Hello,

 I haven't been on here in a long time. Looking over my last few blogs is pretty leaves me even more down-hearted than I was already. :(

 It seems like my life just repeats. I do good for a little while, then boom, something goes wrong, actually not just someTHING, that would mean one thing... thats too simple for my family. It always seems like at least 3 or 4 major things go wrong. Well thats where I am AGAIN. If you read this please do pray for my family.

We recently moved into a home owned by my hubbys aunt. We agreed to fix it up in exchange for rent for now. The place was pretty run down. We thought this would be great, and in many ways it is, but right after we moved, my husband lost his job. So much for that "extra" cash we thought we would be able to get around to having.

My blood pressure is un-stable (I check it at home) but w/o any health insurance there is little I can do. I do get some meds through the drug programs and I can go to a free clinic every now and then. Which I am thankful for, but this is not the same as being followed by a regular Dr. Most days I am just achy and tired. Good days are few and far between.  I feel pretty useless when there is SO much work to be done around here.

As for homeschooling, on an up note, my daughter Rebecca did graduate this year. Our homeschool support group put together a AWESOME ceremony and also a dinner/dance on another day. My parents drove down from Pa and were SUPER impressed with it all, including meeting those awesome other homeschool kids. They have never put down my homeschooling, but it was nice to give them a little "proof" that it can be done and done well !

I know the Lord wants us to continue in homeschooling but it is hard to feel very confident when it seems everything is against me. Well thats it for today. I hope I can keep up on the more, it really is good to get my feeling out here among ppl who understand.

Lots of Love,Carole

 Well just a quick blog to see if my computer is working okay with this . I wanted to sure before I type a long blog and then have it go # POOF # on me. lol.

Hope to be on again soon! ~Carole :)

Well first of all I can not stand how long it took me to get back on here and post a blog. Yikes! It didn't SEEM like that long ago. Well any who, here I am again. I have been wanting to get on here and blog, but I made excuses why I didn't need to. But for some reason God keeps leading me back to Homeschool Blogger, so here I am ! There is no way possible to "catch up" on the months I have missed here, WAY too much went on, SO lets just get to the here and now stuff. At this moment I am awake at 3 AM writing this. I know I need sleep ,but my mind is doing its whirling and twirling business and I had to get up and do something with the mental energy. My health has not been too great and seems to be getting worse. Let me start by saying that I have NO health insurance at all. That puts me in a tough place as far as seeking "better" care. I go to our county Health Clinic and take whatever they can offer. Thankfully I have had a very nice,caring Dr. my last few visits and feel like someone is finally listening to me. You have to go with whoever is at the clinic when you get there usually and its not always a nice Dr. I need to back track a little here and say that I had a awful and scary episode back in Jan. that sent me to the hospital in an ambulance. I seemed to have suffered a mini stroke. The goofy Dr i had at first keep saying it was only a bad migraine. Folks I have had migraines for many years (since my early teens) and this was NOT a headache. In fact ,my head did not even hurt! I was very un-responsive and when I came around finally half of my body was numb. My face was droopy on that side and I could hardly talk. Well I pulled through that but my health has never returned to "normal". High blood pressure has been a problem and a racing heart beat has added to the mix. Now I am totally worn out almost always. I get out of breath after brushing my hair. I am swelling up with fluid. All symptoms of heart issues. I go for tests next week and they want me to see a cardio Dr. Pray that I am able to through the clinic, I know I am not getting any better, just more and more tired. Oh I almost forgot, they finally tested my cholestrol and I had a total of 308 ! So I am on Vytorin for that now and hope it works for me. So thats my stuff. I am worried and trying to stay upbeat but its hard. On top of my health issues we are having terrible financial problems. At this moment I am down to a minus amount in my bank and my hubby will not get his paycheck until the 24th , Tuesday. I really have no idea what we will do until then. I am praying for miracles.

As for homescooling, I am actually pretty upbeat for the most part about the upcoming year. I am just worried about how my health will effect it all.Well I am actually starting to get sleepy so I will go give it a try. With hope~Carole

   Good Evening from a chilly Kentucky!

      I must mention first of all that I saw something today that made me laugh.Someone has "prompt ideas" for bloggers. Random ideas for you to write about when you have NO idea what subject to write or anything to write about.

  Here I am with my ADD brain whilrling around , thinking of  a million different things at once and never having the time to get them all down here, I can not FATHOM that someone would be sitting out there without a clue as to what to write! Oh how I wish my brain were ever that clear of thoughts,lol. Just tonight I had to choose my topic, and its a hard, hard thing for me, so much to say, so much that I am worried about, praying about,thinking about, just plain pondering and such....

  I will ask prayers in my child custody issues if you are reading this, more stress and worry has been added and I struggle to stay in the right frame of mind through it all.But this is what God put on my heart as I prayed before writing so this is what I shall write about. FIRE!

