Oct 17 of 31 Days

I'm making a Friday out of this Wednesday...

...because it's my princess's birthday. Her ninth birthday.

Soon I will have 2 princesses.

There was still school. Can't change that. (However, if Daddy had been able to get the day off from work, I would probably have considered changing that.) But she took little ice cream cups for her class, and her teacher saved her a Happy Birthday pencil and bookmark and a Hershey bar, even though she's in Virginia to help bury her daughter's husband. (Crazy real.)

But then I took a deep breath, and took the extra time after school (that I'd been avoiding) and walked the kids back to their old school across the street to visit their old friends, like they'd been asking since they started at their new school. MEF and her little friend Quinn walked all over the front lawn talking, and then began a sudden game of tag. EB played/ran/tackled/giggled with his friend Jacob. (MG chased EB and Jacob.)

We stayed maybe 45 minutes. They loved it.

There will be a brief amount of studying for the birthday princess (God blessed her with a very light homework load today, but we do just need to go over the vocab list). And there was the call from Grandma and Grandma singing Happy Birthday.

And then back to the Friday-ness of it. Right now they're resting with snacks on the couch, watching Gigi on dvd. Then there will be more craziness, or playing on the Wii, or the computer. (I will not make them clean the living room.) And in an hour and a half or so, we will meet Daddy at Chuck E. Cheezits, as my littles call it. And we will eat pizza and Swiss cake rolls (because my girl doesn't care for birthday cake) and play games. (And I will be exhausted. Crazy real.)

Tomorrow will be Thursday.

But today it's my girl's birthday (and my 9th anniversary of God waking me up to live for real),

so it's Friday.

grace and mercy

This grace, it's a funny thing.

It wasn't grace because I did something good. It wasn't grace because I was the bigger person and humbled myself to make the connection.

I came to the computer, gave Hubby his information, and then got lost in other words of grace. (That music doesn't play fair, by the way. It's mesmerizing.)

And so I sat, checking the clock from time to time...

"If I went up now, we'd have just enough time..."

But I don't. I don't go up to reconnect, to patch things up, to make ammends, to cut her slack. I let her sit upstairs. And I let me sit downstairs. (Any other time I might say I was hiding. This time I'm in plain view.)

I should've gone up. Things might've worked out. They might not've. I figured that would be the grace, that she decline my invitation, say she's more in the mood to read now, and we leave it good.

But no.

She comes down early, announces she's done, and that she's going to bed, because I'm on the computer, despite the deal that she'd get the computer when she's done.

I reiterate the deal, saying I'm only here waiting for her, she can have it... We discuss, she decides to go to bed anyway.

So.

Here I am. A quiet night. Facebook/Pinterest/Blogger at my beck and call.

But I wasn't the bigger person. I didn't take the first step.

Is this grace anyway, the getting of something we don't deserve?

Or is this mercy, the lack of getting something we do?

my alter ego

Do you know what "alter ego" means? I didn't. I still kinda don't. I mean, I had the general idea, but I wondered - is it the version of yourself that you'd most like to become? Like your dream self? Or is it the version of you that is most opposite from who you are? (In my case, this would be an extremely outgoing goth people-person. I know that seems to be a contradiction, but trust me, that would be my opposite.)

I finally looked it up and it said "the other self." Well, thank you, that's most helpful.

NOT.

Well, due to a chance meeting with a pretty little kitty outside my door tonight, I've decide who my alter ego is. It is the me that I think I'd like to be, the person that I will begin praying to become, the person I wonder what it would be like to work toward becoming.

Let it be said: I am not a cat person.

I mean it. I don't understand them. They're snobby and expect to be served and hide from people and I just can't read them and their litter boxes smell awful. They look all cute and then they'll swing around and nab ya. (I know: I've had the rabies series to prove it.) I love dogs. I get dogs. I get along very well with dogs.

But this kitty... It was like almost 11pm! I was just headed to the convenience store to buy tortilla chips for Hubby. Isn't it just like God to give us divine messages in the most mundane things?? (My last experience like that was while deep-scrubbing the bathroom. In God's defense - not that He needs it - it was a task that required much prayer and praise music.)

It was a pretty little white and orange kitty. Often when we exit our house late at night, we'll hear rustling in the leaves over by the trees, and we wait a second to make sure that the skunk/possum/giant squirrel has a chance to move on before we freak it half to death and turn it evil. But as I heard the rustling this time and paused, I glanced over and saw a lighter colored figure, and then the glow of two little cat's eyes. So I did what I, not a cat person, always does when running into a cat unexpectedly.

I said, "oh, hi, kitty!" and mowwwed at it. (For not being a cat person, I do a pretty good "moww.")

And this kitty came over to me, and looked at me, and stood with me, and I scratched the kitty, and it's hesitancy lasted about 3 and a half seconds, and then it purrrrrrred at me, and wagged incessantly at me, and arched at me as I scratched its back, and it followed me to my car.

I told it that it would make the doggies yell. I told it I had a dog and it wouldn't work out. I told it we couldn't be together, even though I was 5% worried (hoping?) it might try to get in my car with me. It almost seemed like it wanted to play (where, admittedly, my rabies vaccine experience kicks in and I decide I shouldn't find out; I don't really know how to initiate play with cats, or where their too-far point is).

But as I drove to the convenience store and back, I revisited the idea with God about who I'd love to be, and began to investigate the idea to see if it's someone that might look like me.

