Writer's Workshop Wednesday- Why didn't anyone tell me when I became a mom that....

Over at Kat's Writers Workshop Wednesday

This week I chose  the prompt- List 10 things you never knew until you were mom.

This really got me thinking about what things I didn't know when I had my first child. It was a long time ago. I've been at this mom thing for 26 years. It is bittersweet especially now that I am down to my last few months of having a child at home. There were times that motherhood/ a single day lasted forever and I couldn't wait to be done with it, yet  the time really went way to fast and I am so sad to see it end and so excited for it to end all at the same time. Like I said, Bittersweet!

Here are 10 things I've learned as a mom:

1. I had no comprehension of how much my parents loved me until I had a child. It is a love that is so all encompassing and so bone deep that you can't understand it until you hold your child in your arms for the first time. It also has given me a glimpse of how much God loves me. It is truly one of God's greatest blessings.
2. I had no idea that it would be so hard. Being a mom is just plain hard. It is 24-7 and sometimes completely overwhelming.  When they are little it's exhausting- physically and as they get older it is both emotionally and physically tiring. Staying up to see your teens when they get in at a midnight curfew is so hard but worth it.
3. I didn't know it would be so fun. While parenting is hard- it's also a blast at times. Not every moment but enough fun that you don't want to run away...usually!!
4. There are no hard and fast rules- It would be so stinking easy if there were rules on how to deal with things, especially with babies. If you knew that rocking them would make them stop crying and it worked with every single kid every single time then that would be great but here's the kicker. You get so good at knowing what to do for your baby to keep them happy and not crying and you think you are so smart and have it all figured out, then you go and have another one. What worked for the first doesn't do anything for the second kid!!!!
5. Take all advice with a grain of salt!! This goes back to number 4. What works for one kid won't necessarily work for another kid. People will give you tons of advice and some people will make you feel like a complete failure as a parent and mom since their baby is so perfect- BARF- They have a different baby than you do. Some babies are just plain harder than others!  Each kid is different and what worked for them won't always work for you and your baby. Try their advice if you want but if it doesn't work for you- don't feel badly.  This goes for behavior later on too.
6. CONSISTENCY, CONSISTENC, CONSISTENCY!!! This is the most important word I learned as a parent. It is the key to everything. A consistent schedule with a baby makes life for both of you easier. A consistent plan for behavior helps your kids to be obedient and grow into great adults. For someone as ADD as I am, diagnosed & medicated, it was a hard word to learn but learn it I did and my kids and I are better for it. 
7. Before I had kids I thought that I wanted to be "BFFs" Best Friends with my kids and the very worst thing that they could ever say to me was "I HATE YOU!" WRONG- If you are best friends with your kids, that means  you're not giving them any boundaries or any lines to toe. It means that they are doing anything they want and that they had no consequences.  They are going to be out of control. Kids need and want limits and rules to follow. It makes them feel loved and cared for and also gives them a reason to say NO to things that could harm them.  If you get control early on and if your kids can say to their friends, "I can't do that!  My mom would kill me if she found out!" you'll have done a good job. I'll tell you that my kids have come to me as adults and said how glad they were to have had the rules and the "mean mom".
8. The worst stage for a parent is when your kids are in Middle school or Jr. High. It's just the most traumatic,  dramatic, and difficult stage for kids. They are hormonal messes and so self centered. Plus middles school girls are just downright MEAN. It's awful for them and it's awful for you. Be Warned!
9.  Nothing will rock your world harder than problems with a kid. Whether it's a problem brought on by their own poor decisions or just something that has happened to them, it will hurt you more than anything else in the world. It will bring out the mama lioness in you when something happens to your cub. Especially, when someone has wronged your cub. You just want to attack and protect your baby. Stepping away and letting them fight their own battles is one of the hardest things I've had to do and let me tell you, I still want to butt in and help and many times I do. I try to hold back though. 
10. While being a mom is the hardest job it's also the most rewarding job in the world. There is such total satisfaction in seeing your kids grow up into self- sufficient  citizens.  I am so thankful that God blessed me with my kids, both adopted and birthed. It has taught me more than I ever could have imagined.

