I have been reflecting this week about my high school years. I notice I do that more the closer my kids get to reaching that age.  How I behaved and treated others.  Oh, how I regret that now.   Maybe some of those regrets are, because now I want to protect my maiden  family name.  (Sorry Dad, it came a little late.)  I have reached an age where the older generation is passing away and there seems to be a lot of my generation going home to memorial services.  This saddens me and I pray for their losses.  At the same time, I find myself apologizing for my immaturity I had when they were in my life many years ago.  Sometimes it is not possible to make things right, because I don't see them.  I only  hear about what is going on in my old friends life through others.  What do I do?  The only choice God leaves me is to ask for forgiveness through Him.  And hope that we train our children to behave better then we did.  I have also been praying that my children don't grow up materialistic.  I want them to experience happiness from God above and not from the price of success. 

Recently I learned of the success of one of these friends from my past that I once had a high school crush on.  He is creative and his work is public.  His words bring sadness in the songs he writes.  I can't help but wonder if this work is inspired on his reality.  If it is, then how sad.  My prayers go out to him to find the happiness and joy in the simple ways.   I feel very rich with my simple family and the many little treasures God has provided me.   God provided me with a wonderful husband who I love more then anything (other then God).  And my husband does not need to worry about my heart, it is with him 100% and not on any old high school crushes. 

And so, if by chance anyone reads this from my past.  If I treated you badly or hurt you, I am sorry.  I was an unguided brat.  I wish I would of been raised better.  I should of behaved better.   I wish I could undo it.  If I have opportunities in life to apologize, I hope I don't chicken out due to my own embarrassment. 

My ideas for our family to go on field trips this year...

-Fire Station

-Springfield History Musium

-Jordan Schnitzel Musium of Art at U of O

-Science Factory

-Oregon Air and Space Musium

-Doris Ranch - April 18th Stone Age Day 11am - 3pm $3 each

-Bohemia Gold MIning Musium in Cottage Grove

-U of O Musium of Natural and Cultural History

-Shelton McMurphy Johnson House

-Birds of Pray

I blog this morning uncertain about how I feel about this year. 

The negatives of 2008 - The year didn't turn out the way that  I had hoped.  I allowed myself to get too involved with things that stole my time and peace.  My visions were different then how they turned out.  Standing by my beliefs, separated me.  I learned things about people I wish I didn't know.  I lost friendships and some of the things that I loved are not enjoyable anymore.  My kids lost friendships as well.  I had to reread Boundries to re-establish my thinking about inforcing them.   My grandfather past away and their home was sold.  And then there was the election. 

The positives of 2008 -  I learned who my true friends are and feel happy that they are my friends.  I had a chance to re-evaluate people who I respect more then I use to.  I have a clearer vision for my kids, their behaviors, our spiritual beliefs, and more confidence in us following Christ.  I trust and have faith in God.  I found the Crockpot lady's blog, who is gluten free and pork free like me.    http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/   I am feeding humming birds this winter.

I am happy to see 2009 arrive.  A new begining.  A fresh start.  New challenges.  New goals.  New hope.  Some of my resulutions are...

-Stay off-line until noon.

-Use my crockpot at least 2 times a week

-Eat more fiber and foods to suplement nutrience on a gluten free diet.

-Blog more often

-1 hour at my desk working a day.  Plenty to do there.

-More exercise.

And then there is always more hopes, dreams, and desires to add.  But that would just make things more complicated and so I will fit them in when needed.  Like learning to sew, work on my crafts, spend more time outside, etc....

Happy New Year!

It has been awhile since I added anything to my blog.  I don't know where to start.  So I will start with today.

It will soon be time for school to start in our house and I am not ready for it.  I haven't completed things that I wanted to get done this summer.  Not sure what I am going to do with the kids and our routine so that I can still complete the project I never got done. 

I do know that they both want to learn about the states.  Our project is Flat Traveler, a spin off of Flat Stanley.  Liz wasn't excited about it until we started to color the paper dolls and their clothes.  We made a suit case and now we need to make a pocket bed for our traveler to fit into an envelope and travel through the mail to different states that we will be learning.  We still need to name our Flat Travelers, write a letter to send off with them, create a journal, and coordinate their first travel.  So far it is a fun project. 

For the states part of the project, we are going to keep everything in a binder and create a slot for our Flat Travelers and travel records.  We are also going to study the states in the order that they were assigned to the union.  I still need to work on the study worksheets for each state.  A mom in our homeschool group is suggesting doing each state in a lapbook and inserting into the binder.  I am thinking of using the large sheets and folding them in half so it will be an 11x8 folder that isn't too thick.  Hole punching it and then sticking in the binder when we are done. 

The other important thing that I do need to work on with my youngest is reading confidence.  She is stuck at a level due to lack of confidence to move further.

