Blank Page

Ha ha!  It was so manic I didn’t even finish my blog posting until Monday was over!

I have been voraciously reading the “Twilight” saga by Stephenie Meyer for a little over a week.  I finished book 4 today by doing next to nothing else except reading.  It has been a rather obsessive experience, one that I did not feel completely comfortable with.  I thoroughly enjoyed the books…I just felt like it wasn’t quite right to be thinking about them so much when I wasn’t reading them.  And then ignoring all else in the world while I was reading them.  But they are finished now, so I can move on.  I would definitely recommend them to anyone…they are VERY good books and I will purchase them all eventually and read them again.  Maybe more than once, which I’m not sure I have ever done with a book before.  Pretty sure 2 reads is my “record.”  However, if you do choose to read them, PLEASE wait until you have a vacation, or a very long weekend…a time when you are free to be totally absorbed in something besides real life.

In other news….our trip to Georgia was very fun.  We all enjoyed it and Brian’s parents and Raina really took to each other.  A few days later my mom came to see us.  This was also a WONDERFUL visit.  The kids all adored her and I always enjoy any time I can spend with my mother.  Right after mom left, however, was a not-so-fun experience.  I won’t share all the details here, but my sister apparently felt that I was trying to steal her daughter from her so she showed up unannounced to take her.  It was after the kiddos were in bed, so there was no opportunity to say goodbyes or gather belongings.  It was very hard for me and I cried for hours.  I was still a mess the next day….not because Raina was gone, because we knew that would eventually happen, but just the way that she left.  We all miss her around here, making us laugh and giving us undeserved hugs out of the blue.  Mom has talked to her a couple of times so I know she is happy and having fun with her mom.  We’re going to keep her in our prayers and ask you to do the same.

Saturday we went to the Fall Festival at Tusculum to see all our old peeps.  I just love those people.  All those smiling faces and all those warm hugs.  Genuine love even after we’ve been gone over 2 years.  I miss them terribly.  Noah is Anakin Skywalker this year and Elijah is a very daunting “Goth Baduh” (Darth Vader, spoken always in a hushed, ominous tone).  They have had endless fight with their “light savers” and are just too funny dressed up.  They love it and therefore so do I.

I’ve looked for you forever and a day.  Where’ve you been?  I’m just not myself when you’re away.  Such a sweet song by Kathy Mattea.  Growing up spending summers in Middle Tennessee made country music a big part of my life.  I enjoyed country a great deal and was never much of a music snob.  Plus, spending the rest of the year in Missouri or Arkansas, I felt like I was being true to my “heritage” by listening to country.  Ha ha.  Anyway, if it is good, I’ll listen to it.  I have a wide variety of genres in my cd collection.

So where have I been, you ask?  Worried about me?  You should be, LOL!  I’ve been busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  (Speaking of heritage….and NO, I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase before in my life.  It just came to me and I thought it would be funny.)  I went to visit my mom the third weekend in September.  It was a wonderful visit.  We went up to the mountains.  My grandmother has a little property up there on the family homestead.  All around us are other members of our extended family.  I love being up there.  I knew a long time ago that that place is my idea of heaven.  We spent the vast majority of the time out at the creek.  I took a book each time, but I never read.  It is enough just to sit there, watching the kids play and listening to the music of the water.  I walked around in the creek some and brought home an extensive collection of river rocks.  I took lots of pictures and just breathed it all in.  It is such a peaceful place.  I literally don’t feel hungry when I’m there, or tired…just peaceful.  I never want to leave.

When I did come back home a few days later, I brought my niece with me to watch while my mom was on vacation.  Then everything hit me at once.  I was trying to unpack, get reorganized from being gone, get back to schooling with Noah, and start my part-time home-based job I do every fall, all while adding a third child to my family.  It was insanely crazy.  It has taken me 2 weeks to get my head above water, and things are still FAAAAAR from normal.  But I’m taking it a day at a time.

We’ve been lots of places since we got back from Knoxville.  We went to McVegas to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday.  I think we all really enjoyed that day, and I know Daddy was pleased to spend it with his family.  We went to Chattanooga to meet Brian’s parents for homeschool day at the aquarium.  That was pretty cool.  I loved the penguins.  I could have watched them pop up out of the water onto the ice for hours on end.

We’ve been to a pumpkin farm and let each child pick his or her own pumpkin to paint.  It’s funny, I really don’t consider myself an outdoorsy person…maybe it is this time of year, but I could spend hours there, too.  They have lots of baby animals every year and I smiled so much and laughed watching the tiny piglets’ stumpy tails wagging back and forth, or the baby goats sticking their heads through the fence hoping for a snack from my kiddos.

We also had an International Fair with our homeschool group.  Our country was the Dominican Republic, where one of our Compassion International children lives.  We had lots of fun sampling food from all the different countries.  I think the most fascinating thing I learned was not to shake left hands with anyone in Malaysia, because that’s the wiping hand (public toilets are just holes in the ground and there’s no toilet paper).  Fun, don’t ya think??

Tomorrow we head south to Georgia to visit Brian’s parents.  I can’t believe how jam-packed October is.  I’m scouring ebay for Halloween costumes, still trying to organize around here, still trying to figure out this whole 3rd child thing (although we are meeting her mother near Memphis next weekend to send her back), still working as much as possible (my ideal is 15 hours a week, but I tend to fall short of that).  So I don’t know how long it will be until I post again.  I will try to not be so neglectful.  I have lots of good ideas of things to blog about, but never the time to sit down and do it.  So, anyway, that’s where I’ve been.