Their Day

This is the day that Moms get celebrated, and I really enjoyed having my sweet babies bring in their cards to me in bed this morning!

But, oh, I wouldn't be a Mommy without them.  Without Jmk... well, I wouldn't have those precious kids.  Without him, I wouldn't be able to do my job or stay sane.  ;-)  And, I was not a Mommy until the day Poodle was born.  And it is only by God's blessings that I have any of them, Jmk or the kids!  I am keenly aware of how much I have been given, and how utterly unworthy I am of any of them.  Of any of my blessings.  Of any of the mercy that God has shown me over my life.

So, I give thanks FOR them and TO Him.

And I am sending out love and happy thoughts to all the women in my life who call themselves Mom.  Developing a human being, training a citizen, nurturing a God-honoring and Christ-loving person is truly a way of life.  There is always a lesson to be learned, a habit to be formed, a mind and heart to be fed.  May the next year bring you all double portions of blessings from God to see to all those needs that the little (and not so little) ones in your life will have!

And NOW, go have some ice cream.  It's Mother's Day.  Calories don't count.  Woohoo!!

TaeKwonDo Boy

Back story!
('cause you KNOW I always have a back story)

A couple of weeks ago, I dropped Toot off at TKD practice because I didn't feel like cleaning up (you know, makeup and matching clothes).  And Jmk watched him during the lesson.  About halfway into it, I get a text from him that says:
"Tooter just broke a board!"

Whaaaaaa????

Yes - Toot broke a board.  On his first try, apparently!  Man, was I beating myself UP for not being there to see it.  So, Jmk brings the board pieces home, and he says "let's show Mommy!"  Toot gets all set up, ready to break the larger piece of wood for me, he's all excited....
Whack.  Board doesn't break again.  Yikes!  We didn't think about Jmk not knowing exactly how to hold it like the instructors do for these little kids with little hands.

So, we're concerned that we may have messed Tooter up.  That we would stick that thought in his head that he couldn't do it.  Enter his very helpful instructor who had him bring that larger piece back up to class, and he held it for Toot today.  And we got it on video this time!  heeheee......  it's so cute!!!!

Manly.  It's so manly.  And future black belt'ish.  And overflowing with manliness.  NOT cute.  At all.  (I have GOT to get "cute" out of my vocabulary when talking about him.  He's actually started correcting me on Sunday mornings.  Mahhhh-um!  I'm NOT CUTE.  I'm handsome!!)

Here's the boy breaking the board.  :-)

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Prayer Request!

My mom will be going in for a Total Abdominal Hysterectomy this coming Tuesday morning.  I would truly appreciate all you wonderful people who check in with us from time to time to say a prayer...:
1)  ...that the surgery will be completely non-eventful.
2)  ...that the "anomaly" on the sonogram that prompted the surgery will be of a benign and uninteresting nature.  (which is what we are expecting because the test markers were all negative!)
3)  ...that her recovery will be equally non-eventful, peaceful, and complete!

Thank you so much!!!

Easter Pics, Take One!

I really enjoy learning to use my camera.  These days, however, I don't get a lot of "easy" opportunities to do so.  Toddlerhood requires a lot more of a parent's attention, dontchaknow.  They are totally mobile, and they are totally going to go play with the lawnmower if you're not watching them carefully.

So, while I may yearn for those idyllic photos of the children in their holiday frocks, delicately supported in the background by beautiful foliage, the reality is different.  What would actually happen is I'd spend a very sweaty and stressful 30 minutes taking eleventy hundred pictures of which only three would be partially usable, and then I'd have to wash the baby's dress, most assuredly, before Sunday.  Probably the boy's clothes too.

No thank you!

So, I took some photos inside the house this morning, BUT (to my husband's chagrin, I'm sure!), I'm going to have to redo them.  Not because they're just AWful, because they're not.  But, because of my dear son who took a photo of Poodle, and reminded me of a big mistake that I made!  You get to have a little photography lesson at the end of my shameless posting of our Easter Chicks.  :-)

And now, here's your lesson:

Tooter's pic, which is SOOC (straight out of camera, or, no editing applied), and he was still using the manual camera settings that I had been using:

Can you see the difference?  Disregard the exposure issues, because Poodle was in a different place in the room.  But do you see how much more alive she looks?  Can you see why?

Because the primary light source was not facing her straight head-on.  She was angled towards the light source.  She has all the lovely shadowing on the side of her face that gives her dimension and "real life'ness".

