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I decided to post my pictures of our trip on blogger because it's much easier to upload them.  So, for anyone who cares to see them it is the following:

Of Drivel and Depth

 Just click on the link.  I will probably be posting more there than here.  So come on over and check it out. 

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I look at this beautiful world around me and wonder why on earth I am here.  I watch people live their lives like they know what they want and they have plans.  I never had many plans because I was always too busy thinking.  My life was and is laid out one day at a time.  I never saw my future in my head, or imagined where I would be in ten years, and that has not changed about me. 

Unfortunately, my life isn't any easier because I'm busy thinking about what to do in the next few moments instead of the next few years.  On the contrary, my brain is always a-buzz with some idea, and for a long time that idea has been extremely deep and unexplainable.  If I were to try to talk about it, people would either be shocked, exasperated, or bored because I do not feel people really want to talk about it, or they just know I am wacko for even thinking about it?

Why am I here?  Why are you here?  Why are we here?  Maybe you never really thought about it before because you all believe you already know why you are here, but do you?  

See?  I can already see people skipping past the rest of this post quickly, or reading on just to see how wacko I really am.  

For many months now I have been asking God to reveal the truth to me about this life, and Who He is, and What exactly it is that He is doing.  Not just with me, but with everyone.  

Our lives are so short-a vapor the Bible proclaims-yet how many of us actually think about that.  Of course when people turn fifty, sixty, and seventy, they think about it, I am sure.  But I am thirty-two, and I think about it sometimes but not enough to make a difference in my life.

Amidst my searching, I began to read the web.  Different religions, even atheism, just to see where the world is coming from, because I honestly do not know much about the world.  I found a site that made alot of sense to me, but goes against much of what I was taught all of my life growing up in a Baptist home-which is not saying much, really.  

I grabbed a Bible from the twenty or so that we already own, and I started to study it, seriously.  I try to understand some of the Greek and Hebrew language as I read, and I am still on my quest to know for sure what the truth is.

The question I now face, like looking up mount everest before my first  climb, is how do I know in my heart that I know the truth?

That is a loaded question that has been buzzing around in my head these past few weeks.  

Why am I here?  Why are you here?  What is God doing, and why is He doing it?  

I feel alone because I sit and watch everyone live their lives-some happily, others not so happily.  People have plans or problems or both.  Life skips merrily by, and some people seem to be fulfilled, others not so fulfilled.  All the while I'm back here hiding in the bushes, wondering why in God's green earth did He create this place, me, you, and, well, everything.

Am I the only one here?  Am I alone in this?  

I wish I could say that I want to let it go and go on with my life, but I would be lying.  I sincerely want to know what's going on here, don't you?  Maybe not.  It's just too complicated, or too much to think about, I wholeheartedly agree.  It's just not that simple for me.  

Have you ever asked God why?  Have you ever wanted to know more than what everyone else tells you is the truth?  Have you ever wondered why there are so many religions, and then divisions within those religions, and divisions of divisions.  I get a headache thinking about it.  How do you know for sure you are right?  How do I know I am right?  How does anyone?  

I am at the point where I believe that most people do not care about any of this, and it's probably better that way-happier, less confusing, and mind numbing!  But not for me!  

In the end, we will all know the whole of the matter.  I guess I just don't want to wait that long!            

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I feel like the cowardly lion in search of the magical wizard who, with a wave of his wand, can bestow courage on me.  I AM the cowardly lion, and I need to muster some courage.  I am tired of running and hiding from what I am afraid of.  I have been doing that all of my life, and it isn't rewarding.  On the contrary, it can be very humiliating.  I want to face my fear square in the eye and tell it where to go! 

The funny thing is, my biggest fear isn't what most people would consider a normal phobia, like heights, or failure, or spiders, maybe fire-no.  I am afraid of me.  I came to this realization that I cannot trust myself.  I do not succeed in much and when I do succeed it's because I believed I would and did not quit until I did.  There are not many things in my life that I have accomplished because of this fear of my own inconsistencies! 

