Reality set in today.

I had one of those "lightning bulb" moments today. No brilliant ideas, no major epiphanies warranting major life-altering risks, but I was involved in a series of conversations today that made me realize that Pete and I are at that really odd point in our life together where we are reaping the consequences of our decision to reverse his vasectomy. In two hours' time, I helped my daughter-in-law to be finalize some frazzling and stressful plans for her wedding to my son this coming Saturday, and then learned that my oldest daughter has less than a month left here with us in Alabama before she "officially" leaves to join her husband following his graduation from Army advanced training.

By our 22nd wedding anniversary, Pete and I will have two married children, living in two different states, with our home somewhere in between. Our original little-family will cease to exist. No longer will we be able to expect to spend holidays with our son and oldest daughter. We now have to share. Don't get me wrong; I'm not sad about this in the slightest; this is exactly what we wanted for both of our children. We knew that we only get to hold on to them until they reach adulthood. We knew that all the mistakes we made as *really* young parents would be mistakes they would likely struggle with during their adolescence ... and they did. They rebelled; they tested limits; they looked to the world for things that the world ultimately could never give them. But now, today as we had real, adult conversations with our real-adult children, we realized we have reached the end of an era.

And it hit me like a brick ...

If we hadn't had that vasectomy reversal done, if we hadn't chosen to put our family size into God's hands, our hands-on parenting job would be over. Our nest would be empty! We would be "free" to do whatever we wanted to do. In all honesty, THAT was what made me sad. Not that I am tied down to these young girls for sixteen more years, but that our lives would be so much less interesting had we never been blessed with them! It may be odd to consider, but I couldn't help thinking that living "for me" would be so boring that I would drive myself batty! Sure, things would be calmer now; I could sleep in, garden to my heart's content, spend HOURS on the internet, keep a clean house ...

No thanks. I like where we are now. I like knowing that while Pete is away for his three-week business trips, I have five little someones keeping my mind and body busy all day, every day. I like the noise; I like the activity.

I am only 38 years old; I'm too young to live the life of a "retired" stay-at-home mom. Maybe after Kasey has graduated and all of the little girls have moved on to whatever God has planned for each of them, maybe THEN I'll be ready to sit back and quilt, follow Pete around the globe and sit in a hotel room for days on end while he works. Not now.

Two years ago ...

God blessed us with our seventh child, Kasey Lee, on August 5th, 2009. It was a pregnancy fraught with complications but we can't imagine not having this spirited little girl in our lives! She has certainly been a *unique* addition to our family!

Even from birth, Kasey made sure we knew she was not going to fade into the background. Her high-pitched scream caught the attention of the maternity ward staff and let everyone know that Kasey meant business! Like her big brother, she couldn't stand to be left out of the excitement if there was ever anything going on; sleep was just not in her vocabulary and she has fought it with everything she has since the day she was born! Of course, she's also been entertaining us with her grins and her antics ever since she realized she could capture an audience!


In just two years, Kasey has earned the reputation of being somewhat of a tiny tornado. We have had many "Kasey-tastrophes" as a result of her active imagination and intense curiosity. She has an almost insatiable need to take things apart, dump things out, knock things down, and generally act as an instrument of destruction and mayhem. Watching dry dog food swell up in the water dish, separating grains of oatmeal or rice on the floor after emptying the entire package, spreading baby powder on the dark-maroon carpet (Mom didn't even know you could take the top OFF of that baby powder container!!), painting her face with her sisters' paint-by-number acrylic paints ... she certainly keeps us busy!!!

Knowing that this mischief-maker is just following her God-given bent to explore her surroundings, we are well aware that this is not 'rebel' behavior. One of these years, we'll be able to tame this wild creature God has entrusted to our care, and be able to channel her curiosity and all of that energy. Right now ... well, right now we just have to repeat to ourselves at least five times a day that God is building patience in us with this little ball of fire!

Happy Birthday Kasey!!!!

It's that time of year again!

Yep! Back to school! On Monday, we began our fourteenth year of homeschooling. That is almost unreal when I think about it. Fourteen years is a LONG time! All those years ago, I only intended to have Jon and Kelsey at home for the duration of our tour in Germany. We enrolled them in public school when we returned to the US, but that ended up being more of a disaster than the disaster we removed them from in the first place. It lasted three months. Their only other time in public school was that horrific semester in the public high school in Germany the second time we were stationed there. It was that nightmare that cemented my convictions and I have absolutely no intention of ever considering public schooling again. It was during that ridiculously long semester that God really opened my eyes to what that limited and unnatural socialization can do, and now ... well, now I pretty much laugh at anybody who brings up THAT argument against homeschooling. Quite honestly, socialization is at the very top of our list for why we DO homeschool. I believe it is a parent's responsibility to mold a child, and I am choosing to mold my younger children's social education by exposing them to real-world situations instead of the secluded microcosmic environment found only inside the walls of school classrooms.

