Welcome to the ramblings of a mother constantly trying to better the life of her family while trying to hold on to a piece of herself along the way...
Sunday, August 24, 2008
It's really here...
From the time I was pregnant with her I never really even considered that we would be anything but a homeschooling family. Jason and I agreed from the very start on it and he has been nothing but supportive ever since...but all talk is one thing. That day as really come and tomorrow we are embarking into this amazing adventure of homeschooling and I can't help but feel a bit of overwhelming terror mixed in with the excitement, along with an urge to hyperventilate! We are starting Kindergarten a year early as it is because she is just so advanced in the way she learns things and I feel this intense pressure to do it just perfect (which I know is impossible) Everyone I know has been great and reassuring but I guess I have just been taken over by the last minute jitters....I've researched, organized, grocery shopped for projects and did a last minute job of rearranging the playroom so that when she wakes up tomorrow she will feel different...she will feel like a Kindergartener!!! Please say an extra prayer that God will give me the courage and strength to do it right...she deserved only the very best and I just hope I can live up to that!
Friday, August 15, 2008
Lettuce Remember
Who would ever think that something as lame as cleaning a few heads of romaine lettuce could give me a warm fuzzy of sorts and effect the rest of my day for the better...
It's been one of those days, the kids are screaming, the repairman comes, the cleaning never seems to end. And yet, I feel this overwelming sense of accomplishment. I've needed that feeling for awhile now. I've been really struggling with the whole simplifying our life process even though it really is something I want to achieve for us as a family. Nevertheless, the constant work I am putting into it is making me tired, cranky and frustrated. There is just too much clutter in our house, our life and my mind at any given moment. The biggest part of it all is how miserable we are here and the everyday struggle to try and be happy where we are (to coin the phrase "bloom where you are planted" rings a bell) without letting go of the hope, no the expectancy of someday soon getting to go back home to Alaska. I don't want to look back on the years we've spent here and think that I wasted so much time or missed out on so much with the girls. I want us to have good memories here too.
I got the girls settled in with their lunch and was starting in on mine (a salad) when I had visions of a friend of ours, Penny, cleaning romaine lettuce at her sink much like I was cleaning it at mine. It was like a porthole of memories from a life that seems like another world away from here....Going to Penny and Jon's house for dinner was something that I would drop ANYTHING for. It was an event that was sure to be momentus in the fact that we enjoyed their company so much we didn't even have to be doing anything special. There was something great about going and sitting in Penny's kitchen at the isle and watching her put together one of her masterpiece dinners. We would drink (she introduced me to white Russians- thanks Penny!) and laugh and just hang out. I don't know if having people over stressed her out or not but if it did you would never know it by the way she was always just so layed back and inviting. Theirs is one of the homes in Alaska that I want to emulate in mine...it's a feeling of feeling safe that I want our kids to feel when they are at home and a feeling I hope our visitors feel when they walk in the door to ours. I don't know if I got that feeling because of the house itself, which I doubt since I couldn't tell you much about it, or if it came more from the warm friendship we found in a cold and blustery wilderness we know as life in Alaska.
It's been one of those days, the kids are screaming, the repairman comes, the cleaning never seems to end. And yet, I feel this overwelming sense of accomplishment. I've needed that feeling for awhile now. I've been really struggling with the whole simplifying our life process even though it really is something I want to achieve for us as a family. Nevertheless, the constant work I am putting into it is making me tired, cranky and frustrated. There is just too much clutter in our house, our life and my mind at any given moment. The biggest part of it all is how miserable we are here and the everyday struggle to try and be happy where we are (to coin the phrase "bloom where you are planted" rings a bell) without letting go of the hope, no the expectancy of someday soon getting to go back home to Alaska. I don't want to look back on the years we've spent here and think that I wasted so much time or missed out on so much with the girls. I want us to have good memories here too.
