Is it time for winter yet?

Wow, I really did forget just how hot and sticky Southern summers get! Hmm...and we're not even "technically" out of Spring yet!? Oh my...how thankful I am for air conditioning!

Well, it is official. Pete has submitted his retirement packet and we are now in the official countdown toward military retirement next March. Twenty LOOOOOOONG years, five deployments, twelve moves (not counting in-town moves from one address to another), and more headaches than we care to admit, and in nine months it will all be history. That's a big WOW to both of us, and the reality of civilian life looming on the horizon is both scary and incredibly exciting all at the same time. Could it be that we can actually plan to stay PUT for a while? Oh, how nice that will be. Paint on the walls (okay, COLORED paint), being able to buy address labels....oh, the simple pleasures!

I did have to giggle more than just a little bit at one of Pete's transition classes this week--dressing for success--the transition office had a rep from Men's Wearhouse to come out and teach the been-in-cammies-for-way-too-long soldiers how to dress (ie., how to MATCH your clothing). What was funny was that the whole week, Pete had to wear civilian attire instead of a uniform, and he was a bit at a loss for what to wear! I guess that class really was a necessity! Maybe I need to take a better look at his closet and plan for more than just Sundays now? YAY!!!

The nutshell, updated.

It occurred to me recently as I was arranging and rearranging my scrapbooks that I've really not done a very good job of detailing the actual "growth" of my kids over the last couple of years--sure, the day-to-day things get scrapbooked and blogged about, but not their "real lives". Shame on me. I can hear my great-grandmother telling me I'll forget all this stuff someday, I'd best figure out how to keep it all chronicled without spending a fortune of TIME doing so. Till then, I guess blogging about it all is a fair substitute, right?

Soo.....here goes. I s'pose the "biggest" addition to our family as of late (since the kittens aren't kittens anymore and Shelby is most certainly big, but not the new-news) was Moby, our 15-pack Ford van. Gone are the days of mini-vans, we've now moved into maxi-van territory. It makes driving so much more......what is the word......TOLERABLE now that everyone has her own space back in the back. And while getting four littles strapped into car seats in this giant whale of a vehicle isn't what we'd call easy, it certainly is easier than climbing in and out of the back of the Sienna to do all that buckling and unbuckling! Even with Kelsey, Morgan (yes, she IS in a booster seat, I promise) and Shelby sharing a row, they're not shoulder-to-shoulder like they were before in the Toyota. See how roomy, even with the rear seat taken out for extra cargo space? I love it!

Okay, now on to the actual members of the family...we don't have any new photos of our firstborn to blog about--pretty much the last time we saw him (other than the quickie trip down for Mother's Day....and to pick up the mis-mailed parts for his car) was when he graduated from training here in March and left for Fort Campbell. He's an adult now, doing his own thing and not including us--we have to check his Facebook to find out anything, and I'm not liking what independence is doing to him....but I'm his mom, it's my job to overanalyze and panic about everything, right? His news for us recently was not what we'd hoped to hear, but it was inevitable, and I'm glad I have time to process it before we actually have to DEAL with it--he's going to Afghanistan sometime next Spring. I'm not a happy mom...but I knew this was coming. In the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."

