bsmiles and sunny days

Yesterday at football practice Kennedy and I were going over the schedule for today, which I promised would be full of fun and excitement including the 99cents store, the McDonald's play land, and a half-day of school in honor of Dale's homecoming; a celebration before we pick him up since it would be late. As she turned to walk away I heard myself say, "Then we'll get Daddy, and I'll get my breath back..." The last time we spent this long of a succession apart was right after I had Tre; he had a job in KC and I had a job in Burlington, we were both commuting from Emporia. He worked M-F and I left Friday night when he got home to go to work F-Su nights. It was agonizing. I don't recall how many weeks were lived like that, but we all cried every time he got back into the car to leave. Families just aren't designed to live together part-time. So you can imagine the strickening I felt in my chest when he got in the car three weeks ago and drove to t

I don't know if you know this about me, you probably don't. But I have a new plan. Every so often I re-evaluate my life and configure a plan to set my feet straight and the wheels in motion for success in whatever it is that I'm failing at. Those things have been the same for the last, oh I don't know, all of my life: weight loss, organization, time management, devotions, kindness, anger management... you know, your run of the mill disappointments in a person. The thing about this pregnancy is that I've never felt like I couldn't do it before. I would look at the test and laugh about the irony of the situation, always landing on the least opportune time in my life, and think, "Alright. Here we go!" This time I'm-- I'm in denial, I think. I stared at that little window on my bathroom cabinet waiting for the *not* to appear before the *pregnant* at any minute. And what's worse, I was putting clothes away the other day and decided I sh

A few years ago, Dale and I were out on one of our notorious Thursday night date nights, eating dinner at Outback, one of my personal favorites, enjoying a lovely quiet dinner when something caught our attention. The sound was almost like white noise, a constant flow coming from a table across the isle and a few booths back. Casually we both took a turn looking to see who it was and saw a college-aged girl chattering away mindlessly to an obviously uninterested guy across from her. We exchanged a look and then snickered, going back to our lavish spread of delicacies. When we got in the car I said, "You think I'm like that girl, don't you?" He made some completely sarcastic comment about how he would never say anything of the sort and we laughed again at how completely self-consumed people can be in conversation. This last couple of weeks, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm Outback girl! I have been on the horn every recess, during lunch, after school, and af

It's always difficult for me to repress the squirm when someone asks me why I home school . I'm not embarrassed about it; I don't feel like we are sub-par because of our choice to educate our children at our dining room table. It's not a sore subject for any of us usually. But when someone who is pro-public education corners me with that question, I find it difficult to answer honestly without coming across undesirably. So I just want to put it out there. There is a moral code, a system of values, that used to fuel education in this country that has been lost, or rather, obliterated along the way, and replaced with political correctness and moral relativism. I'm not looking for forgiveness on the subject, I just want to set the record straight. We have been given a charge to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord and will not take that lightly. That includes not entrusting them for the majority of their day to be molded and shaped by the thinking

1. For a year or two years or three I have been blogging and every time I post something new I crack up at this. I type in *www. bs * and up comes my blog and I think, " Hahaha . B.S." And then I fight away the urge to write about how funny I think that is and tonight I'm pulling out all the stops. 2. I'm pregnant. 3. I called my little brother tonight. We haven't talked much in the past year or six; I mean, we talk when we can but we are both extremely busy so when we get a chance to talk and we are both really up for the conversation, we talk for a long time. Well tonight he was ready to shoot the breeze and when I told him, he laughed right out loud, a deep rolling belly laugh, which thrilled my little heart to bits. Because that's what I did. I laughed. Just like Sarah. Just like I did the last three times I got pregnant by surprise in what I deemed at the time the hardest stage of my life. I still laugh when I talk about it. And what I think is so great

I don't like to be the one to decide. True, the nature of my being is to hope that someone will make the decision for me and it will be the one I would have made, but I like to dodge the responsibility of making that decision on my own if at all possible. That doesn't happen often. My days are packed, seriously, stocked-full of decisions carefully considered and made by yours truly. So at the end of the day, if I haven't spent the time the week before making menus, I don't want to decide what we should eat for dinner. Especially if we are going out. It's becoming more and more rare for us to go out for a meal, so I want it to be perfect, delicious, and cheap; all of which cannot co-exist, as we all know. So I'd rather just let you decide, drive me there, and I'll eat what is set before me and enjoy it knowing that it's what you wanted. Which leads me to the reason I am becoming more and more scarce in this venue. I don't know what to write.

This poor dog, he really does have a lot of my attention temporarily. I heard some sniveling in the the kennel the other day while I was working in the kitchen and found Max locked in with a large stick and... the resident princess. I laughed and laughed and laughed as I watched her push him back with, "No, puppy! No, puppy!" every time he tried to sneak by her. Like a loyal subject, he conceded and she would climb in almost on top of him and grab ahold of the mesh to shut the door. I stuck my head in to make sure he had enough space behind her so that he wouldn't come out wounded and she grabbed my face with both hands and pushed it out of the kennel, then shut the door, which spawned gales of laughter from me and then her too. I think she likes to be in charge of someone, since obviously, everyone here has some seniority over her. Unfortunately for the puppy, he doesn't know that he's not obligated to her antics I don't know how long she played in there with