So I've been gone a few days.
Not sure where or what I've been doing but the above picture is a pretty accurate description of 4 out of the 7 days of the week for me, except I'm driving.
Seems like this week should be over all ready. Not because it's been bad just because it's been long.
Our first year of public school comes to a close on Friday.
Out first year of home schooling one child since 1999 doesn't come to an end because of forces we're still not sure of.
I'd like to share a few thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head about my life.
First: Education decisions for Vaughan are driving me crazy. For whatever reason I feel like a bad parent because it looks like he'll go full-time again at the high school.
What?
How have I let this inadequacy creep in?
I fight it.
So that's a monster I'm fighting right now. I ask myself, is there anything wrong with graduating from high school with just a high school diploma? I mean we did it, right. There is a train of thought in my circles that no that is not good, that our students should be pushed to get college credit, if not an AA, under their belt before leaving high school. Some times I just want to punch those people in the face.
Other times I realize that wouldn't be very nice.
But if you've ever punched someone there is such gratification in that, self control Michelle, self control.
Second: There's the work and work.
Don't get me wrong I like my job and if I could pick any job it would be the one I have. It's just, well quite frankly after staying at home with my kids for 14 years going to work has been tough to get adjusted to.
My home was my job for 14 years and I loved it!
I spent my days educating my children, cooking, cleaning, visiting parks and the beach, grocery shopping and organizing.
Now that I work p/t out of the house I struggle with not doing my housework when I get home.
A typical day goes like this:
wake up and get people fed, then homeschool, check on my blogs, start some laundry, do dishes, shower and finish homeschool (if we even started) and then lunch and off to work.
At work I work and try to not talk to Jamie too much or hold baby Julia too long.
I then leave work, pick up child, taxi child somewhere, home to make dinner, vacuum floors and then some days back to work.
While I'm at work any cleaning I had down goes quickly down the drain and dirt begins to multiply.
ADHD people, like myself, have a hard time sitting still but lately it's been more like I'm not sitting still because life is going on and things need to get done.
So I ask myself: Am I teaching my children to be a slave to the man? Am I a slave to the man? Oh heck just asking that makes me want to sell everything and live somewhere with tents and gardens or better yet a camper, my family and lots of miles.
Hmm. I don't know.
I don't even know if this blog post is even making any sense.
I don't really care if it does!
So I've rambled.
I'm surviving and now it's off to push some laundry through and get on with the day.
Peace out
-Michelle
one more thing, perhaps the most important, what I to combat all this is from the study of the book of Esther I'm doing: I've taken one of our scenarios of "it's tough being a woman" written it on an index card and on the back side I've written scripture to help with that.
Here's my card:
The Truth to bring me peace, joy and sanity.
I've tweeted and yes I said tweeted not twittered- I TWEET.
This is what I picked from my garden this morning!
Here we all, minus one boy who is hidden in the back, all riding in the van!
Our last Servant Evangelism stop was at a local Assisted Living Facility where we met Odeal, a 97-year-old woman who acted about 50! The kids fell in love as she shared her story of leaving New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, her tales of owning a dress shop in Brooklyn that got robbed and many more! They loved her so much we went back another day just to say hi!
Here they are sitting on the floor with the resident dog while listening to Odeal tell her stories. 
We spent 2 days painting at a local runaway home, a morning weeding an elderly widow's yard and another morning cleaning all the shelves at our local food bank. The kids worked hard and with only a few complaints.
We had even more fun dropping them off!!! As we were unloading a stray cat walked right up to us so the kids were thrilled that they got to rescue a cat!! We were even allowed to go in and visit the animals, I balled- after all it had not even been a week since my Fluffer Nutters died, sniff, sniff. My crew was so sweet to me!
One of the neat things about working with youth is meeting all kinds of students. Every once in awhile you meet one you just fall in love with instantly and then they grow on you more and more. The young man below is one of those students. His heart is something in books; God's got plans for this young man and I am excited to see what they are!
We play a game called Mafia on all our trips, usually Matt, Kev and I get voted out pretty quick. It's a great game, full of lying and deceit, here's a group playing. I know aren't we the best: serving the community while playing lying games!!! *smile*
I just love this picture of my dear friend.
We had a student who had just graduated from high school come every night at 7pm to lead worship songs. Later in the week my Justin had the opportunity to lead a song at the Assisted Living Facility his team visited and well as lead some kids in a song during our annual Missions Talent Show (sorry no pics are allowed at the talent show- hey attendance has it's privileges)
Packing up is always an adventure in itself!
My new friend and bedmate, Christie- too bad she's headed off to college this year!
Lastly we had to do a clean up on the vans we were driving in. This is a shot you get when middle schoolers run the camera.
We had a good week and nothing got broken until the last hour when we were waiting for parents to arrive.
So, 
Our summers usually consist of a weekly pool/beach day. We got one of those in so far. I have ratings for pools in the area. I am thankful for all my friends with pools as well as our local public ones but there is always one that sits on the top of my list.
Of course we always have an extra in tow!
Summer fun!
Compare to this:
I'm betting still yummy and oh so yucky for oyu!
This one has pretty coloring but he always looks scared.
Now on to outside things around here....
There's nothing like a fresh bud growing, and for those of you whose mind went to a gutter I am talking about a flower bud like this one. Although... *smile*
I moved some rocks and got some landscaping going; below is the beginnings of a flower bed. I used coquina rock as a border (still in need of some) as well as bricks from various clean-up jobs after Hurricane Katrina. I use to have 1 large broken pot amoung the greenery until that pot mysteriously broke into 4 pieces? boys
In case anyone forgot about the car blowing up incident in 2008 here's the remainder of that vehicle. It has become a punching bag for many children and adults over this past year. 
With all this rain our driveway washed out. We really need to invest in 
Well, the summer is shaping up to be busy so I promise to keep you updated, plus you know me and blogging... I so prefer it over Facebook and all the other sites I belong to.
So I've been gone a few days. 
