Monthly Archives: August 2010

getting things done

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Becky Higgins recently did a Q and A on her blog where she was asked how she gets so much done.  Here was her response:

"A: You’re a smart woman and exactly right. I hardly watch TV. I wouldn’t say I never watch it. It’s just incredibly limited. I absolutely rely on my toddler’s naps and my kids’ bedtime. I recharge with regular date nights with the hubby. I try to cut out anything in my life that doesn’t fit into one of these categories: essential, enriching, serving. Being overcommitted isn’t all that fun.

 But being busy and serving and doing … that’s all good.

 I try not to multi-task if I can help it. 

I struggle with that, but I’m working on it. I also use iCal to keep all of my commitments organized."

I highlighted those two middle points.  A service oriented life is different than a 'busy' life.  And that part about multi-tasking….  something well worth considering.  I am reminded of the Take Your Time book and his comment about eating while reading amounting to poor eating and poor reading.  Doing a few things well has the rollover effect of being able to do more things it seems. If your mind was wholly on your previous task while you were doing it, it is then freed to focus wholly on the next activity, having put the former to rest. Multi-tasking often results in one's brain on continual overdrive because there are a number of unfinished or poorly finished things that could use your attention. 

Another good point here was nap and bedtimes.  If you are tempted to multitask, try not to make child-rearing share time with other projects. Got that Self?  

Projects will wait. 

Childhood will not. 


Berenloch1
 

Simple Woman’s Daybook

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For today, August 16th, 2010

Outside my window… cloudy and raining. Very cool. That kind of cool where you might turn the heat on if it was the end of September but since it is August you go get a sweater instead. 

I am wearing…  Boot cut denim trousers, wedge heeled sandals, heather brown car length sweater, brown chandelier earrings my oldest daughter chose for me this morning.  I am mostly looking at Moira though, in her own similar trousers, the black tunic top and her hair pulled into a low knot secured by a large violet silk rose. I am certain I did not look that pulled together as a young teen. 

I am hearing… Brendan with his legos and Tess' falsetto as she speaks for her dolls. They are hungry it seems. The dolls that is.  Art imitates life lol. Lotta eatin' goes on in this house. Speaking of which…

From the kitchen… a grocery list has been constructed from 500 Low Carb Recipes – all of which sound really good and almost all I can eat.  Five HUNDRED things I can eat.  Imagine! I am ordering this from Amazon because that just never happens. If you are grain or gluten free you must see this. 

I am thinking… sometimes I think I am a flunky ex-pat mom.  Like when I hear other moms talk about signing their kids up for activities with the German kids even though they don't speak German. My eyes roll back in my head thinking about all that translating on babelfish to figure out where the practices and games are. Agh. People, I struggle getting all that straight in my own language!

Sometimes I think about  all the things I have yet to perfect professionally and personally.  I think about all the opportunity I tend to let slip away because of that elusive perfection.

  Sometimes then, I think  that  I am my own worst enemy. Then I remind myself, Self, you have birthed ten beautiful children, you have educated them, you have travelled around the world with them despite an autoimmune disorder. You have beaten the odds for teen aged marriage and overcome circumstances that could have flattened you. You are doing ok. This is usually where husband jumps in and says, Shush, and kisses me. 

Pondering these words…

"Now sometimes it takes people a little longer to warm up to you.  Remember, be patient.  

Patient and persistent!"–Door to Door   

Best mom movie moment in a long time – when he opens his sandwich and sees these two words written on it in red food coloring. : ) 

From the learning rooms… School books are en route thanks to my husband who ordered them. He called from the store today asking what school supplies we needed. Smelling salts anyone? Loving this. This is the point where many longtime homeschooling families get tired and lose their oomph. But we are  feeling energized about the whole prospect once again. Exciting!

For my part, I am unpacking and setting up said learning room and rebuilding our Montessori work from the sidebars here. It only works if the underlying foundation is clean and clear. I am optimistic we are able to pull that off well finally.

I am creating… Saw a very similar arrangement in a bowl on Pottery Barn's facebook page.  It was just the thing for the galvanized pan I have had sitting around for years. Hoping to dry some real branches to replace the berries in time. 


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A few plans for the rest of the week… parents meetings for the sports the children are participating in. Must buy equipment. Hoping to squeeze in a date night!

From my picture journal…

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Standing inside the Porta Nigra Saturday afternoon.  Unreal! More on that this week. 

and another

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A straggler which didn't get uploaded.  

 Her father has decided to lock her up til she is 30 <g>  

Pretty girl, we love you. 

Maybe consider the option of extending your childhood another ten or fifteen years.  We might be used to the growing up idea by then.    

 

Walking with Moira

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That is what I do most evenings.  We usually have some sidekicks along but this is our time together, walking, talking, my outside girl and I.  The other night I brought my camera because it is just breathtakingly beautiful walking through the woods in the early evening.  When I got home I was completely without words for what we had captured.   Moira, suspended, ever so briefly, in this place between child and woman.  

 

 

 

 

 

MNNGrunge-LiteCoffshopsunkisswatermarkweb 

 

  

   

Queen Anne’s Lace

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Queen Anne, Queen Anne, has washed her lace 

(She chose a summer's day) 

And hung it in a grassy place 

To whiten, if it may.

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, has left it there, 

And slept the dewy night; 

Then waked, to find the sunshine fair, 

And all the meadows white.

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, is dead and gone 

(She died a summer's day), 

But left her lace to whiten in 

Each weed-entangled way!

