Month of minimal posts

For whatever reason, writing has felt difficult and strained. Ideas pass me by, photo ops come by and I grab my camera, yet the actual writing here just has not happened.

Probably the greatest thing that has struck me though, beyond the "this would make a great blog post", is that I need to be present and active.  Need to be involved in what is going on, either present in what our boys are doing, or present in the chore that needs to be done.

        ~   Our boys seem to be growing and changing so fast.   ~

It has been a joy to see our oldest smiling lately.  To see, what seems like, him happy in his own skin.  I desire to find more things he is good at and encourage more activities in those.  I want to find these things and encourage them, to foster them, so that the hard things in life seem more bearable and doable.  Isn't that true in life, when you time to follow your passion, the harder things seem easier?

Mr. Obi-hyper-wan is getting back to normal after breaking his foot about a month ago.  He had his last follow up appointment yesterday.  He is definitely on the mend and growing wearing from taking it easy.  Good thing baseball is over as there is one more week of no running, jumping, pounding on his foot.  The pool is allowed and biking can be good to ~ both of which he loves to do over the summer!

Anyhoot, wrapping up what could be the last post in June 2013, here are some parting photos and thoughts:

 Doesn't he look like a teen?  Tall, music and texting!

Morning Sunshine is just one name he goes by!

Other things to be thankful for:

~ lots of knitting going on!  Many, many hours!

~ laughs with Kevin!  Moments when the relationship is just easy and laughing and chatting are as second nature as breathing.  No effort required.

~ slow mornings

~ selling of used curriculum and toys no longer needed (feels so good to purge and "get paid" for it!) 
 

Funny Friday

Sometimes in life, humor comes in different ways. Today, it was the stacking of Costco sized food portions (all things that we'll PLOW through) that made me chuckle a bit.  I realized we have a teen who is burning calories like crazy and a 10yo who is playing a lot of baseball and hitting a growth spurt. I am thankful we are able to buy things to eat.

And one more photo, just because they asked me to snap a picture.  Please look over the graininess of the photo (I really need to start figuring out how to take good photos consistently!)

Happy Friday!
 

Husbands are . .

. . . . what to you? A blessing, a friend, a lover, a soul mate, or some other thing when you just don't get along.

I have learned in the sixteen years that Kevin and I have been married that it isn't always easy to be married.  Some days it is just plan hard to be around each other.  It is those days that I am truly thankful that we made covenant before God, a promise to love one another through thick and thin.

Other days, it is just easy.  We just seem to be drawn to one another, like old times when it was all new!   Today I was struck by a few things that seem to make me thankful and glad we can stick out the rough patches.

I am thankful for:

• him not worried about the egg shells drying on the counter top (great source of calcium for plants and helps to keep the slugs away)

• celery drying on a plate
• making dinner when I'd just rather sit and veg
• a promise to gas up the van, so my day tomorrow is easier
• understanding that our son is so much like me, he has a better understanding of him

Love you honey!!!!!!!!!!

 

Discouraged

Discourage:

tr.v. dis·cour·aged, dis·cour·ag·ing, dis·cour·ag·es

1. To deprive of confidence, hope, or spirit.

2. To hamper by discouraging; deter.

3. To try to prevent by expressing disapproval or raising objections.

 

That has been a frequent feeling for me lately.  Feeling discouraged over a number of things!

I've been making bread, at home, since just before Christmas.  The last two batches have been just slightly better than hockey pucks.  My family has been gracious, not saying anything or telling me that it is still better than store bought.  Honestly, I find that hard to believe!  :)  Will be trying again, today and hoping for a better yield!

Discouraged over the progress, in therapy, for our oldest.  Although there are some visible, measurable progress, there are still so many areas that just can not be measured easily.  It's hard to walk this path and not see progress, even the small, baby steps!

At times, in life, it is hard to not take things personally.  Well at least for me!  I've been stepping out in faith and helping to lead a Ladies Bible Study on Sunday mornings.  When some of the regulars miss a week, I wonder if I've done or said something wrong.  Without verbal confirmation, I know this is Satan messing with my head, but it is still hard to work through, manage, and get my heart back on track.

 

Another area of discouragement for me lately, is this blog.  I have often wondered recently, if I ought to "close shop", so to speak.  I know there isn't a common theme to mine, which makes it hard to follow.  The idea of having one, that is worthy of being followed seems/feels like to much work to me.  And really, aren't there already a bazillion blogs on "Do it yourself" or "home schooling" or "get off the grid/all home made" or "spiritual journey"?  Who wants another one to read and comment on?  I'm not sure if I will actually shut this one down, but I have been seriously considering it, just to take one more thing off my plate.  The only draw back, is that once in a blue moon, I am struck with such a great topic to write about and think it would be wonderful for folks to read (then I get one view and probably from my husband!).

