bsmiles and sunny days

Today I am hoping to clean some stuff. Kids are busy, I should be busy. I have this running list in my head of things that need to get done. I obsess over you, as you can see by the frequency with which I mention it. I keep telling myself that it will wait. It can wait. The things that matter need to be done. Everything else can wait if it needs to. I need to STOP collaborate and listen. Profound words from Vanilla Ice. Good advice. I need to be sure to hang out with my kids when the opportunity presents itself. Kennedy is going to grow up and leave. They all are. And everything will change. It will never be like this again. I am almost willing to put money on the fact that I will: still be disorganized, still have issues with money, and still have work that is getting pushed to tomorrow. But I won't have all my chicks under my wing. So I need to hang on to every moment that I can get my hands around! I need to worry less and live more.

Dale is off work on Thursdays. It's his only full day off now that he's in school. I worried that it would make for a busy week. Yes. I was right. That's true. It makes for a very busy week. However, we are determined to make Thursdays count! Last night, our Friday night, or Saturday night, however you look at it, we were up into the weeee hours of morning studying and doing work for coop. This morning we slept in until 8... We picked Max up from the vet and then started school. Only, instead of sitting at the table, today we sat in the living room with Dale doing our various assignments. We ate delicious tuna melts for lunch. Right now we are all snuggled down in the basement watching 42. I promised to come down and watch it. I had to restrain myself from doing this and that upstairs before coming down. I kept starting to do things and making myself walk away. The house is messy. The laundry is clean in baskets. The bed isn't

I really love the idea of homeschooling... With these two it's easy. So easy. Sometimes I have days like today and it seems like it is just too hard.  Some kids are behind, some are sneaking around saying they have completed work that they've never laid eyes on, some are just crabby and irritable and un-teachable. It's hard. I get overwhelmed pretty quickly. I am not sure how to get out of the funk. I am thinking, maybe it's time for a little break!   lvb  

There is this crazy war going on in my head. I can't seem to find a balance. I have been trying to read Shepherding a Child's Heart for a long time.  I will start it, put it down, and then come back to it in a couple of months. It's so good... and I really need the help!  It is so directional! But I can't seem through it. I am back to it now and making good headway. It brings me to a difficult crossroad. I have managed my children's behavior in a certain way for a long time. This book calls for a total change of direction in regards to the purpose and position from which I parent. I want the results that it promises, which is that your sole intention is to glorify God in your parenting. The fruit may or may not come, which is good behavior and godly children, but you aren't parenting from the expectation that your work will be enough to control your children and ensure their salvation. I haven't gotten to the end where the

When we first attended co-op three years ago I dreaded it. Every week I wanted to call in sick. I actually did more often than was truly necessary. Last year I was determined to drop out. But Dale encouraged me to stay with it. The kids needed the outlet. They needed to be around other kids. We couldn't keep them cooped up in this house all the time. Funny. I was cooping them. He wanted to be at coop. (co-op) Hahahaha. This year I have been waiting with eager anticipation for the first day of co-op. It turns out, when I have a classroom of attentive little faces and some helper teachers, I really enjoy teaching! This year I am teaching two classes: art for 3-year-olds, and art for 4 and 5-year-olds. You may think I'm cuckoo for requesting these classes, but I love it! So I planned all of these wonderful hands-on, fully-engaging activities for my classes and wouldn't you know, we ran out of time before we got through half my list. Thi

What I need to do > what I want to do. What I am going to do tonight < What needs to be done. I am tired. I have a migraine. I didn't grade Friday. ... In light of taking one day at a time And not borrowing tomorrow's troubles, I may just sit here on the couch And watch TV And fall asleep before I go to bed. ...zzz... Lvb

