The Awesome Lumix

This year  has been a study in life. Almost anything that could happen , did at some point or another take place. As our year draws to a close, I am reminded that even though things that are not so great happen, there are plenty of things that are fantastic that do. Through all the vehicle issues, the shed issues, the work issues, people issues, kid issues, friend issues and everything else that goes along with it, I can still find a couple high-lights to look back on in 2010. Two of my favorites are the birth of a friends baby girl and my best friends pregnancy. I am sure if I tried hard enough, I could find dozens of instances where God has blessed my family in one way or another.
Most recently would be the acquisition of a new digital camera thanks to my daughter and son-n-law in Australia. My cannon camera has been gong on the fritz for a while now, and my constant complaints of blur and battery replacement must have surely influenced their decision to impart to us such a cool gift .

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH1

At first it looks like your average normal digital camera..don't let that fool you! It is a truly awesome bit of technology. First of all, everyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I drink lots of coffee. As a result I suffer from shaky hand syndrome. This syndrome does not help my  picture taking  in the least. Thanks to the Auto-Stabilization feature on my new camera and I can drink as much coffee as I want and still take pictures! This has me totally psyched as my syndrome was slowly dwindling away my ability to be able to take a picture that was not blurry thereby ruining those "once in a lifetime moments". Here is one such example:

Yes..this is Joshua flying through the air with the greatest of ease.

 Yes, I know you are saying to yourself right now, that's awesome! I was a bit to far away, so was a tad bit blurry unfortunately,  but it is one of those "one time only deals" because as you can tell he was jumping on my couch, and that isn't gonna happen again any time soon. Here is another one of Joshua.

Joshua..again

The only thing in this picture that is blurry is him. This picture was taken before I discovered the next cool feature of my new camera, Intelligent Auto Mode! No more do I have to try and figure out what setting will give me the best picture for that situation, my camera does it for me! Although I am not totally technologically challenged, IA mode is now my new favorite setting and as easy as a push of a button.

Picture taken, in the dark, of my tree in IA Mode.

 As you can see, even with "hand shake" the Lumix takes great closeup pictures in the dark even! Here is another one of the tree in IA Mode with the Flash Turned off manually.

This looked so cool to me..look mom no blur!!!

 Another wonderful feature  my new camera has are ..RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES !!! You got it, no more running around looking for double A batteries because the kids used them all for yippy little toys, and now we have to steal from one toy to make another one work! Just plug the battery into the provided recharging unit, wait till it charges and you are good to go! I can not tell you how many times I had to change out batteries in my old camera because the kids wanted to "take pictures" of "EVERYTHING". I did manage to almost kill the battery the first time around as I was busily playing with my new toy, but I still have some battery time left, so I will be taking more pictures as the day goes on. Thank you Ashley and Aaron for the awesomely cool camera, now I can accessorize!

Coals in my wood stove.

*Disclaimer: Panasonic had nothing to do with this blog post..and this is not an advertisement for Panasonic, however if you decide to go get a Lumix after reading this I'm sure they will be happy, and Im pretty sure you will be to.
May God Bless you and yours this coming year with every good thing from above!

It's Time to Rumbleeee! Wrestling 2010

So wrestling season has started (last month actually) in the Upriver area and this will be the second year that Joshua has participated in this most strenuous of sports. I began the year with high hopes of being able to go to most of the matches, as last year I was only able to attend one tournament and some of the practices. Don't get me wrong, I totally had a great time visiting my daughter in Australia (the first time I had EVER been out of the country), but I was looking forward to being able to cheer on Joshua for this years tournament season.

Having missed the first match of the season, we had already decided to go to the St Maries match the next week. I had determined there was no way anyone was getting me out of bed at 3:00 o'clock in the morning to drive 3 hours to get to Bonners Ferry by 7:30 am for weigh-ins. With St Maries only 20 or so miles away,  I didn't have to get out of my cozy warm bed until like 6:00 which suited me just fine. So I loaded up the kids and off we went. It was only Alyssa, Joshua, and I with Alyssa having signed up to help in the kitchen.

Any way, we got there in one piece, Alyssa rambled on into the kitchen, and I proceeded to try and get Joshua all signed in to wrestle. Last year my husband had done all this because I was gone to visit my daughter, so I wasnt entirely sure what to do. I had no idea what class he was in, so with Joshua in tow, I went from table to table several times trying to find out where he was supposed to sign in at. After a trip around the mats we finally tracked down the table for his class. Now I don't really know alot about wrestling so this is all pretty new to me. We did manage to get it all taken care of and off to the weight room we went.