Pete is nearing the end of his Army career...and that end is approaching faster than we ever imagined it would. In fact, it may even be by the end of this year, considering it will be his best chance of securing a stable (and not DoD contracted) job with a future. Unfortunately, that future may mean that we have to end up leaving our beloved Huntsville in a couple of years when the missile maintenance school here transfers to Fort Lee, Virginia; but in this economy, we're thankful to have a good job prospect, whatever that means. We also know that Huntsville will still be here when we're ready to move back! Thankfully, though, Pete has had the Army pay for his shoulder to be completely repaired, and he's doing wonderfully under the care of a great orthopedic surgeon who handled his recovery with kid-gloves. What could have otherwise been a life-altering disability is now just an occasional ache, and that's something to be VERY grateful for! Kelsey turned 17 three months ago, and has gone through a TON of changes in that span of time. Hmm....she's gotten a driver's permit (we don't let our kids get their actual license till they're financially ready to take on their own insurance policy and the expenses of owning their own car), a job at Church's Chicken here on base, and has finished up her junior year of high school. She also, um....dismissed her beau for issues that her heart blinded her to in the past and has moved on to the getting-to-know-you phase of another young man who has been waiting in the wings for several months. We shall see....at any rate, Kelsey is indeed growing UP. It is actually getting easier to talk to her, and we're working on her reasoning skills, so things are improving relationally speaking. She's still a teenybopper, though, and when we go out as a family, she still wants to step aside and be seen as the martyred older sister, forced to tolerate the silliness of her younger sibs. Oh, the horrors.....can't you just read the disgust on her face while the rest of us were giggling and having a great time at the Botanical Gardens yesterday? How embarrassing is must be to have family enjoying things while there are so many reasons to be bored! At least Mom got a good picture out of it...Next in line is Morgan. Never the shy one, Morgan's very thin "shell" has become nearly nonexistent, and she's just come screaming out of the toddler phase straight into kid-dom. She never walks anywhere--she runs, skips, or twirls. She has NO inside voice (much to the chagrin of her father's poor ears), and relishes getting into every mess known to mankind. If there's a puddle, expect her to go swimming; if you give a Morgan a cookie....well, she's going to have chocolate smeared from one end to the other. Show the child a calm, bubbling fountain, and you get this:
Jamie continues to be our introverted thinker. She doesn't do all that well in "big" social situations, much like her mother (and father, even though he's a much better faker than I), and is more at ease by herself with a strange project of her own design than some sort of group activity. She tries to be cuddly like her sisters, but you can tell it makes her a bit uneasy (again, a lot like her mom) so we let Jamie dictate when she gets snuggled with. Her hyper toddler nature is ever-so-swiftly giving way to the gotta-do-it-all, can't-miss-a-thing, just-try-and-tell-me-I-can't four-year-old will of steel. It is so neat to see how quickly their little personalities develop! Jamie is also the only one of our girls with truly straight, golden-blonde hair. How'd THAT happen?Danica, now two and a half, is just chock full of spunk and individuality. She's not like any of our other kids, except that she's just as much a "ham" as all the others have been. Dani's speech is still lagging behind, but I'm not worried--she still gets her point across loud and clear (well, loud, anyway)! She's got to do everything her older sisters do, even if she's not quite got the motor skills to keep up, and woe be unto the crazy person who tries to offer Dani help when she is convinced she can do it "mylelp". She may have enough energy (and temper) to put the Tasmanian Devil to shame, but when she cools her guns and focuses....wow. I have gotten some of my best kid shots from just following behind Dani! Check out what I snapped yesterday as she followed behind Kelsey, who went through two rolls of 35mm film in just half an hour....

Shelby, our not-so-little almost-ten-month-old, is growing faster than Georgia Kudzu! She is crawling everywhere, picking up speed, and is standing and cruising along the furniture at a pretty fair clip too. Her fifth tooth just popped through yesterday (explaining the three-hour crying fit night before last), but the lack of chompers hasn't kept her from eating everything in sight. It should be....interesting....to see how she is going to react when her baby sister is born in several weeks, because even now, there's no substitute for Mama. Funny how much more clingy each successive little one is in our family! Shelby's little personality is starting to shine through, and it's becoming clear that she will be quite the performer. She's already learned the value of a goofy grin to woo her intended audience's affections. Oh my...

If there's one thing we look forward to with each additional child, it's finding out what their little character is going to be like. God never duplicates anyone, it seems, and He certainly has outdone Himself with our group of girls! Our house may be overrun with pink and purple and hair bows and frilly dresses, but our daughters are anything but a bunch of cookie-cutter girly-girls. We're already wondering what little 'Kasey' will be like!

