My Ebenezer

 Since I just love the process of transferring photos to the blog so much *rolls eyes*, I thought I'd just get it over with and compile a few random photos here with captions, paragraphs, or stories as the case may be. This is probably one of my favorite photos I'll put here! My siblings and I were all able to come celebrate my mom's 87th birthday on July 17. These are the kinds of pictures I know I will treasure for years to come. I'm so thankful for each one pictured here--they are dear to my heart! Our cat Willow had 2 kittens at the end of June. I don't know about you, but I think kittens are my favorite baby animal (although bunnies are sweet too!). The white one is a female and the gray tiger one is a male. We plan to sell them when they are 8+ weeks old, but my kids are going to be sad! Me too, if I'm honest, but we don't want to turn into the cat people.   Speaking of pets, Eden has been begging for a dog. She loves dogs of all kinds, and wants to to...

 It's getting to that point where I haven't been blogging, life has been happening, and now I feel grossly incompetent to funnel all of my life events down and encapsulate them in a single blog post. It is times like these when I begin to flirt with quitting the blog altogether because, really, who reads this thing anymore?  And it's so much work to sit down at the end of the day or the week and write down what happened or who said what. Let alone the uploading of photos. (Which I just have to comment that I must be missing something because in this advanced age I cannot figure out how to do this any easier than emailing the photo from my phone to my email account, then saving the photo to my computer, then uploading it to the blog. Really? In 2020 that's the easiest way? Somebody please correct me!)   But then one of the kids asks what they were like when they were younger. And I don't remember. Can you imagine that? I don't remember. I, who have been knee deep...

As usually happens when I take an extended break from blogging, I'm having a bit of a rough go deciding what to write about. It's not that I don't have enough ideas; it's more like I'm trying not to firehose you. Some topics I would like to talk about sometime: 1. Parenting. Oh brother, I feel like that could be the new theme of this blog, with every post written on that subject. News flash: Josh and I are not great parents, and most of the time we feel like we're fumbling (did you like that? I'm watching the Superbowl as I type this so there you go). We're dropping passes left and right. Lots of refereeing and unsportsmanlike conduct going on. Okay, I'll stop. 2. Homeschooling and our future plans. Last year was horrific and this year has been no better. I've got my eye on the exit in a big way, and so we're just praying for clarity.  Above all, we want to do God's will. If He wants us to keep homeschooling, then I want to fulfill m...

I may be back on a blogging kick; the next few days will tell. I do this though. I have several activities that barely squeeze edgewise into my life and, because I'm doing well to fit them in at all, I most definitely cannot do them all at once. They are, in no particular order: blogging, drawing, reading, decorating, organizing, and grading. Ha! Ho ho! *ahem* You would think grading should be an everyday occurrence like brushing my teeth, but it's not. Just the other day, I sat down to grade papers and realized I hadn't done any since early in Nov*cough*ber.  As a result, there were assignments for a certain student that had fallen through the cracks (ie: hadn't been done) that we had to catch up on. We spent a solid morning last Saturday taking 13 quizzes that had been missed last semester. Yikes! A very big and real part of my life right now could be categorized under Interruptions. For example, I was tweaking the above paragraph (which I had begun just after brea...

I have about a dozen blog posts sitting partially written in the no-man's-land of my drafts.  They're not "good" enough for me to post. Not upbeat enough or pithy enough or coherent enough to hit the publish button, and so they sit and I forget all about the events that were going on at the time.  I've been thinking about this fact; that I feel a certain obligation to entertain you or inspire you when I write, to make it worth your while to come read what's on my mind.  The truth is though, that that's not really the point of this blog.  I need to be remembering my daily life so that I can see (even if it's in retrospect) the Lord's working.  I think instead of viewing this blog as a place where I write these really cool Mom Blog posts worthy of re-sharing on Facebook ("Ten Reasons I Gave Myself Permission to Relax" or "Stop Being So Hard on Yourself" or some other such popular mom mantra these days), it needs to be boring somet...

Well, here I am again!  Every so often I get the urge to write; usually when I've just read something I wrote about in the past and thus remember something I would have otherwise completely forgotten. Also, it turns out that writing has a similar affect on me as eating chocolate does, without all the extra calories and guilt. Win-win. My life has drastically changed in the last three months.  I now homeschool a fourth grader, try to entertain my four-year-old while sneaking in some preschool work when he's not looking (he gets suspicious if he thinks he's actually learning), and somehow balance the needs of a 3-month-old. Plus the other housework and wife stuff added in for good measure around the edges. I'm not bored fo' sho! Here are some highlights of what thrills me these days: I'm so thankful that Eden sleeps through the night now! My sanity has returned, and with it some semblance of clear thinking. I still have moments where I lock myse...

