Changes

I seem to be on a post every six weeks or so kind of routine. I have no idea if that means I'm hanging up my blogging career or if I'm just in a lull right now. It is official (well official in our minds not necessarily official in the paperwork sense) that Jake and Madi will go to school fulltime next year. The plan is that Jake will go for one year and then come back to homeschooling for middle school, and that Madi will go fulltime from now on, but both of these plans are subject to change. Jonathan is in the application process for dual enrollment at Lake Sumter and will almost definitely go there part time starting in the fall, he will possibly take a summer class as well. He and Mike had a tour of Full Sail University a week and a half ago and they both fell in love!! It is right up Jonathan's alley...except for the fortune that it costs. If I continue to blog, you will most likely be hearing more about that in the future. Facebook and Instagram have kind of ruined it for the blog as far as pictures are concerned, combine that with the fact that pretty much anyone who reads my blog also talks to me in real life, leaving weeks at a time where I don't even think about blogging. I remember when I started blogging in 2007, I wasn't sure if the purpose was going to be to record my innermost thoughts or our day to day life, now I feel like we are at a crossroads where I'm trying to decide that again. And while my mind reels at 75mph 24 hours a day, I'm pretty sure most of those thoughts don't qualify as "innermost", in addition to that our busy day to day life leaves little time for reliving it here, hence my conundrum. This summer will find us preparing for a year long house guest from China (who we have lamely only skyped with once so far), who will also go to school fulltime next year (a different one than any of my kids), Madi will be working for our town's rec dept summer camp as a "rec aid", Jonathan will continue working at the theatre both as a maintenance man and box office clerk, in addition to his light design, etc, in the evenings they will both be rehearsing for and then performing in HAIRSPRAY!! (They also both have schoolwork to finish up over the summer.) Jake will spend the summer mostly hanging out (well beside VBS, Kids' College, and The Little Mermaid Theatre Camp... oh wait Madi's doing that too...) Relaxing this summer? Not so much!! Are the kids doing all the things they love the most? Absolutely!!

Quick takes, renewed computer edition

Even with a brand new hard drive I am still unable to publish this in an easy to read version...no time to figure out the problem I'm off to eat tons of cookie dough balls the DMV. I'm not even sure if this will work, as I am finally here typing this on my revamped computer. It looks the same, but all it's innards are different and as yet it has nothing on it to indicated that it is indeed my computer (pictures etc). Grace over at Camp Patton (one of my new favorite blogs) is hosting this this week for Jen (on of my other favorite blogs) while she recovers at home with her new baby after too many medical issues for both her and said baby. Aside from finally having a working computer to do so, I might also be doing these quick takes simply so I can link to these two famous-to-me women. 1. We have been away more than we've been home in the last month and that requires a ridiculous amount of catch up when two of your kids are homeschooled high schoolers. Jonathan has actually been gone 3 out of the last four weeks and for five weeks since mid December. Crazy, I know! It is remnicent of our earlier parenting days when we homeschooled especially because it gave us the ability to travel with Mike. Among those old days was the "6 week trip" we went on when I was pregnant with Jake. That summer we came home for two weeks and then headed to Texas for two more weeks. 2. Speaking of Texas...pray for all those people affected by that explosion. 3. Speaking of the six week trip, Boston was one of the places we visited on that trip. Pray for all of those people too!! 4. Jonathan needed to be at the theatre at 7am to program the lights for a show that opens Sunday night. He was back by about 9:30 and was called back in to the theatre at 12 (he was supposed to go into work in the box office at 2:00 anyway). The good news is, he now gets paid for almost everything that he does there. The less good news is that all that time at the theatre doesn't help with the needing to catch up on schoolwork problem. 5. Madi is most likely going to public school next year and for the rest of high school. This deserves as post of it's own, but suffice it to say a lot of thought and prayer has gone into this decision so you can trust that we know what we're doing. 6. We are heading to the DMV momentarily where Madi is hoping to get her learner's permit. 7. In my blogging hiatus I have become addicted to pinterest, and speaking of addiction, I am pretty sure I could live the rest of my life with no other sweet but this one! We don't make them fancy with sticks and chocolate coating, and we even use freshly ground wheat and throw in a little flax meal which hopefully makes up for the fact that I have literally eaten pounds of these in the last week.

