The purge

In a life of consumerism and instant gratification, the purge holds a necessary spot in our lives. We are constantly bombarded with flyers, commercials, radio ads, etc... All telling us, we absolutely need this, that, or the other thing. We are encourage to shop for a good feeling, we" Deserve" it. We are even loan money to shop with, so the old saying," Sorry, I have no money right now", is no longer necessary. We now have stores where we can buy almost every thing. You go in for a jug of milk and your eye can be drawn to many other things from clothes, furniture to small appliances. If you are tired from a long day, you don't even have to leave your own home now to shop. You can shop online. You can have the purchase shipped right to your door, I mean how convenient is that.
With the convenience of shopping now and the ease of getting credit, it is very easy to find ourselves buried under things in our home. If you are like me and have a large family, that is easily multiplied by each member. The stuff will soon start to take over if we allow it. We will soon be controlled by our stuff, if we don't control it. Possessions make us work for them. We work to buy it, work to shop for it, work to clean it, work to keep it in good repair and we work to move it with us. We need to make sure that we are not working for things, that are not important to us. If we only have twenty four hours a day, let not waste it doing something as foolish as working for an item that is not of great worth to us.
I think that we need to ask ourselves why we have certain things in our home. Do you love it, Do you use it ( at least in the last year) or is it a keepsake. If the item does not fall into these categories, than why do you have it? It just maybe time to pass it along to someone else. There is a great feeling that goes with giving too?
I sent three garbage bags out of the house yesterday and I hope to at least meet that challenge again today or maybe pass it. I extend the challenge to you, if you will except.

Friends

Life is interesting as it goes by. Many times it takes you down roads far from where you are use to being. Sometimes it takes you to places you never thought you would visit. But most of the time it just takes you really fast to somewhere out there. I find that if you are not consistently at the wheel steering and giving your full attention to where you want to go, you find yourself wandering out there. Life can get pretty busy for me and many times I will throw the survival button on. I will just coast and keep my head above the water. This has gotten me through some tough times in my life, however, it has it's pitfalls as well. You see, when you are just keeping your head above the water, you are not high enough to enjoy the journey. I have missed many sites along the way. I also don't take time to connect with my friends. This is bad for the friendship area. I have had many friends out there that I have lost touch with because of this silly survival tactic. I am sure that I also have missed meeting many new friends along the journey because I couldn't lift my head high enough to see.
With age, comes some pretty intense self examination. I have decided that the journey this far would have been nicer if I had somehow kept my friends with me.
Recently, I have reconnected with a friend from high school. We were not always with each other but we spoke often and I think somehow found comfort in each other. Our friendship, though girl/guy, was not complicated. I think that our values were very similar and we sat beside each other in class. It was like a safe relationship, if you will. I don't think that we were looking for anything else, other than a friend in each other. This seemed to bring a breath of fresh air to me. I wasn't worried about impressing or putting on a show. He really saw me, at my best and worst(poor him) and that was ok. Now that is a friend. It seemed a little awkward at first because now I am married and somehow I feel funny with a guy friend. But, I am grateful for a chance to share this comfortable friendship again. Thanks, for being the same old friend even after twenty years. I wonder if I might be able to rekindle a few more after this Saturday's reunion. Friends can sure make the path nicer. I need to remember to make time for my friendships to grow.

Training trips for Mothers

For the next week or so, my sweetheart is gone on a business trip. He will be working longish hours but none the less, he is away to a foreign country. Thus having the opportunities to experience different cultures and have some personal time. Do I sound a little jealous yet? Well, I guess, I kind of am. You see, he has been able to attend business trips before, usually without me tagging along. On the other hand, I have not been so blessed. You see, as Stay at home moms, we are not given this opportunity. I have been thinking of this lately. I have come to the decision that, I have a very demanding career and to have business/ training trips, would be very wise. You see, as mothers we are expected to cover such a vast amount of knowledge in our everyday living, that no one person can possess all this talent. Therefore, that is where the learning and training comes in. Imagine, attending cooking classes in Europe, attending healthy living classes in Australia, or parenting classes in the B.C. mountains. Wow, we could be learning a lot of useful information, having some personal time and meeting other awesome moms. I think I need to start a business that caters to mom's who want to develop their skills to a higher level. I think that to have knowledge to share with your family is very important. We are usually home so there is lots of opportunities for teaching our families, these wonderful skills. Just a thought for now but maybe someday, my second career.

Keeping your mind alive

Sometimes I wonder what other, stay at home, mothers do to keep their minds alive. I have been home longer than most. I have been pretty much home now for 13 years, raising my clan and will still be home for a while longer. My youngest still needs her mommy close by. I realize that parenting requires lots of thinking, sometimes too much. I also understand that being a homemaker does as well; however, I still find myself loosing some of my brain power. I can feel it is a little different. I try to read and write as often as I can but I just don't have as much time now as I did before. I am thinking of taking a course or somethings soon. I just love to learn and think that as Mothers, the more we learn, the more we have to share with our families.
Just some thoughts, this beautiful summer day.