So, even looking at the first definition of discourage ~ to deprive of confidence, hope, or spirit ~ I know where the opposite of these come from.  They come from trusting in the Lord, through the good and the bad!  Many scriptures run through my head and heart, when I finally slow down to listen. 

Psalm 71:4-6

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

⁴ Rescue me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked,
Out of the ^[a]grasp of the wrongdoer and ruthless man,
⁵ For You are my hope;
O Lord ^[b]God, You are my confidence from my youth.
^6 [c]By You I have been sustained from my birth;
You are He who took me from my mother’s womb;
My praise is continually ^[d]of You. 

If you can take a look at Psalm 136 (click on the link to go to Bible Gateway), the theme there is that HIS loving kindness is everlasting.  

 

Once again, I am reminded to ~ Keep your eyes on Him and His truths and His word for it "is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path." (Psalm 119:105). 

All this to say, God will comfort you and me, He does not seek to have us discouraged, but to follow after Him, to lean into Him and not our own understanding (paraphrase of Proverbs 3:5).  Today, I will slow my human thoughts, lean into His instead!

The 6th, AlReAdY?

Time definitely speeds up, the older you get. Have spent the last few days trying to figure out how to blog from my Ipad, but have been rather unsuccessful at it. Find it hard to believe that 6 days have come and gone in 2013 already! 

Tonight, had a few things I wanted to wrap up for school tomorrow and thought I "check-in" through my blog while at the P.C.  Here's the short version of life in our corner of the world:

• trying to figure out how to make a 13th birtday special
• internet shopping, to find the best price on things boys would like for their birthday
• prepping for school to start tomorrow
• guys took a tour of the Capitol this past Friday, with Thing One's Boy Scout Troop
• visit with extended family yesterday

What is new in your world?
 

T minus 10 days and counting

December 15th ~ what is it for you?

   ~ just another day ~

Was it another Saturday full of chores, shopping, and sports (if any are going for you)?

                            ~ a lot to reflect on for me today ~

Most of the time, the 15th is pay day (unless the 15th is a Saturday or Sunday, then the Friday before is payday), so a few bills needed attending today.  Not to bad though.

Went to a few stores looking for Christmas presents for the boys.  They've been heavy on my heart after the shooting, in an elementary school in Connecticut yesterday!  Was often reminded of when they were so much smaller than now.  Found myself going to the toddler or young boy section to look for things for them.  Hard to grasp that they're growing up so quick.  Oldest is excited to be almost taller than mom and will happily tell you he is growing facial hair.  Youngest is just happy to be double digits!  Parts of me so misses the little baby stage, being able to put them into a sling/vest thing and carry them around! I do enjoy the young men they are becoming though.  To see them step out in their talents, is such a blessing.

Realized earlier today, also, that I graduated college about 20 years ago.  Thought it was the 15th, but might have been a different date as I thought it was a Saturday.  The 15th didn't happen on a Saturday in 1992!  Close enough to be reminiscent!  I have friends, from college, who have teenagers already, not just young teenagers, like our oldest, but driving teenagers.  Just weird.  Don't feel old enough for that!  Also weird to think, that those freshman in college weren't even born when I graduated.  Anyway, shaking the cobwebs out of my brain now.

Not a whole lot of Christmas type things going on today.  Kevin and Thing Two are up at church, doing the choir thing for the 2nd night of three.  Both are enjoying themselves.  Thing One and I are home, playing with electronics and playing card games.  Hope to get some wrapping done tonight and possibly baking of some sort tomorrow.

Enough musing on my part, hope you have a great evening!
 

Why?

Why is it that when the computer is down, you can think of a million things to "do" with it?

I've had various issues with the Mac in resent months and it's during those times, I keep thinking of things I want to get done.  Of course it is with Mac specific software as well.  Or I'll think of a few great things to blog about, but not take notes to blog later.  Lovely, when you want to find a way to write!  (Yes, there is still pen and paper, but I'm going to stick with what a couple college professors said, "Use a computer, learn to save, learn to edit, and then print".  With traditional pen and paper I made a lot more mistakes than I do in this format!)

Such is life around here!

If you actually read this blog and have suggestions on what to write about, please share them in the comment area!  No, I will not write about politics.  My general thought is that each party is getting to nit picky with the other party and the USA has gone to out of wack from what our founding fathers had wanted for the country.

With that said, share what you might want to know about!  I might be able to come up with a descent post about it.  At least my take on it.