Checking in

My beloved laptop didn't live to see 18 months old. That is a huge part of why I haven't been around here lately. Gone are the days where I feel motivated enough to try to post from the ipod (or iphone). I can keep up with other people on those things though, and even comment. Back to the laptop, it isn't actually completely dead (I don't think...) I'm pretty sure it just needs some new internal parts. Thankfully a friendly computer wizard was able to salvage 90% of my pictures and videos anyway, and that's the most important part. Incidentally, we had purchased an external hard drive two days before the computer stopped working, we just hadn't taken it out of the box yet. The moral of this story is... back up your important stuff before the computer dies! In the meantime, I have found myself with a rare moment at the mostly still functioning loft computer so I thought I'd pop in and say hi! There is definitely way more going on than there is time to update it, so suffice it to say this blog post is nothing but a tease anyway. In the meantime...Happy Easter!! I'll leave you with this thought, 6 months from today I will be the mother of an adult!!

Seven Quick Takes, the real thing

1. I am the only one in the family who is both awake and home, and I have dozens of blogworthy things to catch up on so I am going to take the next 20 minutes or so to do seven quick takes the real noncheater way linking up to the amazing woman who started it all and everything. (there, one down) 2. I am going to space this all out but when I post it it will post all in one big jumble and like I've said before I don't have the time or the inclination to figure out how to fix that. 3. Two down and I haven't actually said anything yet. Well here goes... we had a fire in our backyard on Monday. This is a long story that involves burning leaves, weeds, and part of the Christmas tree over the weekend, dry brush and overgrown weeds in a yard that is small by most standards, but still the largest in our neighborhood, and very clearly too much for us to handle. It also involved fire fighters, a police officer, and a frantic call from my daughter who hasn't gotten this ruffled since she was about 6 years old. 4. Madi's call was to me to get home (I had almost made it to my overdue annual female appointment), not to 911. They were already here, we're still not sure who called them. Thankfully they were very nice about it. When I made it home the fire was out and the first responders were chatting friendly-like with my three pajama-clad children (yes it was pushing afternoon) in the newly cleared backyard. No one even asked why my kids weren't in school. 5. We have had a very warm winter, but Madi is going on a retreat this weekend to a camp with cabins that have no heat and temps are going to dip into the 30s. We don't use out heat at our house anyway, but we have it and we have good insulation something I imagine these cabins don't have. I think it was about 89 degrees on Tuesday, but Mike's father got here on Wednesday from Connecticut and that's when the rain and cold front started. 6. The mainstage show at the theatre (aka our home away from home) is Avenue Q right now. This weekend is the last weekend. It is very risque (I have never used that word so much in my life as I have the last three weeks), especially for our small conservative central Florida town, but it is such an amazing show. I've seen it three times, and it's been better each time. The first time I had trouble with the 'full puppet nudity' (most of the characters are puppets), but once you get past the vulgarity, it is an amazing show with a great story and an incredible cast. It makes me think about how so many people throw out the baby with the bath water, by not giving something a fair chance because one little part of it says or does something that they don't agree with. 7. What we do for Lent is far less important than why we do it. The time-honored traditions of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are less to benefit us than to draw us closer to God and improve the lives of those around us. — from Lent with St. Francis