Sorry, that turned into a mini-rant, didn't it? I mean no disrespect to anyone who chooses public schools for their child's education; I simply cannot 'go there' with my children anymore.

This year, I have two second graders and a kindergartener. Technically, Danica shouldn't start kindergarten until next year, since she doesn't turn five until almost the end of October; but she is just far too ready for me to put it off another year just to fit her in to the 'mold'. She isn't ready for much focused math yet, but considering the curriculum I used for Morgan and Jamie doesn't really have a kindergarten level, I'm not all that worried about it. It's kindergarten. And she's four. There will be plenty of time for calculus later.

Morgan will be my challenge this year, as I suspect she will for most of her schooling career. She is not detail-oriented, so she struggles with paying close attention to words she is trying to sound out phonetically. She also has trouble forming letters with a pencil; her fine motor skills are just not up to par. Both of these issues are starting to make her very self-conscious, so we are going to have to do a LOT of work on them this year. She's very much like her older sister Kelsey, who did a lot of guessing at words and letters, and didn't really care how messy her penmanship was. It affected Kelsey's comprehension skills as she advanced in learning levels, and I really don't want to see that happen with Morgan.

Jamie is an easy learner; she LOVES to soak up information, and the more detailed, the better. While Morgan wants to know WHY, Jamie wants to know HOW and WHAT. Morgan likes stories; Jamie loves maps, charts, and lists. You'd think this would be an easy child to teach but all of her details carry with it one glaringly obvious challenge--perfectionism. Just like her brother, Jamie gets incredibly frustrated if she can't get something perfect the first time. Correcting something is akin to dental drilling without anesthesia!

Curriculum for this lot was a tough call. It simply will NOT do to have a different book for each child. Everything has to be the same, or I get a complete revolt. I've tried a lot of different things over the years, but I think this year we finally have a good fit. I have really come to love Sonlight, especially in the early years, when children can be "hooked" into loving reading. Sonlight's book choices are wonderful, and they offer enough to hook Morgan with an engaging story while providing the detail that Jamie needs to fill her brain. This year we are jumping into world history with Sonlight's Core B, from creation to the fall of Rome. This works well with my overall plan to at least roughly adhere to a four-year cycle of history as outlined in The Well-Trained Mind. Core B is Sonlight's typical first-grade program, but considering I'm using the Core for only history, science, and read-aloud literature, it's not really that big of a deal. The girls' math and language arts books are really all that indicates 'grade level'. Morgan and Jamie are using Rod & Staff's Working Arithmetic 2, and they're currently working through Explode the Code book 3. Danica is beginning her year in Explode the Code book 1, and we are also using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading as reinforcement of phonics instruction. For spelling, we are using Christian Liberty Press' first grade spelling book, mainly because Morgan needs the reinforcement as we repeat, repeat, repeat the phonetic rules. Jamie could probably handle the second grade book, but again ... they *have to* be equal. Funny, considering they are 11 months apart!

My rough plan (I'm a planner, can't stand going into something without a firm idea of where we're going) is to use Sonlight for all of the girls for history, science, and literature in the early years (grammar stage), the Mystery of History, Apologia 'elementary' science, and Learning Language Arts Through Literature for the middle years (dialectic stage), and Tapestry of Grace with Apologia high school science for the high school years (rhetoric stage). I want to transition to Saxon Math for pre-algebra, but for right now Rod and Staff is great for learning the basics.

If you'd like to share what tools you're using in your homeschool this year, or you'd like to see/read about what others are using, hop on over to The Heart of the Matter and join in the Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop!

Arachnophobes beware!

I have never been, to ANY degree, a "fan" of creepy crawlies. Studying insects is not my favorite part of homeschooling. I squish anything that moves, most of the time. And SPIDERS? I dare say I have been turned into an instant-Ninja on many, many occasions by either walking into a spider web or finding one of the little creepy critters walking waaaaaay too close to me.

But right now, I am going way out of character. I am going to freak out anybody who has ever struggled with arachnophobia at all by posting some pictures of what we have found on our front porch this last week. I walked out to get the mail early last week and found this enormous (at least for my spider-o-phobic sensitivities) eight-legged creature spinning a web from the eave of our front porch. Scared the stew out of me. Thankfully I had a friend here at the house watching the girls during one of my numerous physical therapy appointments, and she informed me that it's a totally harmless "garden" spider, a golden orb weaver. The more I looked (gawked, in complete disbelief, would be a better description), the more I realized that this creature is truly beautiful. Just look at the coloration!