Mary Leslie Newton

Simple Woman’s Daybook

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Daybook icon
 

FOR TODAY… Aug 9, 2010

Outside my window… dark, cool, clear, perfect. It's almost not Monday anymore but there is a lot of Monday left points west of here so I will keep typing. The funniest thing outside my window the past couple days was bovine. The farmer rotated pastures and up at our back fence was…

Cowsyardweb
 

Never in my dreams did expect to move around the world and still gaze out my window at cattle.  I love that. 

I am hearing… nothing but the clacking of the keyboard, the fridge humming, and the soft breathing of Abbie Rose as she dozes back to sleep on my lap. 

I am thinking… that I could have called Rebecca after all if I wasn't going to be sleeping.  Insomnia more often than not lately. We got into a night owl sleep cycle when we first arrived early summer and one of us has not broken it. 

Pondering these words:

"Make new friends,

but keep the old, 

one is silver,

and the other gold."

I am thankful for… courage and peace. 

From the learning rooms… curriculum planning…by Dad.  There is a happy turn of events. Dad-turned-curriculum planner has been comparing and contrasting programs and lesson plans. I am so good with that and it's very cool to talk shop together when he really does know exactly what I am talking about.  He knows exactly what he wants for his kids and is setting out to make it happen.  Have at it. ; ) 

From the kitchen… There is a new edition of Julia Child's original cookbook waiting to be broken in.  Jen's parting gift to the girls and I.  I can't wait to try it.  We can cover a lot of ground if we just make one recipe each week. It is about that for me. Like a grand adventure in fairly uncharted waters. 

 In other food news, we need to eat more produce.  Like a LOT more produce. I am not sure if it is the fridge, the humidity or the age of the produce from the commissary but salad greens do not last long at all. 

I am wearing…brown capris, light lime green sweater, brown mules. Or I was. The shoes were kicked off a long time ago. 

I am creating… pictures, soon to be albums. New lens = lots of new pics. 

I am going… to France!  The  Metz flea market is coming up and I am making plans to get there. France.  Me. Metz-metz-metz-METZ!!!!

There.  I feel better. : ) 

I am reading… speaking of France we are reading Anni's Diary of France and now there are a whole bunch of other places there I want to go. Truly delightful picture book packed with info. Aidan is packing now I think lol. Aidan is still plowing through Hardy Boys at a pretty good clip. Kieran found his Marco Polo biography. But the best reading is happening up in his room in the evenings as he has taken to reading stories to Brendan and Tess before bed.  I sat in the hallway listening to his eight year old voice changing with the different characters the other night. 

Around the house… school room awaits some shelves. I am ambivalent about the crochet valances on the main floor.  Picked up an awesome desk and bankers chair off the German craigslist equivalent for next to nothing. 


Deskweb
 

One of my favorite things… foam hand soap.  I used to think it was an unnecessary expense but wow are the sinks a lot less sloppy now.  


Here is picture for thought I am sharing…

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Our neighbors' nod to Notre Dame.  Or something. Not sure how many times we walked past this stone wall before one child gasped and said, "Look Mom!"  Now every time we pass we look up.  Yep. Still there.  As if he would go somewhere. It's a little creepy. 

 

ultimate summer

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If there was one thing I did not foresee it was that I would  become a frisbee mom this summer.  And yet, that is where I have found myself on a regular basis.  The girls began playing on Sunday afternoons after we got here. Then midweek games were added. Addictive this is, apparently. The last day of frisbee for Jen's girls was last Sunday Tuesday Thursday.  Suffice it to say, a good deal of frisbee has been played. 

The little ones and I usually run errands but eventually end up back on the steps watching and waiting and enjoying the shade. 

 

Frisbeebottleweb 

drinking in every drop of summer

 

  

Big girls fuss over the babies, calling their friends to, "Look at her hair!" or making them repeat the sweet things they say with their imperfect pronunciation.  Which is all good because that is how I would be passing my time anyway. ; ) 

 

Frisbeefeetannaweb 

 

We watch, we cheer.

 

We laugh.

 

We play. We run. 

   

It has been a very good summer. 

 
   
  
 

friends

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" because friends are friends forever,

if the Lord, is Lord of them,

and a friend will not say never,

'cause the welcome will not end..


Jencollage
 
 


though it's hard to let you go,

in the Father's hands we know,

that a lifetime's not too long 

to live as friends."

– Michael W. Smith

This is the second time God sent Jen to me.  The first time was in 1994. We had just moved across the country to Texas. Like this move, it had come after many years in one place and was a huge transition.  I got a call from my neighbor back in Ohio shortly after we arrived.  She said she had another friend who had moved there and I had to meet her.  "Really, Kim, call her."  

So I did.  

And so began a friendship that would eventually cover several continents, a couple decades, and nine more babies between us. 

We had not planned on coming here.  She had not expected to be here when we did. But the stars aligned somehow (we know how!) and their assignment was delayed just a bit. Ours moved up just a bit. And it happened again, this gift of friendship brought together in one place.  Enough time to catch up, reconnect and introduce our kids.  We have spent the past month in and out of each other's homes just like in the old days.  But the time came once again and she is winging her way across the Atlantic this afternoon.  

My friend Linda said years ago, "God doesn't want us all bunched up together in one place. I know that is His plan. He wants to spread us out and show His love all over." She told me this as she was moving her family and I really argued with God over that arrangement.  But she was right, and God doesn't want Jen's light hidden under a basket either. I get that. I was good with it. 

I was good with it last month knowing it was coming.  I was even good with it at dinner Thursday. It was her last words to our new mutual friends that made me cry,

"Take care of the Fry's!"

Because I know that was what was on her mind when she had plenty else to think of. And I love her for that. 

God go with you to the Pacific, dear friend. We are good. : )