  We rent a neat older  (built 1902)  house here in Kentucky. It has two sources of heat, oil and a wood burning stove. The first year we tried using both sources, but when the oil ran out and winter was NOT over, we decided that we could not afford to fill that tank again and would just use the stove. Since every year the prices for oil have gone up, we never did go back to filling that tank. Other than needing a space heater in a couple kids rooms when the temperature dips VERY low, our wood stove has kept us pretty toasty, Praise God !

  I worked on that fire tonight as the evening set in and it became a bit chilly. We have not needed it the last few days, its been very mild. But tonight was going to be different and if I wanted warmth later on, the fire needed to be tended to. I had the children gather me some more kindling and starter type wood and I was ready to go. Slowly, and with patience I built the fire. I put in a larger piece of semi-dry wood. I then rolled up some newspaper rolls and set them next to it, I added some small wood chips around and on top of the paper. Then I formed a sort of "lean-to" with the kindling pieces.Careful to leave room for the fire to breath through them. Finally I struck a match and got it started. Still, my job was not done. I had to add bigger pieces of wood, little by little and fan the flames. For awhile I just allowed the fire to catch and get rollling. At this point I have it "wide-open" so to speak, the dampers are open all the way as is the flue. But still, I can't just leave it like that, it would get going fast and be burnt out WAY before the night was over. We would wake to a freezing cold house! So a little bit later, I go back to tend it again. I add some more wood, bigger pieces now and I am careful to choose ones that are not as dry and brittle. Now that it is going good I can add the greener wood. This wood is harder to catch fire and will burn long and slow. I turn the dampers a little tighter closed and adjust the flue a bit more closed also. Now I am pretty well set, I will check it one more time before bed, maybe add a log or two and tighten it a tiny bit more.This way it will be burning slow and hot all night long. Its a pretty long and careful proceess isn't it? Especially as I write out the steps on here it looks even longer, lol

  But many thoughts came to me as I was working on this fire tonight.One is just how wild of a ride I have been on in this life! I was born in Philadelphia Pa, right in the city and lived there until twenty-something when I moved to NC. I would have NEVER imagined as a city girl who had a concrete backyard (no kidding!) that I would someday live in a house that required wood to keep it warm. You really never know what God has planned. I later on lived in the North Carolina mountains when my first husband cheated on me and ran off, leaving me alone in a small town with five kids and no family near by. The house we lived in then was heated by a wood/water stove, located in a small barn outside. You had to keep that thing burning hot to heat the big 'ol house we rented there. I remember my husband telling me I would "never have to mess with that thing", that was gonna be his job. Then he left in October, guess who got the job! Yup, city girl me! I remember using all dry wood because it burned so nice, only to have to keep filling it or re-lighting it. Then I tried too much green wood and smoked myself out of the barn! LOL But guess what, when you have five small children to keep warm, you learn REALLY fast how to make a good fire. :)

  Flash forward almost ten years and here I am lighting fires again. Only this time, I am re-married and get to share this responsibility with my hubby and now older kids too. I also am glad the the stove is in my living room, not the barn. Walking through snow late late at night to tend a fire is NOT fun. And the funny thing is, I am actually the best one at tending the fire now,lol,shhh don't tell hubby.

  But as I worked on my fire tonight I keep thinking of how much it is like tending to my children. Unlike the oil or gas heat, you can not just turn it on and off. The fire is much more like parenting, you can not just turn it on and off at will. Little by little you have to work at it, really WORK at it! But there is no rushing any of it. You can't just throw on logs and have it burn out too quick, you can't smother either.You have to build,slowly and patiently and keep a close eye. Now I really understand all the old expressions, like, "keeping the home fires burning".  That is a really important job! If no one keeps it going you have to start that thing all over in a very cold house. Our jobs as Moms(and Dads)  are important in that same way aren't they? Thats why I am a stay at home Mom for now and a homeschooler. I am home tending my children because its an IMPORTANT job, and I do not want to leave it to anyone else. As my fire caught on and built up tonight I was encouraged by God that it is the same for my family and all the things I am going through. I don't have quick answers, but thats okay because this is a work in progress. I am meant to go slowly and keep on working at it. If  I go off quickly and run like crazy trying to do EVERYTHING, and be everything, I will BURN out as will the kids. If I try to just fix everything in one fell swoop, I may smother things, kill creativity, etc.

 So I continue on, little by little, working bit by bit and praying for strength and patience along the way.

 I have so very much to share on here, if only I had the time to get it all down.Today was a very odd day. I experianced many things but one that will haunt me is the one I want to get down here now. I am a survivor of sexual abuse as a child. It is not something I share often but I try to do it more often than I used to because sometimes others need to hear that they are not alone. I only mention it today though to say that things of this nature leave such a huge scar on a childs life. We must be so very careful with the young lives that God has trusted us with. Let us do everything in our power to save our children from anything that would scar them in ANY way.

