Doing the Next Thing

The weekly contest theme over at iheartfaces is "Smiles." I like the wry smile on K's (3yo) face in this photo. She knows she's cute and she's proud of her amazing upside-down feat. It makes *me* smile. Go visit iheartfaces to see more adorable smiles!

What do those words have in common? They're all floating around in my head as I try to sort out some of the discouragement I feel and adopt a strategy for finishing this school year on a positive note. I think the problem is that I'm legalistic by nature. I'm wired to like organization, schedules, and order. That was pretty easy to accomplish when I only had 2 or 3 kids, and only preschoolers. Wait - let me rephrase that. It wasn't "easy" - it was a lot of work. But you know what I mean - it was more, shall we say, "doable." It was also very tempting to be proud of my accomplishments, of my skills - and forget that it was only God's grace, blessing my feeble efforts. Fast forward a few years - and 2 more kids. Life is far busier. The hyper-organized, scheduled-to-the-minute lifestyle just doesn't work as well. I'm frustrated, burned out. I decide (this was back in 07 or 08, I think) that schedules are out and we'll just have a 'r

-My azaleas are finally blooming! And they're beautiful, if asymetrical due to the fact that a couple of bushes died a few years ago. A(5), pictured above with the prolific blooms, was hesitant to smile the day I took the pic. Just before snapping the photo, I had released our eight-legged friend into the woods next to the azaleas. -Spring has sprung! It's finally warm enough in the daytime for popsicles and sprinklers and caterpillars. I found some BPA-free plastic popsicle molds on amazon - by Tovolo. We've had fun filling them with diluted 100% juice and with smoothies. I should've bought a second set - may yet do that... -We spent most of spring break hanging out around home. I needed that kind of break soooo badly! But we wanted to do something fun for the kiddos - something frugal and doable on a weekend. So we went camping in the North Georgia mountains. Of course, the above-average, summer-like temps disappeared the day before we left, and we had freezing t

We're going camping this weekend, to wrap up spring break. Daddy got our tent out the other day to make sure we have all the parts, and the kiddos have loved playing in it. Until now. A (5yo) came running in to me this morning saying, "Mom! There's a poisonous spider in the tent! It's BIG and BLACK and DANGEROUS!" I told him I'd come check on it, but not before grabbing my camera. If there was a big, black, dangerous spider in my tent, I sure didn't want to miss a chance to grab a picture! One, because I just love spiders; and two, because M (11yo) is studying spiders in her Land Animals class and would love to show and tell. It wasn't black, or dangerous, really. Just a wolf spider. I snapped a couple of pics, then shooed him into an easter bucket and carried him into the woods, where he and A would both be happier. I love spiders. Mind you, I’d rather not be bitten and I’ll kill a black widow or recluse on sight. But wolf spiders are so cool – partly