She's even pretty from behind! Here she is a couple of days after she showed up, finally munching on a spider that had gotten trapped in her web (her prey's body was the size of a June bug but had the markings of a brown recluse)

This wasn't an incredibly detailed picture, but I kind of like how the camera focused on the web from that odd angle ... and the way her legs are all curled up, WOW, she's scary looking from this side!

The girls have become a bit enamored with "Charlotte" (yes, they named her!), and they stop to say hello and goodbye every time they pass her on the porch. We decided a while ago that she needed to stay, especially since orb weavers are good at catching some bigger flying pests ... like wasps! So we'll let her stick around and catch bugs and spin her web on our porch. Today, Charlotte has a visitor ... a MALE visitor!

Just look at the size difference between Charlotte and her new beau! Methinks he may become lunch after ... well, um, after a while. <>

We are certainly "enjoying" the nature display that is going on right in front of us, but I'm not sure how I'll feel once there are a hundred or so (yes, I know ... probably a LOT more) baby spiders floating around. Better brush up on my Ninja skills, huh?

Oh, the really hilarious bit of irony? We started our new homeschool year today. I actually set up most of the lesson plans before the surgery, two months ago, so I only had to "grab and go" today ... and whaddaya know? Our very first scheduled read-aloud of the year?

Charlotte's Web.

I just do.

Probably THE most frequent comment (or is it a question?) I get from people regarding either the size of our family or the fact that we homeschool our children or that my husband is retired military and now working in a job that keeps him out of the country for three weeks at a time while I remain home to "hold down the fort" is:

"I just don't know how you do it."

I'm no superwoman. Seriously. I don't claim to be. I'm no "saint" (at least not in the typical understanding of the word, but that's another post entirely!); I don't have some strange ability to do things that other people don't. Oh, and for the record, I DON'T "have the patience of Job". Well, maybe I do. He did get flustered with people telling him how he was doing everything wrong and yes, he even questioned God on a couple occasions. Hmm ... maybe I *do* have the patience of Job? Anyway ...

I actually have had a couple of people in the last few years come right out and tell me that they would NEVER put up with the life I live. That I just have too much "on my plate" and that it's not fair to any human being to "have to" do what I do as a stay-at-home, homeschooling mother of seven and wife to an oft-absentee husband. "Why do you put up with it??," I'm asked.

My answer to both of these questions is quite simple--I just do. I do what I do because it's my reality in life. It isn't glamorous, it's exhausting, and quite honestly, it's pretty lonely a good portion of the time. But it's my life, and I love it--warts and all. God uses my life as it is right now to mold me--to shape me into something HE wants me to be.

God has never handed me anything that He couldn't get me through. He *has*, however, allowed situations to come into my life that have rocked me sideways, upside-down, and inside-out, and in all honesty, I've wondered out loud just how much He thought I could take! The answer has always been right there in front of me in the Bible:  “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ~2 Corinthians 12:9.


Sure, I'd love to have a life of ease. Wouldn't we all? I'd love to have my husband home with me all the time; I'd love to have date nights, romantic getaways, and shoot, just the ability to depend on him to be there every day to do the things I just can't do! I'd love that. I'd love to have an open schedule to go do lovely things with my girlfriends that I miss so much, to go have "girls night out" and have an opportunity to interact with others. But it's not my reality. Not now. It may never be! And you know what? I'm just fine with that. In fact, I love it. WHY? Because I trust that whatever this crazy life throws at me, God can get me through. Maybe not "literally", because I know God is not going to come down here and fold my laundry and lift the heavy garbage into the trash can when I can barely get it off the ground with my one good hand, but God will make a way. He always does. I believe that with everything in me. Why?


I just do. 

Simple Woman's Daybook 7/25/2011

FOR TODAY - July 25, 2011 

Outside My Window... It is gray and ever-so-slightly breezy. I'm hoping that we get some rain to cool things off and water my droopy plants for me.

I am thinking... about how disorder breeds discontentment and stress. I simply cannot stand having things as disorganized and messy as they have been these last few weeks, but with Pete gone and one arm out of commission, it's SLOW going trying to get everything back in order. Already this morning I have had to take a break just to rest for a minute and keep the pain at bay. I want so badly for my home to be orderly and clean, but it's just not my reality right now. 

In the learning room... I can't find the floor. I'm glad I moved the schoolroom into the back of the house where it is not in the regular flow of traffic, because I think it would drive me batty to have to look at that mess all the time. I need to get it in order, because the last of the girls' 2nd grade books will be here this week, and we need to get started as soon as possible!

I am thankful for... yet another three-week separation coming to an end. Having the hubby travel every other month with his job might be a blessing financially, but WOW is it hard on me to do the temporary single-mom thing right now.

From the kitchen... I'm trying (there's a lot of trying, but not so much getting-done) to get the menu plan together so I can have some method to the grocery shopping madness that has me so discouraged. I really want to be able to make some banana nut bread tomorrow. Not today.

