Happy Mother's Day!

I hope your Mother's Day, for all you moms, is proving to be a wonderful celebration of this unique role! No one else has been called to love, teach, and cherish your children in the same way that you have been. I have severe blinders on when it comes to my children - oh, not in terms of behaviour, but in status - and I think they are the most brilliant and fantastic creatures on the planet. I hope today you celebrate this precious gift you've been given.

My day started out rather uniquely. Sunday mornings are typically the one day where I need to be up and going as soon as that alarm clock sounds and, as a result, I don't always sleep soundly on Saturday nights. Last night, however, I was having a wonderful snooze and didn't wake up until the sun shone brightly through our bedroom window. It is getting warmer here and I thought at first that I needed to take some bedcovers off as I seemed to be a bit damp. As I woke up more I realized that my 4-year-old daughter was pressed right against me and she had wet the bed! Little turkey! Wet your own bed! Needless to say, I didn't need that alarm clock this morning. We were up and going before 7, I had a shower and Georgia had a bath, and I had time to braid her hair before church. My 6-year-old woke up and told me it was NOT Mother's Day. Oh my. Off to a grouchy start. I'm happy to report that the day has improved, I had 3 lovely strawberries on my plate at lunch, and my husband and children have gone off on a long bike ride, leaving me here to enjoy some quiet. The only thing that could really improve on this day to this point would be some chocolate...maybe in ice cream form??

The above layout doesn't need a lot of explaining except to tell you that the legacy of a love for the Word of God is the number one thing I hope to impart to my children. Seeing my oldest two (and only proficient readers at this stage) sit down with their Bibles without prompting and become absorbed in reading Scripture just makes my heart skip! I understand that there are decisions in life that only they can make, that their faith truly must become a personal thing. Seeing them on the right track gives me such hope that God will do mighty and powerful things in them and through them. I can't imagine a more satisfying answer to prayer than to see this scene repeated in our home over and over again.

As the vinegar and baking soda do their magic on my mattress, I'm off to the girls' bunk beds to read and enjoy the warm air blowing through the window.

Blessings on you as you start a new week!

I've been tagged...

Miss Velda has tagged me and it's probably a good thing because I seem to have forgotten that I have a blog. Wow, this is a busy time of year with some activities winding up and others starting for the new season. I have felt like a personal assistant to my children over the past couple of weeks and I do not like living by my day planner. This too shall pass...

Okay, the tag. I'm to share 7 random thoughts about myself. Most of you know by now that I'm pretty good at random. Here it goes:

1) I'm seriously into coffee. Not just any coffee. Good coffee. I'm thinking of getting my own plane just so I can transport in coffee from "transcend" in Edmonton.

2) Growing up I thought I would live in a huge American city, have 1.2 children, and practice law. None of those has turned out to be true.

3) I am a homebody. I don't plan on doing any paid work outside the home. I especially like being home when our house is in decent order. See #4.

4) I'm a perfectionist but this translates into bad things for my housekeeping skills. I'm an all-or-nothing cleaner and have trouble keeping up with the daily maintenance and organization of our place. I really want to change this.

5) I love to read the Bible. It would be fascinating to know more Old Testament history and I just love how the Word is so perfectly woven together over so many years. God's ways are so cool. Of this I'm sure.

6) There are days, AHEM, where I have a definite need for chocolate. These are not necessarily dictated by anything cyclical. Like coffee, I think quality counts but there is a candy bar that will do if I can't get my hands on really good chocolate. Did you know they make an After Eight bar? Dark chocolate, mint, decadent taste sensation. There's really no reason not to have one.

7) There are very few people that I'm comfortable talking on the phone with and I'm even less adept with answering machines. I usually run on and on and then get cut off by some obnoxious beep. If I've called you and not left a message, now you know why. I don't have a problem talking, especially about myself (yes, glorious ME!), but not so much on the phone.

And now, since you've all been so patient in letting me drone on and on about myself, let me feed your appetite for my creative work (yep, absolute genius, no self-esteem issues here this morning, are there) with a photo of a card I made this weekend. I've got all kinds of things to share with you as I've been nothing short of prolific these past few weeks.



If you've not yet been tagged, consider yourself "IT"! I'm off to get a move on this day. I think I'll clean our bedroom and get these little ones started on some schoolwork. Blessings on your Wednesday!

Coolness!

Okay, before I tell you what it is that has me making up a word like "coolness" I just have to show you this layout. I've been wanting to try computer journaling with my scrapbooking for some time now and I finally gave it a whirl. I even copied a good portion of that text right from a blog entry with this same photo of my youngest scrumptious one! Ohhhh, somebody stop me, I can see this becoming a bit of an obsession.

The next thing is that I am super-duper excited to be having coffee with a friend I haven't seen in a while tomorrow night! Gary said at one point today that I probably wouldn't be gone all that long. I just looked at him. Hello? I haven't seen this gal in months and he thinks it's going to be a short little visit?? Hate to break it to you, honey...

Now for the cool thing...we paid off the balance of my student loans on Friday! I am so thankful to be finished with this monthly payment. I'm starting to think it might be fun to have, like, no debt. Ahem. Sorry about that. Momentary glitch. Debt that allows for a roof over your head and/or acquisition of stamping, scrapbooking, and stitching supplies shall hereby be referred to as "good debt." It's the bad kind of debt I'm talking about. Like a summer home on the Riviera or 20 pairs of designer jeans kind of debt.

