Wordless Wednesday

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School Week 10

Monday

Off to another week of school.

Took Babycakes to Panda Express. Since he can't eat anything there we took a Panda bar for him. :)

BC started Monday class this month. He'll now be going to Miss Traccee's three days a week and will stay in Mrs. Johnson's Friday class hopefully through next summer.

Found his favorite food in the toy-box. Brought it right to me to play with him. :)

Not quite into his schoolwork though.

Violin lessons after school.

Later I took Mr. Great-heart to his very first Cub Scout meeting. He's very excited.

Got to make something out of leather. It was pretty cool.

Tuesday

A little better at school on Tuesday.

View the following in a row. See if you can tell how excited BC gets about Share-and-Tell.

Later we went to vote at the convenient polling location at the kids' school.

And even later we went to ballet...surprise.

Wednesday

Went to get some hairs cut after school. Everything was fine until Braniac sat in his "chair" and declared he wanted a hair cut just like Spock's. Then I cried. :(

But his comeuppance was that he had to get his hair cut close to his ears with either the clippers or the scissors, neither of which he likes at all. :D 

Thursday

Got a surprise on Thursday morning. Rain.

Tut, tut. It looks like rain.

Got The Teenager a nice Alexander treatment from the violin teacher. "Funny" how these things work out, eh? ;)

Braniac's class had a field-trip to Riley's Farms in Oak Glen. 

Here you can see why I cried about the haircut. :(

Friday was parent-teacher conferences so the kids had no school. Spock and I took advantage of the lack of urgency regarding homework to take a trip to CBTL where we discovered $1 drinks. Actually, for $2 you could get a large. :)

Did I mention it rained?

Had some cardboard at McDonald's with Mr. Great-heart. Later we discovered the fries have beef in them so we won't be eating there as much. Braniac is a vegetarian and that was the only thing he liked there. I'm not going to cry about this. :)

Next book on my list of things to read.

Friday

Our new decoration.

The kids didn't have school, but BC did. He had a great day. For the first time he said his name (with prompting) and mine too (also with prompting).

Then we were off to P-T conferences where parents get to talk about their favorite subject...how awesome their kids are. ;D

Yeah, mine are pretty awesome. It's kind of a form of positive feedback for me. Homeschooling them hasn't turned them into complete failures. ;)

Braniac is really into doing his stretches right now. Unfortunately, his choice of music leaves much to be desired. ;)

Saturday

Here's a glimpse of the snow on Baldy. It will probably be gone by Wednesday, then come back. Then go away...etc.

Braniac picked out a "bow-tie" from the ballet store. 

And I finally got around to putting our Air1 sticker that we picked up at Harvest Crusade on the back of the car after cleaning it on Saturday. Hopefully I'll remember I've got it on there before I try to cut somebody off on the freeway. ;)

Come As You Are - Pocket Full Of Rocks | With Lyrics

They played this on the radio while I was cleaning the car today. Still made me cry, even in the driveway. Had more I was gonna write but I'm just to tired to formulate more than "Have a blessed Lord's Day."

PS I'm gonna miss Pocket Full of Rocks. (They disbanded, in case you hadn't heard.)

Five Minute Friday--Quiet

Hey, it's still Friday on the left coast. ;)

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In my view, quiet is not a place. It's not a cabin in the woods, or a house by the lake. It's not an absence of noise, the TV and radio off, the kids asleep or out of the house. It's a disciplined state of mind that I've rarely been able to achieve  and that only recently. It's being able to follow someone else's train of thought without inserting your own, it's praying without your mind wandering, it's praying with someone else without your mind wandering...which is definitely the harder of the two. But we don't do discipline anymore. We don't want to take every thought captive. We want to entertain every fleeting idea, even if it means a lack of quiet in our minds. In today's society we pay top dollar to drive to a fancy retreat to have some quiet, but it is only temporary if we do not back it up with the mental discipline it takes to quiet our minds. It's not an easy thing to do, this sort of discipline. I have such a very difficult time with it, but I keep reminding myself of the peace that comes with it, the focus, and I know it's definitely worth it.

Visual aid:

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Read the others, or join in, here.

Thankful Thursday

I'm writing this on my iPhone while waiting in the church parking lot. Three kids are in their AWANA classes. Two are at home. One sick...again. There are many things in life that are not going well. Three (now possibly four) straight weeks of sick kids. Being sick myself for two of them. Other personal things that I won't mention on the blog, but that wake me in the middle of the night, the stress weighing down so heavily I can no longer sleep. 

But, as I've previously mentioned, I am an optimist and I can see the silver lining, though sometimes I need a magnifying glass.  One area of my optimism that needs work is the times when I am sick, or tired, or sick AND tired. It is these times I have a hard time seeing the bright side. It is in these times that I lose sight of what's important. I lose sight of the fact that God is still God even when I haven't had enough sleep and the world is falling to pieces around me. 

I've been reading Hope for the Weary Mom (have I mentioned I read a lot of books...at the same time?) and have found it to be a great help. One thing that works for it is the authors are blatantly honest about what really goes on behind closed doors. They are not Martha Stewart wanna-bes putting on some act that looks pretty in the picture but real people could never pull it off. (How we ever got started talking about MSL Magazine, I'm not sure. ;)) They admit that they fail...a lot...usually in one 24-hr period after another. In their words I have been reminded of the power of weakness. 

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9, 10 ESV)

It's hard to believe when you are as low as you think you can get, and I've been really low the past month, that it is somehow glorifying to God. We live in a country where Christianity is often distorted to, IMO, destroy the weak and the downtrodden. Even when it isn't, more often than not, the weak and sorrowful are met with apathy and judgement by people in the church. But God says to gladly boast of our weaknesses for then He is exalted. Because when we are at our lowest point, when we think we cannot go one more step or pray one more prayer, when we come to the end of our rope and we haven't even the strength left to tie a knot and hang on, *then* we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is the Lord who carries us. 

When I had four children, I thought I had arrived. I had the parenting thing down pat. I was perfectly happy. But God was not satisfied to leave me where I was, content in my own self-confidence, so he sent me Babycakes. Slowly my world began to unravel. Even as I drew closer to the Lord, especially after I was saved, it all came apart and landed in a flaming heap...unsalvageable...by human hands. 

I'd love to give you the happy ending of this story, but I really don't know as there is. My world has been turned on its head and, as I have no power to aright it, I have no estimation when, or terrifyingly *if*, it will be. But I am learning to completely trust the One who will never betray me, never leave me, never abuse me, never neglect me. He alone knows the future. He has planned the outcome. I am simply to do the work He asks of me while I'm waiting. 

"I can't see much past the present but I know who holds the future." First Call