Now go back and review my pictures.  They're not awful, but do you see how they look flatter?  Less vibrant in terms of bringing out the reality of the person?  The light source was facing them head-on.

Whoops.  :-D

Now, if I don't get a decent chance to take their pictures again, I'm not going to just CRY about it.  (Maybe whine a bit, but certainly not CRY).  But this was such a good reminder that the positioning of the light is almost as important as the quality of the light.  Yay for photography lessons from the 5 year old!  (Who really doesn't know what he did, but I'm about to tell him.  School never stops, even on our day off).

May your Resurrection celebrations be beautiful tomorrow!

We love you!

Poop Patrol is OH-VAH!

Yay!  All is well.  The offending item completed its journey yesterday.  Took about 48 hours.

So.... yeah...  Um, yeah, that's all I have to say about that.  :-D

First Tooth Gone!

Woohoo!  Go Toot!

In other news, Mr. Got-A-Visit-From-The-Tooth-Fairy swallowed a marble a couple of days ago.  The good news, it went straight to his stomach, it was a glass marble, and the nurse at the ped's office said that as long as he wasn't getting physically sick, there was no need to bring him into the ER.

The bad news - I'm on poop patrol until the situation has remedied itself.

Ewww.

Now aren't you SO glad that I have this blog so that I can share these wonderful visual images?  :-D

I'll Take The Burned Ones, Please

Many moons ago, when I was still blessed to be one of the touring students with Ballet Mississippi's Nutcracker, (back when there was still a professional company), we had a performance in Tupelo.  Since my grandmother lived in Saltillo, just a hop skip and jump away from Tupelo, the whole family came to see the performance.  And after the performance, instead of riding the tour bus back home, I rode with my family to Granny's house to spend the rest of the weekend.

On the way to her house, my breathing started to get labored.  I've had asthma for forever - since I was a baby.  So, wheezing was part of my life, and really, it was a very non-dramatic thing.  I wheezed, I took meds, I fixed it.  Pffft.  It's kind of all I knew, and that was that.  Except for the times that I didn't fix it.  And that night was one of the those times.  In fact, that night was my very last full-on asthma attack.  Well, except for a very weird "half-attack" in college.  I could still partially breathe, but mostly got panicky enough that I had to call my sister to my dorm room to calm me down.  However, this night in north Mississippi was my last true attack.  The kind where I woke up suddenly without the ability to get air into my lungs.

It's a scary thing, but not the first time my parents had been woken up with their daughter in this situation.  They did what they did.  I did what I did.  And between meds, steam, panic-control, and certain body positioning, I got to breathing again.  A whole lot has to happen in a very short amount of time, and we knew what to do.  This was a Saturday night, and when I woke up that next morning, I wasn't in a position to be able to go to church.  I was breathing fine, but my energy had been reduced to a point where sitting up was difficult.  I usually needed a day or two to recover from "real" attacks like that.

And Granny stayed home with me.  :-)

Now, this was a big deal, because Granny did NOT miss church.  Her husband, my grandfather, had been the pastor of their church when he was still living, and she loved being at the house of the Lord and worshipping with the Saints.  But, she stayed home with her granddaughter instead.  And she made popcorn!  You know what I mean - good, stove-popped popcorn with salt that was just perfect for someone who was tired and had no appetite for anything.

But she burned the bottom layer of the corn.  

Now, it didn't amount to much, and it really wasn't that bad.  It really wasn't, especially considering that she didn't make popcorn on any regular basis.  So the fact that she only burned a few pieces was pretty remarkable.  But she apologized several times for it.  Which was silly, of course.  But to this day, the smell and taste of burned popcorn reminds me of that time.  Not of the asthma attack, but of the fact that Granny stayed home with me.  And made me a treat that I didn't even know I wanted.  And she made me feel better.  And that's what I remember.

So, I'll take those burned pieces, if it's all the same to you.  They make me smile inside.

The boy has a new activity

I honestly don't think we've even shared with the grandparents yet!  But, Toot has started taking Taekwondo.  Surprise!  :-D

He's only had 2 classes so far.  They encourage these kids to take more than one a week, but their class times for his age level are such that we can only conveniently make one a week right now.  Regardless, this may be something that goes by the wayside come the fall and the commencement of whatever sport he's going to play then.  Maybe.  We really don't know.  His particular TKD school is pur-etty spendy, so we'll see how it all goes.