  It makes me so happy to have a houseful of people that I love. This kind of thing is happening more and more often. It can bring a load to my already full plate, but I do love it so! It's worth every minute. I really did just take the day a minute at a time. It helped my intensity immensely. I tend to overreact,  seriously overreact, when I am getting ready for company. It's stupid and hurtful to my children who are working like army ants  to help me get ready.  This time I did what mattered first. Read my Bible. Ran on the treadmill. Went to da sto'. Showered. Got dressed. Did my hair and make-up. Got the little ones ready. After that I got busy, kind of. I had planned to make two salads, cupcakes, shark sugar cookies, tea, Kool-Aid, a piece of blackened fish, and salsa. What I ended up making was tea, and two salads. Dana brought the cupcakes, so that went off my list. Leila made the Kool-Aid. I did ma

This day... Celebrate this day. Busy buzzard go away. Savor the moments. ...of this day.

Friday I spent all day fretting. We have this HUGE BIRTHDAY PARTY this afternoon. We have SMALL GROUP tomorrow. CO-OP starts Tuesday. I'm not ready. I need a down-time day, but I spend all my down-time days fretting. What's the point of that? I need a schedule. I need to look at a schedule after I make it and FOLLOW the schedule! It would help tremendously... So I decided to only take on the trouble of ON DAY AT A TIME. Funny how this foundational method of coping takes so many rounds or relearning! Today I am expecting company in waves. For Leila's party we invited everyone. She wants pizza- which is a lot of work. I woke up with a tummy ache. This day is too big. I decided to take this day in segments. Minutes. No worries. No fretting. I am doing what matters first. I read Romans chapter eight. I didn't study it or glean from it, I just read it. Now I am getting on the treadmill. I can't let this petty fretting steal the t

I know what you're thinking. I am not on that track today. :) I just got back from the grocery store. Again. I go everyday. I go twice some days to the same store and another store. I don't want to go everyday or any day at all to be quite honest. I just want to go to the cabinet open the door and make the food. AND I want everyone to like it. Like it and applaud me. As it is I buy the ingredients on a whim. I toss together a plan and hope it all works out. With this method usually no one likes it. Now. There was a time when I looked at food magazines and made menus and grocery lists and made well prepared healthy foods. It was impressive and worthy of applause. I can't blame anyone for not being impressed with taco salad but I made something. (Actually Jasmine made something. It was delicious! Thanks Jas!) I planned something. That should count. That should be worthy of applause when you consider all the other things I did in the

Soooo.... Today we went to Wal-Mart. Today we went to Wal-Mart at 4:30 on Barry Road. All of us. We all went to Wal-Mart on Barry Road at 4:30 for over an hour. We looked like a circus act walking through there. People were staring, glaring, gawking, walking fast the other way to avoid the chaos... It's one of the reasons I don't EVER do that. At one point in the baking isle Moses was crying, Scarlette was whining, Deisha was mimicking Moses, the older kids had their ears plugged, and then I ran over Deisha's toes with the cart. An older woman in the isle couldn't disguise her disdain for the explosion of activity in the isle. I smiled at her. She didn't smile back. I managed to give the appearance of being in control of the situation, which kept hostility at bay. When we got to the register the woman in line behind us asked lots of questions about our family and seemed to be fascinated by the sheer number of us. She said, "

Do you get some kind of notice when I reply to your comments? I love your comments. And I love it when I get responses to comments but I'm never sure that you even see them. In other news... Sunday morning after feeding the munchkins donuts and cleaning up donuts and delivering kids to all their classes, I arrived at the sanctuary mid-worship. In the TV monitors I could see that the chairs were rearranged. The entire sanctuary was set in rows in a circle. No one faced the stage, we all faced each other. Everywhere you looked there was someone looking unless you looked at the ceiling or the floor. It was the most awkward thing. I kept turning to look at the projection screen for words to all these songs I'd never heard, and when I looked to the right, those people were looking to the left. When I looked to the left, those people were looking to the right. I had to laugh a few times. It was like standing there in my underwear with a bunch of other

I really like Dollar General school books. They are simple And efficient. Deisha loves doing them And is learning so quickly. I feel sort of overwhelmed this year. School is getting more difficult For the big kids, Which means they need more help. I have two early readers Which means we do everything together. And I have 2 babies. I think you know what that means. Then there's this job... I sort of have to work to Help foot the bill. It's just a little bit That makes ends meet. These kids want to eat Every single day! It's a challenge that I am Not quite up for, And not able to back out of. We are in it now, baby! No turning back... It's just a good thing the Dollar General Has school books. Every little bit helps! lvb  

I hate to leave it. Anticipate coming back To it every day.   I love bed.