Writer's Workshop Wednesday- My favorite books to read to children- and the most hated!

Kat over at Mama's Losin' It has some great prompt for Writer's Wednesday this week. Try it out. You just might like it!

2.) Book Review! What children’s book do/did you hate reading to your child?

     It's been many, many years since I read to my kids but I can still remember the ones that I hated to read aloud and the ones we all loved.
     I hated any book written by Dr. Seuss for the same reason that Kat hates Chicky Chick Chook Chook, the repetition.  His books were great to use once they just began to read because they could figure out what the next word would be but, they were awful to read aloud because they were so boring and repetitive. They were also without much of a plot or any good character development- Kidding! They were just boring as all get up and go to read over and over again. They made me grit my teeth and thankfully, these books somehow got hidden under my bed lost a lot!

     On the flip side, there were books that I read literally thousands of times and still love. Some of the books that I loved to read were: Goodnight Moon  and The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.

I also love children's poetry and story collections like A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevensen and A.A. Milne's;Winnie the Pooh, The House At Pooh Corner,  Now We Are Six, and When We Were Very Young  My favorite is When We Were Very Young, especially the poem called, Disobedience- "James James Morrison Morrison Whetherby George Depree took great care of his mother though he was only three..." Bet your shocked at that. Amazon actualy has a great set with all 4 of these titles.






We also loved Robert McCloskey's Blueberries for Sal and  Make Way for Ducklings.

If you weren't from New England, you may not have heard of these but you should get them.

Last but not least, my favorite book and my kids' favorite book, hands down, is a book called
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear. 
It was given to us by my step uncle, who volunteers to this day at a preschool. I had never heard of the book until we received it, but it quickly became our must read book. After thousands of reading I'm still not tired of it.
     What are some of your favorites. most hated kids books?
It's freezing cold here today and I think after I finish my chores, I might just grab a book and read. I only wish I still had a little one at home to snuggle up with and read to! Man time flies!!!!

A dog's New Year's resolutions and you are the worst customer service person I have ever delt with!

It's time for the Writer's Workshop over at  Mama's Losin' It!! This week I chose prompt 1 and prompt 4. 
 Here's the post from Holly our 12 month old lab mix.
1.) Your pet wants to guest post on your blog.
Dear Family, 
It's almost January first and I have been giving lots of thought to my New Year's resolutions for 2010 and here they are:

• I promise not to roll in the mud when we go to the dog park.

• I'll do my best to quit smoking cigars.

•  I'll bring my fetch items back to you if you throw them for me.
  

•  I will play in the snow as often as possible.

• I'll try my hardest NOT to chew up any shoes.

I'll do these things for you,  ONLY IF you never ever dress me up in a stupid squirrel costume again!

  Hope we have a great year!  Love, Holly



 Prompt #4. ) Write a letter to someone you received poor customer service from. (inspired by Lynsey from Sassy & Southern)

Dear computer customer service lady,
      
 After half an hour on the phone with you and you not being able to help me, I have a few questions for you that I would like answered.

1. Why did you pretend to know how to solve my problem when it was obvious that I knew more than you did and we both knew you didn't have a chance at helping me?
2. When I was overly polite to you, OK perhaps a bit sarcastic after the first 15 minutes, why did you get very condescending and  treat me like I was an idiot, especially when you were the one without a clue?
3. When you obviously had no clue about how to solve my problem,  why did you refuse over 20 times, to pass me off to someone who could actually help me?
   
4. Why did you continue to ask me questions that you didn't even know the correct answer to? 
5. Why is it that after 30 minutes of dealing with you, in frustration, I hung up, called back and got a different customer service rep. who immediately, within 3 minutes, could see that I needed more help than they could give me and passed me off to a higher level of technical support who, by the way, solved my issue in under 5 minutes??????????????????????!!!!!

I look forward to your answers to these questions. Hopefully you can do a better job with these than you did with my questions on the phone.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                           A very unhappy customer

PS. Thank you so much for graciously giving me your name and id number at the beginning of our phone call. I later used the information to report your hideous service. 