And I decided it didn't. Not now, at least. But the now is practice. I have a bunch of kids, one of which is a psycho teenage daughter. That's got to be training for something.

So I decided this new woman would look something like this:

She would lose all her icky body weight so she can easily move around her several-acre plot of land, but she would still be soft enough to give good hugs. She would be the keeper of the Orphan House - her home, where any animal or baby or child in need of love and a warm bed would find its rest. She would own a good comfy pair of cowgirl boots and a good pair of tall rainboots. She would read her Bible like it's her very breath. She would hang Bible verses around her house to remind her and those around her from whence their strength comes. She would gather her passle of girls on her bed and they'd read (and watch) Jane Austen and Anne Shirley and learn about beauty and chivalry and romance, and she'd work outside with her passle of boys, fixing trim and building lean-tos for said creatures who ambled through their lives. She'd homeschool so that she could be around to be needed, and people would show up on her doorstep - a long front porch attached to a rambling farmhouse - and say "got room for one more?" and she'd never have to say no.

I'm praying for that woman. I hope to meet her someday.

it's october

Fact: It's about quarter to twelve. (Midnight, I mean.)

Fact: I am not in bed.

Fact: It's October.

Fact: That is WAY too late to be researching homeschool curriculum!!!!

My head is spinning, y'all! I now know what some of you were going through over the summer, except that I should have already finished this and been teaching this by now!

Oh, my goodness. This company for this subject, that company for that subject, or one company for all subjects?? Spend close to $200 for almost all subjects, or spend more for the whole deal??

Well, Amazon, I think we'll be getting to know each other a whole lot better in the next couple days. (I may lose a little familiarity with my bed, though. Boo.)

another good reason for a list

I have to figure out a good time to be on the computer.

Does that exist?

I end up coming back to it all the time because I never get done what I want to in one sitting. The kids constantly need something. And I feel like they're getting the picture that I'm ALWAYS on the computer, when really it's just that I'm never finishing anything.

I want to find a set time, and then make it a rule that it's mommy's work time. I should probably even keep a list of the things I think of during the day that I want to do while on the computer, and then I won't get distracted but random, shiny things on the screen.

(In fact, I probably need two times. One early, to check in on things for the day, and one later - to accomplish all those things on the list that gets created.)

The rest of the time I need to be disciplined to be up. Up, busy, available, productive, and attentive to them.

THEN, when I have been attentive to them and their needs, giving the face time and full attention, I can sit down to be productive at the computer, and confidently say, "No, sweetie. You're all set. You don't need anything right now, and Mumma needs to work. Please go play with your trains, and I'll be done in a little bit."

And my children will learn that the computer is a tool, a gift of technology to be used and respected, and not a means of passing mindless time, to get lost in when there are other things to be done.

smells like wanakee

It's foggy this morning. And rainy. And it's beautiful.

Standing at the door when hubby was leaving, I was breathing deeply. Hub said, "they need to bottle this smell for cologne. That'd be a sexy smell." I said, "you'd just make all the girls wanna go camping with you." He laughed and said, "just one girl." [grin]

In some of our circles we have a saying - "smells like Wanakee" - which is the church summer camp we've all gone to growing up. It did often smell like this, especially in the morning. But I have come to learn that it is not a smell necessarily specific to camp. (Maybe it's the farther away I get from my camp years.) We just have so many trees that you breathe in and smell leaves, pine needles, wet grass, tree bark. A recipe for serenity.

(It's an allergen's paradise, really, but in the moment, we don't pay attention to that.)

Mr. 5yo is still sick. Last night, he hit 102.8, and he doesn't do fevers well. He sleeps often, but not well, and fits the delirium profile exactly. This morning he's at 101.8, which is still high but enough of a dip that he thinks he's feeling much better. There was very little sleep last night. (And the night before.)

I am so grateful for these morning-quiet moments that give me a chance to (literally) breathe in something outside my own situation, to pull me back heavenward for even 20 seconds, a memory I can pull out of the card file later for a moment of closed eyes, deep breath, and reminders of grace.

bless the rains down in africa

My boy is in my head. Again. Still. Always, of late.

A morning of listening to the director of my sponsor-kiddo's orphanage, who was so blessedly able to visit our church this morning with almost no notice.

The kids are good. They're healthy. They're happy. They're learning about Jesus.

The price of food over there in Ethiopia has sky-rocketed, so they have to cut other things from their budget to feed the kids. Things like shoes.

On their New Year, they usually have a big feast, but the kids came to him this year and said they didn't want the feast...they needed shoes. How do you not just write over the remainder of your bank account to them?? And then I got to hear a little more of his story (including how to pronounce his name correctly!), how he got to the orphanage, how he's already advanced to a new grade, and how he has a gift for agriculture. He sometimes cares for the chickens. He knows when and where to plant. [so proud]

I wish he could come teach me.

And he's the most handsome 14/15 year old on two legs. (And, for clarification, that there is his own handprint on his shirt, with MY FAMILY'S names written under it, by M. himself. Heart melting.)

And how I (again...still...) just want to clear out so much junk from my house. I sat there in church with my icey latte, and then sat down to a lovely luncheon supplied by all the sponsor families....and my boy just needs shoes.

Grrrrrr.

I'm off to go pour out my heart to the One Who is with my boy right now, and can let him know I love him...even thought it can take weeks for the letter telling him so myself to reach him.