A Mother’s Journal

I love that saying, Take Joy.  It sounds so easy.  Most of the time it is.  You just get over yourself.  You look deep inside yourself and find that “big person” side of you that your parents taught you to be, where you put on a happy face, give thanks for food and a warm bed at night, and remember that there is always someone who has it worse than you.  You find a way to give.

And… you appreciate those who love you and give to you.  There’s joy there for the taking if you’ll look for it.

My sweet friend, Demeca, brought me a basket full of homemade muffins — still warm, for breakfast this morning.  I won’t tell you how many I ate, but I’m sure you can tell from the bits of cranberry and orange, they were sooooo good.

While Halloween is not my favorite “holiday,” I love the joy in my daughter’s face while walking around in our small neighborhood and ringing doorbells, running into friends and saying “Trick or Treat!”  I always dress up too, in some sort of prairie-girl outfit (what I’m most comfortable in) and we walk around together. 

Uh, can you believe her costume?  Do not fear, I did not buy it new.  Our Goodwill gets a lot of new costumes, still in the packaging, and sells them for a couple of dollars each.  Miss Priss saw this one and wanted it.  By the second house, though, she had ditched the mask, was just a plain old “sea creature” and looked a whole lot more like my Princess of the Universe.  I must admit, I was quite relieved.

I happened to see a great pumpkin idea at The Nesting Place, so Miss Priss and I used daddy’s drill today to make this pumpkin the most beautiful porch light ever. 

Once we get out on the streets, I love looking at the homes and the way they are decorated.  I love to get a peek, when the door opens, at the paint colors just inside the door.  Sometimes I glimpse an antique buffet.  Or maybe get just a sliver-sized view of a kitchen.  It’s fun!

And let’s not forget that you get to check out everyone’s landscaping ideas as well.

See the pumpkin way up in the window?  It’s just a bit scary, if I do say so myself.

I am trying to settle into our new “normal” around here.  With any other scenario I’d say it’s going to just take time, but my husband’s heart can’t wait around while I take my sweet time to rework how I shop for him.  We cannot run out of baby aspirin.  Ever.  I’ll be packing his lunches daily.  His evening snacks will have to change. 

There seem to be two camps in our home: my way of eating and my husband’s way of eating.  The children are split neatly down the middle, two with his appetite and two with mine.  Let’s just say I’ll glady take joy in that dietary changes will most certainly help our children too.

I said I would update on school, and so I will.  We finished up The Pumpkin Runner this week.  We enjoyed making pumpkin soup one night after visiting daddy in the hospital.  It was a wonderful diversion for me.

I cannot say that all of us liked it, but some of us — including me, really liked it a lot!

My living room is set up now for winter, with our little loveseat facing the warm heater.  (Ignore the air conditioning unit in the window.  It’s cut off.)  Miss Priss and I love to snuggle up in there and do school.  She took the vocabulary words from the Five in a Row lesson plans for The Pumpkin Runner and wrote them on large, colorful, construction-paper leaves.  You can’t miss them.  And neither can she.  We sat on the loveseat and talked about the words and what they mean.

That’s it for now.  I’m working on something for the doll house and something for our Five In A Row story disks.  I’ll share soon.

Lynn