I am wearing... denim shorts and my 'cleaning' tee.

I am creating... a haven for the older two girls. They have wanted a "big girl" dorm-style bedroom for a while, and it's definitely looking good in there!!!

I am going... to be doing a LOT of cleaning this week, as my shoulder allows. Pain=the great slower-downer.

I am reading... Large Family Logistics and Managers of Their Chores.

I am hoping... to be able to leave a clean, organized home behind on Friday morning when I leave for Atlanta to pick the hubby up from the airport. I really do not like coming home to a mess, and I know that, while he understands my physical limitations right now, Pete would like to just come home and enjoy being home too.

I am hearing... Disney Jamz playing on the CD player in Morgan and Jamie's room, and the girls trying to sing along to songs they have never heard before--FUNNY!!!

Around the house... there is a LOT to do. I feel horrible just sitting here typing, even if I do need the break.

One of my favorite things... seeing the sweet, smiling face of my beloved as he gets off of the plane after one of his three-week-long business trips. 

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: Looking for some finger-food ideas for Jon and Meagan's wedding reception, CLEANING, getting a plan in order for our school year, grocery shopping, then on Friday we head off to Atlanta to pick Pete up and then enjoy a Braves game together (and meeting up with a high school friend!), hopefully seeing some other friends on Saturday.

Here is picture thought I am sharing... Kasey with her "boggle" (I love that!!!) hanging out on the pile of laundry that I dragged in from the bonus room (wrapped up in a comforter since I can't carry more than an armful at a time) to fold. Can you tell I've got my work cut out for me?

If you're a blogger who longs for simplicity and relishes the "little" things, join all of the Daybookers who enjoy taking part in the Simple Woman's Daybook!

One little thing

Have you ever noticed how it's always the unexpected little things that sideline even the best-laid plans? It's the eyelash in the eye of the 300-pound running back that stops the football game. It's the little O-ring that spells disaster for space travel. It's the little bird flying into the engine that brings down the jet plane.

In the garden of Eden, it was one little word. "Not". Eve was deceived with one word. Shoot, the first two people on earth only had ONE rule to follow--ONE thing they weren't allowed to do. And one little word, one thought, one DOUBT separated them from the paradise God had created for them.

Why do we think we are any stronger? Why is it we will not only allow ourselves to remain in a situation that sears our conscience and blinds us to sin, but we actually tell ourselves that "it's nothing", "it's no big deal", "it won't hurt me", or the almost-funny one--"it's not a salvation issue". Folks, when we start justifying, we're already standing ON the thin ice.

Don't fight it!!!

I have had to learn some very difficult lessons these last few weeks since my surgery. Number 1 was that I *can* say the words, "I can't do this; can you help me please?" (would you believe I had a hard time even typing that??) without spontaneously combusting. HARD lesson there. I'm independent. At times I'm sure I look like a stubborn 2-year-old struggling with my shoelaces saying, "I do it myself!"

Sigh. I'm getting there. Having to have help just pulling up my pants that first two days was enough to break my stubbornness in that regard. Well, maybe. Almost. Eh, nevermind. I'm still stubborn. But I'm learning to ask for help when I need it. Really, I am.

Lesson number 2 was not just difficult, it was painful. See, I started occupational therapy four days after the surgery. Occupational therapy, I'm told, isn't the same as physical therapy. It's designed to get your body back to a functional level of usefulness. I had to have my shoulder re-trained to do the things it's been doing for 38 years without a single thought. And to accomplish those things started out with something I wasn't prepared for--total submission and complete surrender to the therapist.

When I found out that my first couple of weeks was simply laying still and letting the therapist move my arm while laying completely relaxed, I went weak at the knees, turned white as a sheet, and panicked. WHAAAT?? I have to let YOU move my arm??? But you don't know how much it hurts!!! How are you going to know when to stop? The screaming inside my head was barely visible behind the smirk I tried to keep up on my colorless face. That first day of therapy was agony. The second day, same deal. But then I realized that the therapist wasn't going to kill me. She wasn't going to rip my arm off, and she wasn't going to drop it and let me get hurt. I just needed to relaaaaaaaaax.

Much easier said than done. Thankfully, though, I finally learned to trust her, and now we have a really good working relationship with my poor shoulder in the middle. I like my therapist most of the time, but now that we've moved past the "passive" part to the "active" stuff, it really does feel more like torture than therapy. Thing is, though, since I trust that she's not going to break me, I can believe her when she says, "trust me, you're going to be fine."

This trust thing is not something we humans do well. We want to be in charge. We can't seem to get it through our thick heads that maybe, just MAYBE we can't do everything by ourselves. That might just be the hardest aspect of Christianity to swallow--submission and complete surrender.