Now I am not only faced with a fear of myself, but also the fear of the big wide world, which I do not like.  It's actually a choice between the two.  I would rather face off with myself at this point.  I am tired of worrying about whether or not I can do it-whatever it may be.  Nine times out of ten, I fail because I didn't really try to begin with because I knew I would fail in the end.

I lack confidence.  I lack courage!  Determination and ambition have alluded me.  I am lazy, and I always want to take the easy way out.  I am tired of myself.

I am going to homeschool this year.  I am going to face all the fears that daily bombard my thoughts because of homeschooling.  I am going to be determined and try to stay that way.  I am going to ask for help when I need it.  I am going to try, and try again!

It hit me today that I am bored.  There is always housework to do-that will always be there, but I want more.  I want my life to mean something.  I think about the days that pass, and the time that I am not very good at redeeming.  Where does it go and how do I spend it.  I have so much of it and yet I don't.  It slips through my fingers like sand and the tighter I squeeze the quicker it seems to fall.

I was left with the final question, "Am I going to homeschool, or get a job and send the kids to school."  It is honestly, less ominous for me to homeschool then to throw myself out into the workforce again.  Yet I don't want to homeschool because I am afraid to work.  

All the facts and ideas swimming around in my thoughts swirled together and rested on one thing-where I would be most fulfilled.  My honest answer was in my home, with my family.  I want to be here for my kids.  I want to be the one to teach them about life and the things that are most important.  

This is where it gets tricky.  This is where I need courage, confidence, determination, and ambition to be the kind of stay-at-home wife and mom that my family needs.  I am not organized.  I have failed too many times to count, but I don't want to stop trying.  Even as I now write, I feel a twinge of confidence springing up in me.  But it wanes at times-as I am sure it does in all of humanity when things get tough.  

I have to move forward.  Homeschooling makes the most sense to me.  I need to put my whole heart into it and make it our way of life-something I failed to do last year.  I am not planning on making that same mistake this year.  

Here goes nothing...    

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There are so many thoughts I want to pull out of my head.  I have been contemplating many ideas:  God's plan, people, sin, friendships, raising kids, homeschooling, living by the Bible, and changing, to name a few.  It's alot, I know.  The biggest topic on my mind though, is what God wants with me.  What's He doing with me?  What does He want from me? 

I am not living the greatest life right now.  When a person wakes up to the alarm at seven, slaps the off button, rolls over and goes back to sleep until nine, and repeats this process every day, what exactly is that called?  Laziness?  Depression?  Indifference? 

I don't think I have a handle on much these days.  I continue to ask God where exactly it is that I am headed and how can I be any different.  If I change, it's going to take a miracle.  I now have some friends who have decided, with me, to be accountable to one another.  I have yet to see if it will in fact work.  So far(three days at least) it hasn't.  I believe eventually it will, when I let it. 

I don't want to change, if the truth be told.  I like staying up and studying, then sleeping in the next day.  The quiet I enjoy after the kids are all sleeping is like a long cold drink after walking hours in the desert.  My husband says that I could do that in the morning, to which I reply, "Yeah, except my eyes would keep closing and my head would nod so much I'd get whiplash!"  I don't do mornings very well, and I never have. 

But, for others, though I am perfectly happy the way I am, I must seek change.  Admittedly, my late hours affect everything and everyone around me, and so, I must change.  Not wanting to change makes the process much harder than if I truly desired to go to bed early and get up early.  Why does this one thing have to cause so much trouble?

If it weren't for my exhaustion, my husbands irritation, my children's crankiness, our messy house, and my accident prone dog, I'd be perfectly happy with the hours I keep.  And now I am silently chuckling to myself! 

Hopefully, I can win this one.  I think I need to.  I am getting beat up pretty good by life and I am a little bit tired of being the underdog.   Farewell to late nights and the snooze button.  Well, maybe not entirely at first.  Okay my friends, I am going to need you here more than you need me!!  

