I Took A Break

Hey again! Life's been crazy and blogging (or checking my email, or thinking with more than one brain cell) has been low on my list of to-do's lately! I should say that I am a quitter! When life gets hard or when things get complicated, I usually give up. I'm NOT going to quit on this blogging thing! I may let several days (or weeks) go by but I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna blog again!! All one of my followers are counting on me...

Til next time...

(A)Musings of My 6 Year Old!

My sweet daughter, Brenna, is going through a change this summer. Somehow 16 year old remarks are coming out of this sweet 6 year old!! Some examples:

She has 3 little warts on her pinkie finger that we have been fighting a losing battle to get rid of. Last night, I decided to try the duct tape treatment. We put some liquid wart remover on them and I went to get the duct tape. She looked at me kind of curiously and then said (in a shocked tone as she pulled her finger away and guarded it protectively)..."Oh, don't tell me you're gonna rip them off!!!" I just burst out laughing!! She thought I was going to use the sticky tape to pull her warts off!!


At dinner the other night, Brad commented that he liked what I cooked (shocking)! No sooner had the words left his mouth, she rolled her eyes and said "I HATE this dinner." I fast-forwarded in my mind to the teen girl she will become and heaved a HUGE sigh!

Thank heaven there is a long road between 6 and 16!! If you're on the same road, I'll be the one in a straight jacket!

Tough Love and Good Times

My son, Nick begged his dad and I to let him play tackle football this Fall. We finally relented and signed him up, bought him cleats, paid his fees and practice started last week. Saturday was his first full contact practice. It was ROUGH!!! Let me back up and tell you that my son has always been a rough and tumble little boy. From his first year on, tickle fights and wrestling matches have been common forms of affection in our house. I thought tackling another boy in a safe, supervised, fully-padded manner would be right up his alley! I thought wrong. He was scared and he got creamed. Many times.

All weekend he begged and pleaded and cried for us to please let him quit football. My husband was certain that things would get better and he was not agreeable to quitting. He is a veteran of pee-wee, league and high school football and has sworn to me that many valuable life lessons can be learned on the football field. I, being Mommy, was ready to call the whole thing off and pull my boy into my arms and never let him go! Last night was practice #2 and, much as I hate to admit when my husband is right, things did get better! Tough love is...tough! Not only on your kids! It's so hard to, in your mind, know you are doing the right thing, but feel your heart breaking while you're doing it. I know that this will not be the last time we have to practice tough love with our kids and I'm grateful that I have a husband who will let me cry on his shoulder while he is patiently (and repeatedly)telling me we are doing the right thing.

In the middle of all this mama-drama, we got to spend some time with old neighbors who've moved away and came back to Texas for a visit. We gathered around the kitchen table and reminisced about the good (and some not so good) times we shared together in our old neighborhood. It was like taking a walk back in time!! We giggled and gossipped and it was sweet and familiar and healing to my soul!

Yesterday I Lost My Mind...

I generally avoid the gameroom in my house. I can successfully go upstairs, check my emails, put away clothes, clean the bathrooms and tuck the kids into bed without having to see it. It's all the way on the other side of the upstairs from the rest of the rooms. I KNOW it will be a disaster and it will put me in a grumpy mood so I just avoid it. Yesterday, I made the mistake of going in there and I flat out lost my mind!!! I'm talking about tossing toys around, hollering, stomping around and threatening to not let them even go in the gameroom, much less play in there!

Before you go getting all "perfect parenting" on me, let me tell you what made me lose my mind! Among all the food and dishes on the floor and the toys scattered around the room, I found that my 10 year old son, Nick, had used the tool kit he got for his birthday to completely disassemble his sister's play kitchen. There were screws spread all over the floor and parts and pieces from wall to wall. When I asked him why he decided to take the kitchen apart, he responded "I was bored." Let's just say that there will be NO MORE opportunities for boredom this summer! We have school packets to work on, chores to do, books to read, weeds to pull, etc... After I calmed down a bit, we began putting the kitchen back together. With no instructions, I had to rely on my son to remember where the pieces came from. We did a fairly decent job, but have LOTS of hardware left over! I hope that stinkin' kitchen doesn't fall apart the next time Brenna plays with it!

I'm so over Summer vacation...25 days and counting...

Broke

Like many Americans, the economy has hit our family hard. My husband is in the oil and gas industry and things have tanked for his business pretty badly over the last year. I went grocery shopping today and came home BROKE! I've been thinking since then about the meaning of the word "broke". I've determined that the word has come to mean something other than our bank account being depleted. Having no money doesn't necessarily make you poor. I'm not poor because I have a loving family and lots of friends who are kind and generous and love me in spite of my bank account. I am, however, broke! There are so many meanings of the word but lately, I've realized that struggling to keep our home going on considerably less income has made me feel like my spirit is "broke" and my attitude is "broke" and my relationships will be "broke" if I don't tend to them with all the care I can muster!

I started thinking about how long something has to be "broke" before it's fixed. I thought about when my microwave was "broke". I fixed that sucker as quickly as I could because it has become a necessary and valuable appliance in my home. However, I have two drawers that are "broke" and have been for a couple of months. I haven't been able to find the right drawers to replace them and so my cabinets have empty holes where the drawers should be.

What have I learned by pondering this word all day?? I understand that being "broke" is okay for a while...that I'll be un-broke in time. I also understand that feeling "broke" is an attitude! I can choose to feel good about the things that ARE good in my life. I'll admit, I will still feel "broke" (probably a lot) until our finances are in better shape. But hopefully, prayerfully, I'll remember that being "broke" doesn't mean I am poor!

Blogging 101: Blogging for Dummies

I've been curious about blogging for a while now! I learned today that a friend of mine blogs. It surprised me! I didn't expect that from her! Not that I thought she couldn't do it...I just didn't ever consider that she WOULD do it. After reading her blogs tonight, I thought about all the things that float around in my head and decided that maybe I could give this a try! So...here goes!



Tonight I watched TV. The end.




Just kidding!! Tonight, I watched The Bachelorette: After the Final Rose. I hate to admit that, each season, I get suckered into watching this show. I always tell myself that I'm not going to tune in and then I'll watch one episode and become hooked. I have a sixth (useless) sense about picking the winner. It's a gift and I can't let it go to waste! I'm always dissappointed when the relationship breaks up-usually very shortly after (or DURING) the After the Final Rose episode. Let's just say that I hope Gillian and Ed will last or I'm NOT watching another season!! (Yeah, right...who am I kidding!)

I'm gonna wrap up by saying that my dreamy bachelor is lying in bed with me sawing logs so loudly the neighbors can hear him! Life is good after that final rose!