WRAD Memories

A few days ago I watched a video about distracted moms (by Carol Barnier author of the book "If I'm Diapering a Watermelon, Then Where'd I Leave the Baby?: Help for the Highly Distractible Mom"). I thought to myself, 'yeah, I guess I can get a bit distracted'. Little did I know that probably the next day I would realize just how bad it was. I was trying to explain some math concept to one of the boys and I noticed that his fingernails REALLY needed to be cut. It took EVERY ounce of self control to not interrupt what we were doing and go cut them that very second. I immediately thought back to the video. Yep. I'm a distracted mom. But something in what she said in the video really hit a nerve deep within. At first she thought that she needed to fix this distractability and become the Pinterest perfect home schooling mom. She had charts and list and everything possible to keep herself organized and on task. Only it didn't work because the...

I'm finally trying to get my home school reports in to my support teacher and I'm realizing just how much my kids have not been listening to many of the things that I have been telling them to do. It's almost like they are on a quest to see how little they can do/get away with before I get upset with them. However, I think my frustration level with this is probably linked more to my realization that I'M not doing things that I think God has told ME to do (or told me to stop doing but I'm still doing them). So, I'm reaping what I'm sowing- and I hate it. But I've also realized something else- my heart doesn't really want to change things. My head KNOWS I should, but the 'rubber is not meeting the road' at this point. After all, who really doesn't like being selfish and getting their way and doing whatever they want when they want to do it? Forget about serving others, I want to be served! And yet, it grieves me each night when ...

September was a bit of a blur- which you probably noticed since I really didn't post much of anything during the month. Things and life had me distracted and I couldn't figure out which way was up. My 90 Days Through the Bible is taking longer than I'd hoped- mainly because instead of doing my reading every night I've been doing other things (like creating a Lego scrapbook for the boys. Pointless? Of course! Will they love it and fight over the 1 copy that I ordered? You betcha!). But doing things that I'm not supposed to be doing means that I have to say NO to things that I should be doing. Things that if they don't get done mean that days are really, really rough. Like figuring out a schedule for our school days, or even what we're supposed to be doing for school each day! Thankfully, after meeting with my home support teacher, I have a new plan for the work and I just need to figure out a schedule. And very timely, this post here ( Punching th...

I realized that even though I said I was going away camping with the kids, I never actually got around to posting anything about it- or some of the other adventures that we've had this summer. And then I was waiting on some pictures of the dog- so I STILL didn't post this. Well, hopefully it's better late than never, lol! This summer didn't turn out like I'd originally hoped because of the dog, but I think on the whole it wasn't too bad (I can't believe it's over already, though. It went by so fast!). We started our summer holidays a bit early because mentally I was just done. That, and we got our dog- which we eventually named 'Choco'. It's a shortened form of chocolate, which the kids thought was ironic since too much chocolate can kill a dog- but he's varying shades of brown, so I thought it suited him. And after three weeks of having him, he needed a name already. Anyone who knows anything about dogs knows that Airedales are N...

Have you ever had one of those days where you just feel like nearly every decision you make seem to be bad ones? Or maybe it seems like it's been weeks... or months... or even years! You think that you have all your logical reasons for or against something, but then after you move in that direction it no longer seems like such a great idea? It's kind of ironic some days that my baptism verse was Is. 30:21 "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."." There are so many days that I either haven't felt like I heard anything or when I thought I heard something, somehow it didn't seem like it was really the right voice that I heard. My first foray into hearing God's voice was while reading the book by Bill Hybels "Too Busy Not to Pray" (I think). From that time on I've tended to live by the idea that as long as it doesn't contradict scriptur...

So, I've NEVER taken my kids to Playland. I've always wanted to, but the reality of having more than 1 or 2 kids means that getting into places gets REALLY expensive- REALLY fast. I don't even want to think about how much I paid for us to get into Disneyland (for a day and a half)- and I think Rebekah was even free! Anyway, I managed to discover that on Tuesdays over the summer, a local radio station was doing a promo. Now, not only would we be able to get in and have an all-day ride pass, but we were going to do it for $10 per person! That little deal saved me $100. So, I mentioned it to my sister-in-law and we figured out how we were going to ditch our 3 year olds and went. Okay, first thing to remember for next time (should they do it again next year)- come early. We spent an hour waiting in line to get in. I was SO NOT expecting that. Thankfully the line kept moving and we had snacks to occupy ourselves, but it cut into the time we had available. Second, dou...

Back in the spring, my husband bought a canoe from his cousin. After finally getting the roof rack purchased so we could actually take it somewhere and picking up the life jackets from my parents, we managed to get out to the local lake. Swamp would be a better description of said body of water. It used to be a mill site and when they shut it down, they just dumped all their leftovers in the middle of the lake. This means that in addition to a million geese doing their business everywhere, the lake is full of logs. Anyway, the first group went out and was back in a couple of minutes. My friend felt the canoe was too 'tippy'- worse than any other canoe she'd ever been in and didn't want to go out on it anymore. Elijah, Jeremiah & our friend in the inaugural voyage. By this point, Graham was back with the rest of the life jackets that I'd forgotten at home- so he took out the next batch of kids. Jeremiah, Samuel & Graham. Now, I grew up go...