I am wife to a magnificent man and mother to five wonderful children. Three of my children were born in the Northwest and two were born thousands of miles away in Liberia, West Africa. Birthplace is no matter, all of my children were born in my heart. This is our journey.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Garden, organizing and musings that may or may not go together

I love my garden. I have always enjoyed looking at other people's gardens but I had no idea how I would feel walking through my own. We have had a bigger garden at my mother-in-law's house but there is something so nice about walking outside in my pj's and garden clogs in the early morning.

If the flowers on my cucumbers and green beans are any idication, I better get my canning pantry organized. Steve is going to modify my garage shelvegs in the next few weeks so that we can be more organized in the overflow pantry. If I have that all together I do a much better job at managing our food and spending less on our groceries.

I am in the throws of getting our curriculum together. Not the easiest task but fun to imagine and plan things for next year. With our first year under our belt I feel a little more confident going into the next one.

We have been enjoying the pool very much. We saved up with the kids and got a sturdier one this year. We could have put it on a card and paid it off soon but we felt that this would be a great way to involve the kids and teach them a lesson about saving ahead of time. We sold some extra things in the shop, took cans in to the store and just plain saved. In less than three weeks time we had the $300. It's 15' X 4', enough room for the kids to play some fun games but not too big for the younger ones. I cannot believe that we only have one kiddo left in a life jacket.

Which takes me to my next topic. Our family dynamic is changing. This fall I will no longer have any preschoolers in my house when our youngest turns 5. I'm not sure that I am ready to cope with that! The thought does bring me to ponder how done we are. Barring any major miracles we are done having children biologically. But there are other ways to raise children. We adopted before and have thought about doing it again. Not sure we are ready for that either but we are always open to consider whatever God brings our way. We just like raising kids. A little confession for you. **I am a terrible housekeeper. ** I love to have things clean, I do laundry, the kids help out but I really do not enjoy it. Any organization I have going on here is out of sheer desperation with my hands gripped tightly around the neck of sanity. It's not easy managing a house of seven and there are days that I feel I am in a perpetual state of tired but it is just who I am, who we are. This season will pass and my kids will move on to raising their own and then what? I have already told my kids that if they would like I will come and help do their laundry when they have children. It may or may not be a subtle bribe on my part to keep them close. But people, I know that of which I speak...the laundry....oh the laundry. If I weren't so ridiculously bent or wired to need to have it all together I would have accepted more help back in the days of five kids five and under.

I digress. It's gorgeous this morning and the weather man promises of more days like this in the coming week. Well, my towels are staring at me through the window on the clothes line, time to go. Enjoy your day!

1 comment:

Lylah Ledner said...

such sweet random thoughts from a tender feminine soul...came for a visit by way of amy's finer things...

blessings on you, your marriage, your family and your garden.