Mom vs. the Dot: Making it COUNT!

 The time I burnt a plastic storage container to the stove because I turned on the wrong burner while doing 10 other things... I just have to blog about For The Love by Jen Hatmaker one last time.  Buy this book - it's perfect.  You need it.  It will make you laugh, it will make you cry.  It will make you dig deep and think about why you do what you do.  Add it to your Christmas Wish List!  Really. Here's some of the good stuff from her book: ----- "The only thing worse than this unattainable standard is the guilt that follows when perfection proves impossible.  Sister, what could be crazier than a woman who wakes children up at dawn, feeds and waters them while listening and affirming their chatter, gets them dressed and off to school with signed folders, then perhaps heads to a job to put food on the table or stays home to raise littles who cannot even wipe, completes one million domestic chores that multiply like gremlins, b...

Friday: Child number one down. With the sniffles. Friday Night: Child number one visits me three times during the night to snuggle.  It is magical and heartwarming.  Not really.  He snerfed all over my pillow.  I'm doomed. Saturday: Child number two has a sore throat.  Needs Tylenol.  No sniffles yet. Saturday Night:  Boy child sneezes directly in my face.  Spit droplets in my eyes and nose.  There is no more efficient method for delivering germs.  This is it. Sunday: Child number two down.  Coughs and snots all day.  I haven't caught it yet, but let's be real here.  There is no hope of escaping this.  The germs are hovering over me like Ziggy's storm cloud. Monday:  I wake up with the throat of a centuries-old firey dragon.  Red hot coals are burning the back of my throat.  I think Dobby snuck in last night and performed an engorgement charm on my nose.  Awesome. I make it through...

After work today, I decided I'd be super-efficient and get my hair cut while I was without kids. I do a little office work a few hours a week and my dear husband stays home, homeschools the kids and gives me time to shop by myself.  Love. In order to be quick, I told the haircut lady I'd skip the hairwashing.  (It costs more and takes more time.  "I don't really need it, anyway," I thought to myself.) So she spritzed me down with water and commenced the haircut. Being the chatty conversationalist, I commented on her accent and asked where she was from.  "Africa." She told me.  How cool is that?  I love learning about people.  It's sort of a past time, I guess you might say.  I don't have much time for hobbies, but I do have time for people. We chatted away, and I discovered she had gone directly from Africa to Alaska.  Whew!  What a different climate!  I asked if she'd ever seen snow.  She said "No.  I was afr...

When I disappear from blogging for days at a time, know that I am with my family.  We are homeschooling.  We are going to see doctors and dentists.  We are at the library, church, or Walmart. Sometimes, ( okay let's be honest here )...almost every time I mention that I homeschool to a parent who sends their kids to school or to someone who is an empty nester, a strange expression and momentary, slightly awkward silence follow.  Most hold back what is ready to burst out of their mouths: "Why in the world would you want to do that?  Are you CRAZY?!!" Yes.  Yes I am. I'm crazy about my kids.  I take pictures and videos of them all the time (like most moms I know).  I buy them foods and snacks that I know they love.  (again, like most moms)  I let them dress in the style that is the most "them." I help them discover and pursue their interests. (yep, everyone does that, too). And then comes the clincher :   I spe...

Dear Day Gone Awry, You and I were getting along so well!  The sun was shining.  I was full of energy and ambition. I was able to clean and organize so many things today.  I put away last summer's clothes.  I mopped the floor (first time in months)...due to an apple juice spill, but still.  That's besides the point.  We went to the library.  We visited grandparents.  It was glorious! I was feeling so good about myself and all I had accomplished today.  As the sun set and I closed the back door, I told myself I would make an easy dinner and check Facebook while it cooked.  I hadn't heard the stealthy "Bwahahaha!  That's what you think!" from you until it was too late! To continue my super-efficiency and awesomeness from the day, I plopped a piece of firewood and some cardboard boxes in the woodstove.  Little did I know that the whipping winds outside were consipiring to blow all the smoke my nice idea for a fire righ...