Growing up in south Florida, I became very familiar with something called an undertow. Ever heard of it? Well, not far from the shoreline, there is a current flowing under the surface of the water--you can't see it, you don't even know it's there--until you are swimming along with your little pool floaties and your Coppertoned nose and you suddenly realize you aren't able to go where you want to go. Funny thing about undertows is that they can be deadly. People who don't know what's going on will struggle against the current, exhausting themselves to the point of drowning, trying to swim back to their little umbrella and beach towel on the shore. But ironically, to escape from an undertow, the only thing you can do is submit to the force that is greater than you are and swim parallel to the shore instead of toward it. Eventually the current just disappears and you can swim your happy little self onto the beach and walk back to your towel and flip-flops.

That is the kind of submission God wants from us--COMPLETE submission. If you fight a current, you may look awfully busy, but you will likely just end up exhausted and in danger. I can fight against my physical therapist when she is stretching my arm in the most unnatural of positions I could ever imagine five weeks post-op, but I will only end up hurting myself. Believe it or not, God actually does know what we are capable of, even if we think there is NO WAY we can stretch that far. And maybe, just maybe He is trying to take us further down the shoreline to show us something we would never see if we didn't get caught up in the undertow we're fighting so hard. He may not be in the business of raising the dead or turning water to wine anymore, but God can and does do some amazingly wonderful things when we just get our pride and our stubborn little selves out of the way and just let HIM stretch us.

Homemade Laundry Soap--a tutorial

Back in February, my curiosity (and boredom, maybe?) got the best of me and I decided I was going to try my hand at making our laundry detergent. With five children at home (and two of those five CHAMPION mess-makers) plus a hubby, I do a LOT of laundry. At my cheapest, I could only find us a 144-load box of Arm & Hammer laundry detergent for $8.99, and that lasted us on average about three and a half weeks. Not good enough. I'm cheap. So off I went searching for a powdered laundry soap recipe that I could make at home relatively simply. The Duggars' liquid detergent recipe was intriguing, but the idea of keeping a bucketload of soap that resembled egg drop soup around the tiny tornado who lives in this house was ... well, frightening. I found a powdered recipe, hunted down the ingredients, whipped up my experimental batch of soap and headed off to see if I could prove it unworthy of duplication.

Fail.

It worked beautifully. Not a single glitch in my laundry. I haven't found any more stains on my clothes, nor have I smelled any funky left-behind odors. I simply have clean, fragrance-free clothes! And, uh ... cost-wise, it was INCREDIBLE. I bought everything I needed to make it for less than $8. I used the last of that batch of detergent TODAY. No kidding--it lasted a family of seven for five and a half months! Wowsa! Wanna see? Well, here's what we did today to mix up our second batch.

First things first--the "easy" part. I combined a box of 20 Mule Team Borax in a big tub thing with a box of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. Mine has been sitting a while, so it was a little clumpy. I used a potato masher to break up the clumps.

Once the powdery stuff was combined, I pulled out my bar of Fels Naphtha soap that has been opened and drying in my laundry room for a few weeks. It needs to be grated, so the drier the better. When I made the last batch, I used two bars of Ivory soap, and it seemed a bit gummy when I used my cheese grater (I use the smaller microplane-style grater normally used for parmesan cheese because of the smaller hole--it makes for a finer consistency); I let the Fels dry longer so it didn't gum up when it was grated. My helper Morgan wanted to grate the soap, and her progress after almost five minutes was pretty minimal, she got a bit exhausted.

We chocked the hand-grater and stepped it up a bit. I decided that the Fels was just too hard to grate by hand for Mo (and with my shoulder still on the mend, I wasn't going to even attempt it), so I got out a cutting board and chopped the bar into smaller chunks to put in the food processor.

Here's the consistency I ended up with after whizzing it around for about 30 seconds--perfect! Kind of resembled grits, or coarse cornmeal.

After the bar soap was grated, it was time to combine it all. It took some doing, but I managed to get it mixed up fairly well even with limited shoulder strength. I poured it all into the Rubbermaid container that I keep in the laundry room, and here it is, all full and happy, along with the coffee scoop I use to measure out just the right amount (two heaping tablespoons) per load.

And finally, all closed up, sitting on the laundry shelf ready to tackle the next load of dirties!

I need inspiration!

I'm finally starting to get back my ability to type without pain. It's WONDERFUL. I can't write with a pen on paper yet, at least not more than just a signature. Who knew how much of your shoulder it took to write??

At any rate, I've obviously fallen ridiculously behind in my blogging. I used to view it almost as a daily vitamin (or maybe an enema? LOL), one of very few "simple" things I can do every day to keep my mind focused and functioning on all eight cylinders. But with the craziness of the new year, my desire to do some bloggy reconstruction, and having my surgery moved up from when we figured it would be, other things took precedence.