In the weight room, my composure started to crumble, not that I was all that composed to begin with, just what little I had went out the door in a hurry. For the previous week I had Joshua on a "diet" of sorts to make sure he would come in below 65 pounds. For some reason I had it in my mind that he would be in the same class he was in last year. Needless to say this did not happen. We stripped him down and put him on the scales and he came to 64.2 pounds, I was like good job, he is under 65 yippee! Unfortunatly, this year, he was put in the Schoolboy class and the lowest weight class on the paper was 70 pounds, at least that was my impression. Knowing nothing about wrestling, and only looking at the paper, I assumed he would be wrestling kids from 70 to 75 pounds, thats like 4 pounds up to 10 pounds more than he was, I was not happy. I was like are you sure he is in this class, there isnt anyone under 70 pounds for him to wrestle? Then I made the huge mistake of saying outloud, to the weigh-in coach, with my son standing there, "he is gonna get clobbered". This is not a very good confidence buidling comment for young men, and was only the first mistake I made for the day. I immediatly marched over to where our coach was and proceeded to complain outloud to him about the unfairness of the situation, that was mistake number 2. Our coach just happens to be the pastor at my church and now knows that I do not handle sports well.
Yes, for years now I have harbored the terrible secret that all though I am not a sports fanatic, I do tend to get a little, intense, for lack of a better word. Well the secret is now out,  I am a maniac when it comes to my kids and sports. Maybe this is why I have a tendancy to "Just Say No" when the kids ask me if they can play some sport all thier friends are participating in. It has been easier this way. I remember a couple times during baseball season with Caleb, when Im sure they would have asked me to leave if I hadnt calmed down a little. I do not do sports well, this is why my husband wont let me watch football, which is the only sport I really like. I spent the rest of the day in a bit of a tizzy, Im glad our coach was working the mats and the kitchen so he couldnt see my attitude most of the day. It didnt stop there though, not only did I get upset about things with my kid, I got upset about things for our other team kids also. I have a tendancy to be somewhat protective of the kids who are on the team, I did that during baseball also. You would think after my baseball years I would know better then get involved in sports again.
Well, we sat there most of the day, as Joshuas class is almost the last class to wrestle, so I had the whole day to sit and stew and be perturbed. I am truly surprised Brian didnt tell me to go home at some point, I would have if I were him. Finally they call Joshuas weight class, I have no idea how I understood what they were saying as the person speaking in the microphone seemed to have it half way in his mouth everytime he spoke. Reminded me a bit of Charlie browns teacher. They had thier little meeting and out they came, and I missed it all. I missed his first match because I couldnt find him in the crowd (see picture above). When I did find him it was all over and he had lost, then I thought he had wrestled without a coach and was upset again. I stomped my way around the mats and found Brian of course, once again proving that I do not handle sports well.  My attitude had deteriated to the point where I think I actually wanted to smack someone. This is not a good place for me to be. Not that I would actually do that or anything, but the feelings were there for all to see.

Anyway, everyone knew I was upset now, not that I was trying to do that or anything. I was not gracious or kind or sweet or any of the things God would have me be, so I determined right then I would be better next time. Joshua was immediatly affected by my poor sportmanship and I was not feeling to good about myself either at that point. We waited for his next round of wrestling, I followed him to the room, then watched for him to come out so that I would know where he was, then followed him to the mats. I made sure he had a coach, and proceeded to explain to him that he needed to kill the other guy. Not literally, mind you, just no Mr. Nice guy, this isnt practice, this is not play time. I dont know what came over me, John was very patient with me and I moved out of the way, which is very hard for a maniac sports mom to do. Joshua didnt win that match but at least he didnt get pinned that time. I was very proud of him.

By this time my husband had shown up to help with moving the mats after the tournament and I was able to get a little balance, not much, but a little. He can be a stablizing force for me when no one else can. He kept me calm for the most part the rest of the time I was there. I only had maybe 2 more episodes after that, both of which my husband pointed out to me, where not good for Joshuas moral or confidence. He walked into his last match already feeling defeated because of my attitude. I tried to change it but the damage was already done. I determined that I would not do the same thing at the next match in Kellogg, and for the most part I was ok. I did have a minor melt down when we went in to weigh him and they made us get out of line to clip his nails, which I thought were fine. That took another 20 minutes to get done, so I walked out with a bit of an attitude, again. I don't know why I cant just be mellow about this stuff. My husband calmed me down mostly and I dont think I had any other melt downs that day, I was rather intense though and worried about everyone elses kids getting to the mats ect. but for the most part I handled the Kellogg match much better than the St Maries match which is a very good thing.
Our next match is in Sandpoint, one of those get up at 3am to get there by 7am  matches so we will have to see how well I handle that. Hopefully I will just sleep through the whole thing and not have to worry about being a bad sport or getting upset. My husband handles these things way better than me, and Joshua will benefit from his calming influence. My prayer will be that I will be more supportive and less uptight and that I would be able to encourage my son to do the best he can and have fun. I think I should probably pray before I leave the house next time, and not wait till I have a fit. I hope my son will forgive me one day and be able to walk away from this experience with alot better attitude then I have had so far.