ANYway, this all came about when he started talking about "wanting to take Kung Fu with a boy teacher with boys in the class".  (He really did say all that).  Translation - I want to go do something where someone new can teach me something, and I've seen Kung Fu Panda so many times, that this really looks like something I NEED to do".

So, since he has begun learning the days of the week and what they mean (that was a prerequisite for his having any sort of extracurricular activity), we looked around, asked for opinions, and just sort of closed our eyes and picked.  (We have a surprising number of martial arts schools around here).  The school itself is nice.  It's clean, the instructors are really awesome with the kids, everyone is friendly.  I know next to nothing about martial arts, TKD included.  So, I don't know anything about belts or tournaments or how to help him or any of that sort of thing.

However, he's AWFULLY cute in his uniform, which I learned yesterday is called a do-bok.  :-)  And, that he's a really good boy in class, because he earned the "Future Black Belt Sticker" for being a good helper and paying good attention and giving 110%.  He was SO stinkin' excited!!

The video shows them doing some kick thing.  (So sorry.  Seriously - it's our second time to go.  I know none of the terminology).  He's the first cute little thing you see go around the circle of kicky-things.  He doesn't have any of the "stuff" on his do-bok.  I was far away, and taping this through a window with a phone.  I apologize for it being so hard to see!

Did I mention that he LOVES being praised for yelling "YES SIR!!!!" louder than anyone else?  And the kicking and punching things part is gravy.  That's our boy.

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Latest Parents and Kids article :-)

This one is about volunteering with your kids!

A current project of mine.

Three guesses as to what this is:

The rehydration of the Pod People?   No.

Sticks that met an untimely demise?   No.

Another one of those crazy homeschool things?   No.  Weelllll.....  No.  Not really.  Maybe kinda.

I'm making homemade vanilla extract.  Yes, I am.  I've found this very addictive not-so-little blog called Heavenly Homemakers.  She's all about natural, whole-food eating, and I've been getting some good bread recipes from her.  (More on that later).  But this little 6 month project is very easy.  No experience required.  You just have to have the gumption to buy a lot of vodka at one time.  (Or, you have to have a sweet spouse who is willing to do it for you).  :-D  My only question about this whole thing is that most, if not all, of the high-quality, pure extracts that I know of do contain a little bit of water.  And this is all alcohol and vanilla beans.  But, I've got until June to figure all that out.  In the meantime, I try to remember to do a "Vanilla Shake" every once in a while.  And that cabinet is taking on quite a lovely aroma - so, bonus!

Just thought I'd share.  I'm not 100% sure just how much money this is saving.  It's definitely saving some, but I'm not sure just how much yet.  This is really more for the cool factor of it all.  Anyone can do it!

Proud of you, Phillip!

This is my cousin-in-love (Jmk's 1st cousin), Phillip Chapman.  Catcher for the Memphis Tigers.  Proud of you, big guy!

Diversity.

A couple of weeks ago, a Facebook connection made a comment about how she didn't feel very kindly towards homeschooling, linking to an article from FoxNews about how the face of homeschooling is changing.

I didn't comment on her innocent post, because it really wasn't necessary.  BUT, I was nosy enough to see what others were saying.  Most of the comments came from homeschooling friends of hers and they were, naturally, supporting their position and educational choices.  But one person, who I know to be a teacher, left a comment to the effect of "how are homeschooled kids supposed to learn about diversity?"

This particular question comes from the same place as does "how are homeschooled kids going to get socialized or how are they supposed to learn social skills?"  And, in all fairness, I was asking the very same questions about 4 years ago.  You know, back in the days of my life where there was NO WAY I was going to homeschool, and I really wish people would get off my back about it, thankyouverymuch.

I'll leave the "socialized" question alone for now, but I'd love to speak about how my children experienced True, Beautiful Diversity this week.  And, at the same time, I hope to memorialize a special man who was a friend to my family and to so very many others.

Terry Wray, Sr was so many things to our community.  He was first a Christian and a Catholic and a husband and a father.  But he was also a community leader.  A political motivator.  An encourager.  A friend.
He was a Republican and a conservative, married to an incredible woman with whom he helped to create a true family Enterprise that has fingers in all sorts of things, both civic and political.  He was the county's president of the Rotary Club.