Here are the rest of this weeks Prompts:
1.) Your pet wants to guest post on your blog.
(inspired by Matthew at Child’s Play x2)
2.) You wake up one day with an unusual super power that seems pretty worthless—until you are caught in a situation that requires that specific “talent.”
(inspired by Writer’s Digest)
3.) Write about a speech you gave at a wedding.
4.) Write a letter to someone you received poor customer service from.
(inspired by Lynsey from Sassy & Southern)
5.) This time I really MEAN it! It’s time to list your New Year’s resolutions for 2010.
(inspired by Margaret from Nanny Goats In Panties)
Head over and pick a prompt to write about and link up!

Writer's Workshop Wednesday- When did my life become a cliche?

Over at Mama's Losin' It, she's posted the prompts for this weeks Writer's Workshop.  I chose #4- Write a story in exactly 101 words.  (inspired by Jennifer from The Peterson's Go Public)


Bitsy awoke and realized that come hell or high water, she wasn’t going to throw pearls before swine anymore. Her blood had run cold when she’d heard through the grapevine that, Skip, had been cheating on her. She’d known better. When they'd met she knew, though he was hot as hell, he was also, dumb as a stump and had ants in his pants. Pigs would fly before she’d put up with that crap. She was going to toss him like a hot potato and never look back. She’d find greener grass in another pasture. It was time to move on!

Writer's Workshop Wednesday

I love Wednesdays and getting a prompt over at Mama's Losin' It
to think and write about. Some are funny and some are sad but thet are a ton of fun. If you haven't ever joined in, today is the day. Head on over, pick a prompt or two and write. Then post your link for us all to see. It's really easy!

2.) Describe the most destructive thing your pet has done.  Oh this is easy! We had a yellow lab 20 years ago and he was the sweetest thing. We had 4 little kids at the time and the kids could sleep on top of him he was that sweet. We didn't realize that we were having a problem with him until one day I was sitting and nursing a baby in the family room and I head this scratching noise in the wall. I got up and went over to the wall and could see some claw marks on the paint- COMING FROM THE OUTSIDE SCRATCHING IN!!!! I went outside and around to the side of the house. Understand there was this 3' wide space between that side of the house and the fence. It had a bush in front of the enterance so you couldn't see that side until you went around the bush. The DANG DOG had chewed off the siding of the house. Not just a small area but 20 feet long and 4 to 5 feet up all chewed off, the insulation torn out and in that one spot he was coming through the wall into the house. Needless to say after the repair, we decided that he needed far more room to play than our little tiny city yard and he went to live with really good friend out in the country where he could romp and play.

3.) Describe in 1000 words or less a time when something happened and you knew that life would never be the same.
 I knew my life was never going to be the same the day we found out that my dad's brain tumor was a metastasis of another cancer that had gone undetected. By the time he had any symptom, the cancer was far spread. He only lived for 16 weeks after we found out. I can still remember everything about that moment when the doctor came out. The color and print of his scrub cap, what I was wearing. The look on the doctor's face as he walked toward us was the moment that I knew that life was changed forever. I miss him every single day!
There is an author named, Kate Braestrup who has a book called, Here If You Need Me. While she has some theological points that I disagree with, it is one of the best books that I've read this year. She calls moment like these "Hinges".  She describes a Hinge as, "a moment or event that changes everything from that point forward." I think it's a perfect description. She does go on to say, "In a hinge moment, look around for God. He will be right there standing on the hinge, holding His arms out to you. If you are wise, you let go and fall against that love and be held." This is the best advice I could ever give to someone in a hinge moment. You have a choice to be angry with God or to be comforted by God. We in our finite minds cannot comprehend the infinite plan that God has for each of us and those around us. The loses and hard things in life just don't seem fair or just, but in everything God does have a plan, EVEN WHEN WE CAN"T COMPREHEND or see it. I choose to lean on and trust in God and be held in his arms for the comfort that there is a purpose even when I can't understand it. Call it weak, or call it simple but the peace and comfort that I have found in His arms in very difficult situations far surpasses the other option of being angry and sad for the rest of my life. Regardless of your view point, you should read the book. It's amazing.

Writer's Workshop Wednesday

For this week's writer's workshop, I'm choosing door number 1- Describe something you're proud of.!