Family Camp 2010 Day 1

For the past several years a few intrepid explorers have set out for a long weekend of fun and frolic that we fondly refer to as Family Camp. Getting to Family Camp usually begins with several days of organizing, grocery shopping, and finding everything from the previous year. This year was no different although there were a couple added bonuses along the way.

After 2 years of hit and miss on the packing end of this,  I finally came up with some sort of "plan", and I use that term very loosely, as I am probably the most un-organized, un-prepared person I know. Since camp begins on Thursday, my plan consisted of getting the clothes washed on Tuesday, getting everything out of the attic, into the living room and sorted on Wednesday, and packing it all in the car and getting out of the driveway without forgetting to many things on Thursday. That was my plan and I was sticking to it
Along comes added bonus #1.  I received all these beautiful peaches and pears on Sunday, 4 days before we were scheduled to depart, which of course, needed something to be done with them, namely canned. Fortunately for me, the pears were not ready to can yet, so I relegated them to a dark, quiet corner in my laundry closet to complete the process of ripening. Soo guess what I did all day Monday? You got it! I was canning peaches! I had them all in the jars, sitting in the big pot and wouldn't you know the water wouldn't start boiling, I'm like why isn't it boiling? So I called my handy dandy BFF and she said, "Debra, put the lid on the pot and it will start boiling", I was like "DUH", and within a couple minutes it was boiling and the timer ready to be set. I should've known this but my mind was on the large amount of clothing I needed to wash and the camping gear that still needed to be collected from the dark recesses of the attic.

Canned Peaches

Moving along now, by the time Thursday rolled around I was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. This is okay though, it means I actually did the things I was planning on doing. Much to my husband dismay though, I found it almost impossible to maintain a good attitude while looking at the pile of things that needed to go in the back area of my vehicle, whilst trying to remember if there was anything I might have forgotten to find. My husband reminded me that we had a boat to load things into also, which was a darn good thing because I know it wasn't all gonna fit into the back of the suburban! We proceeded to load the suburban to the roof and the boat to the gills. Everything had a place and everything was in its place, we managed to squeeze 4 kids in the back and off we went. First stop, Grandmas house. I truly don't remember why we stopped there, but I do know we managed to be able to unload about 50lbs of firewood we didnt need, and obtain an extra cooler that came in handy.

Grandmas House

While we were there, some of the other explorers stopped to see what we were doing and offered to drive down with us. That would have been nice but we still had several stops to make and did not want to hold up the parade.

intrepid explorers

We had a fairly calm drive down to the camping area and the kids were so tired they all fell asleep in the back of the vehicle until we reached Deary.

 And now we have added bonus #2, the Tube. With the absence of a compressor to blow up said tube, we needed to stop somewhere and get that done before continuing on the journey, as there would be no place for that to be done once we got there. The Tube was a last minute surprise so that even the little kids could have a great time on the lake. We already had skis and boy if you want to have a good laugh just ride on a boat with people who are learning to ski, but we did not have skis for little kids so the Tube was a great investment. This is were added bonus #3 comes in. We had a boat! Thank goodness for that boat, for there would have been numerous things that would have been left behind if not for the glorious boat and the extra space it provided for our large amount of camping paraphernalia. So we aired up the Tube, and headed on our way to, what I will refer to as "The Hill Of Doom". This is the road you have to go down to get to the Dworshak Reservoir, which is where we would be camping this year. This is a long, winding, downhill, have to have your brake on most of the time type of road. I took pictures all the way down, otherwise I probably would have been hanging onto the arm rest with my eyes closed, and praying that nothing was coming up from the bottom. The armrest probably still has fingernail marks in it from me hanging on. Here are a couple pictures of the "Hill Of Doom".