Can you picture him?  If I hadn't begun my post with the title "Diversity", 10 bucks says that you would be picturing a white guy, right?  That's okay, I'll admit that I probably would have too, unfortunately.

Mr. Wray was also a member of 100 Black Men, a successful mentoring program.  He was a truly active member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and involved in the local leadership.  .....  I'm about to start quoting his obituary, and I need to quit.  He was a role model for so many, there is no doubt.

My point is that he was a PERSON.  And SUCH a person he was.  (To borrow from Mrs. Katz and Tush).  His political beliefs, civic beliefs, personal beliefs, religious beliefs, family beliefs - none of them was defined by his skin color.  All of them were defined by his clearly stated visions of right and wrong and the future.  They were defined by his experiences and his expectations.  He did not require others to agree with him in order to simply fellowship with them.  And, as my children and I sat through his beautiful Homegoing Celebration on Tuesday, they were able to see a church house full of Diversity.  Equal numbers of black, white, young, old.  Grown men in their group's regalia.  Priests and nuns.  Political leaders of our county and state.  Friends galore.  So Many Friends.  And his family?  Oh, there were tears.  There was heartbreak.  He was so young and died so unexpectedly.  But, the life he lived was one of Christian charity and of joy.  He was never stingy with a smile.  He was honored by his family.  He was loved and appreciated.  And as the church ushers were trying to find places for people to sit because the church was so full for the funeral mass, it had to have been so obvious to everyone - This man lived his life defined not by his skin color.  But By His Character.  And you could almost feel those aspects of his life giving his family strength, though they cried, in this most difficult time.

What a beautiful life.  And I'm so very humbled that my children got to see what people are capable of being, if only they choose to be so.  This is Diversity, as experienced by 3 little homeschooled children.

I'm so excited!

Years and years ago, back when Mississippi Ballet Theatre still WAS, we'd take advantage of our break times during long Saturdays of rehearsals when we had to stay all day, and we'd go around the corner to Campbell's Bakery for a cookie.  (Yes, ballet dancers did that when they were pre-teen/early teenagers and had the metabolism that we all wish we could get back!)

Oh, it was sad to see and hear how it had declined over the recent years.

But, how exciting is to hear that it is about to be reborn, but not made utterly unrecognizable!  I'm looking forward to seeing it again!  (Thanks EatJxn for the head's up).

Photo by Dr. Mark Reed
Go see his other work at:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=100000589187567&aid=7198

We Did.

I've learned over the past nine years:
1)  Never take a good marriage for granted.  The blessing of such a thing is worth more than all the gold in the world.
2)  It is possible for someone to know all the icky parts of you and love you anyway.
3)  Marriage, to the right person, is the easiest thing in the world.  If you find comfort and peace and joy and laughter in your marriage, then God has blessed you mightily and you had better get about praising Him for it!

Thank you, Lord, for Jason.  Thank you for saving me from my dumb self all those years until I finally met him.  Thank you for giving me this awesome man to call my own!

Happy Anniversary my Lobster!!!

Wedding Photography? You betcha!

I feel like I have to make this disclaimer every time I share pictures or talk about pictures or my camera or discuss anything photography related:  I am not under the impression that I have any particularly outstanding skills for photography!  Most of my picture sharing revolves around pictures of the kids, and of course, THEY are the most outstanding subjects, so they must be shared.  ::ahem::  ;-)

My beautiful SIL Leah taking a break from the formal portraits just before her and David's actual wedding.

However, I have recently been asked to photograph a wedding for a sweet church member-friend who is getting married in August.  Now, let me tell you, most of the time I think about this assignment, I break out in cold sweats.  Mental cold sweats, but cold sweats nonetheless.  I, obviously, have never done this before, and I don't intend to begin doing this (wedding photography) regularly.  But, the bride-to-be's mother is precious and wonderful and a sister Mary Kay consultant (actually a Senior Director), and quite frankly, she asked.  And unless it involved jumping out of a cake in a swimsuit, I wasn't going to say no to Cathy!  (Nor am I charging anyone anything for this - the idea of that sends the nervousness off the charts).

They were up at the front of the church getting photographed with everyone.  But were very sweet to look over at me so I could grab one for myself.  Aren't they gorgeous?  They're gonna have some puh-retty babies.  And, no, that's not a hint about anything!  I'm just saying that ONE day....  