Go choose your own prompt over at Mama Kat's blog- Mama's Losin' It.
(This prompt was inspired via Twitter by Summer from Le Musings Of Moi)

As cliche as it sounds, I'm really proud of my kids. It's an amazing thing to see them grow into adults, graduating from high school and college, getting jobs, building lives and contributing to society. I love seeing them grow in their faith and using their gifts to honor God and to help others. One is a social worker helping to provide shelter for homeless people. Another is a worship leader at a church. 2 are in college and getting their degrees and the baby is working hard at school and applying to colleges right now. My chest is puffed up with pride, I've got a smile on my face and a tear in the corner of my eye.

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of them, not me. It's definitely a case of them turning out great in spite of my parenting rather than because of it. I look back on the mistakes I've made as a mom and and am so thankful that they even survived it. I wish I knew then, what I know now as a parent, without having to do it all over again. I'm too tired to do it over again. They can go to therapy.


I'm proud of the fact that I didn't ram the car in front of me this morning. The woman was doing 10 to 15 miles an hour (she was busy talking on her cell phone), the entire 2 mile road up to my house. I don't mean accidentally ram her- I really did want to ram her, ON PURPOSE and even considered, during the freaking 9 minute drive, how I could do it and cause the least amount of damage to my own car. I really wished I had one of those police bumpers on my car that could handle that kind of maneuver. How great would that be? I restrained myself from even honking or shaking my fist at her- that's something to be proud of, don't you think? I'm not counting the yelling I did in my own car because she couldn't hear me. Can I still be proud of my restraint?


I'm proud that this afternoon, when I hit complete and total teary meltdown over the minutia of life, instead of picking up the pieces and trying to pull it together, I sat down on my computer and played Farkle, Bejeweled Blitz, and Who Has the Biggest Brain
on Facebook...............................................for 3 hours, ok, it was really more like 4 (so embarrassing)!!!!!!!!!!! Yep, accomplished absolutely nothing!! OK I did get the highest score on each game and got 2 loads of laundry done, but seriously, is that really accomplishing anything?  I got nothing done that really needed to be done, and I had a lot I should have been doing,  but tonight I feel like I took a mini vacation and am ready to face the reality of tomorrow which beats the alternative of curling up in bed and refusing to come out. That was my backup plan. The weird thing is that there wasn't anything big that set me off. I'm going to blame it on the time change because the exact same thing happened to my best friend today so it has to be something in the air.  
What are you proud of today?

Writer's Workshop Wednesday

It's time for Mama Kat's WWW . Head on over and check it out. This week she's giving away a Flip- Video camera which I've been wanting so badly.

I chose to write about my favorite Halloween costume or moment that I had on video.

I was an awkward kid. Tall, skinny and gangly with red hair and freckles. It was not a pretty sight.  Then when I was about 7, the movie Pippi Longstocking came out. 

She was little girl with superman strength, cloaked in a scrawny redheaded body.  It was suddenly cool to look like me! Needless to say, when Halloween came around I wanted to be Pippi and I was. My hair was long enough to braid into pigtails so my mom bent a length of hanger over my head and threaded it through my braids so that they would stick straight out to the sides. I wore striped socks and a striped shirt and would give anything to have a photo or better yet a video of that costume. I felt so special and for once my red hair and freckles were just right. It was many years before I could appreciate and be thankful for my hair color being different from most other people.

Fact: Only 1% to 2% of the world's population has red hair.

Writer's Workshop Wednesday- Super Hero Powers!!

Over at Mama's Losin' It her Writer's Wednesday Prompts are up. I chose to write on number 4 this week.
4) If you were a super hero, what would your super power be and why? 

If I were a super hero, I would want to ability to transport myself and anyone else who was with me anywhere I want, in the blink of an eye or really with a click of my emerald green sparkly shoes I"d be there.  I like green more than red hence the emerald. Note: I want the wand and throw in a crown, too!

People and families are just too spread out for my taste. For instance, my 2 oldest kids live in Seattle and I really miss them. It would be wonderful to click my heels and be there in an instant. I'd go just for a couple of hours to have lunch with one of them, do a load of laundry or just to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on their lives in person. I miss that face to face time more than you can know. I'd be able to go pick them up and bring them home for a dinner or a holiday.


