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Nov
26
I had good intentions to post all week. But I decided to give myself some time off, from work and blogging. I’m just going to enjoy my family for a couple of days. I hope you can do the same.
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Nov
25
My son missed 2 days of school last week. If you have a kid in junior high, you know that missing two days means a huge amount of homework to catch up on. He worked all day yesterday on several projects that he wanted to get done early, so he’d have some time to get the makeup homework done before Thanksgiving break.
You should know something about my parenting style, specifically, how I view homework. My view is, it’s not my homework. It’s not my math project, science experiment or book report. I did all my homework, way too many years ago. I refuse to do it now. I take an extremely laid back approach when it comes to my kids schoolwork. They’re expected to study without being reminded. They’re expected to get big projects done without being reminded or helped. In fact, most of the time I don’t even know they’ve got a test or a project until I see the final grade. I just stay out of it.
The best part of my attitude is that I have 2 boys who know they are completely responsible for their schoolwork, and their grades, and they take pride in that.
The worst part, and there is a worst part, is that for years I’ve watched my kids work very hard on projects and proudly carry them into school, only to come out disappointed because somebody’s parent made an awesome unbelievably perfect project for their kid.
One year my son made a volcano out of sculpey clay. This was right up his alley, he loves sculpey clay and a volcano, well, how cool. He drew a diagram and planned and formulated the best volcano. Even though it looked more like a large rock when he was done, he was proud, and excited to show it off.
Parents were invited to come for the volcano demonstrations. I was a little dejected myself to see row after row of perfectly shaped volcanoes, but no big deal. The kids each got to make theirs “explode” which was of course the best part. Imagine the oohs and ahhs as one little girl began her presentation and out of nowhere appeared smoke.
Well, not really out of nowhere. It was her mom with a fog machine. Fog. Machine. Did I mention these kids were in 2nd grade? Needless to say, my son wasn’t happy with his volcano after that, because there was no smoke.
We’ve grown up a bit since 2nd grade, and my kids understand now that it’s better to do your own work, and be proud of your own work, than to have your parents do it. I know it’s hard for them, but I keep telling myself that as they get older that will happen less and less.
Which is why I was a little surprised when I dropped my son off this morning with his math project. They had to design a board game. My son is an artist at heart, and he went to the craft department at Walmart and got pipe cleaners, markers, glitter, paint and toys for his game board. It was colorful and busy and messy, and kind of eccentric. Like him. Not messy in that he slopped it together. No, he worked on it meticulously, and spent hours redoing what he didn’t think was right. It was messy because that was his vision. He worked hard on it and he loved it. But it was very different from the very precise, professional looking boards I saw other kids carrying in.
I’m not saying that those kids didn’t make their boards. I hope they did. But if I had tried to help my son with his project, I may have held back his interpretation of his game. Because I don’t have an artists eye and I don’t see things the way he does. That’s another reason I don’t help them, because I want their work to reflect their vision, not what I think the project should be.
If I had helped him, his board would have ended up looking like the game boards I saw other kids with. Precise. Neat. Every little square perfect. And nothing like my son.
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Nov
23
Thanks to a couple of my blogging friends, I discovered Twitter this week. Oh I knew about it before. I just never took the time to sign up. Which only took about 2 minutes. I was instantly hooked. I’ve already discovered several new blogs that I love, and I’m sure there will be more.
Here are some of my favorite posts:
How to Live Your Life Online as a Spiritual Practice - Gwen Bell
The jingle of a tin cup - Cheerio Road
Fantasy Island - Mama Om
A fish has nothing to do with this post - Superhero Journal
Fall Away – Jen Lee
you can be - Kindness girl
Enjoy these great posts. I have more, but it’s almost time for something I’ve been waiting a long time for - the return of 24! I love Jack Bauer. My son is watching me type this and is rolling his eyes pretty far back in his head at that last comment. I don’t care, I still love Jack.
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Nov
22
I had a lot of work to get done today, to get ready to go out of town for Thanksgiving. So I handed my youngest son my camera and told him to get busy. He loves taking pictures, so he was a happy camper. I was hoping for one really good shot. He surprised me, all of them were good.
