Early Days

I am amazed how much my brain was fogged and distracted. My head is clearing rapidly and it is amazing. The closest thing I can compare it too is being drugged. My senses and thought processes had really become that dulled and fuzzy. Amazing. Just amazing.

So what I am doing with my new found clarity? Lots of things, actually.

The kids and I have been crafting up a storm. We made lots of decorations for Valentine's Day which they are fascinated with for some reason. We have hung hearts all over the house with heart garland. Logan is extremely proud of his creations. I love that. I also started to teach them very beginning needlepoint. I bought burlap, yarn, plastic needles, and embroidery hoops. It worked out extremely well. Hannah really focused on her project for a long time. I am going to pull out some iron ons this afternoon and prep an embroidery project for myself. I am not wanted to knit right now but embroidering some tea towels is enticing. I want to make and embroidery some new pillows for the living room but I need to practice.

Cooking has been going strong. Aside from the daily whole food prep and cooking, I have tried some new things. My first batch of homemade Greek yogurt is going strong. Sadly, I believe my first attempt at whole wheat English muffins is going to be a bust. Oh well, it is the first time I have ever worked with yeast so it is a learning experience.

I have been reading and writing a great deal more. I am filling my journal with many of the thoughts and speculations bursting forth. I love to see the pages fill up with not-so-neat writing. The not-so-neat part indicates I am passionate and excited, too het up to pay too much attention to penmanship. As it should be. I am reading two wonderful books, "A Simple Path" by Mother Thereasa and "Trick of Light" by Louise Penny. Both are excellent so far.

Other than that I am just spending time with the kids. We laugh alot, dance, sing, and cuddle. And we talk, and talk, and talk. I have two children that may just talk more than me. You can all feel very sad for John because I am not sure he will ever get another word in a conversation in this house. Poor guy.

I have been able to really think about the schooling choices we are making for a children. Unschooling is working extremely well for us right now and I believe it will for some time to come. I am so grateful I am in the right place to really think about all of this. It is truly a gift.

Overall, I am having a great time and enjoying myself. I wish this for every, single, one of you.

Living Life

I haven't been here much lately. I have been focused on living and loving my life. Life has fallen into a gentle rhythm that is really working for our family at this time. I am avoiding analyzing it or exploring it too deeply. I am just being with it so to speak.

Recently, I realized I live a calm, mundane life. I will let you in a little secret, I really like it that way. I do. For years I thought conflict and wildly swinging emotions were passion and creativity. The truth, for me, could not be further from that chaotic, frenetic existence. I have found true peace, passion, and creativity within the quiet moments of my life. Each day I run a little, do alot of yoga, spend time laughing and cuddling with my babies and snuggling with my husband at night. Each day I knit a little, write for awhile, read something delicious, and slowly and calmly breathe in the flavor and scent of life. It is amazingly glorious in its simplicity.

Will it stay just this way? Of course, not. Do I want it to? Not really, a stagnant life quickly loses its joy and breadth of experience. I want to continue to experience and savor life as it comes, each day as it will be.

I am sure I will find, very soon, the need to express myself to others. That familiar companion will press me more greatly than it does at this moment. And then I will return here to share myself and my life with those of you who care to share with me.

Until then, I am just breathing, just living, just being, and just loving.

Trusting Your Instincts

We decided long ago to follow a different parenting path. We have a rather specific idea of how it would go. We would be child led in pretty much everything. We would trust our instincts and not buy into the baby gurus. We would pray. We looked for the natural and logical path for raising our children. We would not let everyone in our lives have a vote in raising our children. If we did, we would go insane and we knew this. We were set on our course.

I am so glad we were and more importantly we were on the same page as parents. We would have never weathered the coming storm nearly as well if we had not been firm in our committment.

Our basic philosophy was we would follow a path of gentle, non-shaming, non-punitive, non-manipulative parenting. We would feed our children when they were hungry eshewing schedules. We would snuggle and love on our children without fear of spoiling them. We would not condemn our crying 10 month for being manipulative. Instead we believed she was trying to communicate with us in the only manner she had available. We would not constantly be vigilant for the for the much dreaded sin nature. Instead we would look to see what was age appropriate developments and go from there.

There were so many people in our lives simply horrified by our beliefs. We were told that we would ruin our children. We would teach them to be selfish self-centered brats and they would control our lives. How would we get anything done if we didn't immediately get them on a sleeping and eating schedule??? It would be anarchy! And my favorite, if we did not spank our children we would put them outside the grace of God. Didn't know we were that powerful did you? You thought Christ did it all but evidently not hitting our children could undo His work.

But we held our ground. We used gentle methods. We introduced our children to healthy food and allowed them to decide what and how much they ate. We let Hannah potty train when she was ready. Low and behold after all the threats that if I didn't crack down on her it would never happen, she potty trained herself in 2 days when she was 3.5 year old. There were no fights, no screaming, and no threats. Just a couple of parents dancing around like hyperactive cheerleaders on speed and some M&Ms.