Got something on your mind?

I do....

Oh, wait...that's just a butterfly on my head. Drat, I thought it was something bigger.

Really, I've been quite busy scrapping. My poor desk is piled a mile high awaiting my next set of digi-prints from Walgreens to prove just how busy I've been! Believe it or not, I'm about five layouts shy of actually finishing a whole year's scrapping! Too bad it's last year and I've not even STARTED on this year yet. Sigh....

So why, you ask, am I blogging when I said I was gonna be blog-breaking to scrap? Hey, I've been sneezing my fool head off for two weeks, drowning my sorrows in Benadryl, nasal spray, and the awesome Cinnamon Spice tea Kelsey got me for Mother's Day...and I got bored. I needed some cyber-relief from sitting in front of a desk full of paper scraps. So I'm here, blogging about just about nothing just to say I didn't completely "skip" most of the month of May.

Oh, and Pete won the name game, by the way. He's not giving in this time around, so girl #6 shall be Kasey-something. Probably Kasey Dawn, but we're not totally dead-set on that one yet. I just like the way it sounds, and something that comes to you in a dream can't be all that bad, can it?

One too many hobbies?

Something's gotta give, and I'm afraid that for the time being, it will probably be my blogging. I can't keep up with two creativity-sapping hobbies at once, my brain is simply not able to bear the extra weight right now. I've been finding myself trying to compose scrapbook layouts and journaling to go with pictures....and I come up with blog posts. Granted, they're scattered and ODD blog posts, which is why you're not seeing most of them, but it's a major distraction!

I'm so far behind on my scrapbooking that I'm just not even going to comment on how much I really do *need* to get done not to be buried under yet another sea of pictures. So......

I'm taking a blog break for the summer to focus on my scrapbooking! I'll be back, but for the time being, while the girls are busy playing happily in the backyard (and in the soon-to-be-purchased wading pool that they've been clamoring for since the weather warmed), I'm going to have to resign myself to sitting at the desk downstairs next to a window that overlooks their backyard activities. It's time to get some scrappin' done, y'all!

I hope you all have a pleasant (and not TOO hot....especially you, Tina, since you have to manage without air conditioning!) summer, and I look forward to doing a whole bunch of blog-catching-up when I return! Oh....and for those of you who are wondering, the "end" of summer for me will be heralded by the newest little one's entrance into the world, sometime between the first and middle of August. Pete will be taking leave for a few weeks and I plan on doing not much at all, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to sit, surf, and blog! For the record, the little one still does not have a name. Poor thing, we've tossed around so many names that I'm not even sure we have a LIST! Pete's still adamant about the name Kasey, and I'm still not thrilled with it. She may end up being a Kasey, she may be a Kendall, a Payton, a Jenna, a Moriah, or maybe even a Benji if Grandma has her way....

See you sometime in August when I have a birth announcement to make! Happy Summer!

Just your average Monday.

It's Monday. I've lost my voice AND my mind. Which one do you think I will miss the most?

Apparently, my mind....because now I can't even write! WHY, you ask? Well, DUH....I already told you my voice is gone. What am I supposed to say with no voice?

Back to the "lost my mind" deal again......methinks I've had enough cold medicine for today!

Smile!

It's the weekend!

That is one BIG binder!

Seriously, folks, aside from some of the ginormous training manuals Pete has brought home over his Army career, I don't think I've EVER seen a 3-ring binder THIS big and THIS full! Wowsers! Somebody at Sonlight has done a TON of homework for my benefit (oh, and for others too, but I'll let them be thankful in their own time), and believe you me, I am forever grateful!!! This big, huge (yes, Pete, I redundified myself again--oooh, and made up a new word!) binder holds the Instructor Guide for Sonlight's Core K, the Instructor Guide for the kindergarten language arts course, the schedule for the readers, plus the Instructor Guide for kindergarten science! There are also numerous activity sheets in there as well, and if the nasty glares I'm getting from Morgan and Jamie when I tell them that "no, we can't start school today, Mom still needs to get acquainted with umpteen hundred pages in my binder!," then I can pretty well guarantee that they'll LOVE all the wondermous goodness that's ahead for us in the next school year! Just LOOK at this thing!!!!! Isn't it HUGE???? It's bigger--well, fuller--than the binder I had for Jon and Kelsey two years ago when we did American History in Depth for high school!

