Happy New Years! Its "Do Over time!!!"

So I have been thinking alot about all this resolution stuff I hear going around, and I for one have never really made any solid commitments one way or another on New Years day for doing or not doing anything in particular.. Did you catch that? I hope you did because I think I just confused myself! Basically what this means is I am to chicken to say or commit to something I may regret or break later, so I decided to commit to not making any resolutions I don't think I can keep. Does this mean I will make any resolutions? No, I will not, because as sure as I am that the sun will rise I am sure that as soon as I say I will or wont do something I'm gonna do or not do it. You may be lost by now, if so go back and read it again. I had to read it twice just to make sure I am making some sort of sense. If you are not lost, good for you please take a moment an explain it to us.
In lue of making "resolutions" per say, I have decided that I am going to call this my "Do Over List". Please feel free to use this term as your own. Here are some things I would like to "Do Over" this year:

Decluttering My House:
This is a very big one for me as I am a consummate collector of all things, which results in massive amounts of clutter. I tried some "decluttering" techniques last year and some of it went well, and some of it wasnt so great, therefore decluttering will be on my "Do Over List". I have huge amounts of "stuff" to go through and will depend on the Lord to help me be brutal with clutter.

Organizing my desk area:
This is a constant battle and no matter how many times I say Im going to clean it up it never gets done very well. I suppose I could blame it on the kids and the husband, but that wont fix the problem. Being totally un-organized is a sure sign of insanity, and insanity defined is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. With this in mind I will attempt a new organizational plan..not sure what it is yet, but will give whatever it happens to be a shot.

Husband Attention Time:
This is something I have had alot of trouble with recently, like say for the past couple years. It seems as though I always have time for everything BUT my husband, which should not be. Since I am homeschooling, a good part of the day consists of dealing with the inevitable " Mom, what do I do here?" questions, which is probably the bulk of the time I spend going from child to child. The other thing that tends to take my time and sap my energy is cleaning the house, or coercing the kids to do it, whatever the case may be. My husband needs to have my undivided, non-resentful attention occasionally so this is something I will be "doing Over" during the day. Pray for me.

Servant Hearted:
I really need to work on this, as I am learning I am not as Servant Hearted as I had originally thought I was. Oh I have no problem giving things, but try and volunteer me for something, watch it, your going to get hurt. This year I would like to try to serve my family and friends a bit better than I have, and not be so...so...mean, for lack of a better word, when my husband or a friend "accidentally" volunteers me for something I don't really want to do. Please pray for me..again.

I am sure if I sat and thought about it I could come up with some more things to "Do Over" this year, but I wouldn't want to overwhelm myself, or you with all the prayer requests I would be needing. By the way, I started up my Craft Business again, which without the help and prodding of my daughter,  would not have gotten done, so if you don't mind, you can pray about that also:)

Happy New Years!

A Change Of Pace....

The week before last, the children started resisting our typical homeschool day, with groans and feet dragging. This year has been going so well, that it took me slightly by surprise that they would suddenly begin to debate the usefulness of Fractions and Vocabulary and Bible Study. By the end of that particular week, I was frustrated and so were they, so I , in my infinite wisdom, decided without any forewarning, to "do something different". I thought about it all weekend, talked about it with several people and came up with a plan to make the little twirps "grateful" for all those worksheets and spelling tests. Little did I know,  by the end of this school week,  "I" would be even more grateful then they were.

The week started out typical enough, with our usual Bible study time, and after that,  there was little resemblance to worksheets or your normal school type of work. Monday we did "Property Management and Design" this is a fancy  name for splitting wood and stacking it. Talk about hard work! I must be really out of shape because by the time we were done I was ready to take a nap...I suddenly had a little bit more compassion for my kids who have to stack wood and my husband who has to split it. I'm typically wandering around talking about how much I do, however its not near as physically draining as carrying and stacking wood. Good thing I have teenage boys to help out. 

On Tuesday we learned about " Wild Game Processing and packaging" that stands for cutting up the elk and putting it in the fridge. It can also be Home Economics, but for my purposes I wanted a more professional term. We only process wild game once a year, unless I can talk my husband into taking it to the Banderobs, and usually it is a deer, so its really hard to remember how to cut them up. After many many hours of cutting, wrapping, hand cramps, back aches, and tears we FINALLY finished. That was the LONGEST school day ever, and not one I would like to repeat anytime soon. 

The rest of the week was a little more mellow, we learned "organizational skills"(that means we cleaned the house), they learned the art of "Laving" ( that means laundry), and then on test day, which is usually a Friday , we continued practicing what we had learned that week.

The whole week I was hoping I would make the kids more grateful for our typical homeschool day and I don't know if I accomplished that, but  I DO know that I am more grateful for it and will do alot less whining about it in the future, hopefully they will to. By the end of the week I was totally exhausted and absolutely thrilled to have just gotten through it. Im not so sure we will do that again for a while, even though I know it was very good for us to be able to accomplish what we did. For now though, if you know of any big extravagant terms for things you would call chores, let me know, Im always on the lookout for suggestions

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.

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.