Pure Sweetness

My blog is such a tattletale.  

It's the first to tell when I have become busy...too busy to blog.

I try not to let my life--my family's life--become too busy.

In fact, I have the word "Simplify" above my calendar as a reminder to not become too busy.

It reminds me of what my mom used to do.  She would tape a notecard with the word "NO" above the telephone as a reminder not to say "YES" to everything she was asked to do. The funny thing is, I remember her standing there, talking on the telephone, with her hand covering the "NO" card and saying, "Sure!  I'll do it."

You know...we are busy.

But it's a good kind of busy. 

I love this time of my life very much.

I love the endless activity that comes with teenagers 

and young children.

I love falling into bed at night completely exhausted. 

I also love this reminder...this command...from Scripture. 

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.  (Titus 2:3-5)

So, enough about where I've been and why.

Now...let me tell you about this little bundle of pure sweetness!

I refilled my bird feeder last weekend and have found 

this little guy out there several times a day.

He still has his baby bird fluff!

What I love about him is that he sits there and eats--

totally unafraid.

Usually, when the birds hear me at the sink inside this window, they scatter.

But not this one!

He just sits there and keeps on eating.

I just love him!

I will be sad when he loses his fluff and becomes more wary of me and my noise.

Even Charlie, with her noisy puppy-doggedness, doesn't scare this little one away.

Speaking of Charlie...I hear her moving around in her crate.
I think that it's time to put her outside.

And it's time to go shake William.  He has an orthodontist appointment today.  Then it's off to Walmart, back home to finish up our schoolwork for the week, and then out to clean up the yard a bit.  Our homeschool group's youth group is coming over for an afternoon of recreation between our yard and our neighbor's yard (what a blessing to have them as neighbors, fellow homeschoolers--and in the same support group!).

Enjoying the pure sweetness of baby bird fluff...and the busyness of my life,

Titus Two...or One?

Oh, that Proverbs 31 woman.


You know the one.

She sits across from you in your women's Bible study group with her perfectly manicured fingernails, nice figure, coordinated outfit (without spit-up stains), trendy hairstyle, adoring husband, well-behaved children,...
And did I mention that she homeschools? Her seven children? And has a business from her home? That she created? She is also the president of her homeschool support group. And she is on the missions committee. And she teaches the third and fourth grade Sunday school class. And the blog she writes? It's one of those inspirational blogs. One of those that has hundreds of followers. Oh, yes, and she does that monthly meal preparation thing so that she has homemade meals every evening. Not McDonalds.

Is that totally unfair?
A very, very wrong assessment?
I know it is...

Don't get me wrong.
I love her. I admire her. I find inspiration in her.
And I so want to be like her.
And if I look past the exterior beauty, I see a beauty within that is far superior to her outward appearance.

But reading about her makes me feel so inadequate.
That Wife of Noble Character.
I know that's not the point of Proverbs 31...and I feel guilty baring my soul to you about this. I feel guilty telling you that when I read about her I feel guilty.
That's pretty ugly stuff, huh?
Have I mentioned that I have a problem with guilt?


Now that Titus 2 Woman!
She's a different story.
I'm not quite her either, but I feel like I have more of a chance to become like her.

Or is it them...you know, the older one and the younger one.

Titus 2:3-5
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

Which one am I?

I've often wondered which category I fall into...the older woman or the younger woman. I'm sort of at that in-between time of my life.

Then it occured to me that the Titus 2 woman really is just one woman.
After all, there will always be older women and younger women in my life.
I can be "those" women.
That woman.

Elisa over at Extravagant Grace is taking a close look at the Titus 2 Woman this year. On the second Tuesday of every month, she will be meditating on and studying a portion of Titus 2: 3-5. I'm looking forward to studying along with her in order to be become that Titus 2 woman.

Don't think that I'm giving up on being that Proverbs 31 woman.

