clear the sidewalks!

Spud can now ride his bike training wheel free!! And I'd post pics if my memory card wasn't giving me fits...

eight years ago today

It was a perfect day.

as good as it gets

I should be finishing my work for today, but I need a break.

So I alluded a long time ago to "lots of thinking" that I'd been doing. I won't go into the long, rambling details (I tried once and the blog post never made it past the initial brain-dumping stage), but I will say that the biggest thing I've learned through this trial of no-job/little income over the past year is that we absolutely have to enjoy the present as much as we can, because it might just be as good as it gets. I know some friends of mine follow Nie Nie , who was in a serious plane crash and has a prolonged, painful recovery. (And when I clicked on her blog, she has as part of her description "as good as it gets," how's that for coincidence?) I don't follow her blog at all, but I did peruse it once and was impressed at her positive attitude and determination. Shortly after Leif was born, I noticed some symptoms that had the potential of being very serious. Likely in part because I was pretty hormonal, but also because there was nothing I could do to rule out serious illness, I panicked for about a week or so. What it it WAS serious and I was going to die? The thought that was most devastating was that of leaving behind these three kids and David. I no longer cared so much about our financial situation or anything else. And I realized that the reason the present is so important is that it is truly all we have. All the months I spent largely in a state of worry had been wasted. The thing I feared most, losing our home, hadn't happened. But was I happy? Did I see the blessing of having lasted this long? No. I was then able to stare the "worst possible scenario" in the face and see myself being okay on the other side if it did come to pass, whereas before I'd broken down with worry every time the thoughts lingered in my mind for any length of time.

So, there are still moments of panic and worry, but I've gotten much better at giving that burden to the Lord and only carrying that which I can handle. So life is good. Probably as good as it gets, even.

when through the deep waters....

I had lots of time alone to think this morning. Two hours, in fact. But it wasn't the reclining-on-the-sofa or lounging-in-bed kind of thinking. It was the scooping-up-bucketsful-of-water-because-I-left-the-sprinkler-on-all-night kind of thinking. Yup. For two hours I scooped and carried and dumped, repeat. I was supposed to start some very cool workout thing with David this morning, but I thought I had to do my best to save the lawn. There is still more to scoop, so I'll probably go do a few more loads right now. My fingers were numb in a very weird way afterwards. And I now have sore muscles (which I'm sure will only get more sore) in places I haven't felt for ages.

I'm pretty sure that I'll never forget to turn off the sprinkler again, though. At least I hope not. Darn those natural consequences.

I also decided that I like irony as a literary element, but not so much in my own life.

a bit of weirdness for your weekend

Whaddaya think? I was busting up laughing, but somehow frightened a bit, too.

budding entrepreneurs

Last Monday for FHE we went down to David's folks' house and picked cherries. They have three good sized trees, so we invited our friends along. We picked A LOT of cherries (turns out it was about 50 lbs). We decided to have the kids sell them on the corner outside our friends' house, as it is a fairly good thoroughfare for the neighborhood. The adults did most of the washing, sorting and bagging, but the kids did the sales. In total, they sold nearly $100 of cherries! We are using our have of the profits to go towards our homeschool supplies for this coming year. I think it was a good project for the kids, and they had some fun while they were at it, too.

poor little neglected blog...

You know that story/analogy where someone puts all the big rocks in the jar and then still has room for lots of sand. But if you put the sand in first, you can't fit all the big rocks in? Well, I think I've fit all the big rocks in my jar, or almost, but somehow they are managing to fill up the whole darn thing and leaving no room for the sand. I guess it wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that I'm quite fond of the sand.