The top of the Hill Of Doom

Single Lane corner

The Final Corner

The "Hill Of Doom" is approximately 2 miles of corners all down hill, unless of course your leaving then its all uphill, but thats another story. If you notice in the pictures there are dings and dents in the guardrail ALL the way down the road. I actually breathed a sign of relief when we reached the bottom. I have more pictures, but these will at least give you an idea of my harrowing encounter going down a large hill fully loaded with boat in tow. I almost kissed the ground at the bottom, I was grateful we finally made it.

Dworshak State Campground

Having finally made it to our destination, we started unloading the suburban and boat of our assorted camping items and proceeded to load them into the cabin for Dale and I, and the various assigned tents for the kids. Yes you heard me, Cabin! Given the option of cabin camping or tent camping I will always always choose the cabin. It has a heater and electric and beds and a couch and a table and a floor, its AWESOME! One thing I tell everyone I know, I wont camp in a tent until I absolutely have to, which wont be for a while, hopefully the Lord will come back before then!
We had a wonderful camp dinner with great friends and a lot of fun sitting around chatting. I was so tired the first 3 days I was there, all I wanted to do was sit in my green fold up chair next to the fire and chill-ax (I got that word from my teenage son). Everything went according to plan, everything got done and everyone got to bed at a fairly reasonable hour. And that was pretty much the end of day one. This post turned out to be way longer than I had anticipated so will write about the other days in another post.
Hope I didn't forget anything :)

Calgon..Take me away! (trademarked of course )

Have you ever just had one of those weeks, where that line was so appropriate? In my case the mantra was "Jesus,Take me home!" Usually I start out with such good intentions, like with our homeschooling, or laundry, or "insert your project here". No matter what I try to accomplish, there is some point where I want God to just take me home and get it over with. Everywhere I turn, it seems that everyone else is having this great time and I just don't get it. For me it has been truly hard to maintain a positive attitude in the face of adversity.
Take our homeschooling experience so far. It has only been 3 days and I have already been tempted to throw in the towel, so to speak. They fuss, they fight, they argue, where is the peaceful, calm, homeschooling experience I keep hearing about? I can tell you it is definitely not at my house. Where are the kids who want to cooperate and have a great time with each other while doing school work? What about the peaceful walks in the woods looking at birds and squirrels and talking about Gods creation? Not here. As a matter of fact the last time I took my kids out to the woods for this nature walk thingy, I almost left them there. No worries though, they would have eventually found their way home as we only got a couple hundred yards away before they were pitching fits.
Every family is different, for instance, my kids have learned that I will cave at the slightest hint of noncooperation, because I want to have a whole day where there isn't any yelling or bickering. Another thing they have learned is the harder time they give me, the shorter school time will be. I have trained them well. They know exactly what buttons to push and how to push them to get their ultimate goal, which is to go do what they want. Just for the record, I have great kids, even with all the fussing, they are better than most.
Fortunately for them and me, I have a Savior who loves me. Left to my own devices, with no relationship with the Lord, I would have given up long ago. I can not let them win this battle of the wills, as in the end they will actually end up losing. I don't know what that looks like right now, but I'm working on it.
Yesterday I was watching a Voddie Baucham DVD from a homeschooling conference I went to a couple years ago and he was talking about parents being a blessing to their children, and I asked myself, am I being a blessing to my kids? Honestly, I would have to give myself an F in that category. I just don't know how to do that on my own, but I know that Jesus can help me with that. I want to be a blessing to my husband also, and that seems even harder than being one for my kids.
So now that my rant is done, I am reminded of a verse that seems to fit my circumstances at this moment, which is
Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also ^(A)lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us ^(B)run with ^(C)endurance the race that is set before us.

To me this means, there are people watching, set a Godly example, put aside your worldly struggles and sin that can trip you and keep going until you reach the goal, that being telling people the Gospel and going home to be with Jesus. What a great encouragement for those of us who seem to have more problems then others.
Funny how that works. I can always find a scripture verse to fit my struggle or to give me encouragement. I don't know how anyone can make it in this world without Gods Word. After the week, or maybe month,  I have had,  it seems impossible to even conceive of living without it.

Paul Bunyan Days 2010 .......Totally Worth It !

Yesterday was the annual Paul Bunyan Days Fireworks Show. I will typically spend the whole year, after the last one, trying to figure out a way to get out of going the next time. The excuses come more rapid fire when there are about 2 weeks left to go before the great and glorious event.  I will usually pray for rain or sickness, which I know sounds silly, but the thought of trying to get through a crowd of about 12,000 to watch fireworks does nothing for me except make me cringe, not to mention trying to get out of the parking lot afterward. This year, it rained. I was ecstatic! I thought for sure I would get out of it! Not! It stopped raining at some point and the sun actually made an appearance as if to mock me saying Ha...HA HA!  When I found out my BFF was sick I was like, honey, I can stay with her and keep her company, I'm sure she will be lonely! He was like, Not! Foiled again! Not even sympathy for my friend would sway my husband this year.  The excuses I used ranged from I will be to cold,  to my friend is not going, why do I have to.