Way to leave a blog mid-story and go dark for 6 months, right? I have no excuse for myself except to say let's just pick up and move on, shall we?  It would help me if I didn't have to recap all of what has happened in the last half year. The Lord answered those prayers way back in March, and I'm now almost 7 months pregnant with...a baby GIRL!  I can't begin to tell you how excited we are to welcome a girl into our family in mid-November, Lord-willing. And now, let's get back to what this blog has been about: sharing my thoughts, events, and lessons learned. Stay tuned!

I'm sitting here at the computer with about a million other things to do; grocery store circulars waiting to be perused and marked, lessons waiting to be planned, rooms to be cleaned, laundry to be done, but I want to write instead.  I think that's how I know that I'm coming back from wherever it was that I have been; I want to write. The days slip past me fast/slow, and my boys are getting so big and I am missing it by not recording it.  I've taken about 5 pictures in as many months, and guilt knocks on my door about that.  But I'm not letting it in!  I look back on my own childhood, and there certainly aren't pictures documenting every week in those dusty albums.  Do I weep about that? No!  So we press on. "What do you want to remember?" I ask myself.  These things: That parenting is the hardest thing I ever begged God to have the privilege of doing.  It is mind-numbingly, pain-stakingly, wits-end kind of hard.  And I laugh because I ...

I have been itching to sit down and write about several things lately; namely....   Well, now that I'm in here with actual time to actually write, I have no idea what it was I was going to say!  Do you ever do that?  I will walk into the kitchen, go straight to the refrigerator and stare in, intent on grabbing....what?  I then have to shut the refrigerator and go back out of the room (it doesn't work if you stay in the same room; you absolutely have to leave) until I can remember, and then when I do remember, I go straight back to the fridge chanting, "Ketchup, ketchup, ketchup" until I'm back at the table, victorious with my ketchup. Or whatever it was I was after. Anyway.  All of that's certainly not what I wanted to say.  I guess I'll have to come back when I remember!

I recently got a new camera, after my old one's lens cover was mysteriously submerged in grit and refused to open anymore.  How this happened we don't know, but I think it had something to do with the fact that we have two kids who love dirt. We debated long and hard whether we should even buy another point-and-shoot at all, or if I should just join the 21st century and buy a smartphone, which would take pictures and keep me perpetually tied to the internet, all while making calls and texts.  But the truth remains; that doesn't thrill me like it does for most people. I don't use my phone like most people do, nor do I even want to (that's another soapbox for another time), and so I was happy to purchase another point-and-shoot camera, which I will employ to do camera-like things, and not also require it to also make phone calls, keep track of my appointments, and order pizza.  Anyway. So I have this camera, and I just learned how to upload the pictures from it!  A...

I used to come here more often.  This blog was my outlet; my sounding board for whatever I wanted to talk about.  Quite simply, I miss it.  I miss the clickety-clack of the keys as I divest my cluttered mind of its burdens and delights.  So I'm back.  At least until my life jerks me once more into reality, which could be any minute... School fills up a good bit of our time.  I have to admit that sometimes we all have attitudes like this: but thankfully, most of the time it's more like this: In case you were wondering, we have never had second thoughts at all about our decision to homeschool.  Thank the Lord that He seems to have made it clear that we did a good thing.  Noah loves that school doesn't take all day, and I love that I get to witness him learning new things and have more influence in shaping his character.  Speaking of shaping character, that is a constant job.  But you knew that. Seth is almost two, and doesn't ...

Few things call my name quite as persistently as this blog does; not that you'd ever know it from my posting frequency!  The fact remains, that at this season of my life, there are More Important Things (or maybe just Louder Things) that vie for my attention.  My husband and kids.  My house.  The impending responsibility of homeschooling Noah (gulp) and all the preparation that goes into that. Et cetera. Even so, this blog is important to me, and I find that I can't ignore it indefinitely no matter how many more floors need to be scrubbed and loads of laundry need to be folded.  Documenting our lives is important too, and so I have finally sat down to write about it. I'll start with a cliche':  The boys are growing up so fast!  Everybody's kids grow up so fast, but these are ours, and I don't want to miss it! Noah still talks almost incessantly about anything and everything, and asks dozens (feels like millions) of questions each day.  He h...