Am I going to have to start taking a midday nap now?  Just curious.  

By the way, I have not forgotten about our trip-it was wonderful and I want to post some pictures once I get them downloaded.  Ah, but not today, sorry.  Stay tuned!  

It's good to be back.        

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We our heading for the cabin tomorrow and I am so excited.  we will be gone for the week with my husbands sister and their family and his mother.  We have no huge plans but to relax and take it easy and we all need that right about now.  So I will fill in the details when we return!  See you then.

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Sometimes I look in the faces of children and the innocence seems to have disappeared.  There are some boys in our neighborhood who just have that look.  It's not that they have done anything wrong that I know of-or that they have been rude or disrespectful that I know of, but it's just that look on their faces.  It's a hardened look that tells the world just how tough they are.  They don't smile and say hello.  They seem to be too cool to say hello to an old lady like me.  I admit that I am very suspicious of them, but I don't want to be.  My kids have wanted to play with them before and I always tell them that if they want to play they can come down to our house, but I do not think that they want to play with my kids. 

Sometimes I struggle with the feelings that my children do not have the close friends that I had when I was a kid.  I was friends with the neighborhood kids.  We had this little gang like the little rascals, and we never did anything wrong.  We played like kids play and had a great time doing it!  I think we were innocent as kids.  But I think about the boys down the street and I don't think that they would be that innocent in their play.  That's why I would rather have them come down here to play. 

I look into those hardened faces and it saddens me.  Childhood is so fleeting, and yet these kids look like they don't want to be kids anymore.  Maybe they do, but circumstances have pushed them to be so tough and hard.  Sadly, I am sure there are many more children just like the boys down the street!   

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Do we ever stop learning?  I can see all the minds out there invariably shaking their heads-"No, of course not!"  Everyone knows that we never stop learning, right?  Everyone understands that if we did not have anymore left to learn then we would be-dare I say it-perfect,at least in knowledge. 

How is it then that we often fill with pride at the fact that we know for sure that we know that this or that is absolutely right and this or that is absolutely wrong?  Especially when it comes to other people.  Not a single person knows absolutely EVERYTHING there is to know about another person.  Sometimes we know enough and that is all we WANT to know, of course.  But that doesn't make judgement calls about a person okay.  I make them all too often only to be proven completely wrong once I find out who a person is.  We all do it, especially if someone wrongs us before we get a chance to get to know them.  That's the worst first impression isn't it?  But then we put up that wall because that person did us wrong and we do not like them for doing so-even if the person may have been ignorant of the hurt, or they meant it to be good and it didn't turn out that way. 

I have been the middle man in my life many times.  It's not a fun place to be.  Especially when you are good friends with both sides of the fence-and even more so if you agree with one over another.  What I always try to say is-"Have you talked to them about it yet?"  Maybe if we as humans communicated better with one another, the judgements would not be so numerous and often.  Ah, but God is working in us isn't He. 

Thank goodness that he is working on me!  I long for the day when we are all brothers and sisters and act like it!!

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I have been neglecting my blog.  Life has been swirling around me-or maybe I am the one swirling-well, whichever it is, writing has not been foremost in my mind.  I think about writing once in a while but I'm not motivated to do anything about it. 

We are leaving in a week to camp for a week in a cabin.  I have been looking forward to this all year.  I have not, however been looking forward to the packing-for eight people-it can be overwhelming at best.  I began this week to put things aside, and the kids have a few play clothes to wear for the next seven days-should be interesting.LOL  I just thought that I needed to plan way ahead the best I could because I know myself all too well-so, we are going to make do with as little as possible for the week, and have a great week up at the cabin.