I think I'm needing this daily vitamin once again. But now I'm finding myself with a ridiculously frustrating case of writer's block. Got any good bloggy reads you've found lately that you would like to share with me to offer inspiration? Do tell!

What I've been up to ...

Hi there! Guess what I've been up to!?

On the 9th of June, I had arthroscopic surgery to repair my rotator cuff. It wasn't torn, but I had extensive calcification on the tendon, requiring it to be cut, scraped, and then reattached. Same as if I had torn the tendon completely. It is INCREDIBLY painful. I'm not even going to attempt to sugarcoat it. For those of you who have had your rotator cuff repaired, I'm sure you are cringing right now just bringing that pain back to memory. For those who haven't, my only advice is to baby that rotator cuff so you never have to have it done.

It has been really difficult for me to be totally incapacitated. I don't do "dependent" well. And I am REALLY not good with my left hand! I'm sure it's been rather humorous and entertaining to watch, but my hubby has been graciously silent about the "show" he's been getting these last three weeks.

So what have YOU been up to?

Bloggy overhaul for the new year--construction warning!

If you are one of the few folks who visit my blog occasionally, I must warn you--I have a renovating bug and a small (okay, nonexistent) budget, so my blog is going to be undergoing an overhaul.  I shall have some free time on my hands when hubby leaves for three weeks in Germany just after the new year, so.....blog I will!

Just a warning!  Proceed at your own risk!  LOL

A twist on an annoying "tag"!

You know those horrid games that once a year some random person will play on you either via your email or Facebook, where you are "tagged" along with 25-or-so other people to list 25ish random things about yourself or answer a bunch of off-the-wall questions, then (of course) pass it on so you can torture tag 25 MORE people with the same "game"?

Yeah, well apparently it's that time of year again.  Normally if I'm tagged by someone who knows me pretty well, I'll either totally ignore the request or I'll (in a feeble attempt at consideration for THEIR time spent on such a monumental time-waster) list things that I know will make the other person laugh.  This time, though, well, the person who tagged me really doesn't know me all *that* well, and shoot ... I'm bored.  But this time, I'm switching things up a bit!  I'm taking the random out of it, and in a real, true effort to make the "real" me a little bit more obvious, I'm gonna do this MY way.  Hmm ... I guess that's Fact #1--I'm apparently a bit of a control freak?

Here's my take on it--I'm going to list not 25, not 30, but 37 things that make me happy.  Why 37?  Because that's how old I am this year.  Why things that make me happy?  Because THAT is how you understand what makes someone tick.  I'm not going to "tag" anyone else; I'm going to leave any participation in this little game completely voluntary--but you know what?  I'm actually, really, and truly interested in how people would answer this very same question!  If you want to, I'd love to have you play too!  So, if you make it through my list, feel free to comment with a link to your OWN list!  Okay?  Alrighty then--now here goes.

