I'm turning 38 this week!

So how about some 38 Special?! :) (Boy-oh-boy, these songs took me back to the 80s!)

Birthday Season....and I Have Two Teenagers!

All of the birthdays at our house fall between March and August. Birthday Season is here. This week we've had two. Our fourth child turned 9 yesterday. He was our preemie (Story here). Our second child and only daughter turns 13 today. Now I have two teenagers, and will continue to have a minimum of two teenagers for the next 12 years. And we won't be "done" with teenagers for 14 years.

What I have to look forward to:

Two teenagers: 3 years
Three teenagers: 5 years
Four teenagers: 4 years

Another way to look at this:

I only have 2 years left to have 4 kids that are not teens.
I only have 7 years left before every one of my children is out of the little kid/pre-teen age.

Every birthday that goes by I see differently now. We're moving farther and farther away from the familiar, and closer to the unknown and everything beyond childhood. I'm not one to regret or fret about these things. It's exciting to see them growing up, I'm happier than ever to have my little "chicks" all gathered around me every day thanks to homeschooling. I enjoy seeing them grow up and hear more about that they're thinking about who they're becoming.

It's an exciting time, though bumpy every now and then. Life is good.

Planting Taters

Don't miss my post about planting potatoes here! :)

Serendipity

Yesterday I was really stressing. I had many uncertain, scary, or frustrating things swirling around in my head, and the more it swirled, the more overwhelming it felt.

I decided to sit down, make a list of everything swirling around in there, and see what could be done about each item. When those items swirl it feels like more than it is, and I knew that by putting it onto paper I could bring it all back into a realistic amount of stuff to deal with, and make a plan.

I couldn't find any paper upstairs, so came down to my office area to look for a notebook. Then I got sidetracked onto the computer for a bit because I had a project hanging over my head that needed to be resolved. I decided to ask my friend Sue for help with a techie trouble, and quickly clicked on my gmail to send her an instant message. "Are you there?!" I quickly typed.

"Yes. I'm here!" came the reply.

And I then realized it was a different Sue that I had clicked on.

"Oops! Wrong Sue!" I quickly typed back.

"Well pooh!" she joked at me.

And then I thought about who I was talking to.

This Sue is a life coach, specializing in things like joy and peace. I wondered if perhaps there was a good reason to have accidentally IM'd her.

"How are you doing?" she typed.

"Honestly? Tired. Stressed. Overwhelmed."

And she then gave me some wonderful nuggets of wisdom:

What can you do to make it easy, fun, and lucrative?

You CAN ask for help! Ask for what you need.

Prioritize.

What is or is not supporting my values in this?

Without hearing the long version of what was going on, she gave me excellent tools to get to work with.

Once we were winding down our brief chat, I grabbed one of the notebooks on my desk. Opened the front page to see what notebook it was, and found that I have serendipitously selected one that I had purchased specifically to do copywork along with my children during school time. My copywork only happened one day: January 5, 2009. I had copied a bit out of a book I was reading then:

Each day, we're given many opportunities to open up or shut down.
The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can't handle whatever it happening.
It's too much.
It's gone too far.
We feel bad about ourselves.
There's no way we can manipulate the situation to make ourselves come out looking good.
No matter how hard we try, it just won't work.
Basically, life has just nailed us.

-from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron.

I typed back to tell her, "You'll never believe what notebook I happened to pick up, and what it says inside..." and then I shared it with her. I was immediately reminded of many helpful things I had learned from reading that book.

"That's no coincidence, you know." she said, echoing my own thoughts.

Maybe sometimes we go through hard things in order to be reminded that we are not alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After that I found a quiet spot to do my writing, make my list of swirling, scary things that had been weighing me down. And then it was clear what I could do, what I could not do, and what I could ask for help with. And now those monsters are at least somewhat tamed, I have made progress, and even found a way to make some of it easy, fun, and lucrative! (which I laughed out loud at when she first wrote it, thinking it was absurd)

A wonderful serendipitous experience!

Boys at the Creek

I just loved going to the creek with my younger boys yesterday. Their spontaneity is so fun!

Meghan McCain: I like her

I discovered Meghan McCain's blog somewhere during the campaign months, and have enjoyed her fun and smart perspective on politics and life.

