WRAD Memories

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...

Lately I haven't been feeling like I'm getting anywhere with things. I'm dwelling too much on what's NOT working (or getting done, etc.), than I am on what IS working. The laundry piles, the cluttered counters and dirty dishes, the 'still unplanned home school/day schedule', kids who've decided that they don't want to listen or do anything you've told them for the past 10 years! Yadda, yadda, yadda. It's easy to get dragged down into the dumps when you do that. This then becomes a catch-22 where you get so upset that you just want to numb yourself in some way: internet, Facebook, reading, hobbies, eating, drinking, drugs, etc. The list is long of things that we use to fill the hole that's there in our lives. Unfortunately, what they all have in common is that fact that the moment we turn to them instead of to God- they become our idols. As I've been reading through the Old Testament I've been pondering the whole 'heart att...

Just when I think things are getting back on track, they seem to fall apart all over again. Mainly it has to do with my 'to-do' list. Honestly, I wish I could clone 10 of me just so I could do all the things that I want to do as well as all the things I HAVE to do. But I'm realizing that really my problem is that I can't seem to say 'NO', and it's just making things worse. Also tied to that is trying to daily do God's agenda instead of mine. Can I let you in on a little secret? I've sucked at doing that lately. Thankfully, God's mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22-23), so I can hit the restart button and try again tomorrow. On the upside, I am trying to be more present with my kids and in everything that we're doing each day. Hormones have subsided (which I'm discovering make me really crazy), I'm hardly yelling at all and I'm slowly trying some new techniques with the kids in order to change some behaviours tha...

It's hard to believe that the summer break is almost done. As I was thinking about getting ready for the new school year, I actually had a fleeting thought that I wished I could send the kids back to public school, just so I could get caught up on all the half-finished projects laying around the house and NOT have to get ready to teach them. Honestly, I had been counting down the years till my youngest entered full-time school so I could do just that- finish all my stuff and clean-up/organize my house. Then I think of James 4:3 where it says, 'you do not get because you ask with wrong motives'.  Ah yes, God. Homeschooling it is, then. Die to self, take up His cross. Repeat. Keeping it real, by the grace of God... Tammy

I always think it's neat when I can see God moving in my life. For me lately, everything I'm reading in my bible (as I attempt to go cover-to-cover in 90 days), all the sermons I'm hearing and the topics from our Friday night bible study group, are all pointing to the same thing. A total, heartfelt obedience to God. Like my blog post  here . This past week, I finally hit that moment of surrender. And was it ever freeing. God gave me such a cool picture to go along with it- but that's just for me and Him for now. But surrender is only the first step- now I need to walk that out. Doing ALL the things He asks me to and NOT doing those things that He says not to. I feel overwhelmed by it all. Where do I start? However, those thoughts are mine, not His. Surrender is listening for the next instruction and then doing it. And then repeating the whole listening/doing thing for the rest of my life. It's laying down my agenda for what I want to do/accompl...

Tonight I NEED to write. It's been a LONG summer so far and for no reason really, I felt like the past few days have just about put me over the edge. So I need to write and find the good in this, because if I don't I keep dwelling on the bad. Today started with an interesting dream. In it, I was going to be driving my friend's car- but I realized the back passenger door was open and thought 'I need to close it before I go'. For some reason I didn't- and only discovered that when I got to my destination. I got out to check to see if there was any damage and both the doors on that side were massively scraped up. I felt sick to my stomach over it. There was no way to hide the damage and no way I could pretend it never happened. In some ways, it's a lot like life. You see something that you KNOW you really need to do. Unfortunately, life distracts you and it doesn't get done (or the other way- you don't stop doing things you know you shouldn...