I'm just in awe. It's enormous. This is "Momster Binder" sitting on my cluttered (I'm still working on that) desk next to my poor, pitiful little Home Management Binder, which I assure you, is no lightweight itself!The inside.....just getting to Page 1 seems intimidating, except for the fact that my entire year is already planned out for me day-by-day, and I just LOVE that! No more planning too much and not getting nearly what I'd like to do accomplished!

Oh yeah....the other "meat" of the Core K program--the BOOKS!!! Wonderful, glorious BOOKS!!! All grade-stickered (hence the pink spine-labels) and covered in Contact Paper for their protection (and my peace of mind--these babies have got to last through three more babies)!

Speaking of the aforementioned Home Management Binder, I've tweeked a bit from last year. Wait, strike that. TWO years ago. I figured the title page needed a bit of updating since the pictures I had on it were, well, OLD. Besides, we've added another face. I like to do my section title pages in scrapbook style--it gives me a little boost to actually USE the binder since I do like it so much once it's done to my standards! Notice I left a tag to put our [still unnamed] unborn little one's picture on once she arrives? Hey, leave no stone unturned! The scripture at the bottom is the same as it was on the page I replaced, Proverbs 31:27.I also added a section for my own studies (notes from sermons I want to look further into, study handouts from Bible Class, other stuff here and there) and a journal! Streamlining! Woooohooo!

This may seem like a boring picture to you, but for some reason, it inspired both Pete and Kelsey to laugh at me and how.....over-organized I am trying to be. Huh? I don't get it. What's the big deal about colored index cards and wet erase markers to write on my page protectors so I don't have to print out page after page after page? Sheesh, give a gal a break, willya?

Now that I've got Morgan and Jamie planned for, it's on to planning for Kelsey. Easy, for the most part, since she wants her entire senior year to be on computer. Switched-On-Schoolhouse it is! Lesseee.....Chemistry (again--Apologia seemed to just be too in depth for her), English 12, American History (again--Pete was NOT thrilled that she seemed to retain nothing about US History from a few years ago, so this is by his insistence that she take it over), Family Sciences (ooooh, a fancy title for "home ec"), Art, Civics, and still an elective or two to figure out. It is all about to come crashing down around her just how close she really is to graduation, considering we're attending our homeschool group's graduation ceremony for this year's grads TONIGHT. Wow. Next year (good Lord willing and the creek don't rise....whatever that means), it will be Kelsey in a cap and gown! Heehee.....we'll have to do a kindergarten graduation too!

Shelby the Chubmuffin

Shelby (commonly referred to as "Lebby" by big sister Danica, or "Lebby-Lu" by the rest of us) is now 8 and a half months old, and is officially the biggest of our babies. She tips the scale at a full 20lbs. 4oz., and while she's short (duh....Dad and Mom aren't even on the tall side of average), she wears every little ounce well! Check out this pic, snapped last week, wearing a medium Green Acre Designs cloth diaper that is now too small....and a size 12 months lap tee that is so strained that it rolls up on her like her socks roll down! (Please pardon the stain...she decided to christen the bright-white tee with some pureed sweet potatoes that she'd had quite enough of, thank you very much!)

We do love to show off those new chompers--if only she could find a way to show you the top two, I'm sure she would!

Ah, yes....hugeness in action....Shelby's favorite bathrime trick, using all of her weight to throw around every drop of water in the sink! She loves making waves--and it is a pretty handy time to mop up the floor when she's done, because for heaven's sake...the floor is already soaking wet from the tsunami she causes!

