Post on Thursday, part 1

I'm going to post twice today to make up for a Sunday I missed last week (how did that happen?). Also, today I woke up feeling good so I'd like to document a couple things and then compare it to the end of the day reflection. Good excuse for a random thoughts post, eh?

1) I am challenging myself to read at least 3 new blogs a day through the ring links I belong to or links from those I find (either comments or in their favorites). I did this when I first started blogging and found a couple good ones, then for some reason I quit. When I visit a new one I am trying to leave a comment. *If you want me to visit yours, leave a comment!

2) My plan for the day involves recovering the kitchen from last night's cookie making and start the laundry and make beds before we go swimming.

3) Create a two week meal plan and prepare a grocery list. We have dropped this habbit this month and it is costing us. When we do this we eat better and save about $200 in groceries or more. It has to include beef, pork, fish, and chicken plus a variety of veggies and fruit.

4) Prepare the garden raspberries for canning. ie: thaw them. I want to get this done!

5) There is still an inch of ice on everything. I hope to take more pictures today and tonight. It is magical.

Last night was my last in-person class for the next couple of years. There was something that really worked for me the last 2 years of teaching Wednesday night classes so I was really sad to let it go. I'll be teaching online only for a while, which is convenient and pays the bills but it is not the same thing. I came home to a tot who waited up for me like she has every Wednesday night since I started teaching and a grumpy husband grouching the way he has every Wednesday night since I started teaching and I was greeted with the reality of why teaching night classes was just was not working for my family. I changed my classes because of this pregnancy and my limited driving ability in the Spring semester but I am glad I did.

Grades are due Monday. My goal is to finish calculating (grading is done) the final scores and submitting them way before the deadline.

That's about it. Oh, and we are going swimming. Yay!

Pretty Pictures for Wordless Wednesday?

Party! (and some stuff)

We hosted our local all inclusive homeschooler group's monthly meeting at our home yesterday afternoon. We all had a blast. Great Grandma came too. I hope she had fun! We did a cookie exchange, the kids played and played, and the moms gathered to have tea in the kitchen. I so needed an afternoon just like this. It refreshed me and, though I went to bed with a pounding headache, my heart was not as heavy.


Of course I made the prediction that the weather weenies (our local meteorologists) were over reacting yet again and the coming storm would not be anything. I was soooooo wrong. Even my dearest husband's work was closed down (sort of) and that NEVER happens (though, the malls only closed early....). It's not the 3-5 inches of snow, it is that it rained first on top of the snow we already had making a fun layer of jagged ice, power outages, and then the 3-5 inches of wet heavy snow on top of that. It still doesn't feel like an old fashioned Iowa blizzard to me, but I will concede that it is dangerous to go out in these (beautiful) conditions.


Then, my husband also has earned some acknowledgement: on Sunday he finished my fireplace, went to band practice, grocery shopped for my shin dig, and then stayed up until midnight baking cookies for my part of the exchange. I played with Lil'Bug amidst concerns that I would not get the house "party" clean. Yup, I finished cleaning just as the first knock on the door greet us. ;) That's just how I roll. Here is his handiwork:

Before

AFTER!

Holiday Angst

This weekend has not been very good. I worked on grading finals, I fixed more computer-y bugs in my class software (ok, compensated for them), and basically stomped around full of anger.

I wish that this time of year I could zen my way out of these feelings and be the peaceful mama that I know I can be. The inner turmoil has been terrible this year. The Omaha mall shootings triggered it. Of the terrible things in my past, I can include surviving and witnessing a terrible crime- I know first hand that the survivors and witnesses will suffer more in the coming years than the gunman ever felt in his teenage angst. PTSD is an easier label but it is not so easy to live with. Pray for them and their families and then pray that you and your loved ones never suffer so.

Then this time of year always brings the recourse of the hard decision we made years ago: to cut off contact with my former abusers. They are family and many of the rest of my family call my very hard decision a feud and tell me to get over it, to grow up, to move on. That angers me. I have grown up and in growing up I choose not to allow people, regardless of some biological link, to treat me in such horrible ways, to allow the abuse to continue in any form or expose my children to such behaviors. That means for me that beloved cousins and aunts and uncles do not visit us when they come to town, they do not call anymore. For some it is easier not to believe me or to "put family" and loyalty first. What am I exactly, chopped liver? It is the last vestige of how the abusive people can wield their power of hurt. For some reason, it is only at the holidays that these feelings overwhelm me.

Right now I am extremely over sensitive and touchy. I am trying to find and inner peace and some sense of balance but it is so much harder than it sounds. So, for me it means cleaning house and baking cookies and just living life.