This is one of my neighbors dogs, wanting to get out and play.
This is our dog. He’s clearly wondering why his boy is taking pictures instead of playing with him.
This is our dryer, or rather the part the wasn’t working. I’m happy to report that my husband got it fixed. He’s my hero.
As I post this I realize that several of the pictures my son took are missing. The self portraits are all gone. That little stinker deleted them! I should never have showed him that button.
For more SOOC Saturdays shots visit Slurping Life.
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Nov
21
I remember being young, married a little over a year, with a baby. It was a sweet time, but because I wanted to stay home with my precious, we had to be on a tight budget. Ramen and hamburger helper without the hamburger. That tight. But it was sweet.
We rented a tiny house that my inlaws owned. We got a great deal on rent, but it was right next door to my inlaws. Which was a bit annoying the first year we were married, but a huge bonus once that grandbaby came. Cheap rent and an always willing babysitter!
As part of our tightwad lifestyle, we hung our clothes outside to dry. It was an older house with a huge clothesline, and I loved it. We’ve moved many times since then, but I’ve never had another clothesline. I’ve always wanted one.
There is a reason I’m fondly remembering this. Guess who’s dryer broke??
Yep, right after doing massive amounts of laundry when my guys got back from their camping weekend, my dryer quit spinning. Good news, the motor is working, but the not spinning is a problem. Should be easy to fix, unless you’re my husband, who will spend the weekend googling dryer parts and refusing to look in the instruction manual. Instructions, who needs those.
So for the past week I’ve been hanging our laundry out to dry again. No clothesline, but the kids swingset seems to work pretty well. I know, I could take it to a laudromat. But I work from home, which means I normally don’t leave my home, and I hate to change my fine tuned routine.
My husband is cussing at working on the dryer now, he’ll probably be in the exact same place Sunday night. I’ll give him credit for trying. Just not right now, he doesn’t look like he’s in the mood to talk.
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Nov
20
For more Love Thursday shots, visit chookooloonks.
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Nov
19
I mentioned last week that I had recently taken a donation to my church, to give to a local family that is having some financial problems. I did that despite my own financial issues, which mainly consist of a constant shortage of funds, made worse by being out of work for several weeks earlier this year. My point in mentioning that was how great it made me feel to be able to help someone.
Well, something amazing has been happening since I took that donation to the church. People have been giving me, and my family, things. Random people, random things. I respect the privacy of these angels, but I can tell you that someone my husband works with gave us concert tickets for a local concert. Concert tickets are not in our budget, that would go way over in the luxury column, which we don’t even use. So this was a huge gift for us, and for my 13 year old son, who has been dying to go to a concert but knows better than to even ask. He got to go with my husband, and it was a great concert, but even better, they shared a wonderful father/son experience that they’ll always remember.
Some other angels that I’ve only met online sent me some wonderful things for Christmas gifts for my sons, and since I don’t want my sons to know the surprise, I won’t go into detail on that. Just know that these are wonderful gifts for my boys, and again, not in my budget.
There were some other things that happened last week that I won’t mention, but those things can only be chalked up to me being very lucky, or something else at work. I know I’m not lucky, that’s been proven. So I have to believe that because of the good thing I did, no matter how insignificant I thought it was, no matter that I wished so badly that I could do more, because of that good deed, now good things are coming back to me.
I believe in karma, I believe what comes around goes around. But more than that, I believe that if we trust, in whatever God we believe in, then we will be taken care of. It took a huge leap of trust and faith for me to give money to a family I don’t even know, when my own family could certainly use that money. I trusted, I had faith, and even though I did waver a little, I am being taken care of. I should never doubt that.
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Nov
18
Congratulations Mary at Adventures in Mommyland! This is what Mary would do with a weekend to herself:
In a perfect world I would go out to lunch, get a pedicure, massage and go out with the girls!
Sounds like fun to me!
Look for an email from me so I can get this gift card mailed out to you in time for your holiday shopping.