I ran into a woman at the grocery store that I met at church. She has a daughter and three sons. When she is at church with her daughter you can see that they are best friends. They sit close and laugh and talk. I saw on facebook that she dropped her daughter off at her new dorm room last night in Oklahoma. I have thought about her all day. I can't imagine dropping Kennedy off to start her life away from me. It's coming, I know, but I can't really wrap my mind around it. All my kids are going to leave me someday. I have spent so long wishing days away, and now I am nearing the end in some respects which makes me introspective. I don't want to keep living this way, busy, life as usual, crabby, distracted... for the next few years and then send them on their way. I want it to count. I want to spend my time on what matters. I saw this quote on a friend's blog. It said, "Life is art." I keep seeing those words. It evoked an

This morning I wrote down everything I did. I intend to AUDIT everything in my life. My time. My groceries. The housework. I have this idea that my days are full of a lot of nothing. So I'm starting with my time. According to my log I am busy. All day long I am busy doing stuff. Most of my time is spent making food and feeding children. And running to the store. Which tells me A: I need to be more organized in      shopping, menu planning, and meal prep. B: I need to delegate more of this stuff. If could just be more organized... Here's something else I have been thinking about. I spend part of my days scowling. I used to smile all the time. I would realize that in my exhaustion I was smiling. It was my default. Not anymore. Kennedy tells me that I look like I want to kill someone. Yipes! I want you to see me smiling, not scowling, at any given moment. I used to know this gal that was mean. She was mean as heck to her kids and other kids. And t

We have been sitting on the porch Drinking in this weather since early this afternoon. I could lie down In the grass And sleep till morning If I hadn't seen opossums In our yard before... Tre was out chasing grasshoppers. I tried to get some video footage of him but the darn grasshoppers just didn't want to be captured.    These girls love it when I snap pictures of us.  They love it so, so much.    This gal really does love it. She is so, so sweet to want to take pictures with her mama.   I want to publicly thank God. Today I left my phone on the running board of our truck. When we drove down the street it hung on for several blocks before making a dastardly dive into a busy street. An hour later we found it in pieces on said busy street. Miracle was that while the case was bent the phone was completely in tact. IN Credible. I just can't believe that God cares about my petty details so much. What joy. What b

I love busywork. You might think I'm crazy but I love to do tedious detailed minutia that has little relevance to anyone but me. Take, for instance, last week when I decided to scrub my cabinets. I don't know why it was so important one day to stand up on the countertop with a brush and bowl of soapy water and scrub the grease off the tops of the cabinets. But I could hardly rest until it was done. And I loved doing it. So now here I am with 6 children in need of school plans. And I am spending my nights making sure that each week has a balanced number of pages from each book of each subject for each child. Aye caramba. Who will deliver me from the OCD. It's necessary to a certain extent, but not to this extreme. And yet I somehow enjoy it until it controls me. Then I want to sit and stare at nothing. Think about nothing. Answer no questions. Count no pages. The bad news is the chocolate isn't helping anymore no matter how man