My parents live on a small island in Maine and it takes an entire day of planes, car or bus and boat to get to their house. How nice it would be to just pop in for a meal or to help my mom do canning for a day.  My brother and his family have lived in Hong Kong and the Philippines for the last few years. I have a nephew that is over a year old and I have yet to hold. Click and Auntie M is in the house!!!!!!

Instant travel would allow us the have the gift of time together on a far more frequent basis, plus the green sparkly shoes, wand and crown wouldn't hurt a girl either!!!

My Fall Favorites!!!

 

Mama Kat over at Mama's Losin' It has some great prompts this week plus she is giving away a wonderful fall basket so head on over by clicking her button above here and check her site out!!! 

3.) My Fall favorites.

      Fall is my favorite time of year!!! I love the crisp mornings, the warm afternoons and the cool evenings. I love walking through crackly fallen leaves. 

      The house feels cozy and warm when it's chilly outside and there's nothing better than reading a book with a glass of wine by the fireplace knowing that when you step away from the fire, you won't freeze, I hate being cold. 

      I love fall decorations, the pumpkins on the front porch, the warm fall colors of oranges, rusts and golds, the trays of apples and leaves on the table. 

      I love the idea of the harvest and how it's the visual expression of God's provisions for us.

I love Thanksgiving, the gathering of family and friends praising God for what he has given us and the meal of roasted turkey, pumpkin cheesecake, apple pies, sweet potato pecan pie with a fabulous bourbon sauce, Yum. 

      I love that I can bake everyday without the house feeling as hot as the oven. I love the smells of fall, cinnamon and nutmeg, cloves and pumpkin. I love canning chili sauce, jellies, jams and apple sauce using the same recipes as my mom and grandma. Sometimes without planning we'll be canning the same item on the same day!

      There is one thing though that makes it feel like fall to me and that's making baked apples with cinnamon. It is a dish that my mom always made  when the first crop of apples came in all crisp, juicy and ready to be filled with brown sugar, cinnamon and spices. The smell and taste of them makes it officially fall no matter what the calendar says. Here's my recipe.

Autumn Baked Apples 

• 6 apples - I like using a crisp sturdy apple that is sweet. Like Macintosh,  Braeburn, Fuji or Pink Lady Apples. Golden or red delicious are not good choices for baking or pie they get too mealy.
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
• 2 TBS of dried cranberries or cherries (optional)
  
• 1 to 2 TBS butter
  

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking dish bit enough for all the apples to sit into. 
2. With a paring knife or a potato peeler, remove the peel off of the top third of the apple about and inch and a half down                                                                                            
3. Take a small spoon or an apple corer and scoop out the center of the apple
   
   
   making sure that you  don't scoop all the way through the bottom. You're creating a hole to fill with the sugar and spices.

 

      4. In a small bowl mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Add in the nuts and dried fruit if you wish. This batch was just plain old sugar and spices.

     4. Pack the brown sugar mixture into the cavity of the apple.  
         (Pack as tightly as you can without breaking the apple.)





     5. Top the sugar with a 1/2 tsp of butter, cold or room temp. doesn't matter which. Everything is better with some butter and this is no exception.

     6. Place the apples into the pan leaving some room around each one. Pour 1/2 to 3/4 cup of water into the bottom of the pan around the apples and dump any left over brown suger mixture into the water and stir.  This will form a thick syrup as it bakes.

      7. Place in the oven to bake until tender when pierced with a fork. About 45 minutes.  I baste my apples with the sugar water ever 15 to 20 minutes so that the top of the apples get all caramelized, but you don't have to do this.

Serve plain or with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or a splash of half and half or milk over it. It's now officially fall!!!

Writer's Workshop

Mama Kat has some great prompts this week for her Writer's Workshop at

Head on over and pick a prompt to write on.

I picked 2 this week:
5.) Transcribe a recent entertaining conversation you recently had with someone.