My oldest wants to start a blog.  I am thinking that might be a great idea for her to practice typing and creative writing.  I only wish it had spell check.  She needs help in that area.  (So do I)

This year we had Hummingbirds enjoying nector from our tree's.  What a surprise.  In the past I have only seen 1 Hummingbird in our back yard.  This year I dug out our old hummingbird feeder and they found it, but they weren't coming  back for more.  I bought another one the whole family started counting Hummingbirds.  We counted 6 different color variations.  We watched in awe and soon notice how territorial they get.  So we bought another feeder that was a little different.  Now the activity picked up.  We put their favorite feeder by the window so that we can watch them more often, One over the pond by the back deck and one on the front deck. 

We have a couple of bird houses that the squirrels kept knocking off the fence.  Someone decided to pick the house off the ground and they stuck it in the pear tree.  A couple built a nest in the house and it was so much fun to watch them build it.  We also put up bird seed feeder and enjoy the birds eating from the feeder.  The most entertaining was watching the couple trying to put large pieces of grass into the house.  He had a hard time,  but he was determined to get it in there.  One morning the dog found the house on the ground and nosed around in the nest.  I picked it up and carefully put the material back into the nest and them put the bottom back on the house.  I grabbed a butter knife and carefully pressed down the nest material.  The couple came home and was not happy.  We are not sure if the couple are still nesting there or not.  We sometimes see them flying to the house. 

My story about being Celiac and eating Gluten Free.

My story about Celiac starts in my childhood. I was a picky eater who pulled the meat out of my sandwich to eat it, ate the toppings off the pizza and left as much crust as I could get away with, pealed the casing off of my hot dogs (pork allergy), and dreaded my mothers remedy for an upset stomach. My mother would burn toast and break it up, pour warm milk over it and make me eat it. I usually only ate about 5 bites before I was running to the bathroom. I still can't stand the texture of wet stuffing or bread pudding, even if it is gluten free. My mom would say at the entry of the bathroom, "Now don't you feel better." I had strange rashes, tonsillitis way too many times and got sick a lot as a child. I also had an auto-immune disease called chronic iritis.

During my teen years I lived with my father. His bachelor life was probably the best diet for my condition. My diet usually had only one meal a day that had gluten in it and that was the school lunch. My food choices at home were Doritos’s (bags full), baked potatoes with cheese and sometimes lunchmeat, Nachos, and sometimes mac and cheese. This was the healthiest I ever was. My iritis wasn't active during these years either.

I met my husband and got married. I learned to cook and my poor husband was so patient as this skill developed. Each year of my marriage put on 10 lbs. Luckily I stopped after 70 lbs and I started very thin to begin with. I developed many environmental allergies and later food allergies. My health was deteriating. I had arthritis in my foot, knees, back, and neck. My energy was non existent and my brain was in a fog. I was praying for Gods help everyday and for Him to heal me. By the time I was diagnosed, I had 20 different food allergies. I was watching everything I ate and rotated the foods that I could. The Celiac diagnosis was a blessing because I now had hope.

Starting the diet was a challenge, but it was very rewarding. After two weeks, I started to see slight improvements. My arthritis went away, my brain was clearer then what it was, I was starting to have some good days, and eggs were not bothering me anymore. The hardest part was understanding that this disease was not a food allergy, but something much worse. Gluten damages the lining of the small intestines. The gluten acts like battery acid and eats holes into the walls of the small intestines. Undigested food leaks into the blood stream causing food allergies. Vitamins and Minerals don't get absorbed and deficiencies and mineral imbalances are common. So, I won't ever be able to have a morsel of gluten again. But I don't care about missing gluten, because having my health restored is much better. Gluten Free products are coming out all the time, and the recipes are getting better. Many thanks to God for all that he has done for me.

We started off with a colicky baby who kept us awake most of the night. Then there wasn’t my husbands job that kept him away until 7pm. Dinner was late and the kids were so excited to see Daddy home that bedtime didn't settle in until 10pm. Thankfully that job is a thing of our past. But we never changed the bedtime routine. Both of us enjoy our time by our selves separately in the morning. He leaves and wakes me up and so I can get an hour to my own thoughts. But this doesn't leave any time for us. I can get his full attention while he is showering after he comes home and eager to listen to my rambling on. Sometimes he enjoys rambling on while the shower runs.

Husband has complained about our situation, but never did nothing about it. I decided that I must be the one to take lead on this task or continue to listen to my husband only talk about it. He leads the bedtime routine, but loves the TV too much to walk away from it any sooner then 10pm. Last night, I put the kids into bed 30 minutes early. The oldest argued the most about the situation , but it did happen. Then I sat by extremely tired husband who really wanted to take advantage of going to bed 30 minutes early, but reluctantly stayed up. We watched the news together and then went to bed. Success.