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Nov
17
I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Kansas, to be with my mom while my dad had surgery. He has an aneurysm on his aorta, which is scary enough, but even scarier since he managed to postpone the surgery for 5 months longer than his doctor recommended. He has had 3 heart bypass surgeries, and he was scared that he wouldn’t make it through another major surgery. They were able to do this one laparoscopically, and it was a success.
I’m finding myself in that sandwich generation, or at least headed in that direction. My kids still need me, and my parents will soon need more help from me. I know alot of people my age, or close to it, are finding themselves in the same place. What makes this harder for me is that I’m not very close to my parents.
I could write a book on the reasons why I’m not close to them, but that’s not a book I would want to read, so I won’t go into detail. There’s been years of hurt and anger and bitterness, and in the past 2 years the wounds have been reopened, at least my wounds have. As far as they know, those chapters are long closed. Since I am almost 40, and try to deal with things like a grown up most of the time, I plan on letting the past stay in the past.
Just because I don’t want to rehash everything with my parents doesn’t mean that I have an easy time putting my hurt feelings aside. I don’t, and I hate myself for it. Holding onto grudges, or letting new, petty things hurt me makes me feel ugly. As much as I want to hold onto my anger, and I really want to, I don’t like how it makes me feel.
I posted about how great I felt after helping a family that I don’t even know. My heart soared, my spirit felt lighter, it was such a great thing. But when my family needs me, I get all grinchy. I don’t want to help, because after all we’ve been through, I feel like I don’t owe them anything. And maybe I don’t. But that doesn’t really jive with how I felt about helping complete strangers, even when it wasn’t convenient for me.
I can’t have it both ways. I can’t believe with all my heart that we are called to help, to be kind and to love, yet at the same time, put up a brick wall when it comes to helping my own parents. Even though they’ve hurt me. Especially when I know, deep down in my grinch heart, that my parents do love me. There are families that have caused each other pain beyond repair, hurts beyond forgiveness. That’s not my situation. It’s more years of little hurts and rejections that I’ve allowed to form into a huge pile of crap that I refuse to throw away.
I can’t forget the past. I’m not sure I can completely forgive either. But I also can’t tell 2 elderly people, who for all intents and purposes don’t have anyone else to ask for help, that I won’t be there. I can’t stay away when my dad is having potentially life threatening surgery. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.
Maybe I’m growing up a little, if so, I guess it’s about time. Whatever the reason, I’ve accepted that no matter what is lurking in the past, I have to move beyond it. I just can’t reconcile holding grudges with the kind, giving person that I really want to be.
It’s been an emotional day. I’m happy to be home safe and sound, and I’m feeling very thankful tonight, for lots of things.
This post was entered in Scribbit’s November Write Away Contest.
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Nov
16
My weekend without my family is over. My husband and youngest son got home 15 minutes ago, the oldest should be here within the hour. Which means tired exhausted guys and piles of laundry that smell like camp fire.
After years of camp outs like this, I’ve learned that when they come home they will not be happy til they’ve had a shower and nap. So even though I’m rested and excited to see them and hear all about it, I step back and just get the laundry done until they can function again.
My son did tell me that he stayed up til midnight, eating Oreos and vanilla wafers with his friends. I know, it’s a rough life, but he suffered through it. I think I better go on the next camp out, to monitor the sugar intake! Like they’d let me.
Now for some of my favorite posts from the week.
the turn of a phrase - one plus two I seem to find a favorite post at this blog every week, but Jen is a wonderful writer. Her work and her plans to move to the jungle are just so inspirational. This is one of the blogs that everytime I read it, I want to make big changes in my own life, so my life matches up with my dreams.
I believe - Jen Lemen
Orlando Clears the Way - Mama Om
Change - Unravelling This is my favorite photo for this week, but definitely check out her other shots, they are all lovely.
I’ve got so many other favorite posts, but right now a couple piles of dirty laundry are calling my name. Loudly.
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My boys
Where did those little guys go?Cuteness overload
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