 I woke up this morning very early with my baby to nurse her. I knew I really needed a little more un-itterupted sleep so after nursing her and changing her I asked my dear husband if he would mind laying with her for a bit. When a baby is in the room with me I tend to sleep very lightly so he sometimes will take her and lay on the couch with her so I can get some rest. (yes he is a SAINT! ) This is what he did this morning for me. I got up an hour later and found him sleeping peacfully with Samantha curled up on his chest. What a sweet sight, I tip-toed around and let them rest a little longer. I heard the baby start to fuss after awhile so I went out to ask if he was ready for me to take her. The odd thing was this. He was NOT awake. He usually will wake right up when she does. He was in some type of VERY deep sleep. I took the baby gently and he mumbled and looked kind of upset. I figured he was just dreaming and went about my business. One of my other kids told me that he was really talking out there later and sounded upset, they were laughing at first but then they thought he looked really upset. Sure enough when I went to check on him he was very agitated and upset but still asleep. He was telling someone to just stop it, that it hurt, and few other things but he sounded like a small boy instead of his usual manly self.  I tried talking to him very softly and was surprised that he talked back to me! He was worried about the baby at first,he said "they took my baby, the people took the baby,.. I love the baby" I told him that it was okay ,that I had the baby and she was fine, he was upset still but finally calmed down some, then I said "I have her honey, Mommy has the baby" he said  so sadly "No, there is no Mommy...my Mommy died" At this point I was about in tears, you see , my husband did lose his Mother when he was 10 years old. He had a very traumatic childhood. His real Father left when he was only 4, his Mother was a "party" girl and left them with babysitters alot as children, he had a step father who was very mean to him and then his step father took his Mother out for New Years one year, got drunk, drove drunk and ended up wrecking the car which killed his Mother.

  My husband does not like to talk about all this so hearing him talk in his sleep like that was truly a shocking experiance. And he kept on talking too! He said " I was really bad ,I got in trouble at school alot, I'm sorry I was so bad, it was my fault that Mommy left us all the time, she couldn't handle me, I should have been good, I'm so sorry (and he cried at this point) then he told me" Les is mean (the step Dad) he is really big and scary, he kicked me and kicked me, it hurt bad, I tried to run away, I put all my stuff in my wagon and I sat by the road for a long time...but no one picked me up...I'm sorry, I won't do it again though, I will stay, okay?, I promise, ... he mumbled more and cried a little more... then he said " my Mommy was really young, I was so sad when she died, she shouldn't have died that young, I should have been good for her..." then he turned toward me but still with his eyes closed and said "do you know my Daddy?" I said yup, I know your Daddy...he said" I'm gonna go see him soon, I sure do miss him...but he is happy to see me too, he loves me!" I said ,yes he sure does.He said "I am gonna see my Grandmom too, its gonna be sooo cool!" Then he finally said "Oh I gotta call my Daddy about this trip,I gotta call today.." He got real startled and then woke all the way up. He had NO idea why I was sitting there, why he had tears in his eyes, why I had tears in mine too, he really did NOT remember any of what had happened in his sleep.  It was the most bizarre thing I have experianced in some time! The only thing that was actually "up to date" was the fact that he is really taking a trip next week to Kansas to see his Dad and Grandmom, and he really did have to call them today. He hasn't been out there in like 9 years. I guess thinking on the trip stirred up all those old feelings, I really can not explain it all. I swear to you that I felt like I was sitting there talking to a little boy, not a grown man. It was so sad. It really rattled me deeply.The fact that those hurts must be so very deep, that he still fights with those demons...its just heart-breaking. The fact that ANY child would have to endure such things (and worse!) and actually beleive that they are to blame, it sickens my heart.

  It all just makes me want to gather my children up and protect them from EVERYTHING. I know we can't always do that but I sure wish we could.Keep us in your prayers if you read this. Pray for my dear husband ,maybe this trip can bring some healing to his little boy heart. Pray for all children who deals with broken hearts out there tonight.

  Hello !

 Hello again, Thank you for so many sweet comments and encouragment. When I starting doing this blog "thing" I really never thought anyone would even read this ! Its pretty neat to me getting to hear from other Moms out there. I thank you all so much for taking your precious time to read and reply to my posts, It really means alot to me.