She wrote a great post about body image here, and more recently an article on it here.

I was surprised to learn that Meghan had been criticized for her body size. Weird! I've always thought of her as beautiful, and still can't wrap my mind around someone calling her heavy or fat. What on earth kind of society are we in that a perfectly beautiful young woman is called fat in public by another woman?

I always find it ironic and sad that people seem to feel that being convinced of their rightness also entitles them to behave badly.

My Baby Is Turning Six Today

My youngest child is a real sweetheart in many ways. As he has known his birthday was coming up, any time I would say "You are my favorite five year old!" he would say, "And when I'm six, I'll be your favorite six year old!" Sometimes when he said it he sounded like he might be just slightly concerned that our adoration might expire when he was done being five.

No chance. :)

I felt a pang of sadness at saying goodbye to five year olds yesterday. Aside from grandkids, I'll never get another five year old. This particular five has really been a delight. Last night I said to him that I have loved having him be 5, and that I am looking forward to spending 6 with him.

We are planning a fun day. Friends from out of town are coming to help us celebrate, and he'll get to have some extended family here for the party as well, which doesn't normally happen. He had simple wishes for gifts, and I think all of them have been fulfilled, which I know he is going to be very excited about.

It's going to be a good day.

Keeping Things Positive

Today was a beautiful day here. My husband was off today, so once school was done he and the boys played outside and then decided that it would be great to build a campfire and have a cookout tonite. This is one of their favorite things to do, and they were excited that we were back into "campfire season" around here. :)

They went to the store, bought hot dogs, mac and cheese, and smores stuff. They had a great time sawing branches to have enough sticks to roast their hot dogs and marshmallows on.

By bed time I started to usher the boys toward bed, but caught wind of their sweaty little selves and decided that 5 minute baths were needed. 5 Minute Baths happen on nights when it's all business bathtime. Quick in and out, with me making sure everybody gets cleaned and moved right along to bed.

My 7 year old got into the bath, and his sweet little legs were pretty dirty. My first reaction was to exclaim (in a friendly way) how dirty he was. but then I had an inspiration.

"Look at these legs! These are happy legs! These are legs that tell me that you have had a really fun day playing outside!"

He grinned and grinned as he recounted the fun he had had all day long. :)

This little scenario turned out so sweet, and reminded me how simple it can be to keep things positive, and to open up communication and make happy memories. Just wanted to share that with you all. :)

Wanting to Start Making Money Online?

I know that many people are looking for ways to earn extra money today. Using the internet is the best way I know how to do that.

Just recently an amazing new resource became available that teaches TONS about probably every aspect of making money legitimately on the internet. And guess what---it's FREE!

If you're at all interested, I encourage you to check it out. I have been learning from the site creator for several months now and have been extremely impressed with what he has to say. I hope it is a help to you.

Gathering Wool...

To Do List: check

Kids In Bed: check

Getting Things Done: check

Get Distracted and Wonder if it is ok to stop working and do something funner: check!

'Tidal wave' of homeless students

Heartbreaking.

Right

I just watched an interesting photo and audio presentation about a new book called Right. The author and photographer spent time at Patrick Henry College, and documents her observations there with photography, in addition to words.

The author does a wonderful job of respectfully discussing her experience at PHC. For me, these photos remind me of so many reasons why, even as a Christian homeschooling mother of six, that Patrick Henry College has absolutely no appeal to me. The author probably has little-to-no idea about the big movements behind the philosophy that PHC is built upon. The whole patriarchy thing, the whole flawed glorification of days gone by thing, and the us-against-them thing. Frankly, I found a lot of the photos kind of sad, and some of them just kind of embarrassing. More than a current event book, it's more like a side show at the circus kind of look into a subculture of the US. Curious. A little interesting. A little disturbing.

Keep It Real Campaign

This year my son and his friends entered the video commercial contest for the Keep It Real Campaign, which works to discourage underage drinking. Last night we had the fun experience of attending the Kentucky version of the Oscars, where the video my son and his friends made received the top honor of Best Picture! Here's the video:


My son created and played the music for the background, and helped with the ideas and production. His friend Parker Young is a really talented young filmmaker who has walked away with the Best Picture award at Keep It Real for three years in a row now. We have been so pleased to have our son get to learn about filmmaking, as well as be a part of a positive thing like the Keep It Real campaign.

