life after Disney

So, I accounted for the first of the past almost 3 weeks without blogging--let's see if I can sum up the rest of my justification for negligence in one post!

Actually, I can sum it up in one sentence:

I have not been blogging because of homeschooling, cleaning, sorting stuff, and the occassional fun diversion.

Now, you can stop reading if you have better things to do.  Or if you are bored or want to procrastinate your own home projects a little longer, you are welcome to read on!

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I have mentioned before that last year our homeschool, and much of our homelife, kinda de-railed;  the things that had worked so swimmingly for years suddenly were not effective, and everything suddenly became a struggle.  I still want to write about this in depth, because it might be useful to other homeschool moms--I see some of the mistakes I made and what I would have done differently.  And this all really helped me re-think more than just homeschool, but my approaches to parenting, loving my kids with purposefulness, what our family values are and how we could better live them out--all kinds of good things.  But really, the productive thinking has not come until this Fall.  Last year was just hard for so many reasons, and this year as I have wanted to get things to be less hard, I have had to really think long and hard about things, and as I mentioned in my Saturday posts, God has been really showing me so much good stuff. 

So, school this Fall has taken much more of my daily time and effort than it ever has--so, there's reason #1 for much less blogging. 

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Then too, I had other life things happen that were unexpected and took some time away from my usual pasttimes. One was a very unexpected, very fun thing, best relayed via selections from the facebook conversation that started it all:

Stacy's* status update: Someone just reminded me that I have a $100 certificate for Picaboo that expires on the 27th. So now I will be making $100 worth of photobooks. Guess that means I should start by finding my card reader and taking those 500 or so pictures off my camera. *sigh* I hate making photobooks. (Sept. 25, 9:15 pm)

me:  OR, Ms grumpy, you can pass on that gift cert. to someone who would LOVE to make a free photo book! hint, hint. (Sept. 25, 11:34 pm)

Stacy: Blessed, consider it yours! I'll email you the code for it! It was a groupon buy that I procrastinated myself out of. *whew* So happy to have that pressure off of me! (Sept. 26, 4:26 am)**

me: ARE YOU SERIOUS?????!!!!! I was SO just giving you a hard time. Wow, cyber-bullying seems to have its advantages. That's so sweet of you! I got the email just fine--and you have until this afternoon to change your mind, so I don't feel guilty about accepting it. : ) Thank you friend! (Sept. 26, 10:25 am)

Stacy: No guilt at all - I would hate it to go to waste and I have absolutely no time or desire to do it. I would have worked all night on it just to justify it..and if I haven't used it in a year, I'm certainly not doing it in one day. Use and enjoy :)  (Sept. 26, 11:52 am)

me:  Stacy, just letting you know I got my sister-in-law in on it, and we are making photo books of my little preemie niece for their family and the grandparents! Thought you would enjoy knowing what I was up to with your gift. : ) Thank you again!!!!!  (Sept. 26, 9:34 pm)

I stayed up until 2 in the morning finishing the project, only to find that I did not have the right coupon code.  I emailed Stacy, she was right on it and contacted the company and got the correct code for me, so by dinnertime the 27th, I bought the books I had made, using that amazing gift of $100!  (Just a few hours before the deadline, whew!)  My sister-in-law has already received the books, and my in-laws were visiting her at the time in CO, so she could give them their copy.  (The other copy will be sent to the other set of grandparents in India).  She said they turned out so cute. 

So, there went an evening and part of a day--unexpectedly receiving blessing, and blessing others through it! 

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So, the photobook making was one highlight of the week after Disney. 

Less so, in fact more like a definite low, was the beginning of another thing that has been taking up a lot of my time: cleaning.  I tell you all stories sometimes about the gross things that happen in my house due to the very high levels of moisture year-round--partly to elicit sympathy, partly because I love telling tales that make you all so much more satisfied with your own houses. : )  There are other factors too, that lead to my house being so much harder to keep clean than most people's, like the daily wood fire (think ash = house always needing a good dusting), the cob webs that spring up overnight up in the rafters (living in the woods = spiders, and spiderwebs + ash dust = instant haunted-house cobwebs), but the high moisture level seems to cause the most mischief.  Esp. when combined with our lack of good storage inside the house.

Hmmm, I feel an updated catalogue of abominations in the works.

Anyway,  in the past two weeks we went straight from Indian summer to "winter," i.e. RAIN.  As in pouring buckets for days on end.  So, the house has been really damp, and I have realized that it is time for another massive clean. 

But that urge has been hampered by two other things I have going on at the moment--purging and freecycling!  So, unfortunately, the house is a mess of piles at the moment, some rooms clean, some in the process, and it seems like I can't ever get it all orderly and clean at once.  And I have such a rinky-dink house, you would think it would be so easy and take no time at all to have a clean house!  If my house was like most of yours, but just smaller, I think that would be true.  Cleaning house was never hard in our home in Colorado, and the house just always looked pretty clean, even if I had not actually cleaned that hard very recently.  I have learned that carpet hides a lot of dirt.  Dirt has no where to hide in my house on the hardwood, but is so much harder to get to when you are working around so much clutter!  So, clearly the purging and cleaning must go hand in hand.  I am on my way again!

Ok, I have bored you enough for one post.  I honestly do have much more fun and meaningful things to share with you all--I promise, cross-my-heart-hope-to-die-stick-my-finger-in-my-eye, that I will blog some of the fun stuff this week.  I noticed I have lost a follower in the past three weeks.  And I know for fact that most of my IRL friends don't come by here anymore.  I would feel badly about that except a) I don't know why most of you are here anyway (but thanks, readers!), and b) I started this blog for Susan, my mom, and my sisters.  So, as long as some of them still are interested, I'll still share, even the mundane stuff, because they love me and are interested.  Or pretend to be (thanks, Mom!).  And mainly I blog because I love writing, and sharing life with women all over the country (and occassionally the world), and in that regard it does not matter how many people read regularly--it is worth doing even if only one person reads a post and gets something out of it. : )

(But when friends IRL stop by and say hi in the comments, it makes my day!  Thanks, Mina, I am SO calling you!)

I hope you all have a great week.  : )




*Formerly of the blog Moderate Means, now of Life in the Orchard, and a friend IRL even if just from afar!

**Stacy, I sure hope that was CA time and not Midwest time!!!