A few of my favorite things

Today, I have chosen to be total selfish and talk all about me. I hope that this is not always the case, but for today, it is all about me. There are many, many things that I enjoy. I have to mention my family and friends. The first thing that comes to mind is the sun. I love the sun, it doesn't have to be really hot, but it does have to be bright. The next two things on my list kind of go together. They are flowers and balloons. I love color. Lots of it. I also love to teach. I taught kindergarten for five years and have taught in various positions in my church for the last twenty years. Yikes, that makes me feel really old. I love to exercise, I know it may sound silly, but I do. I am not as fit as I would like to be, but it isn't because I don't like to exercise. My favorite is to just walk. I love to walk alone or with a friend, all is good with me. What else, Hmmm... I love to get dressed up and go out. Unfortunately, where I live there is not a lot of places to go that are not bars. I don't do the drinking thing and therefore, feel a little uncomfortable when people start falling all over the place. I love chocolate: sorry body, now you know the problem. I also love, Fresh Fruit!!! yum. This is what keeps me from getting huge.
In the way of doing things, I love to read, to dance,(don't get much chances for that anymore) to watch romantic comedies or better known as the chick flick. I like to just go for drives. I like to decorate cakes too. I have made almost every birthday cake for my children's birthdays. Just curious, that is roughly 74 birthday cakes through the last 18 years. Wow! That doesn't include the cakes that I have made for others. Maybe I should have been a baker.
O' k, what else: the number 11, every holiday, pretty aprons, girls nights out (what are they???),traveling for no reason, the smell and taste of cooked apples and the thrill of finishing a project. Well that is pretty much all I can think of except two. A smile and a <>
Have a great day

Stinky Self Esteem

Isn't it interesting how you can look so forward to seeing old friends but as the time draws closer, you start to have your doubts. I am being totally honest here, so don't laugh. I am approaching my 20th high school reunion. I have been looking so forward to this event. But as it is now only a couple of weeks away, I am getting cold feet.
I really enjoyed high school. I hung out with a lot of different people and tried to be nice to everyone; therefore, I think that I was liked by most people that knew me. I was not popular by any stretch of the imagination but I think that I managed not to tick too many people off. I have fond memories of high school and those that I spent some time with along the way.
But the thought of meeting those people again, after so long, kind of makes me nervous. Most of the people I knew back than are now working with small families and many still stay in touch with each other. I on the other hand, am a stay at home mom with a very large family and have not have time over the years to do to much at all. Of course I look older and am not exactly the same size either. Don't get me wrong, I am not an "old fatty" but not exactly what I would like. I have those high school fears of walking into the room and no one talking to me. I will be taking my husband with me, so to be honest, I don't want to look lame in front of him either.
I have said that I would go, so I won't back out, but I sure hope this is a positive experience for me and that I might even rekindle some old friendships. I think that I would enjoy some" girl time". Anyway, just my thoughts as I listen to some great "80's" music.

Day Trip

Today my husband had to take a trip to renew his passport. The driving time was about seven hours there and back. That is a long old trip for one day. However, I had a very good reason for tagging along. Our oldest son is living there and I am missing him more than I could ever express. We decided that we would meet him at work and take him out for lunch and have a quick visit. Our whole visit lasted about forty-five minutes long. Not long enough!!! However, one takes whatever one can, at this point. So, I wonder how many of you would drive seven hours for a forty-five minute visit with an awesome son. I sure would! In fact, I would do it again, given an opportunity. Boy, I miss my children when they are not at home. His time with me seems so short now as I look back at it. He was and is a good boy, one who would always make his mom proud.

Life is Living

Sorry, that I have been gone so long without posting but life is living. I have been kept fairly busy with my family and a few other things. School is out now and with so many people in the house, times can be lively. Not always the kind of lively I like, but lively no less. I really want to get my family back into some kind of routine. We seem to have fallen out of our routine already. I seem to be running around in circles and not really accomplishing my goals. I will definitely be working on this.
We have moved our sandbox in front of my kitchen window and I am really enjoying watching my two littlest boys play in the sand. We have also set up our on-ground pool for the summer. The children are finding their warm weather a lot more bearable now. They have so much fun in there, they stay in until they are shivering cold. Buying that pool last summer was a good investment, I declare.
Well, July 1st, found us having a nice supper of: Corn on the cob, hamburgers, potato salad. It was well eaten up. Later that night we enjoyed some ice cream cones and fireworks that are put on by the city. The weather was picture perfect, too.

"Happy Birthday Canada"