From a Proud Mom,
~DollyMama

Things Homeschool Dads/Husbands Need To Know

I had some conversations with a couple of homeschool moms today, both of whom were feeling battle-worn and under-supported. The similarities of the struggles of homeschool moms was striking. I've been there, felt that, and heard it from others a zillion times. And what I mostly wished for was an opportunity to *somehow* be able to explain to the husbands of homeschool moms about what they need to know and do to support their wife and help make it possible for the homeschooling, homemaking, and nurturing to happen. So here is the vent:

Hint: When your wife says she needs something, just give it to her.

Does she need you to listen? Then listen to her.

Does she need money for curriculum or someone to help clean the house or for some underwear that isn't stained and has elastic that isn't worn out? Then figure out how to get her the money. With a smile, too.

Does she ask you to come to her rescue? Do it. Now! With love and compassion. And no side dishes of guilt or whining.

Hint: Although you work hard to provide for your family that is probably staying afloat with your earnings alone, I've got bad news for you: It's not enough. You also need to be a compassionate, caring force for good behind your wife and your kids.

Taking on the task of homeschooling is a mountain. The amount of information to digest and apply is daunting. The amount of decisions to make and options to wade through is exhausting. And then once you've done all of the reading, digesting, and decision-making, a homeschool mom gets to constantly assess and re-assess what's working, what's not, how to know when to stick to the plan and when to jump ship and try one of the other 3, 456, 341, 899 options for each and every possible academic subject. Plus clean up milk-and-cereal spills, and do extra laundry from when the stomach flu fairy came to visit last night. All while she has bad cramps and her period.

Because you're not actively doing all of this reading, digesting, and decision-making and cramp-having, I realize that it probably doesn't look like that big of a deal. Well, believe it or not, it IS a big deal. REALLY big. You may not know it in your bones like your wife does. If you can, though, try to know it even just a little bit in your head.

I assume that when you were first in love with your wife you wanted good things for her, thought she was pretty interesting, smart, talented, and special. You probably felt like leaping tall buildings in a single bound. And now, enough years later to have had some kids and gotten lazy about your love, you think you can ignore that woman, leave her at home all day, come home to expect a nice dinner, the kids to behave, and some hot (or at least luke-warm) lovin' before you go to sleep and start all over again the next day, without taking care of her in the other ways that would help her get "filled up" with rest and refreshment so that she can "pour out" good stuff on the family every day. When she says she needs a break, you may think it's ok to roll your eyes, give her a hard time, or whine and complain about it. I'd like to give you a swift kick (or twenty) in the rear. Your homeschooling wife is doing A WHOLE LOT behind the scenes that you probably never get to see, and I guarantee that she's dealing with a large load of mental and emotional stuff as well. She may vent to you about some of it, but it's likely just a smidge of what's really going on. If she tells you she needs something, do your DARNDEST to make it happen. Today. And be mighty nice about it. Try to remember that once she was precious to you. (You may say she is still precious to you--but are you treating her that way? Does she feel that she is precious to you?) Try to remember that you'd like her to not be so burnt out that she can't enjoy you, your children, or the life that you work so hard to provide for her. She's not meant to be kept in a box. Encourage her to get out and take care of herself, to cultivate good friendships, to get some fresh air and sunshine, to be able to move without children to hold or carry or manage at every turn. Encourage her to do good things for herself: a fresh new haircut, a facial, a massage, or maybe a lunch out with a friend. Money may be tight, but find a way to give her some good breaks and nurturing. It doesn't have to be expensive--it just has to be a fit for her needs. Hint: If you give it with a pure heart of love, with no resentment, whining, or bad attitude, it will go miles and miles and MILES toward giving her new strength and peace to continue to do what she wants to do for you and your children.

In my conversations today, I was thinking about how little I can do to help a woman who is drowning in her homeschooling when she doesn't have the support that she needs from her husband. Men--you may not be choosing the curriculum, reading the books, or teaching the lessons, but the role you play can definitely make or break the success of your family's homeschooling. Without your loving support **in the ways that seem loving and supportive to your wife** she will be stuck struggling in areas that you could have alleviated, simply by treating her like you yourself would want to be treated.