I know that God is calling me in different ways to be like her. Maybe I don't make monthly meals, but I do make "pigs-in-a-blanket." I may not sew my children's clothes, but I've found some pretty good deals at Walmart!
And do I love my family.
You bet I do!

My Brain

Ah...the dilemma of a blogger.
Either she has nothing at all to blog about...
or she has many, many topics to blog about--all which need quite a bit of development in order to publish.

I started this blogging journey fearing the first. I kept telling my blogging friend, Nicky, that I would never have enough to blog about.

It has been quite the opposite. I have several "starts" to blog posts sitting in my word processor, just waiting to be developed into real, live posts. They will sit there for a couple of months until they are no longer relevant. Then I'll go in and hit the old delete button.

I used to have a notebook that I carried around that Carrie called "Mom's brain." I had everything written down in that notebook. If a thought was swirling around in my head keeping me from going to sleep, I would write it in my notebook. All of my "to do" lists were kept in that notebook--and yes, I had several "to do" lists going at one time. Prayer promises were written in there. Blog ideas. Menus. Funny things the kids said. Books I wanted to read. Bible verses to memorize. Ideas for homeschool units. It was this unorganized mess of how I felt my brain would look if you could take a picture of it.


But! Once written in the notebook, I could erase it from my brain! I no longer had to think about all of those bits and pieces, I could just read them in the notebook, do them, and cross them off. The best day ever was when an entire page got crossed off and I could rip that page out of the notebook!

The problem with the notebook and why it no longer exists?
It became my boss.
And a pretty nasty boss at that.
"My Brain" would tell me what to do and robotically, I would do it.
And with the all-or-none personality that I have, if it was on the list, by gum, I was going to get that puppy crossed off if it had me crazy doing it...which sometimes it did.

Work was in that notebook.
Responsibilities in which results could be seen when they were accomplished.

But what about reading with Josh?
Playing a game with William?
Chat-time with Carrie?
Cuddling with Matthew?
Planning and dreaming with Paul?

Nope.
My list trumped them all.
It was my task-master.
And I was missing out on all the fun.

So, I no longer have a "brain."
Sometimes I long to have it back.
Occasionally, I do use it, but not to the extent that I used it before.
Most of the time I do things without consulting my "brain" at all.

And...do I miss my brain?
Yes.
Sometimes.
When I'm standing in the middle of the kitchen wondering what I should be doing next...even as a pile of laundry a mile high is sitting in the bathroom and the dishes are making the kitchen stink.
When I can't go to sleep because this one thing that I MUST get done tomorrow keeps at me with its incessant pecking.
When I forget...forget what great idea I had this morning for a lesson...forget where that great Bible verse on forgiveness is located...forget what's for supper...

That's when I break into song..."If I Only Had a Brain!"

Am I any better at reading with Josh or playing games with William or chatting with Carrie or cuddling with Matthew or dreaming with Paul?
My guilt-ridden conscience would shout a resounding, "NO!"
But deep-down, I think I am.

I don't really think that throwing out my "brain" made me any better at spending time doing the things that REALLY matter. In fact, that old notebook was probably what helped me to see that I need to be more purposeful in the time I spend with the ones I love.

So maybe, just maybe, I could have my notebook back?
Reclaim my "brain?"

Maybe then today's blog post would have been about what I originally thought about writing...being a Titus 2 woman...instead of turning into a post about my "brain."

I'll go start that post on being a Titus 2 woman now...
and maybe you'll see it...or maybe it will get deleted in a month or two.

The Plunge

That's right!

We took "the plunge." We bought a frog hatchery kit about a month ago. It's one of those kits that comes with everything you need to watch a tadpole turn into a frog...everything except the tadpoles. You have to send for those.

Several years ago, we tried the butterfly hatchery kit. That was very fun! We sent for the caterpillars and then watched them metamorphose (is that right?!) into butterflies. Then, one sunny afternoon, Carrie, William, and I released them onto our butterfly bush in the flower garden. It didn't take them long to start flying happily around the yard.