 Laughing at myself as I re-read the post. I obviously didn't read, edit, and hit publish as a few word choices were off!  Have changed what I've found so far!  Thankful there are to many critiques out there!  :)

~ Momentary Thoughts ~

This evening was another divide and conquer evening.  It's baseball season for Thing Two.  By the way, Washington Nationals team is doing REALLY well this season.  Thing Two's team name is The Nationals!  :)

Thing One was home from TKD, we'd had our English Muffin Pizza's, and he was off playing on his IPod.  I took the quiet opportunity to just sit on the deck (with a glass of wine of course).  Was interesting to hear the different birds talking to one another.

There was the angry hummingbird, who I evidently disturbed by coming out onto the deck.  Some will go into the trees and watch to see what is going on, then come back to the feeder when they realize someone is just sitting down.  Not this one!  He hoovered, flew away a bit, came back, circled, hovered, and flew away for the time I was on the deck.  I'm thinking, "Bird, you're crazy!  We both want quiet.  I don't plan to bug you!"  It was a loose for the bird.


Somewhere uphill, it sounded like a momma bird was getting after her brood.  If you could putting words to the tweets, it would have sounded like a teenager coming in late, after school, with a bad grade.  Could just hear the "Really?  First week of school and you already have a bad grade!"  Made me snicker.


Downhill somewhere, and again putting human sounds to animals, it sounded like two teenage girls, unwinding from the week of school (can you tell school just started?).  It was just tweet, tweet, twEeT, tweet in a happy chirpy sound.

The contrast between the last two sets of birds just made me snicker.

 

Summer Ailments

can be such a bummer, no fun, a train wreck on a "fun day".

Earlier this week, Monday I believe, I woke up with one heck of a lower back pain.  Did the rounds of ibruprofen, heat, ice, and a tiny bit of stretching.  Tuesday it felt way better, but still tender.  Kept things up to have my back worse on Wednesday.  Went to urgent care and got some medicine to help the muscles relax.

Last night, I actually slept in the Living Room as we have a spare twin mattress that I absolutely love the feel of for sleeping.  Never had a bed more comfortable.  Did this, knowing that one or both of the boys would be sprawled all over it come today.  The dog even took a turn or two.


Drats! Can't find the camera cord to upload the cool picture I took of kid, dog, and mattress on the floor. Should it be found, I'll add the photo!

First!

Happy March 1st!  Have changed a few things over from Valentines to St. Patrick's Day.  Weather was nice, warm, sunny and just a few clouds.

One kid was incredibly dirty, sweaty, and stinky by the end of the day.  Good thing he knew he owed me a shower this evening!

Neglect

That is what this blog is suffering from and a huge factor in why I don't have many followers.  Not that numbers matter.  A lot of the time I am more interested in life, as it is happening, than wondering if it will make a great blog post.  Sometimes, there is the cold that lasts 8 - 10 days that just knocks the life out of you and not much of anything but breathing and sleeping happens.  There are the days that are just mundane and not note worthy.

On the flip side, I do have a number of pictures on my phone and camera that would be blog worthy.  I will see if I go and back date a few from the boys birthdays.  If you find this post and decide  to come back looking for back dated blog post, two things will have happened.  One, post will have been written and dated in January 2012 or, the more likely, they photos will be up loaded onto the computer and that is exactly where they will sit forever.

Tuddles, the school day still calls.

Testing & Musing

My computer is on the fritz, S.T.I.L.L. Have been wanting to blog for awhile, but it has been difficult with the boys computer. So I sit here trying on my phone. Has been a beautiful day for photos, but either I couldn't get a good photo (of the moon and stars) or didn't have the camera (trees with varying degrees of leaf loss - that sounds weird. It the best I can come up with).

Been home today with Thing Two today; he has had a bad headache since yesterday that seems to come and go. Have been getting a bunch of putzy chores done - a good thing I supppose. Best things so far: sharing Rosemary with a neighbor and making mini banana muffins.

Suppose this will do for a test and ignore the typos as I am still learning to type on a little keyboard.

Congrats are going out

to our youngest (well, yesterday anyway)!  The boys had swim and a certain almost 8 & 3/4 yo finally made it across the pool without a floating device, touching the bottom (good thing as they were in the deep end), a lane line, or a wall.  I've known for awhile that he could do it, he just finally figured it out and did it.

Dreaming ~

That is what I would be doing if I could actually play the piano like David Nevue.   Here's a youtube video of one of my favorite songs, it's called "While The Trees Sleep".  I got hooked on this guy from reading Ann Voskamp's blog and am almost daily inspired to try to learn to play the piano.  Time is the hardest thing to find, for with out time, practicing becomes difficult.  Without practice, one doesn't get better at anything.  We've got to do things over and over again to make progress.

Anyone want to give me a time management class?