Once Upon a Time.....

These words are the beginning of your typical fairy tale. Well my week was anything but a nice sweet fairy tale. This is life, no one said it would be easy, at least for me. Everywhere I turn there seems to be some sort of struggle over any number of things. I spent the majority of my weekend upset and angry, and not getting any sleep. I didn't want to be angry, but I was, and it was a real struggle. I also had a yard sale this weekend, so you can add tired onto the list. On the second day of my yard sale, I wasn't feeling well, so I sat in my vehicle the whole time, only occasionally crawling out to visit with someone who had stopped. This week didn't start out much better. Monday had its own troubles and today has started out that way, (I don't think I want to do the checkbook or bills anymore) so the tone has been set. Tuesday was actually very productive as I was able to have the whole day to organize my office space. It is now nice and neat and you can see the floor! As always though, I managed to forget to do something. I must have early onset Alzheimers, as sometimes I cant seem to remember to do the smallest things, like take out something for dinner.
On the blessing side of things, I'm not angry anymore so I am getting much more sleep, and with the sleep and rest, I'm not as tired, and I feel better. Another blessing, I have a checkbook that I can mess up, some people don't have one right now. I have a house that can get messed up and cleaned, another thing some people don't have right now, and I have a fridge that has food in it that I can forget to take out for dinner.
All in all comparatively speaking, I have a great life, a great husband, and a great family. I should remember my blessings instead of complaining about my struggles, which are many. I am hoping that this week will get better somewhere along the way, after all there is only 2 more days to it. Maybe I should go take something out of the freezer for dinner, then get some laundry started, then get my living room straight. All the school books (and most of the other books in the house) are on the living room floor and stacks. I managed to get most of it sorted on Sunday, but when I went and cleaned the office/computer space yesterday, I found a bunch of things I forgot I had, things my children will wish I never found I'm sure.
I think that we will be ready to start school next week, hopefully. I am feeling excitement and dread all at the same time. Excitement, because we are starting a new year, dread because I know my kids will most likely give me a hard time. Our homeschool life is never easy. There is always some sort of struggle going on the whole time. No matter how prepared I am, there always seems to be something. The blessing side of this, I live in a country where I can still homeschool my kids, some people do not have that option.
This is my reality, even though my life doesn't always seem as pretty as someone else's , Jesus still loves me and my family, even if we don't have the perfect home, the perfect homeschool, the perfect menu plan, God has the perfect plan for us, always.

Its that time of year ... School Time!

And of course I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do this year...again. I am so glad I am a homeschooler though, as the options and choices are wide open. I have several stacks of school books in my living room (you know how I love to stack) that need to be gone through and either discarded, passed on or used this year. Unfortunately, because I am so unorganized, this task may take several days, days which I wont be able to do anything else I have on my never ending list of projects. School is supposed to start in a couple weeks though, so it needs to be done.

I am not a very good homeschooler, but I do have a pretty good idea what I will be doing, so that is a big plus, however I do not have a set curriculum that I use all the time, so it is up to me how to put it all together. I have several Bible study books to choose from so that is an easy fix, and a video Math curriculum I can use. I'm still debating on what to do with English, but I am leaning toward some type of Literature with books I already have on hand. I have a list of reading material I received from a friend, so will probably pick a couple books from it.

Okay, so that leaves Art, Music, Science, Writing,  Home Economics, Physical Ed.and the list goes on. Okay one at a time, Art, I know a lady here in town that does pottery, that might be an option, but I also just talked to a nice lady who wants to maybe do watercolor painting, so will have to check with that. Next is Music, the 2 youngest are already taking piano lessons, and the next oldest girl wants to learn flute. She might have to pick something else, as the Lady who was going to teach her is pregnant and busy with several children of her own.
Alrighty then, the next item on the list is Science. This also may be an easy fix, as I wont teach anything except Creation Science and I have a Large book complete with cutouts and quizzes and reading ect. that the kids liked before, but Im not sure where it is, one of those things that I will have to try and find in the next couple weeks. I'm absolutely positive it is in some stack somewhere.

Okay onto the next item, Writing, and I am wondering if that could include blogging, and or  forums, notepad on the computer, or only handwriting with a pencil and paper. I think I will incorporate the writing in with the English Lit. this year and make it Creative writing in any format they choose. I don't want them to be on the computer alot  though, so the majority of it will be with good old paper and pencil, this should be fun.