In the past year, I have learned many things.  About church.  About people. About myself. The most mind-blowing conversation I had about church, and why I go, was with someone who doesn't go to church. Not that anything we discussed was particularly profound. Not that I witnessed to her in a way that brought her to her knees in repentance and lead her to the Lord (although that would've been great.) No - we talked about our kids.  About life as moms. We shared about our roles as a small business owner and as a pastor's wife of a small town church. And our conversation ended with this question: " How do you bring people in?  That was the mind-blowing part. See?  Not earth-shattering. But I've been thinking about it ever since. I've gone to church my entire life.  Went to church camp when I was less than a year old, and every year after until my teen years.  My dad has either been a youth pastor or the head pastor pretty...

Have you ever been through a week when, despite your best efforts, it's crazy busy? What once were seven beautiful blank squares on your calendar now have so much pen ink on them that the white background is virtually covered? I've just had one of those weeks.  And every activity placed on the calendar was a "good" one.  Participating in a church ministry, music practices, manning a kids' activity area for an evening, and a homeschool get-together.  And a doctor's appointment or two.  It shouldn't be too much.  I wanted to do all these things. But here I am, Wednesday evening, feeling BULLDOZED. I feel as though the earth has been moved from beneath my feet and I've been pushed and pushed and pushed and all I can do is go along with it. I set up all the meetings.  I agreed to attend practices.  I had to mentally prepare myself to get through each activity without exhausting myself too much. (This sounds self-centered, but when you have l...

Sometimes in life, despite our best efforts to plan and be prepared, life overruns us.  Plows us over, really. When the homeschool year began, I started out with high expectations.  I always do. Namely, I could teach our two girls and keep the house in ship shape. Eight weeks in to the school year, things have begun to go by the wayside.  I have given in to the "good enough" mentality. Current housekeeping list: Dishes:   Washed them yesterday.  Or two days ago.  Can wash them before dinner tonight.  Or maybe tomorrow.  Mental note: Use more paper plates!! (as if we could...we use them for all three meals some days!) Bathrooms:  There is sufficient t.p.  Can be cleaned next week, or the week after.  I'll just spray a layer of Lysol on everything.  It can wait.  Good enough. Vacuuming:   If I don't let the kids eat popcorn in the living room today, I think we could make it until next week wi...

We are having unseasonably warm weather this week (Hooray!) so we have been getting outside as much as possible. After finishing school, lunch, naps, and a few chores, we throw on our shoes and dash out to a local park.  I don't know how it has been in your house, but these cold days are killer on our sleep schedule!  My 4-year-old boy has come in so many times to visit me at night in the last 2 weeks, that I could've sworn I was having an out-of-body experience on Monday morning.  Nothing felt right.  My brain wasn't working.  I had a piercing headache.  You know how it goes.  I recalled that was a semi-permanent state when I had newborns.  I feel for my precious friends who have new babies right now.  They are wonderful blessings, but they rob us of sleep and sanity and we have to settle for not having a consecutive train of thought until they turn two or older.  That's just how it goes. Whew - rabbit trail.  Back to the su...

While reading (and thoroughly enjoying) Jen Hatmaker's For The Love , a number of things have occurred to me.  Things I knew but have forgotten.  Things I haven't realized.  Things I should keep in the forefront of my mind. Number one on the list is I have a license to laugh.  To find humour in things.  To find joy in life.  Life is not meant to be drudgery. My go-to release is laughter.  In the most stressful situations, I laugh.  And sometimes it seems totally inappropriate.  Like when my dear hubby was sick and dehydrated with the flu a few years back.  I called a precious friend late at night and asked her to sit with our children while I took my invalid husband to the ER, which she did, because that's what friends do.  Hallelujah! Because he was having issues with our friend Mr. UpChuck, they immediately provided him with a hospital approved barf receptacle. It had a white plastic ring and and expandable blue plasti...

A few weeks ago, as we began another day of homeschool, we heard a knock at our front door.  Half of us were still pajamafied, while the other half of us were dressed for the day.  Good enough to answer the door, I thought. We opened the door to find a dear friend with a bouquet of fresh flowers for me!  She was a mentor mom in our MOPS group back in the day.  What a happy surprise!  She even included a note encouraging me for the beginning of the homeschool year. There's just something extra-special about knowing someone was thinking about me.  When I receive a personal card in the mail, a note on Facebook, or a bouquet of fresh flowers, it pumps up the positive in my day. Later, I found out this same woman went around and shared kindnesses with several other women I had attended MOPS with several years back.  Each of us has at least one school-aged child now, and  we've lost contact with some or all of our MOPS friends. To be encou...