WRAD Memories

Expectations. I have come to realize that I have a love-hate relationship with 'Expectations'. Before something happens you have this dream of what it's going to look like. And, the longer you have to wait the bigger the expectations become (at least for me it's seemed that way). Expectations: being given a picture and told to replicate it in cake form. I have grand ideas of what all my cake attempts should look like (think professional perfection)- but the reality of my experience doesn't always translate the same way. Thankfully this one turned out really well! Then you hit reality. You finally get what you've been waiting/wanting/dreaming for all that time. But, it's different than what you were expecting it to be/look like. Not that it's bad or anything (although sometimes it can be). It's just different than what you dreamt it would be. My life seems to be just that- hoping and praying for things to happen only to have reality ...

One of the main reasons that I haven't been writing over the past year (other than being really busy with cadets and my grandmother's ongoing history project....) is that things have been pretty crappy around here. I haven't really been feeling like I'm getting anywhere with anything- so how could I put a great spin on something that just seems to suck? In the past when I'd tried blogging (or journaling), it always seemed like I was just whining and complaining about the same things over and over again. And nobody really wants to hear about that, so then I just don't write. People have enough garbage going on in their own lives that they don't need to listen to someone else whine about theirs. But is that really where we're at? I know that there has been some backlash against this with the 'Bad Mommy' type memoirs and blogs, however, that's not really what I'm talking about. I think it's sometimes about being real and vulner...

Where to begin? This year has been crazy. Not just for me, but for a lot of my home schooling friends as well. I thought that going into year five of this home schooling journey was a bit of an 'arrival' of sorts. That just maybe I had 'made it' and was on to smoother sailings. Uhm.... no... Getting rid of the dog lifted a huge weight of the constant responsibility- but at the same time the heaviness was still there. Like a daughter who would break out into weeping fits when she thought about the dog and still asks me when he's coming back or when I will get another dog to replace him. I expended copious amount of time trying to deal with and train him- and getting rid of him signaled yet another failure that was emotionally hard to deal with. We also signed Elijah up with our local Air Cadet program and I have been volunteering with that as well. It's been interesting getting 'out' into the world again. For the past number of years our family ...

I didn't cave. I also should have just stayed off of Facebook, but I didn't cave. Last summer I chose NOT send my kids to summer camp- even though, seemingly, ALL their friends were going. The same week. All of them. Well, not really, of course. But honestly, with Facebook status updates coming in fast and furiously- it really did seem like it. And I wondered, 'Am I a bad mom because I didn't send my kids to summer camp with their friends?' At one point, I seriously thought about calling up the camp (after the week had started) and seeing if I couldn't somehow manage to get them in anyway. I let the thought pass- and didn't cave. But I still feel a tinge of guilt about it and I'm dreading the decision about this summer already. Fast forward a few more months- to February 7, 2014 to be exact. Pretty much anyone with even the slightest interest in Lego will know what that date means. The release of their first full-length feature movie....

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...

Today was one of those days. The kids were up later than usual last night and so were cranky this morning. It was special breakfast day (our Saturday tradition), and after sleeping in my husband decided that HE wanted to make breakfast. Knowing that it would take a bit longer than if I did it, I let them each have a bite of left-over Nanaimo Bar to tide them over till the french toast was ready. Any guesses at where this will be going? They're tired and now hyped up on sugar... So, after breakfast we did what any sane parent would do in this type of situation- we took all five of them SHOPPING! To not just one place, mind you- we were going to two places. Oh.My.Goodness! Can we say brain-dead? First, a Marshall's store had recently opened at the new shopping centre being built in town, so my darling hubby wanted to go check it out. Truth be told I was curious as well, so that was our first stop. After the requisite whining about who was going to sit where (which was heigh...