First of all, for those who are wondering - we are NOT moving to Arizona. The position they were trying to create for dh got shot down by the board of directors - basically, they didn't feel they should be adding an executive position in this economy. We are essentially happy and relieved. We like our life here, and we've already had 4 different homes in 5 years, so we weren't anxious to move cross-country. Plus, we really like dh's current job, which is stable and flexible - two things that mean a LOT to us. It's also good to know that dh can honestly compete for a job of that nature should we ever decide to pursue something like that. We sure do like his current job, and there's already talk of a couple of potential promotions, so we will probably be happy and satisfied to stay put for quite some time.
Dh and I celebrated our 16th anniversary this past weekend. How can it possibly have been 16 years ago that we got married? Actually, it's been 16 years since our legal marriage - our marriage wasn't blessed by the Church until a bit over 7 years later. But, we count 16 years as our anniversary as that's how long we've been together, and we have a second celebration on our blessing day.
We had planned to go to downtown Atlanta to a nice restaurant to celebrate. Then the tornado moved through right where we had planned on going, so we decided to stick closer to home. We had a young man we know from church and our homeschool group come over to watch the boys, and they had a great time. After we dropped him back home, S3 asked, "Mom? On your next anniversary, can we order him again?" I got the biggest giggle out of that! The great thing is, this young man was awesome with our kids (and even cleaned up my house a bit!), so we are hoping that we will actually be able to use him as a regular babysitter. After 16 years and lots of crisis, we really need to pay some attention to our marriage.The boys are doing well. I wanted to share this picture with you. Whenever we have a task or project for them, we call out, "Four Boy Attack Squad!" and they come running. Lately they have not only come running, but stood in line in age-order, saluting.
They really do this, without prompting! And then they will go and do whatever task I set before them. One thing I've noticed with my boys, they just need to know exactly where to put their efforts, and if they work together they can be truly a force of nature.
I really like this picture of J1 - "a boy and his dog":
Now that I know we're not moving, I really feel energized. I can barely stop my mind from going a mile a minute, thinking of all the projects I want to tackle, and how much school work we're going to have to get accomplished in the next few months. I'm also really pondering the direction of this blog. I'm not sure what my purpose is - am I here to just update friends and family? That's a good thing. I have so much I want to say that I don't really feel belongs in a family blog. But I often can't keep up with this blog, so I don't really want to create a second one. Actually, I don't have much to say about much of anything lately, but I still have a surprising number of visitors, so some people apparently find me interesting from time to time! I think that perhaps my little niche in this massive blog world is to be a sort of poster child for not being perfect, for being humbly real, as a homemaker, homeschooler, and mom. I sometimes read other's blogs and while I often gain incredible inspiration, at the same time it can be discouraging. It can be tough to read about the fabulous things other people are doing when most days I struggle to get my "minimums" done - especially when it took me months to get up to speed with just my "minimums". So maybe that can be my place, to show the non-idyllic side of homeschooling a bunch of boys. Especially since, despite my lack of perfection and effort (or perhaps because of it?) they are amazingly wonderful young people!
4 comments:
The most important thing to teach your kids is how to love... they will grow up wonderful if they know that much! At the end of anyone's life they don't look back comforting themselves on how clean they kept their house or how organized they were... they look back on the lives they changed and the people who loved them and whom they loved. You are focusing on what is truly important and it's something that can really get lost in that striving for some amorphous ideal of "perfection"! What you teach them even doing your minimums is how a family pulls together in hard times. Can't teach that in school.
You guys look great in that first photo! Happy belated anniversary!
Happy anniversary! Glad you had a night out.
I'm like you too in that I sometimes discouraged when I read about all the really cool things people are doing and I wonder how in the world they have time for all of that!
Looking forward to being your neighbors one day soon!
Jen - thanks for the update! This answers all my questions I meant to email you with as soon as Holy Week was over... LOL!
I am glad you aren't moving, sad you won't have the amazing wonder job to end all jobs, but glad not to lose you! [And glad you have a nice job right here!]
And boy, I Hear you on the purpose of your blog - thank goodness for moms like you [and I] out here being "real". I know exactly what you mean about reading some blogs and feeling inadequate [or ashamed somehow in my case] for not "living up" to the ideal portrayed.
So, here's to being "real" and "not perfect". ;) You ARE an inspiration. :)
Kelly
Oh, gosh, I also have to ask you who you used as a babysitter. We had a young homeschooled man come babysit for us while I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago - GREAT kid, almost 16, love him - and my 4yo was being so awful she had him almost hysterical when I called home. Geez... I don't think he's coming back! LOL!
Kelly
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