Sometimes I spend all day counting the minutes to bedtime. Some go at 7:30. Some go at 8. Some go at 9. Then one more at 10. Sometimes I spend all day brushing off requests to play or to listen to a story or to look at something cool. I don't wanna wish these days away. I'm just so tired. I've been running a few times a week. I'm up to three miles, which takes me 40 minutes. With warm-up and stretching and cool-down it's an hour. So I ran today. Then today we unloaded a truckload of dirt to different places in our yard. It was strenuous labor. I'm worn out. At the end of the day I try to walk through the house and pick-up, wipe-off, and vacuum so that it is relatively clean when I finally do go to bed. During bang-up clean-up time at the end of the day, I get on edge. "Get your shoes!" "Pick up that trash!" "Wipe that off!" "Did you get that out?!" Last night I just felt riddled with g

I got up early this morning made a bottle three bowls of oatmeal and a cup of coffee. I jumped in the shower quick fixed my hair put makeup on and woke up the kiddos. I changed, fed, and dressed the little ones and headed to church. After church we ate lunch cleaned up and started on the kitchen cabinets. I've been scrubbing them top to bottom. When I got to the end of the line I started on the refrigerator. The outside of the refrigerator. It took a few hours of scrubbing altogether but I am finally sitting. A few minutes ago I looked at the clock and realized it's almost dinner time. I am making potato soup. It's not hard, but it is a lot of steps that take time. For a second I pitied myself not being able to just relax all day long. Which made me think of my mother. She may be the hardest working woman I know. It's a rare moment to find her sitting doing nothing. When she does, I am certain that she is totally exhausted. What an e

I found this little darling on my bedroom wall yesterday. It may seem crazy but it was a thrill! Dale loves to study.  He is a scholar at heart. He would love nothing more than to spend his days holed up in a quiet place with stacks of books. This next few months will be exactly that except for the quiet room. That rarely exists in this house. You'd never guess to look at him. He's kind of a roughian. It's the bald head the big beard the mean mug.  Maybe it looks more like it here where he's in deep thought. The thinker. I'll bet you a hund-y I know what he's thinkin'. And it ain't Greek, baby! Hahhahahaha.  

These girls wore matching Dora pajamas last night. We took this picture to remember the moment. It was a little blurry because Deisha had some big announcement to make. So we took this one. Despite Deisha's perfect pose, Scarlette's attention was taken away from the camera for just a moment which made this picture blurry. So we took just one more and Boom! Got it! AAAAAdorable. This little sweetheart only needed one shot to capture her beautiful smile. I might be the luckiest mama IN the universe. I have that crazy anxiety again. Of course it landed at a very conspicuous time of the month so I have to attribute it 100% to my hormonal influx. Sista gave me this great piece of advice: "Laugh out loud.  Laugh in the face of anxiety!" I received the text at a moment when I was alone in the car. I took it literally and as the hearty laugh burst forth from my lips I noticed a woman nearby out of my open window. I quickly rolled the

Hello. Today I am writing from a remote village called early morning. It is quiet here. The sun is coming up but the house is still dark and untouched by the masses. The kitchen is clean. A hint of bacon lingers in the air from an early-er in the morning meal preparation for the handsome and debonaire gentleman of the house. I feel depleted from the busyness of this week. At the same time there is a wave if exhilaration at the possibilities before me. And yet sleep is tugging at my eyelids. What's a girl to do...? Lvb

My girls have taken up photography. There are loads of pictures floating around here. Here are a few of Jasmine's.  A rock Our neighbor's house. She loves this one. The perspective is so cool. Whispy clouds in a powdery blue sky The light post Lolli Lolli LolliPOP! Jasmine's pretty toes   Wild Child I  Melancholy   I'm sick. Yesterday I made cookies for company sort of. I ate 12 (or so) cookies. I was sick last night before the Doritos and guacamole. I said I wouldn't eat a single cookie today before I ate 6 more. I feel so yucky.   Dear future Becca, You will decide to make cookies again soon. You will tell yourself that you are doing it for someone else's benefit. It's a lie.  You want them. You are going to eat too many and wish you hadn't made any at all. Save yourself. Don't ever bake cookies again. With many (18 or so) regrets, Present Becca   May all you