We keep getting calls for couple of people who we've never heard of. The calls started 2 weeks ago. These people have been putting our phone number on forms and, if the number of calls from collection agencies is any indication, they owe someone a lot of money. The most recent call was Tuesday.
I answered the phone and a message comes on:
CA (Collection Agency)- Please hold for a very important call...........Bad musak plays.
CA- Yes, hello, is Carl Someone there?
Me- No, there is no one by that name at this number.
CA- Do you know how I can reach him?
Me- No, I've never hear of this person.
CA- Then how did he get your number?
Me- My guess is he must have just given a random number and just to let you know, this is the 3rd call I've gotten this week.
CA- Then you have heard of him before?
Me- No, not until I started getting calls for him. I'm also getting calls for another woman who has given out my phone number as well.
CA- Do they know each other?
Me- Since I've never heard of either of them before I got these phone calls, I have no idea.
CA- So you don't know these people?
Me- NO!!!!!!!
CA- Ok, I'll take your number off of this file then.
Me- Thank you so much.
CA- May I leave my number with you in case he contacts you.
Me- NO! Why would he contact me if he is making up a phone numbner to use to steal money or services he has no intention of paying for. My guess is if he gave a fake number, he gave a fake name and address too!!!!!!!!!!!! He's not going to call me!!!!!!
CA- Fine! and hung up!

What the heck!!! Can you say without a clue?????

1.) What does marriage mean to you?
Marriage to me means a relationship where both people give 110% to the other person. It means putting their needs before your needs, or trying to most of the time, and providing a safe, loving, and supportive place for them to be. If both people in the marriage do this then it is a beautiful thing, with both people getting what they need. The really big problems arise when one person becomes selfish and begins to think of their needs and their needs alone above all else. (Think about the person who prompted this prompt.) When this happens, the marriage relationship falls apart leaving destruction in its wake. I am sure that many will argue with this simplistic view on marital bliss but when I look back over the 28 years that I have been married to my wonderful husband, I can see clearly that the only times we have had problems is when selfish motivations were involved. Selflessness over selfishness is the key to a happy marriage. I also believe that a strong faith in Christ strengthens the commitment to a marriage and the vows until death do you part.

Writer's Workshop Wednesday- Crafts

It's Wednesday and today's Writer Workshop topic is my favorite summer craft. For more prompts, click on the button above to go to Kat's. Try it, you'll like it!

My favorite summer craft would have to be the Tie Dye that we did. My daughter and I tie dyed shirts, dresses, swim covers and my favorite thing, baby items. My favorite project was a set of onesies, burp cloths and a baby blanket for friends who just had a baby boy.

Her is the set my duaghter made for friends who are having a girl.

The runner up project would have to be the Mary Jane slippers that I made for my daughter. I didn't like the pattern so I had to rewrite it. I hope to get it posted for everyone soon.

Right now I am bust working on a bow tie neck warmer. It's a pattern from the 1940's and a ruffled Neck Warmer that I saw a photo of and refuse to pay for a pattern so I am designing one that should be very close. I'll get these posted as soon as they are all written out and finished so that I can post photos for them.

What I want to do once school starts- Writer's Wednesday

It's Wednesday and Mama Kat has posted her prompts for the week. I chose

#1.) What will you be doing now that the kids are back in school?
(inspired by Michelle from Honest And Truly)

It's strange to think about what I want to do when school starts because this will be my last year of having a child in school, after that life will be very different.

I go back to school when my daughter does, volunteering for the first month. I am the only idiot dumb enough to be in charge of outfitting 4 choirs of kids. OK, I actually asked for the job 4 years ago because the choir dresses for the girls were so hideous and I wanted to pick new ones so that the girls would look nice on stage and so they wouldn't embarrass the school at competitions. (they were that bad!) It is a lousy job! I have to measure ever single kid, figure out what size they need, the size charts for the dresses are way off, order their dress or tux, put in all the orders, wait 5-7 weeks for the stuff to arrive, organize all of the orders, make sure it all fits and arrange for the hemming (there is no way that I want to hem 80 dresses myself) reorder, resend and wait around. It takes about 7 weeks start to finish and is very stressful.

My regular bible study will start in Sept, yay!!!!