We also never had made the priority of having a regular night out without the kids. I have sometimes waited 2 years, but have been disappointed in nothing happening. I can honestly say that most of our 17 years of marriage, I have felt he was my best-friend, but the last few years I have longed for a best-friend outside of our marriage. I have finally realize that the reasons for longing for an outside best-friend has been because we have let our marriage determinate. There are no longer moments to talk without the kids around. There aren't moments to just hang out and look forward to being with the most important person in each others life. So again, I stepped in and took the initiative to find someone to swap childcare for date-night. Plan the date and I guess I will also make reservations. (PF Changs has a gluten free menu)

I look forward to having my best-friend back.

I have a sweet Christian friend who told me once, "Get rid of the things that steal your peace."  Since she has said that, her words echo in my mind.  More recently I joined Flylady and she often says, "If it doesn't make you smile, get rid of it." 

I had a dream that I took into action a year ago.  When I was diagnosed with Celiac, I struggled with this new life-style.  My doctor soon told me to try this gluten free diet on the girls to see if it would take care of their symptoms.  It did and all 3 of us struggled with this new gluten free life-style.  I started a support group.  I felt it was my ministry.  But this group has stolen so much of my energy in the problems that have came about.  This is suppose to be a local group, but only the same mom shows up each time.  I turned it into a yahoo group.  Where it has turned into a group that doesn't respond, because it is like walking on egg shells.  I am even afraid to write an essay in fear of someone wanting me to document my experiences with facts.  There has  been people who lack moral values and respect for others that have ruened it all the way around.  I have prayed, tried to create changes to make it better, removed the offending members and still nothing has helped.   This group no longer makes me smile.  It has stolen my desire to want to help others. 

The next question I am thinking about, is if I let go of this dream, put it on hold, or change directions. 

Today is too good of a day to spend feeling sad for things that weren't real. 

Why would I say that after so many tears shed?  Because the more I looked at this e-mail friendship, the more I realized that it was a fantasy instead of reality.  Yes, she is real and yes, we exchanged typed words and smiley faces.  But the most important thing that was missing was the ability to see, smell, touch, and hear as the conversation was taking place.  There are women in my local homeschool support group that I know very little about.  Because I met them, I know the many different expressions that they had in a one hour gathering.  I can read their blog and have many more pictures in my head to fill for the words that are not written.  I am really bad at names, but can picture every little thing they write about their child. 

All morning long, the scripture that repeated in my mind was Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - think about such thing. 

I now have piece in knowing that something real, is not worth thinking about.  But what is the truth.  I am far too busy caring for my home to be nuturing a friendship into a best-friend.  For now, my very best-friend is my Loving, Empathetic God.  My other best-friends are first my husand and then next my kids.  My energy should be on enjoyting them and not on things that drain me.  This brings another subject later on.

My youngest daughter and I could not sleep and are up instead of sleeping.  My reason for not sleeping is the lost of an dear e-mail friend.  I truely believe that my 8 year old daughter is awake just to keep me company and keeping me from being sad.   We played a game, wrote notes and now I am starting this new blog.

The reason for my sadness is because I long for having those best-friends that are so easy to have when we are young.  I was hoping my dear e-mail friend could be one.  But I put this on record to never have an e-mail friend again.  I dislike typing, because words on the page lack the emotion and tone.  Too easy is it to be taken out of content or mood.  Too easy is it to go on and on offending someone without realizing that they are not going to take it well.  Before we know it, we bury ourselfs in things we are appologizing for that are not what we meant.  This happened on both sides with my e-mail friend and I. 

I have a picture of my best-friend and I from High School.  We were best-friends all the way up into our twentys. We didn't have the perfect relationship, but I loved being around her.  She never made me feel that she was better than me, even though she was more popular than I was.  She always made me feel welcome and happy to see me.  She had a way of making me feel good about myself and cheered me on when I needed it.  She has moved too many hours away to visit her.  She is just as busy as I am now.  She has her business while I care for my husbands business and we both have our families that we love and care for.  We loved each other as sisters would have and accepted each other the way we were.

I had another best-friend in Junior High.  She moved an hour away, but we still would spend time together on week-ends when we could.  I was so lost when she moved away.  We shared thoughts, feelings, secrets, poems and lots of time.  We played with our hair, pretended we weren't bored so her mom wouldn't  put us to work, ate lots of bags of Dorito's, and if we got into trouble it was me leading the way.  I lived with my bacholar dad and so I had plenty of rope to hang myself.  I still see her from time to time, but we just are not as close as I wish we were.

Now, I hope none of my present friends take offense.  I know I am blessed with many friends who I love dearly.  I think I am more sad that I have grown up and got too busy to take the time to invest in a best-friend relationship like I had with the 2 very  best-friends from my childhood.  I can't tell you which one is the best, because both relationships were unique and well charished.