I will be honest, in some ways we have felt downright bullied for our beliefs. The shaming, punitive mindset, and fear-ongering we desired to shelter our children from was dumped all over us. A few of you may know it just caused us to dig our heels in deeper and hold tighter to each other.

Well, it is working. Our children are only 2 and 4. I am sure there are people out there thinking, even hoping, we will be taught a lesson as they grow older. But I don't think so. Our children are happy, loving, and age appropriate. No they don't always do as they are asked. They are kids. I don't want children who fear the consequences. They are strong willed and full of fire. And I love it. They will be leaders, not followers. They will make some poor choices but I know it will be their choice and not something they just went along with because someone else told them to do it.

I am writing this because I know there are some out there who want to follow this path but they are afraid. They are afraid all the naysayers and grace stealers might be right and they could ruin their children if they are too loving, too compassionate, or too merciful. Don't be. They will be fine.

I look at how God parents me. He is forver loving, merciful, and compassionate. He doesn't hurt me or scare me into doing things His way. He doesn't shoot lightening bolts down to hit me when I choose to do wrong. His patience is infinite. Yes, there are times natural consequences are hard to deal with but they are natural consequences not hardships He set up to punish me.

So trust your instincts. Listen to what your heart is telling you. There is a voice in there guiding you how to love, honor, and respect your children. In turn it will teach them to love, honor, and respect others.

We are so happy we chose this path. We love the relationship we have with our children. We are so excited to see where this journey will take us.

Cultivating Friendships

It is less than two weeks before my first half marathon, my first race ever. I am very excited. I am running 12 miles this weekend but the thing is, I am ready. I am surprised but there you are. I don't know how fast or amazing I will be but I am ready. Actually, I will be pretty amazing to me because I am going to run 13.1 miles and that is pretty fabulous to me. I have a hard time believing it is real. But it is very real. So what next? That is the question right? I like what knowing what is next. It gives me comfort. In reality, I am fairly flexible and okay with my plans changing but I still like a plan, a rough map so to speak. The next stage is presenting itself in all its alliterative glory, "Family, Friends, and Fun". Not the most original perhaps but it is important to me. What does it mean exactly? Two things are a part of the foundation of this plan that make appear to be unrelated at first glance but I believe them to be critical. First, I am committing to a 60 day yoga challenge. Each day I will do at least 20 minutes of yoga. I hope to do much more but I want to make a realistic challenge. After all, I have two littles who very much need my attention. The second is all about the food. We are looking to really clean up our diet. We, hubs and I, are focusing on lots of fresh veggies and fruit with as much locally grown as possible. In fact, we are going to do some container gardening ourselves. We desire to follow as closet to a whole foods diet as possible with little to no processed food. Including within that statement is the idea that causes me a great deal of trepidation, saying good bye to white and brown sugar for the duration. It could be 30 days, 60 days, or who knows. I do know that I have an addiction to sugar and this is the only way to clean it from my system. What do the above two things have to do with a summer of "Food, Family, and Fun"? Well, I have known for awhile that I am slightly off center of the place a desire to be in my life. I don't like the word balance. It implies perfection to me and I am learning to revel in my glorious imperfect nature. Perhaps I can call it the center of my life. It is the place I am healthiest, happiest, and most at peace. It brings me calm. I like it there, its nice. It is also the best starting point for any endeavor I may undertake. Yoga and healthy, nourishing foods are two of the greatest helps to get there. This summer is important to me although it may seems fanciful or just another way to follow my bliss. Connections and relationships are of utmost important in our lives. I am coming to believe that although technology brings a great deal of information, help, and enables us to do things that just a few years ago were unthinkable, it also is creating distance and disharmony in our lives. I want to close those gaps and feel harmony again. I intend to actively pursue quality within my relationships. This intention is both for friends and family. I intend to eshew much of the technology in my home and focus instead and companionship and building friendships. I want to take the time to really get to know some just amazing people in my life. I have not decided how this will unpack, exactly. With so much of the everyday workings of my life on the computer, it is hard to get rid of it for any extended period of time. I do think it will be regulated to very limit use. Some days any screen time will be verboten. I desire to live my life more in reality than online. I want to take this time to refresh myself and revitalize my passions. This summer I hope my joie de vivre will explode and the result will turn the ordinary magical.

Extract Your Foot From Your Mouth and Try Again

I have noticed lately that I have not been as kind, loving, or compassionate as I long to be. I have found myself to be impatient, acerbic, and not very pleasant. I so dislike being this way, I truly do. I understand completely when Paul says he does things he doesn't want to do and doesn't do things he desperately wants to do. I completely get it.