Home Economics, Definition: Don't burn the house down. Oh I know it can mean other things also, like don't cut off your fingers with the extremely sharp rotary cutter, don't use the 40$ Gingers on paper, make sure to clean up the large spill on the kitchen floor before someone breaks their neck, the list goes on and on. This is the funnest class to have as far as Im concerned. I have a really nice curriculum set for it and I think we will be definitely be using it this year at some point.

Im down to the wire, my last thing to decide on, Physical Education. I did not do well with this class when I was growing up in public school, you would think it would be easy, but it wasn't for me. I was never very athletic and always picked last, ect. Im not sure what to do with this one other than trampoline time, or something along those lines. I think there may be some type of curriculum to go along with it, but I have no idea what it is. So looks like they will be spending alot of time riding bikes up and down the driveway and jumping on the trampoline, at least until the snow starts flying. Maybe an exercise video or something during the Winter months.

Well, this is my plan, hopefully I will be able to stick to it. I seem to get really lazy right around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and sometimes it takes a real effort to get started again after all the vacation time. Im not a really good homeschooler like some of my friends are, as I have a tendency to be lazy and the un-organized bit doesn't help either. Sometimes it just seems like to much and I dont want to be bothered, but I usually start out doing okay. I keep hoping to find some kind of Coop, where people with special talents are willing to share with the rest of us. As for me, I will give our Homeschool year to the Lord, in the hope that he will help us get through it as Philippians 4:13 says, with this is mind we will continue striving toward the goal, alternately standing and falling as we go, hopefully standing more than falling. Now that I write that though maybe I should include falling as a good thing, as in falling on my knees and begging God for mercy when it seems to hard to go on, or maybe first thing in the morning I should start begging!

Now we are getting somewhere.

After having a couple rough days with no motivation, I got back into the swing of things yesterday by finishing up my closet, clothes and room for the most part. I still have my containers stacked everywhere, because I cant really put them in the attic as its not clean yet. I was up there the other day and for some reason it seemed worse then before. I think when you are un-motivated everything looks worse than it is. Unfortunately it is still to hot up there during the day to do any real work so I spent the rest of the day yesterday trying to get a walking path in my living room and finally succeeded and was able to get dinner done, the kitchen clean and my bathroom clean. Thank goodness for grilled cheese sandwiches, Im not sure I had energy left for anything else!
I can now get to my pile of yard sale items and get them over to my storage shed, and I have enough stuff to have a sizable yard sale this next Friday and Saturday also. I have to make sure that when I am done I am willing to take whatever is left to the thrift store and resist the urge to put it back in the storage and have another one.(BTW I have gobs and gobs of childrens books so I am willing to let my friends get first chance at picking some up before the yard sale)
So I have the girls pink and red totes stacked by their bedroom door and the boys blue totes against the wall in their room for easy sorting. Everyone now has a memorabilia box for things they do not have hanging on their walls, but want to keep. I think that was the funnest part of this, getting to see things Ive kept for sentimental reasons, but its still mostly birthday cards.

The overly stuffed hall closet.

My next project for today is working on my hall closets. They are so stuffed, sometimes I cant even get the doors shut! I have no idea whats even in there. When I open the door it all usually falls into a pile on the ground and I have to push it all back in. That can not be good for the door hinges I'm sure. And that's only the small closet. I want to bring my new dryer home so the laundry closet needs some work to. It has everything in it but laundry stuff.  I have actually worked on it a couple times, but it one of those things that I had to many projects going at once and it didn't get all the way done. Some advice I received recently was to pick one thing at a time and finish it before you start something else, but like my husband says, women are like spaghetti, they are all over the place :)

The laundry room closet

 Now that I have my projects picked, I need to finish my coffee, get dressed, get the kids up, and make a decision that this is what Im going to finish today. The fact that I really really want my dryer over here should help me with getting the laundry closet done sometime today, but if I don't get it all done, that will be okay to, I cant expect to be completely organized in just one week when it took years to get this way. But like my life with Jesus, I am a work in progress, not completed until he takes me home. I hope it doesn't take that long to finish my house.

Lessons learned....

I decided to go back through my blog and see if I had learned anything at all from the past week, and if so share it here. Being a Christian, I think the biggest lesson I learned this week is that I can do nothing without Jesus. The overwhelming amount of organizing I started last week is just that, overwhelming. But according to Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through him (Christ) who strengthens me.
This is the scripture verse I need for right now, actually I need it for everyday, but it rings of hope that the task before me can be completed with Christs help. As I look at the piles of assorted boxes, bags and containers my motivation to be organized wanes. If I depend upon myself to do this it will NOT get done, so this is a verse I really really need to keep at the forefront of my mind.