After the choir stuff is all done, then there is my real list and my fantasy list of the things I'd like to do.
Reality- I need to design a family reunion website for my husbands extended family.
Fantasy- Start cooking every night, after cooking for 6 to 7 for so many years I am having a hard time cooking for 2 or 3.
Reality- Redesign my business website.
Fantasy-Sew a re-purposed sweater from 6 other sweaters
Reality- plan at least one wedding- 2 daughters are almost engaged
Fantasy- Take a photography class and improve my photography skills in hopes of making it a real carreer
Reality- staging houses
Fantasy- Read, crochet and knit more
Reality- Clean, do laundry and get caught up from the summer.

I hope that I can do at least some of my fantasy tasks but you know how easily dreams can slip away!

Writer's Workshop Wednesday

This week for Mama Kat's Losin It's WWW I am going to go with Prompt # 3.)
Describe one of your 'God Moments'. (inspired by Jordan from Wide Open Spaces).

One of my biggest God Moments was when I got pregnant with my 4th child. For some background, I had had very natural, no interventions, deliveries with my first 3 kids. My first 2 children had been born with midwives in out of hospital birthing centers and my 3rd child was born at home with a midwife. At the time I was also a certified childbirth educator teaching natural childbirth, a doula and a lactation consultant. I was as granola as a suburban wife in Texas in the 80's could be.

As soon as I got pregnant with my 4th child, I went to call my midwife and make my first appointment. As soon as I picked up the phone an overwhelming feeling washed over me that I was not to go to my midwife to deliver my baby but to a hospital and not our local hospital but to one farther away that had a level 4 NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). God made it very clear what I was supposed to do. As soon as I put down the phone I felt such a sense of peace that I knew that it was the direction I should go into.

Many people around me thought I had lost my mind. The other birthing instructors, douas and a couple of friends even really thought I'd lost it. When I called my family doctor and told him that he needed to get privileges at that hospital to take care of the baby, he thought I had had flipped. Not only was I going to have her in a hospital but in a very high "intervention" prone hospital. When everyone would question me The only answer that I could give was that God made it very clear to me.

When my daughter was born, she had inhaled meconium and was not able to breath. She was a very, very sick baby. She ended up spending 4 days in the NICU. Had she been born at home the doctors all agreed that she would not have lived.

This was the biggest example of a God Moment in my life but, daily I see God's hand around me. Philip Yancy once said, "I cannot control the voice of God or how it comes. I can only control my "ears"-- my readiness to listen and quickness to respond." God is at work but so many times we say that it was such a coincidence or it was luck. If I am paying attention I will see the God moments and not miss them and when I obey and go with those moments when asked to, I can have a deeper and more intimate relationship with God because I have acknowledged Him and his ability to guide me through every situation good or bad.

Bleach Stenciling for the Writer's Workshop Wednesday

It's Wednesday and that means that it's time for the Wednesday Writer's Workshop by Mama Kat This weeks options were:

1.) What's ailing you? Diagnose yourself with a syndrome. (inspired by Kimberly from Kamp KK
2. Share with us something you made by hand. (inspired by Texan Mama via email)
3. Fess up. Tell us what you found after spying on someone.(inspired by The Scattered Mind of a Tattooed Mini Van Mom)
4. "How are y'all doing it? This summer, I mean? I cannot remember ever being as busy as we've been over the past two months. Those of you who are blogging daily, being as witty and entertaining as ever...I beg of you...HOW?" (inspired by Lula of Lulaville)
5. What are you afraid of? (inspired by Life with Kaishon)


I went with Topic #2!!!!
I've been playing around with bleach stenciling on t-shirts the last few weeks. If you have never bleach stenciled then you really should click on this link for my easy to follow instructions and join in on the fun.

How to Bleach Stencil

I made the cutest girl robot shirt for one of my daughters to wear and of course was in a hurry and didn't photograph it. Same with the turtle one I made for a friend's baby. It's the same technique that I used to make the after prom shirts for my friend Gina and I, shown below. We also made the dragon!!!

I'm also working on a sweater that is pieces of 6 other sweaters all serged together. I'll post more about that later. For now I am having a blast playing with colored T-shirts, butcher paper and a spray bottle of bleach.