Author Review: Mike Venezia

Mike Venezia is an extremely prolific writer of children's biographies.  His short books on presidents, scientists, artists, and musicians include basic information about the person, plus a healthy dose of humor in the form of fun little cartoons.  Our older 3 children are on a Mike Venezia kick right now, and I literally have checked out over 100 of his books from the library in the last month.  And yes, they are reading them ALL.  I believe Venezia wrote about every single American President, so I had our big girls read all those biographies as part of our recent short unit on the presidents.

Miscellaneous Happenings

  For the very first time, Daniel happily put pencil marks on post it notes.

Sarah spilled a LOT of cereal.

We got snow, and more snow, and more snow!  And some ice, too!

 The kids built a giant mound.

Kevin and I went to a fancy work party.

Gingerbread house!

Tired...

I feel quite worn out today, somewhat physically, but more emotionally.

It has been a HARD few weeks with Kevin's grandmother dying and all the associated struggle.  Kevin's mom has a ton of work to do plus she is the one most affected. Her life has changed so much!

Then on Monday, we got news that a close friend of Kevin's at work experienced a monumental tragedy last week.  He was away on a business trip and came home on Thursday to find his wife of 20+ years dead in their home from a fall.  It was truly a freak accident and we are heartbroken for him.

Another friend's husband has been struggling with heart issues and was taken to the hospital for yet another admittance last night.  The doctors don't seem to know what is going on, but any problem with a heart is scary stuff.

I guess I'm just feeling weighed down by how hard life can be sometimes.  I am so thankful for the Lord Jesus, who does give me strength when my own strength is at an ebb. 

Perhaps it would help to write out some of my many blessings.  I think it would. So here goes...

1.  I am thankful for the LORD and His constant, unceasing care and work in our lives.
2. I'm thankful for Kevin.
3.  I'm thankful for our wonderful children.
4.  I'm thankful that a little illness that visited us this week has stayed quite little.  The 2 babies have had a cold with a small amount of coughing, but it could be a lot worse.
5.  I am thankful for our country. When I'm feeling weighed down, it is easy for me to focus on what is WRONG in our country -- and plenty of things are wrong.  But as our 9 year old son said, we live in a place where we do have freedom to work where we want, marry whom we want, read the Bible, pray out loud, go to church, have as many children as we decide to have.  All of those things are blessings that are NOT shared by everyone in this world.
6.  I am thankful for financial stability.  I went off to Trader Joe's this week and bought $70 worth of low carb bread and Trader Joe's chocolate.  $70!  That really sounds CRAZY but we can do it because have the money to do it.  (That should last me quite a while!)

   Well, there are many more things I'm thankful for, but our 3 year old needs me to get her up.

Family Pictures

My mother made or purchased the Christmas outfits for the children.

We decided to attempt a stairstep picture, and this one turned out quite well.  It was hard to keep Daniel in the line but here he is just THINKING about making a beeline for the camera :-).

Good Chickens!

  I haven't mentioned our chickens in some time, but that's because they aren't causing any problems. They aren't dying of a plague, they aren't being killed by raccoons or dogs, they aren't breaking out of their fenced in area.

  What they ARE doing, is laying eggs. Good chickens!  We were getting an average of...about 12 for quite a while.  We have 21 or 22 chickens that so that was a bit wimpy, but we still have 6 or 7 older chickens (purchased the month before Daniel was born) who were molting. 

  Well, maybe our elderly ladies are coming back on track, but 2 days ago we got 15 eggs, and yesterday we got 16.

 The eggs are piling up!  We need to sell some!

Grandma's Funeral

Yesterday was Grandma L's funeral.  It was good. Not fun, not easy, but good. The pastor's message was touching and pointed to Christ.  More people came than I expected, which we all appreciated.  Several relatives flew in from out of town.  After the funeral, most of us followed the casket to the graveyard.  It's quite close to our home, and I have to admit that I like graveyards in general, and this one in particular.  The tombstones are interesting, the land is well kept, and there were many beautiful flowers near the gravestones.  It is strange to think of all those fathers and mothers and children and grandparents...some gone for decades.  Kevin has an aunt (Grandma L's second child) who passed away in the early 1990's, and Grandma is buried next to her.

  After all that, we went back to Grandma L's house and spent some time with the out of town relatives. I've not met many of them and it was a special time.  Grandma L was one of 11 or 12 children (I never quite figured out the number) so there were MANY cousins.  It was enjoyable meeting some of them for the first time.

  This afternoon, Kevin's uncle and aunt, from out of town, came to visit. They are on their way back to their home down South now.  So things will sort of go back to normal soon. Kevin's mom has a boatload, a BOATLOAD, of work to do as the executor of her mother's estate, and we'll help if we can.

  Now I'm going to sound like I've suddenly changed the subject dramatically, but read me out :-).

  I've had C-sections with my last 5 children.  I have thought more than once that a C-section is some kind of CRAZY operation, because a woman has a pretty major operation and then, instead of resting a lot, she has a newborn to care for.  Of course, it is the best reason in the WORLD to have major adnominal surgery, but still!

  Seeing all the Kevin's family is coping with makes me realize that in a way, losing a loved one to death is a LITTLE like a C-section.  Here they are, grieving the loss of Grandma L. Everyone has been under major stress for 3 weeks since she went downhill.  And then, on top of the emotional and physical stress, there is a ton to do in terms of arrangements, dealing with the job of executor, cleaning out the refrigerator, etc.
 
  They are not the same -- I guess what I'm saying is sometimes, just when we think we are pushed to the limit, we have even more piled on our shoulders.  I am so thankful to the Lord who gives the strength to do what HE calls us to do.  There are many times I've been unhappy with not doing enough of what I thought needed done but reality is, I am always able to do what HE calls me to do.

Our Mantle

  We have a fireplace in our home...not that we can actually light fires, but we have one.  There is something wrong with the chimney.  Above the fireplace is a lovely wooden mantle.

  I said in a previous post that our home is not a decorator's delight, far from it.  This mantle of ours would be a great place for pictures, or a few choice knick knacks.  But reality is, the mantle is high up and horizontal and that means it collects STUFF!

  Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks of our mantle.

Let's see...we've got 2 boxes of shoes that need returned, a globe, some clothing, a radio controlled car, and a birthday sign. My laptop is on the far right side in its accustomed place, as I don't want little people messing with my laptop!

Well, that's a bit better. The clothes are gone, as is the radio controlled car.  But those shoes are still there...

  Sigh, more stuff now.  Papers, a Smash Boppit game, and those tedious shoes are still there!

And now the shoes are joined by some pants that need returned as well.

So what's my point?

 My point is this...while my mantle is NEVER what I want it to be, I keep plugging away at it.  I would like it to just be decorative, but at this point in life -- it won't be.  We need the tall, horizontal surface to store items.  BUT, I keep moving things off of it when I can, and while there is plenty of clutter, the piles aren't climbing higher and higher.

 I have a perfectionistic streak, and one of my biggest accomplishments in life was to accept that better is better.  No, my home is never as clean, tidy, and uncluttered as I would like.  But there IS value in consistently working away on trouble areas.  I rarely have time to spend hours cleaning, but if I take 10 minutes here, 15 there, our home will stay at least habitable.