Unfortunately I totally forgot this on Monday at Silverwood. I depended upon my own power to get through the day and forgot to pray and give everything to Him. As a result, things did not go as well as planned. Any time you plan something without including Jesus in the decision its bound to be a problem. It is a lesson I'm sure will take the rest of my mortal life to learn. Hopefully it wont be anything major.
The past week has been long, I'm still trying to pack and sort, my house is a wreck (I'm really hoping no one decides to come over), the kids are still bickering for some reason known only to them, and my lack of motivation is a sure sign that I stayed up wayyyy to late last night. I think I will need to go have a quiet moment with God before I try to do anything else. I am so glad for Jesus in my life. I know my life doesn't always look pretty, but that's OK. I know there is hope for me and my family yet !

The Silverwood Adventure...

The day dawned bright and early , the promise of an adventure on the horizon .The kids roused themselves from sleep excited for what lie ahead. Everyone cooperated fully and the car was loaded with the various items needed for a long day of fun at Silverwood Theme park. We left the house at 8am for the 3 hour drive to the land of awesomeness . We sang songs and held hands, we giggled and laughed as the excitement grew more intense. We picked up the older boys at Post Falls and quickly incorporated them into our pleasant outing. We arrived at the park in high spirits and made our way to the front gate fully enjoying each other, smiling and happy waving at people as we walked by. I know everyone was saying, what a pleasant family, how can we be just like them! Once inside, we had a great time together, riding rides, swimming, and  playing games. The children were all so cheerful and sweet, each thinking of the other above himself, helpful and gentle in all their actions. I was so proud of the way they got along together. We had a simply marvelous time!

At least that is how it was supposed to be.........

The truth is a much harder pill to swallow. I will not go into details on this post, as I don't really want to be a whiner, however I will say, it did not go as well as I thought or even wished it would have. We did manage to have fun for the most part, but we need some work as a family on how to get along a little better or we will never go on vacation together, ever.

Like a friend of mine said, today is a new day, with no mistakes in it, so there is hope. That is a very very good thing to know.

Let the games begin.....

As with any project you need a place to begin, soooo I decided that my room would be the start point as it didn't really seem fair to be harassing the kids about cleaning their rooms if mine was a wreck. I got out my handy dandy 18 gallon tote containers and went to work. Starting with my dresser, I proceeded to start sorting clothing that I hadn't seen in a while and found some things I didn't realize I had. I was in awe. I had been looking for shorts in my drawers (which are usually crammed to the top and overflowing so that I can't get them shut) and I found like 5 pairs! To bad summer is almost over, those would have been nice to have when the weather was warmer. The other thing I found was that I couldn't fit in most of it anymore. This is due to me not being able to find them for so long I'm sure. Being the clothing fanatic that I am, I decided if it didn't fit me then it might fit my girls next year, thus allowing me to not have to get rid of it! I promptly labeled another container "Girls Summer Clothes 2011", and began filling it. I did manage to let go of some things but only after determining that the girls wouldn't wear it and I couldn't ever fit in it again.

clothes that don't fit anymore that were to cute to get rid of.

I think my friend would be proud of the sacrifices I am making. This is rough stuff,  I dont know how I will get through it, as I can hardly bare to give things up. But alas I will survive ! I have been assured that I will feel much lighter when I am done. I know this is true because when I finished my dresser I could actually shut the drawers! After my dresser, which was hard enough, I started on my closet. I wish I would've remembered to get before and after pictures. The closet was even harder than the drawers. I couldn't believe all the things I couldnt fit in anymore. There were so many clothes in it, like my dresser, I found things I hadn't seen in a long long time. Im only supposed to be packing and sorting winter type clothing, but 3/4 of my hanging clothes didn't fit me anymore so I figured I would pack them to. Again, I looked for anything the girls might like for summer next year, and then I packed all the clothes they might like to have 10 years from now in a separate container that I have yet to label! I didn't have to get rid of but 1 or 2 things that time! By the way, color coordinating by season went out the window, its now blue and orange for boys and pink and red for girls, unfortunately the green ones were out of stock.

