll see what next semester will hold – I believe we’ll be down the extra math class.  We’ll still be out 2 nights/week and everything other week is 3 nights out. I’m a serious home body, this has been an adjustment for me.

These are good pics of each of “my” kiddos this year. I love them so much. So much it hurts. I know there are not such great days, but in the grand scheme of life – do all those petty issues really matter? I am reminded again, how very fortunate we are.

We have a warm house.

We have food on the table/in the fridge/pantry.

I have a reliable van, and gas in the van.

We have our family.

Yes, we have so very much to be thankful for. There are so many things in the wings I can’t wait to share, but I have to wait for the right time….

I can say I have decided to drop the idea of having a web design business – I HATE the technical side. I just want to do the design part. I broke down & just bought a theme, rather than trying to figure out how to edit the original one I bought {that I really didn’t like, but thought I’d be able to edit}. I’m still doing lots of messing around with the looks {why are there double headings?!!!!} & cleaning up all the posts converted over from Blogger — that whole category vs tag thing, what a mess!

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Today I’m going to write about Perspective. I’m sorry if this post seems rambling, I haven’t completely processed what I’m trying to say – which is usually not a good thing for me. I find this word [Perspective] sometimes provides grace, or an excuse. Grace when we are able to look at a situation from another’s shoes, or an excuse when uses ‘my’ perspective versus ‘your’ perspective to be rude.

A visual example…these are the same dew drops on leaves, different perspective, seeing more of the whole.

Perspective as a means to give grace: Have you noticed there are times when you have a misunderstanding with someone because of two {or as many people as who are involved} different perspectives and ways of seeing every situation. For example: Children with cell phones. I strongly disagree with children having cell phones. Yes, I realize I am archaic in my way of thinking. I have multiple reasons for this perspective: cost & responsibility top my list.

Cost – cell phones are stinkin’ expensive! I see them to be used as a tool, but if you don’t watch it you can become controlled by your need for/dependence on it. A cell phone has its place, but it has morphed to being an unnatural convenience/dependence, an entitlement. I do have a cell phone, an iPhone, but I have the smallest possible data package {smaller than is even available now}; I basically have an overkill of a phone. I use the phone and texting parts almost daily, but everything else is just every once in a while. This is because I refuse to be ultra dependent on my phone – if I forget it at home, unless it is for safety sake (late night/icy roads) I leave it there. Point of clarification: This is my conviction; I don’t mean any of this as a condemnation for anyone! Anyone reading could say I am not being a good steward of what I have because I am not using it fully, the way it is intended, so much of my phone’s purpose is wasted. {I have an iPhone from when I was in school, so I could check into my classes with it and be a little less attached to my laptop & it was the only one with the app. On top of which, I’m on a family plan & to change would actually cost me more per month now AND I’d have to learn how to use a new phone.}

Responsibility: For me, I know I have an issue with fully acting out my trust of my Heavenly Father, whom I totally cling to. I know I am not strong enough to NOT form an attachment of dependency on a stupid, inanimate object over my Heavenly Father, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords. Because of this dysfunction in me, I know having a cell phone is a big responsibility. I don’t know how to teach my children to keep their dependence properly grounded without being really strict with myself and showing by example. I don’t know if children can make this distinction on their own – most are not mature enough, in the world or in their faith. I realize there are very real reasons and situations for some families, including all children, to each have cell phones. I am not talking about that – at all – I’m only talking about myself and my two children. We aren’t in that situation; my children are with me 95% of the time…why would they need a cell phone? I work from home, we home school.  This is a very hard concept for my children to understand, mostly my 12 year old daughter, especially when it seems as if everyone else has a cell phone. [Her perspective]

This year has ended up being a year where one night my daughter has gymnastics, then youth group, and  another day/night my son has a math class and youth group. In the past I’ve just waited where ever it is. This is year has been different, too many things happening at once and if I have to double up reasons for being out. Also, my mom has helped with some of the running. This has meant my children have been dropped off by one person, then picked up by another – with plans changing while they were in their class. Over the last couple months of this schedule, against my hearts desire, I decided to get phones for communication. I have a new understanding – my perspective has changed – of why children have a need for cell phones. This doesn’t mean we have to go all out, but it is time for another tool. So, I decided we were going to get minutes for a prepay phone. One where you pay for $20 for 200 min and get 3 texts/min. My son (15 years) went through his strong desire for a cell phone 3 years ago, he had the brilliant idea they could share one since they weren’t going two different ways  – their activities are on different days. Duh!  Why didn’t I think of that…because all my effort, and perspective, was in fighting my own decision. My daughter was not as impressed with this plan. 😀   My son’s fingers were to big to use the phone with buttons, so I got a touch screen for him; the funny thing was she really didn’t want a touch screen and was expressing the desire to learn self-control on using minutes. In the end it was $10 to get min for the 2nd prepay phone we already have, so I got them for my daughter.

So….my point in a nutshell: My perspective changed because of our schedule; then money changed it again.

I was adamant sharing a phone was a great idea; then my perspective changed again and for $10. I chose to extend grace in changing my perspective by buying minutes for my daughter, for her hearts desire. In those moments my children extended grace to me in my changing my mind multiple times as I worked it out in my mind (even though it confused my daughter and we had to have a long talk about it).

What I don’t like is when ‘perspective’ is used as an excuse. Such as someone is being verbally rude, or in action is rude, and they know it. To try to make themselves feel better, they’ll say “it’s your perspective”. As if their perspective is better, so therefore yours means nothing. It is so incredibly hurtful. I am really struggling with being on the receiving end of that statement. It hurts. Badly. It’s really hard to not allow myself to be cynical and just be flip in my thinking/speaking by saying. “We all have a different perspective.” If we get caught up in that kind of thinking, what place is there for right or wrong? I believe the Bible tells us enough – there is different right and wrong. That isn’t the question, it’s the “gray” stuff — the way we talk to each other. Respect each other. Cherish each other. Is there a right vs wrong way? Or is it to each of our perspective?

What do you think? Do you struggle with this idea at all? I really would like to hear your thoughts.

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