Whew! It's dusty in here.  Life's been a little crazy the last month or so, and my blog has become back burner again. For the last couple of weeks I feel as though I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing real estate, as I finished my course and prepared to take the final exam, and then the state exam.  Good news!  Through nothing but the Lord's grace, I have passed and will now be a licensed real estate agent.  Not that I plan to have a career, but there are certain perks that come with being licensed that will help Josh big time in his work.  And now that that's behind me, I feel liberated enough to return to being me; hopefully the Me who has time to blog. Noah is growing fast!  I can't believe he's almost done with first grade.  We are looking at Big Changes for him next year.  Lord-willing, we plan to homeschool him next year.  This has been a decision almost 2 years in the making, and we hope and pray that it's the right one fo...

A clean slate, a fresh start, a new leaf, the beginning of a new year always feels refreshing to me.  We love new beginnings, don't we?  I'm thankful that the God I serve is the author of new beginnings, and freely willing to extend forgiveness and a whiter-than-snow garment in exchange for my filthy rags. Praise the Lord for His goodness! I'm still here blogging faithfully and almost daily in my head, with only a fraction of those posts making it onto my computer, and so I think I will give my 365 Project a rest this year.  It turned out to be more of a 200 project anyway, and started to stress me out when I would forget to take pictures or not have time to post.  I may pick it up again another time, but for now I think I'll just not. :)  Happy New Year!

I wish I could be one of those bloggers who actually has the time to keep up their blog.  You know the type; there's always something new on their page--a fantastic photo they took, a funny true story from their daily grind, the best new recipe they've tried, or some witty and well-worded glimpse into their lives that leaves you saying, "yeah, me too!"  Most of my blog posts have to be content to set up shop in the recesses of my mind because I am just too busy to sit down and type them out.  Or find my camera and capture them... Tonight we went over to Matt and Jen's for pizza and a little fellowship.  We were supposed to go to the Fair, but it was raining, and who wants to pay $8 a head to walk around wet fairgrounds with a bunch of wet kids, not riding the wet rides?  Didn't think so.  Anyway, so there we were in the living room, talking, and we look up and the whole couch is full of kids; Noah in the middle, and he's reading aloud a story to the res...

I'm back! Well, as back as can be, I guess. What a CrAzY month we have had. Perpetual motion just barely describes our life lately. I would love to take about 2 days and do nothing but blog about all the things that have happened but that's just not possible. Instead, I'm going to try to catch up on all the events in the small moments I have.

I was going to try to post about everything that's been happening since my computer decided not to post my blogs anymore, but then I realized how great a task that would be, so No. I'm just going to give some highlights. This is not by any means my preferred way to blog, but when you've missed so many opportunities like I have, you just have to pick up the pieces and move on. Instead of the book, you're going to get the cliff notes. I have to start this with a huge THANK YOU to my husband Josh, for working on my blog problem last night. If you haven't already figured it out, I am a next-to-computer-illiterate. Encountering a "javascript void" message made me want to start a new blog on a different site (way to solve a problem, Jo!), but Josh stuck with it and found a solution. Thanks, Honeybear! Noah's birthday party was a success in the sense that everyone had fun. We did water balloons, a pinata, and had cake and ice cream. What more do you ne...

My blog calls to me every day. "Write!" it says, "Remember!" On the other hand, my dishes and laundry and meals and the dirty bathrooms and the floors and empty refrigerator and my family all call my name too. Daily, hourly. And this is fine, I promise! I'm just explaining why sometimes you see me and sometimes you don't. Sometimes life is conducive to me taking a breather and recording my thoughts, and I am deeply grateful for those times. Other times, life is simply not conducive to that and I'm grateful for this too. Life has been very full lately. We've been celebrating Noah's fourth (!) birthday, visiting splash parks to beat the heat, shooting water guns, growing sea monkeys (a birthday gift), making thank-you cards on a rainy afternoon, playing Uno; enjoying each other. I'm so thankful for these blessings and more. :)

As time goes by and we remain unable to conceive, I keep reminding myself to drink in every moment I have with my little boy. He won't be little much longer; the baby years are already behind us! *sniff* I was noticing at the beach today that Noah's little baby pot belly is gone. This would be easier to take if I knew I'd have a new little one to blow raspberries on. Where did this little guy go? Or this one? Chubby face all covered in ice cream, wearing his little "Noah and the Ark" romper? I saw that romper on Titus a couple weeks ago.... *sniff* So Noah is almost four years old, and every day I have to keep reminding myself to soak it up, to remember, to blog . Many of my memories have been helped by this blog, and I'm so thankful I began writing this stuff down so I won't forget it. So, for memories' sake, here's what I want to remember about Noah at this age: 1. He never. stops. talking. I know ( I know !) this is something I'll miss in ye...

I have been having technical difficulties with my blog over the last few days, which has prevented me from blogging. I'm still here and I hope to pick things up again. I've missed it!