37 Things That Make Kris Happy ...
1. Devil's food cookies.  They're those little chocolate-covered circles of devil's food cake that have a thin layer of marshmallow under the chocolate coating.  I inherited my love for these little yummies from my Papaw (who I don't think ever told another soul that he had such an affinity for them) and I'm just so sad that I can't seem to find them anywhere anymore except in the low fat version (which we all know is NOT the real thing).
2. Big, fat, red roses.  Those big, deep-crimson blooms that fill up your entire hand.  Awesome.
3. Gardenia bushes.  My nose is tuned in to that scent every time I'm anywhere near them, and my memory immediately goes straight back to my Mamaw.
4. Waking up late on a Saturday morning with two or three little ones asleep between me and hubby--instant silent smiles shared across little blonde heads ... ahhh.
5. Having a cat curl up on my lap.
6. Freshly finished scrapbook pages.
7. Thin crust NY-style cheese pizza.  I have still yet to have a slice as yummy as the one we last had the night before our wedding, at New York Style Pizza in the shopping center at the corner of Jog and Lake Worth Roads.  One day ...
8. My hubby's homemade buttered popcorn.  He makes the BEST buttered popcorn.  Better than any movie theater!  I've watched him; I've done exactly the same things he does when I attempt to make it, but I can't recreate it.  I guess the secret ingredient really is love--and he's never hesitant or even huffy when I ask him to make up a batch.  Seriously--it can even make an Adam Sandler movie worth watching!
9. The beach.  Not sunbathing; not the skin-fest, but the actual sand-meets-ocean *beach*.  The sounds of the surf, the smells, the beauty in the horizon, the solitude even among the crowd, the sheer magnificence of God's creation.  Wow.
10. Snow-capped mountains.  More specifically, the Bavarian Alps.  I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to camp at their feet three times in my life.  Yet another grandiose display of the power found in the Master Artist's brush.
11. A baby's laughter.  Communication that needs no translation!
12. The smell of fresh-cut-grass.
13. Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars dipped in Jif creamy peanut butter.
14. Seeing my grandmother's, my great-grandmother's, and my great-grandfather's Bibles on my shelf.  It is a heritage of faith that I hope and pray continues through my children.
15. Cinnamon Spice tea from Barnes & Noble's Starbucks.
16. The sight and sounds of my children playing together peacefully.
17. Philly cheesesteaks.
18. A phone call from an old friend that lasts altogether too long but is altogether too short.
19. Newly-opened Crayola crayons.
20. Being at home with my children--few sacrifices in this life are as rewarding!
21. Mamaw's carrot cake.
22. Freshly washed cloth diapers drying on the clothesline. 
23. York Peppermint Patties!!!
24. Seeing soldiers in formation. 
25. The scent of Jergen's lotion--the "original" sweet cherry almond fragrance.
26. Carvel ice cream cake. Maybe one of these years, my family will take the hints I've been dropping?
27. Homeschooling.  Everything about it makes me happy.  This could be a list completely by itself--the box of books arriving at the door, the stacks of papers, supplies, and folders........the whole experience of being the one teaching my children how to learn and love learning; it's such an amazing blessing that I thank God for every day!
28. Having a crying toddler bring me a boo-boo to kiss.
29. Five-year-old enthusiasm because she's just figured out how to curl her tongue!
30. Bubble baths in those long, deep German bathtubs!  OH how I miss those tubs!!!
31. Seeing God "show off" by providing for our needs--usually with a major flourish!
32. Gibson's BBQ
33. Time spent in fellowship with other Christians.  There truly is no finer company!
34. Comfy jeans.
35. Clean, crisp sheets.
36. Homecomings.
37. This--having our whole family, including its new "extension", all together.  We're not a perfect family, we can't get everyone smiling at the camera at the same time, the camera makes at least one (in this case, two) of us look thirty pounds heavier, and one of us is inevitably wearing something as offbeat as Shelby's Elmo slippers, but I wouldn't trade this family for anything this side of heaven!

My mission

... and I did choose to accept it, is to somehow re-create the (okay, I'm going to steal one of my teenage daughter's descriptions here) awesomeness of the little crusty, chewy bits of doughy goodness that we had in Germany.  There truly is NOTHING that compares to a warm brotchen with soft, salty, creamy butter slathered all over it.  Nothing.  And I'm determined to learn how to do it.

I have one German cookbook with a brotchen recipe in it, and I gave it my first try yesterday, with the hopes of accompanying a hearty German meal of bratwurst, sauerkraut (doctored, of course, as Pete's Oma showed me with bacon, onions, and apples), potato balls and a brown mushroom gravy.  Here's what I ended up with:

It was yummy enough, but the brotchen was all wrong.  I'm off to find another recipe that will work.

Lessons from Facebook

Unlikely source of an education of sorts in spiritual matters, no?  Funny how God works sometimes to teach us things!

Recently, I had a security breach on my computer, all due to a lot of the junk I probably should never have been bothering to expose myself to in the first place.  Facebook is terrible about having applications that require you to "allow" access to your profile, and unfortunately, a lot more than that.  You may "only" be playing Farmville or placing a badge on your profile, but at what cost?  I am STILL having issues with my computer.  I can't use any "remember me" applications on anything, regardless of its connection to Facebook.  I even managed to trace my Blogger issues back to that Facebook hacker incident.  I had a period of about a week that I was completely unable to access my Facebook at ALL--I coudln't sign in, I couldn't change my password, nothing.  It was insane.  And it probably wouldn't have been a big deal at all if I had another way to keep in daily contact with my deployed son, but sometimes you just have to deal with the demons, right? 

Do we?

Once I got my mess straightened out, I came across a rather heated disagreement between one of my friends and another random poster on a random blog, about the toll "allowed" access to sin in our lives takes on us spiritually ... and since the whole Facebook application debacle was fresh in my mind, it occurred to me that there is a huge lesson to be learned about what we "allow" in our lives. 

I receive constant (every day....multiple times a day, in fact) invitations to one application or another on Facebook.  It all seemed so harmless when I first signed up for the social network.  I had NO IDEA the damage that those completely benign forms of virtual entertainment could bring upon me.  See, plenty of people use Facebook and its applications with absolutely no problem.  They never have any security issues, never have problems with applications or what is "allowed" on their profile.  But then there are those of us who DO get 'hacked', whether inconvenienced with minor disturbances like I was, or completely barraged with viruses and identity theft.

We need to value and protect our identity and our computers, yes.  No doubt about that.  We need to pay special attention to filters on our computer and whether we're properly protected against outside malice.  But do you realize that, by and large, most people who would be ridiculously careful with their virtual life are not nearly as diligent to protect their hearts and minds?