...On being exhausted

I do some of my best thinking when I'm tired. True enough, insomnia has, on more occasions than I care to count, had me doing nothing BUT thinking. However, that's not the point. There are times when the lack of sleep clogs the mind, and yet there are other times when that lack of sleep can really bring the obvious to the forefront of your mind and REALLY make you ponder what needs to be pondered.

I've been doing a lot of that lately.

Because I've been doing a lot of 'tired' stuff lately.

I suppose, as in any other area of life, there are two ways to deal with exhaustion--defeat or perserverance. I can choose to lay down on the couch and give in to the weight pulling down on me (and my eyelids), or I can choose to work through it. I'm sticking with the latter....partially because I have a brood of little ones pulling at me from every direction who simply will NOT tolerate Mom being too tired for anything....but mostly because if I gave in to being exhausted, I'd never get anything done. What's odd is that I'm finding myself rejuvinated in the very activities that I was dreading because of the energy required of my worn-out body. Funny how that works.

I'll admit; I've found myself next to unconscious, not even rocking in the rocking chair as I've put Shelby to sleep now and then. And there was Monday, when I was so tired that I fell asleep sitting UP on the couch while Morgan and Jamie....um....."did my hair". A little word of advice--don't ever fall asleep while a four-and-five-year-0ld have your hair at their mercy! It's not pretty. For the most part, though, the overwhelming nature of sleep deprivation hasn't overtaken me but a handful of times. I don't suppose it will, no matter how long this phase of life lasts. Just when I think I can't go a single minute more, I get a good bit of rest from my few hours' sleep, and I wake up raring to go.

Yesterday was one of those days. I finished the revisions on my Home Management Binder, got at least the rest of the girls' soft-cover schoolbooks stickered and covered with Contact paper, got the laundry caught up, and did several other tasks that have been falling through the cracks. Today, I probably won't get as much done, but I do thank God for the good days--I manage to get enough done to stay on top of everything!

An interesting life lesson? YAY!

When **I** was asked to watch the kiddos that we kept several months ago when they first arrived here till their dad got settled in (mom was in basic training) a couple of weeks ago, I was less than thrilled. First, it kind of rubbed me funny that they'd hired a live-in nanny so they could have child care round the clock...and yet they really just hired the first gullible person without truly knowing her character. It also rubbed me sideways that the mom felt the need to tell me (who she'd met minutes before) her life story and how horrible the whole situation was....all while standing in my kitchen tossing out ridiculous comments about how many kids we have and how they "figured out what caused that and fixed it". However, I'm a sucker for desperate situations, so I did something I thought would benefit several people--I volunteered Kelsey for the job of full-time babysitting for two weeks, at THEIR house (because Lord knows I'd have gone nuts with her wild trio in my house--I can handle chaos, but not children who scream bloody murder at the mere mention of the word "no" and who have no concept of boundaries or authority at all). Kelsey is saving up for a mission trip to Panama this summer, and the job would cover most of her expenses, plus the kids would have a well-trained babysitter!

I didn't anticipate the reward of having Kelsey learn some seriously valuable lessons in what real dysfunctional families look like! She made a little mention the night they hired her about how "cool" the mom was and how she was really easy to be around.....but that was a 17-year-old's front-page perspective. Lo and behold, when Kelsey saw that "cool" mom who could hang with the young gals in place as a wife and mother, the immaturity came pouring out like sweat in a sauna! Kelsey has never witnessed a wife verbally bashing her husband like she's seen the last week and a half, and she's absolutely floored at some of the comments that this "cool" mom makes. She also laments the fact that her babysitting job is made twice as difficult because the kids' bedrooms are off-limits to them (I don't really understand why, other than not wanting to clean them up) and they have only one room to play in--the living room--and all of their toys are in the garage, which right now is too chilly to play in!