Frogs, I have learned, are different.
You can't release an African water frog into your environment because it will cause "an imbalance in your ecosystem."

Oh.

If...and I say if because we've been warned that many tadpoles don't make it to froghood (I know that's not right)...if our tadpoles do grow to be healthy adult frogs, then we either have to keep them as pets or we have to find a suitable home for them.

The good thing about the African water frog is that he lives in the water all the time and doesn't have to eat live food. If we had received leopard frog tadpoles, we would have had to prepare a terrarium rather than an aquarium.
And provide live food.
Or put liver on a stick and train the frog to eat it.
The African water frog really is less work and maintenance than the leopard frog.

I guess.

This video was taken about three weeks ago when they were just itty bitty tadpoles. They were so itty bitty that I had to take a video of them...a picture wouldn't pick them up.




They aren't so itty bitty anymore.
Today, they are about three inches long, from their heads to the end of their squiggly little tales. They're huge! We catch ourselves saying, "Good morning, little tadpoles...I mean, big tadpoles!"

And they get bigger everyday!

They were shipped to us in a tube of water packed inside a very well padded envelope. We received three live tadpoles and, we think, the remains of one that didn't make it...although it was so small that we're not sure that's what it was.

One of the tadpoles died after just a week. We were sure that the other two would die soon after, but now after almost a month, we still have two very big, very healthy-looking tadpoles.

I think they look healthy. I don't know...I've never had tadpoles before.

Well, that not true.
When I was a little girl, my brother and I found tadpoles in a water-filled tractor tire track down the lane from our house. We collected them in a cup and brought them back up to the house so that we could watch them change into frogs. We knew that we had to find a "just right" home for them, so we put them in the best place we knew...our cows' drinking trough.

Hmmmm. How smart were we?

I digress...

I'm now getting over thinking that they are kind of creepy. I still won't set my coffee cup beside their bowl, but I do enjoy just sitting and watching them.

Carrie has even given them names now. The calm one is "Zac" and the flighty one is "Tiff."

I love that they come to the side of the bowl to watch me when I am close by. I love that they have little mustaches. I love the squirmy little tails that flutter continuously.

When we received them, I didn't picture us having pet frogs, but now I wonder how I could ever say goodbye to these two little guys.

Anyway I hope they're both guys.
Or both girls.
Not one of each.

You know.

Great Expectations

Surely, I'm not the only one who over-plans.

O.K. I won't call you Surely.
Sorry, that's one of Paul's favorite chuckles.

It happens every time we plan to visit our family up north. I have all these things that I want to prepare, do, and get done before we go. There are goodies to prepare, there is Christmas and birthday shopping, laundry and packing to do, and the house-cleaning to get done.

On top of that, I make the off-handed comment that I'd like for us to be loaded and everyone in the truck by 10:00 AM.

Ya, right.
Does that EVER happen?
You know the answer.

It's now 7:00 AM.
Here's when I got up this morning in order to be ready to go...



Isn't that dumb?
I know that now. And I'll be feeling it later.

Well...so what's left?

Laundry?
Check!



Groceries?
Check!



Party Mix?
Check!



Carrie's yummy peanut butter fudge?
Check!



Christmas cookies?
Check!
Remind me to tell you all about making Christmas cookies this year.
These kids just keep on providing me with blogging material.



Dad's birthday cake?
Check!
By the way, did I mention that he will be 68 on December 17th?
And did I also mention that I double the batch of frosting for the cake so that it is nice and thick--and so that I can have the left-over that doesn't fit on the cake.
Yep. I learned that trick long ago.
I also learned to get up early to make the cake so that I don't have to share the left-over frosting.
Sorry kids. The early bird gets the worm.



Prepare and wrap Christmas and birthday presents?
Almost check!



A cup of coffee for me?
Check! Check! Check!
You can't blame me can you?



My sweetheart?
Not quite yet...but he's coming!



And most important?
A smile?
Check!