The golden rule: It ain't just for strangers any more. Try it on your wife and kids.

Checking in to say hello

I've been thinking about you dear people that bother to come on over here every so often, mostly finding nothing new to read.

It's not that I don't love ya. I do. Life just doesn't seem to lend itself to blogging so much these days.

To pop in every couple of days to say "I'm busy and have nothing to report" isn't what I want to be doing here. (though, admittedly, I do that a fair bit nowadays)

In fact, I am busy. And I do have things to report. Some of the things I could report seem too loaded to mention. Some seem complex enough that it seems to lofty a goal right now to try to put words to it all. (though I'm reminded now that blogging used to be the way I'd unravel all the tangled up yarn of thoughts in my head and make some sort of sense of it all....)

I know some people fizzle out on blogging and feel compelled to have some big sign off post where inevitable their thousands of loyal readers will bemoan their change of heart and beg them not to go. I have no desire to make any declarations, no plans to stop having this blog even if I'm in a season that isn't all that blog-friendly, and have no delusions that anyone would have much to say about it even if I did decide to close up shop here.

Things I'm doing and learning these days:

Having a teenager is scary. I feel ill-equipped for the job at times. And knowing I have to go through it five more times gives me a new perspective on people who look horrified at the idea of having a lot of kids. I have a feeling though, that this is probably similar to my belief when I had a passel of roly poly puppies er, babies very close in age: If you can survive the hardest years, the long term benefits are great! My kids (even my teenager) are truly wonderful and bring me much joy, but knowing how high the stakes are when decisions (and mistakes) are being made is a sobering thing to live with.

Business is expanding, my knowledge base is expanding, but my time to implement new ideas, strategies, services, etc. is shrinking. I'm mostly ok with that, though the wheels in my brain are mostly churning away in the background, trying to figure out the answer to the puzzle so I can do more of the business things I would like to do even while managing to do the rest of the other things I do.

Homeschooling five kids is not that hard these days. Mostly it is quite enjoyable, though some days drag on into mind-numbing annoyance and I have to sweet talk myself through it to stay the course. It is mighty nice to be at a point where it doesn't feel oh-so-very-overwhelming.

I guess that's all for now. Signing off til whenever....
~Dolly Mama

Power-ful!

After a little more than 48 hours without power, it came back. Literally *just* as my husband was plugging in a space heater to our new generator. LOL

The house temp was down to 47 on the first day after we left, and down to 38 by the time we broke down and got a generator so that the pipes wouldn't freeze. It took hours for the house to warm up to a modest 66 degrees that we were aiming for.


Power was spotty for awhile but stayed on through the night, and today we got moved back into our home. There was plenty of cleanup to be done from the water in our downstairs, and a mighty pile up of laundry in process. I had boxes of products being delivered and needing to be put away as well. And then there was all of our backpacks and baskets and bags full of the clothes and items we took with us when we left the house. Plenty of work for all of us to do. By now I'm wiped out, so what's left waiting to get done will have to wait until tomorrow.

From the time we left the house on Tuesday until we got back here, I have been constantly reminded about emergency preparedness and all of the things I learned back in 1999 and haven't kept up on since:

-pick up a gallon of bottled water each time I go to the grocery store so that we have plenty in case the water goes out (thankfully, ours didn't go out even though the water dept. said they were going to have to close it down, but we're still on a boil water advisory)

-have plenty of foods on hand that can feed us even without electricity

-I've gotten out of the habit of canning a lot, and have recently preferred freezing both for ease of putting food away for later, and because freezing preserves more of the nutritional value of the foods. This year I plan to can more--maybe half of the stuff I'm putting up. I can tell you that I felt very sad at the thought of losing all of the homemade apple sauce I made this year from our back yard trees!