Parenting... a work in progress

I have a sneaking suspicion that I will not have the time nor the elequence to post this to my satisfaction, hence this blog post, like it's namesake, parenting, is a work in progress. I am sure I have blogged about this story a number of times, but it illustrates what I'm trying to get at so here it is again. When Jonathan was a toddler (and an only child), I babysat for for two little boys. Both of their parents worked full time and their grandmother lived with them and was their main childcare provider. A few days a week 18 month old Jonathan and I would go over there and play with George (3) and Max (18 months just like Jonathan). We would play outside, go for walks, and occasionally to the park. After giving all three boys lunch, I would then settle 3 year old George on the couch with a video, put Max in his crib with his bottle, bid fairwell the the grandma who'd had the morning off, and head home with Jonathan. The grandma's "time off" would continue as both boys rested or slept for a couple hours. Meanwhile back at home, I would lay down with and nurse my own 18 month old. Somedays he'd sleep and some days not, some days he'd nurse for a short time and then want to talk or read books, some days he'd nurse for hours (or at least it seemed that way). That was when a day lasted for 100 hours as opposed to the 20 minutes it seems like today. Often on those days I'd wonder if all the time and energy (and human milk) I was pouring into my child was worth it. It was certainly exhausting. That other little boy the same age as Jonathan seemed "fine" and he was just plopped in his crib with a bottle and a closed door, while my kid was never more than 3 feet from me all day and night. We've lost touch with George and Max and their family and they may indeed have turned out "fine", I do know that the mother eventually quit her job to stay home with the boys and even homeschooled at least for a little while. I think of those days often. These days I get a lot of people telling me how "lucky" I am that my kids are turning out so well. There are a lot of difficulties that teenagers in our society can encounter. There are a lot of factors that go into how a person will turn out, and I'm in no way implying that difficulties can be predicted and prevented. I am however, not afraid to say (on my own blog that almost nobody reads anyway) that I have worked dilligently (I'd say tirelessly, but I've been tired lots of the time) (and prayed without ceasing) doing everything in my power to help mold the "good kids" that I have today, luck has nothing to do with it. At almost every turn from childbirth to now, I have taken the intense path. Intense natural childbirth, intense nursing, intense cosleeping, intense homeschooling, this doesn't even account for the intense medical situations we've encountered a long the way. At some point in the last 17 years the more intense options made parenting easier. All that hard work poured in yielded good fruit. The other day a friend with younger children remarked that I never seem frazzled (clearly I hide it well), but I told her if it seems that way it is because I appreciate each day and each kid so much because the day where these kids become adults is getting closer and closer as these days fly by. Or maybe I'm just not that frazzled because after 17 years of parenting all of my kids finally sleep through the night almost every night.

Yesterday Every Hour on the Half Hour

AHHH this is not lined up right and I don't have time to deal with it!! I have been seriously slacking on my blogging, but since I got an iphone last month I have been eager to do another every hour post. (the phone makes taking and sending pictures so easy and easy is good) I got a slow start in the morning after a late night with my favorite almost 3 year old and 7 month old. Their presence makes clean up difficult so I woke up to last nights messes. Here's the one I looked at at 7:30 this morning.

At 8:30 I was working on yesterday's sudoku.

At 9:30 I was picking Madi up from her last day of Honors English at the brick and mortar school. She got 109 on her final exam, and has another full high school credit under her belt. It was 73 degrees outside.

10:30 found me reading Chemistry with Jonathan.

11:30 Madi's Physical Science was interrupted by an arm wrestling match with Jake.

12:30 I took 2 pictures...watching The Middle while finishing lunch and then onto a spelling quiz for Jake.

1:30 I totally forgot about taking a picture, but Jonathan and I were at the bank.

2:30

At 3:30 I was getting french onion soup ready for the crock pot while a rousing game of Wits and Wagers was being played at the kitchen table.

At 4:30 I was chatting with my teens.

The 73 degree weather from this morning by had replaced by a cloudy and breezing 61 degrees. 5:30

6:30 basket ball practice

And finally 7:30 dinner.

The day went longer than that, but the pictures didn't.

We wish you a...

Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year