Okay, I gotta get these little ones to bed. I need a yogurt to bring me back to my senses.

More later.

Wii are busy

Wii would love to talk but wii are busy. Since Saturday morning, when Noah and I left the house at 6:30 to line up at Toys R Us, the Wii has become a new member of our household. What the packaging doesn't specify is that the term Wii translates to mean, roughly, "you, your immediate family, and any neighbourhood children within a 2 mile video-gaming sniffable detection range." Honestly, I think kids have a built in GPS for these kinds of machines.

So, it remains to be seen whether this was our smartest purchase. I've been the lone holdout in our home on these gaming systems. I caved on this one only because I've been assured that this system does not lead to couch potato-itis. I'll let you know. Wii have a bowling/badminton/baseball/golf/tennis tournament going on in the living room that might need some help for the high scores. Ahem, I mean, I'm going to go cheer. Of course.

Spring??

Y'all probably think I passed out and have yet to recover after my weekend alone ended in the return of my family. Nope, I live to tell the tales of domestic life but we travelled this past weekend for Easter (Happy Easter, He is Risen!) and I was pretty intensely busy getting ready for that. We're home from visiting my parents and it feels good to be back after enjoying a weekend with my family. It is so cold here though that it feels like spring is a long way off.

I'm not sure when it happened but this place, this life, has definitely become what I call home. In my early years of college and university, even the first few years we were married, I delighted in going back to my childhood home. The smells, the familiarity of the house I grew up in, the taste of my mother's cooking. Gradually it all changed and the familiar grew to be where WE live, where I cook, where my children are growing. In some ways that makes me sad as I realize that I just don't belong in my childhood anymore and that the responsibility for those memories now rests with me. I struggle "going home" now and there is a tension of how they do things vs. how our house now runs. It's all part of that "leave and cleave" stuff of marriage but it makes me feel just...so adult or something. At any rate, going away convinces me that I am a homebody and that this, for better or for worse, is most definitely where I belong.

In thinking of all of this, I want to share a layout that I finished up during my weekend "retreat" while my dh and children were away. This lovely couple is my grandparents. They live far away, in Illinois, and I don't see them very often now. My grandfather is such a strong personality and I'm more like him than I'd like to admit at times. Interaction with him has shaped me, mostly for good. He has a passion for the Word of God that he's passed on to me. He feels intensely and gives the most amazing hugs. He also experiences some lows that are lower than what some experience. I share all of these things.

More later.

Serenity

Do you remember on the show Seinfeld how Jerry's dad used to always shout out, "serenity NOW," when he was having an argument with his wife? I have lots of moments like that, not arguing with my husband, but when there is a lot of noise and activity around, when I just want a little serenity! Well, I'm enjoying my peaceful weekend and time to clear my head of all those serenity-robbing voices. It's not so much the noise of having a houseful of children that gets to me. It's all the other voices, the niggling ones, that induce guilt and tell you you're not doing what you should be doing, that there are better ways to spend a day, that busyness equals happiness. Those are the voices that steal my joy, that prevent me from being the woman I am created to be.

A dear friend of mine (Hi Margaret) has made this one of my favourite verses of scripture:

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

So powerful, isn't it? It seems so simple, all black and white like that. There are so many things that seem to try and crowd me off the path of walking with my God. Do more, get more, BE more...that's what I seem to hear in the voices that call out from the culture around me. I want what is good though, so I'll keep trudging along the path of justice, mercy, and humility.

Okay, enough about the voices in my head. You're all shaking your heads at this crazy woman's blog now! I've spent the day leisurely, enjoying some time to create. This layout of my son uses two pictures from his year of preschool. He was a BUSY kid in those days and I remember seeing these photos for the first time. They took my breath away! I loved that haircut, those soft rosy cheeks, and that cute baby face. He's nearly ten now and somewhere in between that little boy and the man he'll grow to be. Life just zooms sometimes, doesn't it? I'm so thankful for him!

More later, gotta get back to, well, just being quiet for a while.

Once in a while...

Once in a while it's good to have a clear countertop for more than 15 minutes.
Once in a while it's nice to have a shower with no one coming in to use the bathroom or ask for something.
Once in a while it's good to have complete control of the remote.
Once in a while it's cool to just eat when I'm hungry and whatever I want, instead of being controlled by the clock and juggling the preferences of six different people.
Once in a while it's fun to be able to have some crafting supplies out without worrying who will get into what.
Once in a while it's nice to know that the laundry won't be reproducing at light speed, for a few days anyway.
Once in a while it's refreshing to pray without worrying if someone will wake up, fight, or otherwise interrupt.
Once in a while it's good to have time to complete those projects that niggle at your conscience.
Once in a while it's important to have some space to recognize the privilege of my every day role as a wife and mom.
Once in a while it's wonderful to look forward to not waking up in the night to a little someone or two climbing over my body to get "in the middle."
Once in a while it's good to breathe deeply and enjoy the quiet.

My once in a while is here. Gary and the children have given me a weekend home retreat. I'm not in crisis or difficult to be around, just taking the opportunity to enjoy my favourite place by myself. My favourite people will return on Sunday night and I look forward to having a rejuvenated me to give to them.

Once in a while we all could use a little space, don't you think?