  I can't beleive how long it took me to write here, I am really trying to make more of a commitment to keep up on this. Its a really nice thing I can allow myself to do at the end of the day. I am going to trying committing to at least getting on here once per week. I think thats a realistic goal. I would really love to say I'll do this every night before bed, but I know that is NOT a realistic idea. In a large family there is just WAY too many things that pop up out of no where and change plans. Bear with me as I learn more about this whole "Blog" venture. I have not even figured out how to add you all as my friends on here, so be patient with me. :)

  I mostly wanted to just touch base tonight and make sure I said thank you to everyone. Things here are going okay. We are still going through some really tough times with finances and legal matters. There are many concerns and much on my plate (what else is new,lol) but I must say that tonight though, I feel VERY blessed. I have a husband who loves me dearly, and is a GREAT Dad, I am able to homeschool my children and be here with them every day, I have just so much to thank God for. I am just overwhelmed at times. Well off for a little bit of sleep before starting another crazy day! God Bless everyone~Carole

I'm not going to write too much tonight. I am really tired and I need to get into a better routine with my sleep.My mind is exhausted today. I have ADD (among other things) and it is SO very hard for me to pull together a normel schedule and stick to it. Many of the other homeschool Moms I have met seem to just have so much going on in their lives and yet have it all balanced and planned out. I am in awe of people like that. I try and try but I just can not get done everything that I know needs to be done.I am a cluttered ,un-organized mess and I don't want to be.I want to be able to do all the neat things that other Moms do. My baby that nurses is not on a very good schedule right now and I think that is very draining.I don't seem to have much time in between feeding her,changing her, rocking her, etc.I just keep reminding myself that this is only a season in her life, before I know it I will look back and wish I had that sweet little baby to rock and snuggle.It goes by so fast but in the midst of it , you feel like its never-ending. I need to work on taking care of myself more also. I realized that today and I am praying about making wise changes in that area as well. I feel like I am not giving my best to my husband and children right now. Part of this is because I have let myself become depleted. I haven't put any care into myself for a long time.Its so hard as a Mother not to feel selfish for taking care of you,but if you don't you have little to give back.Well its off to bed now.Blessings to all the wonderful Mommys out there.

   Hello again! Thank YOU for your comments! I really did not expect anyone to even read this blog, what a neat little blessing for me today to find the sweet messages and great advice some some fellow "in the trenches" Real Moms like me!!!

 As you can tell, I didn't do much of a good job at keeping up with this venture so far, I started this in August and now it is SEPT. 1, wow, time flies by doesn't it?! But at least I am here now doing this and maybe it will become more of a regular thing for me. It really is a nice "just for me" kind of thing to do. I have actually been doing pretty well with my depression, I haven't been in the really low moods for awhile but it has been HARD folks, really hard this past month. I kinda wish I had gotten on here more now and recorded my "adventures" as they un-folded. It will be hard to sum-up here what all went on and do it any justice. Justice,hmmm, that actually has a part in this all. Let me first explain that I am divorced and re-married. Something that I would have never thought would happen to me. I come from a Christian home, a pastors kid, my folks will be married 50 years this January, my grandparents were married 60 years....our family was not one that had many divorces in it, and I never realized how fortunate I was back then. Isn't funny how that happens, how the grass is always greener on the other side? I remembering thinking my friends were "lucky" because they had two homes to go to, their Moms house and their Dads house.They also had the "cool" parents in my eyes because they had much more freedom.Their Mom's worked outside the home and they had the house "to themselves" alot of the time...I thought that was totally awesome.

 Flash forward many years....here I am in a "blended" family. I had 5 children with my first husband. I have had two children with my present husband and he has two children from a previous marriage. And guess what, I realized somewhere along the line that this is NOT the "cool" way to go after all, LOL. How wonderful it would be if I had a regular boring marriage and family like my Mom and Dad had !

 Of course, I thank God everyday for my wonderful husband and that He can still work through the tangles and snares of our complicated lives to form a FAMILY here. I am blessed, I do realize that.  I am just saying that I don't reccomend this method of family- making, and pray that my children have normal, boring type lives.   ; ) uh oh, baby is up, to be continued~

 Hello! Well for a first "blog" here this sure isn't gonna be great or fancy, sorry if you are reading it. I am really just setting this thing up , I am REALLY tired, not in a great mood and ...well did I say TIRED? lol I am trying to approach my life in a much more realistic manner after years of beating myself up for not being "Super-Mom". This blog is hopefully going to be another part of me getting a little more in touch with my "real" side. So, I thought, why not just jump in full on,with total honesty. I deal with depression, and its hard. I really wonder if anyone else out there has REAL issues with their mental health and still is able to homeschool their children in a somewhat normal manner. So many days I wonder if I am really doing the right thing. I feel lead to homeschool, I truly believe God called me to this (okay,honesty again, ...MOST days I really truly beleive these things, some days I think I'm just plain crazy) and I have the support of my dear husband, so why do I still think I may be "screwing up my poor kids lives"?? Do they deserve better than I can give ? I am really giving them  what they need ? Well just thought I'd throw that out there, who knows if anyone will even read this, I'm gonna go to bed and atempt sleep before my baby is up for a night time nursing session. (YES, I am also sleep deprived at this time,lol) Good night~Carole :)