-I would like to get some emergency backpacks put together so that we could leave the house in 5-10 minutes if needed. I didn't have the house as well organized as would have been ideal, and it took us a pretty long time to get out of here. It was fine this time, but if some other sort of disaster was happening, it took a whole lot longer than it should have. Things I would like to keep in emergency evacuation backpacks include socks, underwear, and a change of clothes for each person, some toothbrushes, individual bottles of water for each person, and some emergency cash. I ran into a situation where bottled water was available at just one store and they could only take cash or check, no debit cards. I only had $5 on hand so wasn't able to get as much bottled water as I would have liked. It turned out ok this time, but I don't want to get caught with only $5 in cash again.

I would love to hear your ideas about other good things to have ready in case of emergency.

We're all enjoying being in our own home, though our wonderful friends and family made it very comfortable to be displaced for a couple of days.

My 16 year old son said that although it's not exactly fun to have this sort of thing happen, he feels like it helps people to slow down, care for one another, and remember what to be thankful for. I agree.

Our street was among the first to get power back in our county, apparently because an important water pump station is on our power line. Most others in our area continue to be without electricity, and apparently it could be many more days or even weeks before it is all fixed. The trees are still icy, we had a little more snow today, and more snow is expected Monday and Tuesday.

Here are some photos of trees in our yard at the time when we were first leaving the house, and then a video taken while I was driving around town the next day.


During this video you just get to see a little of the trees down and snow falling. Also you are treated to me repeating myself because I was having a hard time driving safely and thinking about what I was saying at the same time. :) (Also, I think I may have a tendency to repeat myself anyhow. Might have something to do with having many young children with selective hearing....)

Iced In

We are in the midst of an ice storm here in central KY. Our power went out yesterday afternoon and my husband (who was at work) called to tell me to pack up and get to his parents house. Power wasn't expected back for more than a day, and we have no way to keep the house warm without electricity.

We only got as far as a 3-4 minute drive from our home before we realized that with tons of trees down in the road, power lines down, and more icy rain falling, the 40 minute drive to the in-laws might be too risky. Some friends happened along our path and invited us to stay with them. They still had power plus gas fire places if we needed to use 'em.

We've had a slumber party. I got to go home briefly earlier today to grab some more food out of the fridge and freezer (I hate to see so much stuff going to waste!!) and extra clothes. I found that our downstairs had flooded a little. grrrr.... Just a little extra excitement.

We expect to stay here for another day or 2. Hopefully my friend will still like me after this. :)

The local water is expected to be turned off, thanks to frozen pump stations. Power still isn't working on my side of the town, and it looks like it could be a few more days.

So...I hope you're staying warm wherever you are!

Popping in to say hello

To the dozen of you that actually read this blog, hello! I haven't disappeared, though it may seem like it judging from the very few posts so far this month.

Business has been very, very busy. And that homeschooling thing is rather busy too. Both are good things, just don't leave much time for blogging.

I even have blogable happenings on a regular basis, but don't have the time to get it done.

I did have a great experience yesterday, which was making a longtime dream of mine happen. I hired someone to help me with housework!

I have been dreaming of this for many, many years, and in recent months I had the thought that I need to just make it happen.

The first hurdle was finding someone. I have asked around, but nothing came up until one day my new helper and I were both in the right place at the right time. She was in need of a job, and I was in need of some work. And yesterday she came over and got started. She did cleaning projects for four hours, and boy was it great!

It wasn't easy, though, because I'm kind of a wimp about this sort of thing. My 12 year old daughter even had to give me a pep talk yesterday morning so I could stop feeling guilty or awkward about hiring help. "You have six kids! You homeschool! You run a bunch of businesses! of COURSE you need help! And SHE needs this job! this is a GOOD thing!!"

Smart kid! :)

I'm not to the point where I can hire her full time, or even part time, but it's a start, and I'm excited about that. It was a good step for me and I'm very pleased. :)

Psalm 34: 17-20

Psalm 34: 17-20
The LORD hears his people when they call to him for help.
He rescues them from all their troubles.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
he rescues those who are crushed in spirit.
The righteous face many troubles,
but the LORD rescues them from each and every one.
For the LORD protects them from harm--
not one of their bones will be broken!

Let Freedom Ring

One of the most powerful speeches in history. It gives me chills every time I hear it.

"...So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up... live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will they be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that, let freedom, ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tenneessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside.

Let freedom ring,

And when this happens,and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."