Think about the last time you plopped yourself down and mindlessly watched TV because there was nothing better to do.  What did you see?  What commercials flashed before your eyes while your brain was checked out, yet still looking at the screen?  How about what movies you've watched lately, whether via DVD or in the theaters?  What books and other printed media have you filled your mind with?  In short, what have you occupied your time with in the name of entertainment?

And what of "entertainment" itself?  What purpose should it serve to us?  If we should rightly discern what entertainment to take part in, why should we not define its entire purpose and what worth it should hold in our lives?  Permit me to quote Webster's 1828 Dictionary, if you would (I prefer older, more Biblically grounded definitions of our words to the current watery versions) ...

ENTERTA'INMENT, n. The receiving and accommodating of guests, either with or without reward. The hospitable man delights in the entertainment of his friends.
     1. Provisions of the table; hence also, a feast; a superb dinner or supper.
     2. The amusement, pleasure or instruction, derived from conversation, discourse, argument, oratory, music, dramatic performances, &c.; the pleasure which the mind receives from any thing interesting, and which holds or arrests the attention. We often have rich entertainment, in the conversation of a learned friend.
     3. Reception; admission.
     4. The state of being in pay or service. [Not used.]
     5. Payment of those retained in service.
     6. That which entertains; that which serves for amusement; the lower comedy; farce.

It is the second definition I would like to center on for just a minute--"the amusement, pleasure or instruction, derived from conversation, discourse, argument, oratory, music, dramatic performances, &c."--this pretty much sums up what our current definition of entertainment is, does it not?  Interestingly enough, when I looked up 'amusement', one of the definitions was "a distraction".  Yup, right on the money.  Distraction from reality is what we seek in our entertainment, isn't it?  To be entertained is to be swept away, in a manner of speaking, to another world, free from the cares and worries of the current one.  We want something to occupy our mind--something we don't have to *do* for ourself; something that requires nothing of us except our attention.  Am I wrong in that assumption?

Here's where it gets tricky for the Christian.  What we choose to (and it is a choice!) allow to entertain us WILL be what our mind dwells on.  Have you ever watched a cooking show and realized that suddenly you are incredibly hungry?  How about getting thirsty watching a Pepsi or Coke commercial?  Ever had the sudden urge to complain about your relationship with your spouse after watching one of those cheesy chick-flicks or reading a romance novel? 

**For the record, I will admit my fervent distaste in both chick-flicks and romance novels.  I think they're a recipe for disaster.  I could go on for HOURS, but not now.**

The entertainment industry depends on awakening our desire for whatever "product" they're selling--whether it's an actual product or an idea or ratings or box-office numbers or a spot on the bestseller list.  They don't get paid unless you partake.  And, dear Christian brethren, just what are you **getting** when you partake?  Is it an unhealthy dose of profanity, sexual innuendo (or worse, perverse reinactments of the "real deal"), immodest dress and behavior, violence, witchcraft, drunkenness, and debauchery?

"But it's just entertainment.  It's just 'pretend'; it's not real; there's no harm in it."

Is there not? 

How's your conscience doing?  Is it seared?  What is your mind dwelling on?  What should the mind of a Christian be dwelling on??  As in all things pertaining to life and godliness, let the Word of God be the one to speak:

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."  (Philippians 4:8  ESV)

What do we think about?  What "rules" us and our choices about how we spend our downtime and our moments of diversion from work and responsibility?  Christian parents, are you raising up a generation of spiritual weaklings who look, sound, and think like their worldly counterparts?  Are you training them up in godliness?  Are you teaching your children to abhor the things which God abhors, or are you celebrating it with their "entertaining" choices for movies and reading material?  Are you training them to see things that God detests as "okay" as long as it's "pretend"?

"Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."  (Proverbs 4:23 NLT)

We guard our computers with virus protection.  We guard our identity.  We guard our houses.  We guard our purses, our wallets, our cell phones, our vehicles, and we even microchip our pets.  But do we truly, diligently, and vehemently guard our hearts????  Are our choices for entertainment any better, any more wholesome, any more worthy of our time (and God's) than those of people who do not claim the name of Christ?  Are we offended by the things that offend God, or have we been thoroughly brainwashed by the world into believing things are "okay" if we are only watching/reading them and not actively taking part in them?  Need I quote it?  Sure, I will.  "For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7 ESV)  Do we even CARE to see things as God sees them, or are we more content and comfortable fitting in with the world?

Like it or not, when you view a TV show or movie, you are in effect clicking on the "allow" button to your heart.  You allow Satan access to your mind and your heart, and that is no light matter.  Just as with our Facebook accounts, we have no control once we do the "allowing" what will be affected.  It could be nothing.  Or it could completely infect your life.  Why take that chance??? 

"Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind." (Romans 12:2 GNB)

Does your mind need some anti-malware protection and a good re-format?