Stack of yard sale items

I am actually finished with the closet for the most part, I decided not to pack winter sweaters as I have them on a shelf out of the way, but will instead just sort them into things to give the girls for winter, and things to put in my yard sale stacks (which seems to be getting bigger and bigger as the days go by). I'm thinking that by the time I get through packing all the winter type clothing, ( I still have all the kids rooms and the attic to sort) it will almost be time to unpack it and start packing summer clothes. At least I will have a good start on next year and then I can move onto a different project. I think it will probably be the desk area next, as I cant seem to find anything anymore, and when I cant find it there is a definite problem. I think I might want to get a bulletin board of some type and some more of those little plastic containers for supplies, and maybe even another shelf unit, but I digress. I probably should do just one project at a time, because when I get overwhelmed everything comes to a screeching halt and nothing gets done.

My next project!

Organization 101 (Better known as Ask Tracy, she will know what to do)

I am a stacker. Just ask my husband he will tell you. So not only do I collect things I manage to stack them in piles precariously perched throughout the house. That being said I immediately stacked the 3 HUGE boxes of organizational tools I received this afternoon courtesy of our local FedEx Guy and Walmart. I had to move some things over, so I stacked those also. As I was looking around the living room I noticed that there were stacks everywhere! Clothes, videos, books, bags, you name it it was stacked somewhere in my living room. I finally managed a nice size spot for my new containers.

Stack of organizational tools (this is Alyssa, shes almost as bad a stacker as I am)

You cant see it from the front, but there is a huge stack of yard sale items right behind the huge stack of boxed containers. I have been collecting and sorting to have a yard sale also(for several years actually). As I have been sorting and organizing, I have been taking my friends advice to heart, If you haven't worn it in a year get rid of it, if you never plan on wearing, it get rid of it, and finally if it doesn't fit get rid of it ( I hope I got all those right). These are excellent principles to use when organizing. As a result I have a trailer full of things, a storage area semi full (not all of it is things Im getting rid of ) and an attic ( that I have yet to even look at for fear of panic setting in) all for a yard sale that I have been planning for a year or more. Now granted not everything is for a yard sale, after all I must stay true to my collector roots and preserve some clutter for myself. I would like to think that I may be blessing someone else with the things I'm not using anymore ( if I could actually find anything like that).


So this is the beginning of my organizational journey. I will be sharing my struggles and triumphs, and the things I will learn along the way over the coming weeks (mostly from my friend as I know none of this on my own!). Hopefully this will be as pain free as possible with minimal emotional or physical damage to myself or others ( my children in particular).

Help! Im not Organized!

This will be my first attempt at any type of Blogging.
It seemed that organization would be a good topic for my first post, as I am probably the most unorganized person I know, and this seems to be the problem I am dealing with at the moment.
Oh I have friends that are really good at it, but for some reason I just can't seem to get the hang of it. Coming from a long line of collectors has been a severe damper to any type of organizational skills I may have at one time been able to cultivate. My mother is a collector, my Grandmother was a collector, and her mother before her, and so on. With those type of odds, I would be surprised if  I ever accomplish any organization at all.
Fortunately for me, I have a close friend that LOVES to be organized. She is a source of inspiration to me (even though I tend to zone out whenever anyone says anything about getting rid of my considerable amount of STUFF.) I always manage to come back to earth and listen at some point, but I'm sure she can remember seeing a glazed look in my eye a time or two when talking about seasonal clothing or getting rid of stuff in my attic.

My Attic

She did come over once to help with my attic. It was brutal! I haven't been able to go up there since to organize, as I'm afraid I may find things that I know I should just get rid of.
With all that being said, I finally came to the realization the other day, that I cant take it with me, and after I'm gone no one will want it. It was very hard for me to think my things may not be important to anyone but myself. I asked my kids for 2 things each that they would want from my considerable amount of stuff (since I have 6 kids that adds up to at least 12 things I wouldn't have to get rid of, which helps the appease collector in me). Surprisingly, they all mentioned things that were actually practical. I was amazed that not one of my girls asked for my sewing things. One of them did ask for my clown collection.
Right now I am working on organizing Winter clothing. I ordered 24,  18 gallon containers in a variety of colors hoping for inspiration. I thought red and orange for summer and fall, pink and green for spring and blue for winter. I will be surprised if I manage to get it all the containers, let alone color coordinated to a specific season.

Pink Containers

Right now I only have the pink ones (the boys are not happy) and I'm trying to decide how to use my 24 containers to organize the large amount of clothing I have scattered throughout the house and I think I may try to use them for other things also, like my sons baseball memorabilia, or things I got them while I was in Australia, or years and years of accumulated birthday cards. The possibilities are endless! Actually, maybe I wont have to get rid of anything! I can organize it ALL In my new containers! Cool!