Oh, the IRONY.....all of a sudden, Kelsey is coming home wanting her little sisters to hang all over her, because she MISSED them! And folks, she comes into our house of four little squealy girls just singing the praises of how QUIET it is here and how she is so glad Pete and I don't treat each other the way "cool" mom and her husband do!

HILARIOUS!!! (In a sad, sad, way, of course)

Ah, one more to chalk up to the lessons Mom never had to give her--yesterday, when Kelsey mentioned the new-to-us van upgrade (from my awesome Sienna to a postitively ginormous land-yacht 15-passenger Ford maxi-van) in conversation, "cool" mom did something a bit out of "cool" character--she "went off" about how crazy it is that a dual-income family like theirs can be struggling like they are with just three kids but a "HUGE" family with only one income can somehow manage to not just do fine, but thrive. Kelsey actually picked up on the fact that "cool" mom was bringing in a huge bag from their night-before shopping trip, feeding the kids a ton of prepackaged convenience foods, ordering take-out, and plunking the 5-year-old down in front of the X-Box and his new game so she could have a moment's peace while she was ranting about how bad off they were financially. Good catch, Kelsey!

Really, folks, big families are not all that awful. Sometimes, the peace of closeness is obvious to anyone who dares to look past the "noise" of kids playing together; putting things and material gain second to what makes life worthwhile exemplifies that contentment that Paul referred to as "great gain". I am SO GLAD that my kids are finally picking up on that!

Maybe we'll shake things up a bit?

We're not sure about a name for this little one yet, and that usually means one thing...we'll change it another ten times before she's born. So...maybe we'll just do things a tad different this time around, since it's likely to be the last time.

How about we just don't announce ANYTHING about the baby's name till she's born? Yes, we'd sort of "settled" on Ella, then Kasey-something, but....prolly not!

You'll have to wait another, oh, fifteen weeks to find out who this little one will be! Yep, you too, Grandma! In fact, we're not even telling her sibs what her name will be, so no trying to be sneaky!

COMMUNICATE, people!!!

For the third day in a row, our entire household has been awakened (very loudly) at 6:20am because the couple that Kelsey is babysitting for this week and next can't manage to TALK to each other. One will send Kelsey a text saying she's going to pick her up at 7, but since hubby never got the message.....here he is, ringing the doorbell and getting the dog barking at 6:20. NO ONE has gone back to sleep. One day would have been understandable; when it happened a second time, it was a pain. Today, the wife picked Kelsey up before 6 (without the dog barking, I might add), but FORGOT to tell her husband not to pick her up.....so at 6:20, dog barking and doorbell ringing (not just once like civilized human beings, but over and over and over), I trudged downstairs in my jammies, with no glasses, carrying a screaming baby, to tell him that his babysitter was already AT HIS HOUSE.

Funny, the whole idea of Kelsey going over there this early every day was to make sure that THEIR kids didn't have to get up before the sun.....so THEIR 3-year-old and 1-year-old are pretty well rested. Us? Not so much. RUDE, folks, just RUDE!!!!

Would it hurt to maybe get the plan together before the sun goes down the night before?

Rant over. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blogreading.

Spring De-Clutter Project #2

The backyard! Shoot, might as well be the whole yard, really....the toy overload in the back has spilled out in all directions, so it was beyond time to get it tackled. You know, I thought of making each of these projects a "Tackle It Tuesday" dealie, but it would take me FOREVER to get it all done, so no way, Jose! I'm on a bit of a time crunch lately; I don't feel like getting stuck with a preggo-whale belly in the middle of the icky Alabama summer trying to get this house in order before the baby comes. PLUS....I just found out yesterday that my "What? I tell you before things actually happen!" hubby and his sister have planned a mini-reunion HERE at our house NEXT MONTH for their mother's birthday! Okay, no problem. His mom has two granddaughters she's never met, and his sister has FOUR neices she's never met, so it's pretty much time for a visit like this, but wow. Give a girl a clue, willya?