Welcome to October

and a rainy cool one at that.  Today, the 3rd, was no different.  Actually a nasty sort of Monday ~ cool/cold, rainy, and overcast just about the whole day.  Had really wanted to have a fire with this weather, but the schedule that I woke up with, just wasn't going to allow it.  Dropping a kid off for speech, picking him up from speech, have a meeting late morning, and a ball practice (or possibly make up game) in the afternoon.  Just no time to light a good fire and keep it going all day.  Ah, then the email came that baseball was canceled.  I knew this before the meeting and couldn't wait to get home!  Well over 6 hours later and it's still going strong!  Ye haw!

And out of shear delight, I took a video of it.  Yes, you can hear the logs popping!

Happy Labor Day!

and Happy Birthday to my husband, Kevin Brock!  He's enjoying a federal holiday coinciding with his birthday.  Nothing like sleeping in, morning nap, walk through the woods with the family, and vegging while watching baseball on your birthday.  At least for him, it seems like a good day!

For me, I've finally felt a bit productive around the house.  Yea!  Lots of little things are getting done.  So far:

• helped the boys through a worksheet (or 3) of math
• made templates for cork board and metal board to be hung
• alphabet is almost hung ~ stopped halfway through to take a walk with the family
• cleaned the kitchen some
• got laundry started later than I wanted, but finished earlier than usual ~ go figure.
• finally figured out that the washing machine takes about 50 minutes for the normal wash cycle; WILL use the microwave timer now to help me keep track

Still on tape, at least for me:

• hang the second half of the alphabet
• make brownies
• make corn bread
• hot glue some buttons on screws
• not sure what else
• make some school related things

When life hands you . . . . .

. . .  the wrong box of pudding, {more likely it was mixed in with the vanilla puddings, on the shelf at the store} add it to a smoothie.  Yes, this is a banana cream pudding, but I was already making a banana/strawberry smoothie this morning and wanted to thicken it up some.  This actually worked out really well.  We had enough left over, after three glasses of smoothies, to make 6 pudding/smoothie pops.  Should be another good treat later.

Happy eating!

What do you do?

when exhausted and having a head cold BUT your brain is wide awake and ready to go?

Personally, at this moment, beyond the obvious blogging, I'm sitting with one of favorite cookbooks to figure out some new recipes to try.  Here's my favorite, go to, cookbook (at least one of very few):

This is the cookbook where I found a good fried chicken recipe; the same one that while watching the show one Saturday our youngest cried because they were demonstrating the recipe and I didn't have time to make it for dinner.  That one recipe, is worth the cost of the book.  I've made one or two other things, but want to get to making more.

So I'll sit for awhile and find a few other recipes to try in the near future.  May start with looking for bread recipes as I've been asked to bake some soon.  They have some tasty looking desserts too.

Now off to some like reading, then maybe internet surfing for craft projects I want to copy.

Pretty side of life

Amazing how, if one would only look up instead of down, pretty life can be.  Such is the contrast when looking out the front of our house.  Should we look down, we see this:

All the effort we put into our front yard this summer, taking out the dead oak tree, trying to level the front yard, sod, grass seed, work in flower beds, etc., has been greatly disturbed!  We've been promised that everything will be completed by tomorrow.

Now, if I were to look up, even just a bit, I am gazing into glorious fall colors, like this:

And here's a better view of the same tree:

Let me be looking up today, from where my grace and salvation comes from.

September, a month of lists!

Blogging has been hit or miss!  I've taken a few pictures, that would make for good pictures.  Suppose I'll do a photo blog in the next day or so.  In the mean time, here's what is new:

• Would you believe ANOTHER phone call to the All American Appliance Inc. yesterday.  Fridge got up to 50 degrees and stayed there.  Feel like I am on the first name bases with everyone that works there.  They are a great company, one I plan on using again, should the need arise.  They are quick to respond, friendly, and knowledgeable.  Definitely recommend them for appliance needs.
• Based off my last conversation about the fridge, the only part that could be culprit would be the compressor.  With the cost of that part, the fact that this particular fridge has had MANY issues, GE doesn't seem to care, we decided to buy a new fridge.
• Thankful for the internet.  Browsed a few places, from the comforts of home, and found a few models that would work for our requirements.  Read the reviews and narrowed our choice down to one.  Searched on that model number to find that Lowes has the cheapest price on the fridge.  The closest Lowes to us, had a couple in stock and a display model (we wanted to see actual model in person).  Because they had it in stock, we were able to schedule delivery today.  Cool because delivery and haul away are free ~ another savings compared to other stores.  Even got a call this morning asking if they could move our delivery time up to an earlier window. 
• On the painful side of life,  I've been having back pains since Sunday.  Yesterday, it was to the point I wanted to go to the doctor's.  I was able to get an appointment and a prescrip for it.  Seems to be working well as I feel loads better today.  

 So ends this list!  Back to school and things on my "to do" list!  Hope you are enjoying the weather in your area.  It's raining here, 3rd morning of it, but its kind of nice.

Have a great day,