After camping-I have no plans for the summer, and I am a bit anxious about how the summer will play out.  My kids are getting older and they need lots of things(good things) to keep them busy.  Sometimes they manage well on their own, but sometimes, they don't.  Tonight they played in the sprinkler for a long time, and then OB1 took his stereo outside and played some music for the kids to goof around to.  They had alot of fun and kept busy enough to stay out of trouble.  If only this were the scenario every day.  Some days the boys fight about EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING.  Other days they are the best of friends.  Princess keeps busy playing dolls almost every day, but she has her moments.  

Then of course there is next school year.  I still do not know what we will be doing and I think I am just waiting.  I kept telling people I am taking June off, but it has not seemed like much af a vacation thus far, with a garage sale three days last week(and of course the three days before that I spent going through our house weeding out the stuff we do not need anymore), and all the planning for our upcoming trip and keeping the kids busy all the while and the house clean all at the same time.  Being that I am not supermom in any way shape or form, I am exhausted.  I hope our trip is relaxing somehow, but with a cabin full of five adults and six kids-I am not getting my hopes up too high.LOL  

It amazes me how fast life passes us by.  I know it seems trite to say that, as we all are finding out that with age, time flies faster and faster as the years pass.  But it still amazes me.  My oldest is nine, and I am beginning to see the makings of manhood in him.  I am excited and completely terrified!  This is the first year that I have let him and his younger brother take a bike ride all alone around the neighborhood, and why is that so hard to do??  I told them if the weren't back in twenty minutes-I was taking the car and searching for them.LOL  They would come back and check in, then go out again, and it really helped me to see them in a more grownup light-slightly more-just slightly. :-)

I think I am beginning to ramble away.  God is always good-no matter what circumstances come our way.  I am still and always will be in awe of all that He does.  No matter how foolish and silly I get-He is still amazing to me.  And no matter how mad or stubborn or afraid I can be-He is always good to us!!  I think I will sign off on that note!  Blessings.

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As the heat begins to creep into our days, so does the lethargy in me.  I am slow already, but when I am hot, I am a sloth!!  The kids are always busy running in and out of the house, riding bikes, playing with the neighbor kids, and watching a few cartoons here and there.  Me?  I don't want to do a thing today, and most days that I am hot. 

Not only am I hot, but I am terribly contemplative, and when my brain continues to turn things over and over in it, well, I seem to check out.  I checked out today, maybe even before today.  Why, you might wonder? 

Too many things to discuss in one post that's for sure!  But one of the most important things on my mind as of late is homeschooling, or the possibility of no longer homeschooling.

It has been a difficult year for me-for all of us-even though there have been many pluses despite that.  In weighing the good and the bad in my mind, I feel like we could all breathe a little if the kids went to school next year.  My husband and I have been discussing private school and me seeking employment to pay for it.  

It's not what I want, not really, but I don't feel like our homeschooling so far has been a success.  I have had some major struggles and still look in the mirror daily wondering what in the world I am thinking-why homeschooling.  Then I have to remind myself-I did not feel like I had any other option at the time.  

I do not believe that homeschooling is for everyone-and it may not be for me.  I love my children and want what is best for them, and private education might just be the right thing to do.  

I am not excited about homeschooling.  Seeking curriculum and ways to teach my children such things as science and history do not thrill my heart.  And maybe these things are not thrilling to many, but I feel like I want nothing to do any more with homeschooling.  The days when I am just with my kids and doing things other than schooling are some of the best days.  We both do better, because there is less stress.  

I know that I cannot walk away from homeschooling simply because it is hard for me to do it.  Nor can I just walk away because I do not like to do it.  But let me ask you this.  If one hates their job, are they going to do their very best at it?  Or just the minimum to get by?  That is what I feel most miserable about.  I think I am doing the minimum to get by!

I guess I have a while to recuperate from teaching and then I can get my thoughts together and we can make a decision.  It really does get harder the older they get.

I am walking into this new phase in my life.  I am scared, and confused and unsure of what step to walk next.  So at this point I am just waiting.  Just waiting.      

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