Looking Back

I dug this one out of the archives, from 1 year ago.

Ghetto-Fabulous
We survived night #1 with no a/c.
After waking this morning we realized I slept better for 2 reasons.

#1 I didn't go to bed until midnight so the room had cooled down and I had too. I actually spent 30-45 minutes laying out on the trampoline last night. It was beautiful out, the breeze was constant and kept me cool and the bugs away. The stars were so clear- it was awesome.

#2 the fan, one of 3 in the room, that sat in the window is on my side of the bed so I had a nice direct breeze blowing on me all night.
Needless to say Steve slept, he was just a little hotter than usual.
Not that I don't think he's always a hottie!

The kids moved all their gaming equipment out into the Lego room and set up camp there. Did I mentioned we finished school last week and are in vacation mode right now, well the kids are, I have a FULL week of work this week! The Lego room is not under our main house a/c unit so it has a stand alone unit. That kept them pretty cool. Of course it was the night Vaughan had a friend over! We try to keep things Ghetto-fabulous around here, especially with company over! Don't laugh at the ghetto part- just ask around about pulling out into traffic with our car.

With everything that was in me I wanted to pitch a fit over this whole a/c thing.
I just couldn't do it!
Have you ever had that?
When your flesh wants to behave in a certain way, maybe even your mind too; but the Holy Spirit in you just won't allow it!

That's what I had going on and I'm so thankful for God's faithfulness in my life. That He is always there! Encouraging me and prompting me to go against the flow of my flesh. Lord knows I've become and expert and jumping into the stream and going with the flow; that's what makes this particular event all the sweeter.
Psalm 121
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Rock on!
~Michelle

Weekend Happenings

It's been a busy weekend here at the Span Ranch.
Beside the middle school "Quadruple Yuk Squared" event at church, I spent a lot of time in my garden and on the phone with a good friend!

It's also rained a bunch!
I don't mind the rain; I just put on comfy clothes and head out into it.

Here are the start of some tomatoes.


This is my bean tee pee. You can see the beans in the ground at the base- I'm wondering if I planted bush beans though? Hmm. We will see.
To the left of the beans, I mean the right, are 2 of my cucumber plants. I still have 6 waiting to go into the ground.

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.

Rocks, sticks, bats, rakes, cones, shovels.

Kicking, jumping, running and kicking.

I've even nicknamed one of Justin's friends Anger Management because of the time he spends whacking at this thing.

With all this rain our driveway washed out. We really need to invest in some a bunch of sand and a ditch to fix this. Anyway Steve and a friend worked on it today.

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.

Hope you had a great weekend, I'd love to hear what you did, comment or link here.

peace out

-Michelle

Angry Eyebrows

I've learned a few things this week.
First I have taken a poll of 11 students age 15-19 and found that 85% of moms yell at their kids while cleaning or getting ready to clean the house.

The most common phrase used is, "I do everything around here"

So let me encourage you moms reading this to take the challenge I am taking and not yell at our kids when you clean.

A few alternative things instead of yelling would be:
to enlist their help,
assign cleaning jobs or
just grab the kids and leave the house for an ice cream or play at the park, clean houses are overrated anyway.

The next thing I've learned is that 30% of the students polled have a secret code with their siblings and dad for when mom is in a "mood".
In my house it is an angry eyebrow symbol.

I haven't yelled lately, it's something the Lord has been working with me on. The funny thing is when my boys were little I wasn't a yeller. I mean I yelled, I am a redhead *smile*, but seriously my "cleaning yelling" came much later.
I think my frustrations came when they became the size of an adult. Something about that just says to me, you know better, get cleaning! Realistically the teenage brain doesn't function that way but seriously have they really lost all their habits from elementary school?

So two things:
moms everywhere be comforted knowing we have more in common than we realize
and
I wonder if you're family has a secret mom code?

Oh I do love the fact that my boys and I can talk about our imperfections, I didn't have that with my mom.
How about you? Were you able to talk with your parents about everything, including their quirks?

I Promise I Won't Punch Anyone

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.