Plus.  ::ahem again::  I will have a reason to buy an external flash, at the very least.  (grin!)  MAYBE even another lens, but I suspect the one that I would "need" is gonna be upwards of one grand, and even I won't be able to justify that.  Oh, I'll try, but I'm pretty tight with the purse strings.

End of the evening.  All the official "stuff" was done.  They were Just Dancing.    I love how they are looking at each other.  She - utterly happy and content and in love.  He - so satisfied and completed and in love.  Sigh...

Christine wants a photojournalistic'y sort of style, which I like to do.  And I have months to continue to practice with the thing that matters most in photography - capturing the light properly.  So, I'm excited!  Utterly nervous, and very very out of my comfort zone, but excited.

And Lollypop is going to LOVE seeing this one day when she's older and she realizes just how much and for how long her Daddy has loved loved loved her.

Those of you who are getting in to photography (KAT!), wanna come and be an assistant for the day?  You will be paid with my undying devotion and heartfelt friendship.  And chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.
Plus, the bridesmaids will be in red.  Can you just SEE the black and whites that can come out of red dresses up against the bridal white?  Yummy.

Top 3 favorite pictures from Robert and Kiri's wedding.  (The wedding was completely private, but then we all met them at their house for a wonderful, casual celebration of love!)  You can't see her dress, but she was a vision.  Just beautiful!  And I love Robert's heartfelt protective embrace of her.  May God bless my brothers and their wives!

Published! 'Cause my Jenn asked.

My sweet, dear friend Jenn has been writing for the local Parents and Kids magazine for years now, and I've always thought it was a very cool thing.  Well, SHE'S very cool, so it automatically goes that anything she writes will be cool.  It also helps that she's witty and talented.  :-)

Well!  A couple of months ago, she sent an email asking if I'd be interested in contributing to the magazine myself.

Heehee!  Little did she know, (and God bless her, she's also a copy editor), I *was* interested.  And here you go!  Mama got published.  Yay!

While there won't be any pulitzer prize winning poetry or novels being created on my trusty computer, I do hope I can continue to be a contributor to the magazine AND learn about some new things in the process.  Thanks BFF's Mama!  I owe you one.  This was really fun.

Baby Steps

I Did It.

I did it.  I did.  I gave myself permission to do something.  I allowed myself to release some of my OCD'ness and thusly release a teeny, tiny smidge of clutter from my house.


I am going to get rid of magazines that I haven't read yet.

Now, I know some of you are raising an eyebrow and thinking that maybe I've quite lost my marbles.  Because, really, it's not that big of a deal.  Toss the magazines.  Who cares?

But you see, I haven't read them.  There may be something interesting in there.  Something I didn't know and would like to know.  Something that would make my life easier or my hair look better or my clothes fit properly or my house be more organized.  And if I don't read every. single. magazine. and in the order in which they arrived in my mailbox, my life is going to be harder, uglier, ill-fitting, and badly organized.  Plus, I paid for these.  I had better get my money's worth.  And, besides.  I might MISS SOMETHING.

Mm-hmm.

Did you take a close look at that picture?  Do you see how far behind I am with this monthly reading?  Especially with the Good Housekeeping.  I like it the best, so I save it for last, but never actually get to it.  I don't even know how I ended up receiving In Style Magazine.  I swear to you, I have absolutely no recollection of subscribing to it.  I genuinely wonder if I am receiving it as a gift from someone.

ANYway, as I was cleaning out my eldest daughter's room for an upcoming project, I was equally astounded and mortified by all the Stuff everywhere.  And, later this morning, when I brought back two more magazines to add to the perilously unstable stack of periodicals piled on the top of the toilet tank in the master bathroom, I saw it.

Truly saw it.

I saw the unreasonableness of what I was doing.  I'm fervently holding on to these constant reminders that this is not the part of my life where I casually read magazines.  Creating this list of Things To Do by piling the magazines up and telling myself that I need to go through them before I can throw them out.  Adding something to my brain's checklist of "All The Things That Need Attention".  Endangering my very life as I risk sitting in front of this towering stack of information so delicately balanced on the porcelain behind me!
(okay.  That last part isn't exactly true).

But, really.  Come ON.  Stop the insanity!

Yes.  I'm going to miss out on something.  Yes, that "something" would have been cool to see/read/learn.  But my life isn't going to be any different because I missed it.  Not really.  Besides, I didn't toss my Guideposts, Imprimus, or Old Schoolhouse Magazines.  And now, my mental to-do list is smaller, as is the stack on the toilet.  It's liberating and relaxing at the same time.  And I did something way more important.