I got the girls settled in with their lunch and was starting in on mine (a salad) when I had visions of a friend of ours, Penny, cleaning romaine lettuce at her sink much like I was cleaning it at mine. It was like a porthole of memories from a life that seems like another world away from here....Going to Penny and Jon's house for dinner was something that I would drop ANYTHING for. It was an event that was sure to be momentus in the fact that we enjoyed their company so much we didn't even have to be doing anything special. There was something great about going and sitting in Penny's kitchen at the isle and watching her put together one of her masterpiece dinners. We would drink (she introduced me to white Russians- thanks Penny!) and laugh and just hang out. I don't know if having people over stressed her out or not but if it did you would never know it by the way she was always just so layed back and inviting. Theirs is one of the homes in Alaska that I want to emulate in mine...it's a feeling of feeling safe that I want our kids to feel when they are at home and a feeling I hope our visitors feel when they walk in the door to ours. I don't know if I got that feeling because of the house itself, which I doubt since I couldn't tell you much about it, or if it came more from the warm friendship we found in a cold and blustery wilderness we know as life in Alaska.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Growing pains...
Why is it that the pains of growing up never seem to stop? I expected the pains of growing up myself, the fights with girl friends, broken hearts from boyfriends etc. What I didn't see coming was the pain of watching my girls grow... As I write this I feel kind of silly but at the same time the emotions are so raw and very real that I feel pressed to get them out in words in hopes of lessoning the hurt.
For the last bit, as most of you already know, I have been really cleaning out our over abundance of "stuff". I truly want to be able to have a clean, clutter free house and I really do embrace the idea of a simpler life- it's just trying when it comes to letting go of the emotional attatchments I have on things. I recently heard of a family that is in great need for baby items which was just the motivation I needed to clean out and let go of things we're no longer using. It has been really freeing to make that stack of things in the garage grow and I have felt relief in knowing they are going to a good place.
Today was the big day to actually hand them over to my friend who is so graciously delivering the collection and unexpectedly I got this lump in my throat and I realized that I was giving away my baby things...the carseat that I brought both our girls home from the hospital in, the bouncy seat that they both had their first foods in and the ball toy that I remember watching a little boy I babysat play with and then both my girl too...why does it have to be so painful to give those things away? I wish I could be more carefree about this sort of thing and have less attachment to "things". I know they are just things and that I will always have the picture and the memories but I sit here and think of those things with no control of the tears coming down my cheeks. I am ok with the idea that we are done having babies but I guess it really became real today. Now it all comes down to the fact that I'm a grown woman crying over baby toys!!! I know they are going to a home that will love them as much as we did if not more and yet I am still sad. Only a mother could understand this kind of growing pains...or maybe it's just me and I'm going crazy!
For the last bit, as most of you already know, I have been really cleaning out our over abundance of "stuff". I truly want to be able to have a clean, clutter free house and I really do embrace the idea of a simpler life- it's just trying when it comes to letting go of the emotional attatchments I have on things. I recently heard of a family that is in great need for baby items which was just the motivation I needed to clean out and let go of things we're no longer using. It has been really freeing to make that stack of things in the garage grow and I have felt relief in knowing they are going to a good place.
Today was the big day to actually hand them over to my friend who is so graciously delivering the collection and unexpectedly I got this lump in my throat and I realized that I was giving away my baby things...the carseat that I brought both our girls home from the hospital in, the bouncy seat that they both had their first foods in and the ball toy that I remember watching a little boy I babysat play with and then both my girl too...why does it have to be so painful to give those things away? I wish I could be more carefree about this sort of thing and have less attachment to "things". I know they are just things and that I will always have the picture and the memories but I sit here and think of those things with no control of the tears coming down my cheeks. I am ok with the idea that we are done having babies but I guess it really became real today. Now it all comes down to the fact that I'm a grown woman crying over baby toys!!! I know they are going to a home that will love them as much as we did if not more and yet I am still sad. Only a mother could understand this kind of growing pains...or maybe it's just me and I'm going crazy!