Words are some of the most intense weapons we have. They truly can encourage, comfort, and empower or they can destroy, negate, and horrify. They are more powerful than most of us realize. God gave me a gift with words. If I quiet my mind and open my heart, I can often find the words someone needs to hear. I can convey that even if I don't understand, I really care about them and their pain. So many of us really just want to be Heard with a capital H. We want to know someone really does care about what we are saying and what we are dealing with at that moment. We need that intimacy. It has been an amazing blessing. I think it is often the Holy Spirit speaking through me in those quiet moments. I don't know for sure but I can tell you the words just sort of come forth.

There is a dark side to this gift. I also have the ability to use words as a sword that can cut to the heart. My words can come fast and furious pummelling whomever they are directed. It is a defense mechanism and an extremely ugly, hateful one. It is probably the trait I dislike the most about myself.

It is interesting this gift can be a blessing or a curse depending on how I choose to use it.

Today I was praying and I decided to make a conscious effort to get back on the path of love I chose to follow. Here is my Facebook post:

Today I pray that all of my communications, whether with my precious babies or complete strangers, will be filled with love, grace, kindness, and compassion. So often I have a quick, witty, and biting retort locked, loaded, and ready to go. I pray to change that habit and replace my bitter ammunition with words that encourage, fill others with hope, and shows the love of Christ that shines through me.

I am sure you can see where this is going. I went to the gym, there was a dust up, someone was nasty, and I shoved words right down her throat. I marched to my car in (self) righteous indignation. As I drove away, the light dawned on my, and my spirit curled up within me and hid its proverbial head.

Epic Fail.

Ack!! It is just humiliating and humbling. Just not a fun thing to deal with. I will apologize when I see her. But you can't take words back. She will bear a small scar of where I plunged in an ever sharp, ever waiting, ever eager verbal knife. It doesn't matter nearly as much how people treat us or speak to us, it is how we respond to them that defines us. I am not advocating becoming a door mat, not at all. But I truly believe we can comport ourselves with grace, compassion, mercy, and love even when someone verbally attacks us. That is what I am aspiring to do.

So I failed. But that is okay. It really is because I can learn from this. I can allow this situation to better refine me for the future, smooth out more and ever present rough edges. Hopefully, it will teach me to be more graceful in the future. Hopefully, it will teach me more about love.

That is what I have going on today. I am exploring the new found fact that I, apparently, have a foot shaped mouth.

Learning to Love or at Least Less Dislike Winter

I do not like winter. I don't. It is cold and it makes me grumpy. My hands crack and bleed every year not matter what I put on them. The air is dry which leads to constant thirst and more dry skin. I just want to sit inside covered in blankets and drink hot tea until spring shows up.

The only problem is my children. They have taken after their polar bear father and think 20 degrees is a lovely temperature for playing outside. They are ready to run out the door as soon as I crack it for the mail. A couple of days ago, Logan snuck out in the freezing morning in his pajamas and then howled with indignation and anger when I brought him back inside. Their love of frosty temperatures is incomprehensible to me.

But I love them, my children. So, I have invested in full winter gear. I have lined boots that reach my knees. They keep my footsies toasty warm. I have a great new coat that is water and wind resistent. It even has special cuffs around the wrist that hold it tight to my skin. I bought super soft and warm hats and scarves that I actually wear no matter how funky my hair looks. Gloves cover my chapped hands. I also have fleeces and turtleneck sweaters I layer beneath. I am searching for thin long underwear that will fit under my jeans. In other words, I am layered up and ready for the cold.

Is it worth it? Yes, it really is. Along with the cold, Hannah is absolutely in love with all things Christmas. All of the lights and decorations amaze her. Christmas trees in the middle of a crowded Walmart deserve intense scrutiny and compliments. She is simply transfixed by all things Christmas. So, of course, w0e had to go to the traditional small town Christmas parade.

It was so cold and so dark. She didn't understand what was going on but I could hold her attention because it was something about Christmas. Logan and daddy had left to sit in the car but Hannah and I stayed on waiting in the cold for the promised Christmas treat. I cuddled her close and whispered things in her ear. I told her how much I loved her, how she makes my Christmas more special than I could have ever imagine, that she is more beautiful to me than all the sparkly decorations. And then the distance, we heard the sirens and the music of the marching band. Hannah's eyes lit up that night. Each smile was full of joy and her face was suffused with the joy and happiness that belongs to children and a very blessed few. I saw those simple, small town decorations as dancing lights in her eyes. It was amazing. It was magical. It was breathtaking. It was still really very cold. Just trying to be real.

There I sat in my new winter gear. My body was almost as warm as my heart. It was a glorious night and worth all the layers and my cold nose.

So I am learning to love winter as I love all the other seasons. Why? Because contained within each season is precious memories and moments I share with my family and my friends. Because I do not want to sit out a moment of my amazing and blessed life let alone months each year. Now I have to go buy stronger hand cream.