 I took a baby step into the land of "Can't Keep Everything Or Do Everything".

There is a finite amount of space in our house and a finite amount of time in a day.  And as I come to terms with this very real fact, I hope I will begin to release some guilt, some worry, some stress, and some stuff.  I thought I had already begun this very important journey a few years ago.  But something tells me that I'm actually just now beginning.  With baby, baby steps.

Now, I wasn't in danger of becoming the next episode of Hoarders or anything like that.  But, it's going to be a real challenge for me to learn to not keep everything that enters my house.  And I'm not about to do a Fly Lady type toss-out of my entire house.  But I hope I'm going to learn to be kinder to myself about what I can and can't do and keep right now.  Next year, my time restraints will change.  There will still be restraints, but they will be different.  And maybe I won't have to throw out so many magazines.

In the meantime, I'm feeling good about this Big Thing that I did.

And, those copies of Imprimus have been given only a month's reprieve.  Watch out!

Be Still My Financial Heart

We had a crazy day yesterday.  Or, in homeschool-speak, our day was fairly on par.  (That's my oh-so-clever way to reiterate that there is no "normal" day in home education.  Did you catch that?)  We lesson'd in the morning and during Lollypop's morning nap.  After she woke up, we headed to the new Children's Museum in town to fix a membership card issue that I didn't trust to get fixed via a phone call.

After sort of fixing said issue, we headed to a late lunch at CiCi's.    The kids ate, and while I was sitting with the wee'est one at the table, the older two went into the little video game room. They pretended to play the games and just generally amused themselves. Poodle came out asking for a dollar that she could change into quarters so that she and her brother could actually play some games. 

Tooter spent his two quarters on two games of the candy grabbing thingy. (he later wished he had used them on the rifle game, but experience is the most effective teacher).  Eh. He's only five.

Poodle used her first quarter on a pinball game where she won a gumball. Score. Then, my eldest child, who is apparently totally brilliant and is the next Warren Buffet, ;-), decided to save her 2nd quarter and bring it home to deposit into her piggy bank.

Can I get an amen from the GaGa and the Aunt Jennifer who I know are grinning right now?  Woo and inDEED hoo!!

Testify, girl. Tell it like it is!

I'm not entirely sure if she's letting us have her opinion of our eclectic mix of storage containers or if she has merely had it Up To Here with the way we have given up trying to keep the cabinet organized while she's still getting in to it.

Whatever the case may be, Lollypop has a VERY strong opinion on the matter. And she would very much like to share it with you.

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Goodbye, Hello, I hope to see you more!

As we all say goodbye to 2010, I hope that this year has been good to you.  I know that it has been a challenge for some, a struggle for others.  There have been good things and difficult things, and I suppose that we can say that about all years!

The Zookeepers have been so blessed this year as we've watched our babies grow.  MamaKeeper has been oh-so-busy with learning to navigate the waters of homeschooling.  I know I haven't been around the Blog much, and I hope to rectify that in the months to come.  Because I really do like talking with you all out there!  As I'm learning, homeschooling is a constantly changing, ever evolving endeavor.  When I think I've got a handle on what to do to make the day pleasant and productive, the baby learns a new trick or changes her sleep patterns, and we're back to square one.  BUT, as all homeschooling parents learn, flexibility is not just the key to a good home education, but also crucial to a successful one.

Flexibility, though, requires freedom.  I need limited outside personal commitments.  There are things that I can't do anymore (for now) that take my concentration/focus/time away from my primary job.  I'll get back to all those things one of these days, but just for now, I'm learning to streamline.  Not to say "never", but just to say "not right now".  And it's a wonderful problem to have, because I dearly love teaching my children.  Yes, even on the days where I'm pretty sure that my sanity is of no value any more because it has clearly taken leave of me.  It takes leave often.  Apparently, my sanity and I have "issues" with each other.  WhatEVAH.

But seriously, I wanted to leave 2010 with a post to say that I missed being more present this year, and I don't immediately expect to jump back in with lots of writing in the months to come.  But, it will come.  So, for now, from our house and zoo to yours - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  And may 2011 be chock-full of healthy and happy and closeness to God.  Because if that is the case, then I know that your year will be so awesome!  May God bless you!

(Photo by DaddyKeeper.  Canton, MS Courthouse)