Alrighty, then, no worries, just on to the next project. We needed to get the backyard cleaned up, because the weather is finally warming up enough for the kiddos to play outside, and they are going stir crazy! We've got a sandbox (that up till today needed a home and sand) and hope to add a smallish swingset in the next month or two so the older girls can go outside and play safely in our yard while I'm tied to the inside taking care of a baby or making dinner. Problem was....the canopy we bought last year has been not only collecting the increasingly abundant rainwater from every storm we've had these last few weeks, but it's also been ripped, pulled apart, and relocated about six feet to the northeast! The toys underneath are woefully neglected and seem to be growing new forms of mold (shade, dampness, and cool air combine to form some interesting science projects) and the girls just don't want to go back there. Neither do we, to be honest. It's ugly, and since our backyard faces the street, we've pretty much got our dirties out there for the whole neighborhood to see.

Today, that's all gone. Thanks to Kelsey (my arm is almost totally numb today, I'm next to useless on one side for over-the-head stuff), the canopy is now down and in pieces ready for the trash pickup tomorrow. All of the mildewy, moldy toys are gone (also awaiting the garbage truck), and the sandbox now has a home, sandy contents, and a purpose! The girls are loving it, and I am too!

Yay!

Oh, and since I didn't get them done the other day, here's pics of the newly diet-ized bookshelves....lookie there, I actually have a whole shelf with nothing on it! And yes, the cat has overtaken the dog's bed...

The "school" shelf--newly rearranged to make room for extra-tall Sonlight Core books!

I wonder what else I can de-junk!? Gotta get Easter (and the Lads to Leaders Convention) over with first, but I'm on a roll and I'm not about to slow down!

I did it!!!!

I'm in shock; Kelsey is in shock; Pete is beside himself....but my bookshelves are almost audibly breathing a sigh of relief!!! If Kelsey hadn't killed my camera battery videotaping her speech over and over again, I'd have pictures, but I'm SOOOOO glad I did it! I've got one big, tall shelf for scrapbook/hobby/cookbook stuff; one big, tall shelf for school books (with enough empty space on it to allow for some storage of extra supplies too!), and I managed to weed out enough of the Bible-help books that we'll never use to get all of our Bible references on one small shelf in the hallway! I feel so organized!

And hey, I am definitely going to be bringing at least three milk-crates full of homeschool helps and literary classic-type stuff (not to mention the two boxes (is it two??) full of curriculum that has been toted to and from Europe TWICE now) to the NACS meeting Monday, for any of you in-town gals who are interested in cluttering up your shelves to help me rid my own! Ooh....I need to go through the girls' closet too!

I'm on a roll! Umm...this can't be nesting already, can it?

The battle of the books

I think after all these years of dragging boxes and boxes (and boxes, and boxes) of STUFF around, I've reached my breaking point. As Pete and I look to the not-so-distant future of finally settling into a house that we plan on living in for a good, long while, the daunting task of finding a place big enough for all of our STUFF brings reality to the forefront. We've got a lot of STUFF.

I'll be the first to admit, I have a problem when it comes to books. I don't just collect them; I tend toward hoarding. I'm like the crazy cat lady of books--if someone has a castoff, I'll take it and give it a new home on my shelf. Not such a bad thing--I do read most of them--but the problem lies in the fact that my shelf overfloweth. Shelves, I should say. Oh, and nevermind I still have homeschool books that didn't work for us when we started homeschooling eleven years ago. Why did I keep them? I haven't the foggiest idea.

Today, I'm going to do something I've not even considered humanly possible--I'm purging my shelves. I'm going to make the decision (that Pete's been asking me to make for years) to dedicate our schooling to ONE curriculum, and get rid of the STUFF that I'm never going to use or is just taking up space needed for something more pertinent.

Wish me luck; this is no small undertaking!