A Mother’s Journal

Thought I’d give a long-winded answer to that question.  Maybe someone out there wants to know, and perhaps it’ll help my scattered thoughts to answer the question even for myself!

First of all, we got rid of our cat, Tabby.  It was a sad thing to do, but in light of my husband’s ongoing immune related problems, it was one more thing that had to be done.  I am actually not missing vacuuming up the long hair or bothering with a litter box.  Still, I miss her and hope she got adopted into a good home.  She was well taken care of, up to date on all shots and very beautiful.  She was put into a “showcase” section of the shelter that we took her to, with the thoughts by all that she would be easily placed.  Goodbye Tabby.

As a sort of comfort to myself and to help clean the air, I got some house plants.  Tabby used to eat them, so we never had them before.

These plants sit on top of our video bookcase in the school room.

These plants are in the corner near the computer. 

Alas, another school year is approaching and I have to make some decisions about which children to homeschool.  I would love to homeschool them all and I would love to be a SAHM in every sense of the word.  That will probably never work out for me.  I do have to work some to help with the income.  That said, my youngest is having a fit to come home, and – in all honesty – I want her home!  She’s my princess and she loves to learn and make things.  I think she may just know what she needs.  Her constant asking to come home may be what she needs most right now.  This has been a year-long request on her part.  I am also planning to attend a local homeschool store and purchase Sequential Spelling this evening.  We also have to do more math in the upcoming year, so I have had my books and planners out this morning.

Probably the highlight of the day was watching a Nature video about Hawaii and just being amazed at the diversity of life in Hawaii.  I would love to see Hawaii in person.  We have a stack of books and magazines to go along with our study.  I am sure the study of Hawaii will naturally lead to the study of something else.

You may wonder how gardening is going.  Maybe not, but I’ll tell you anyway.  Hot and dry and bounding and dying all at the same time.  It is in the 90′s lately and we have not had enough rain.  Weeds and herbs are bursting forth in bloom and seed to ensure they are here again next year.  I have had some really good herbal infusions this year and I am thankful for all the plants – even most of the weeds.  More rain would be nice, but I do have my eye on a nice rain barrell at work that I’ll get my employee discount on. 

The view from the north side of the house shows off how much green there is right now.

I have a large patch of mint that really blooms this time of year and draws in all kinds of bees and beetles and moths and butterflies!!!  There is so much life there!  To stand back and look, it’s hard to see.

But up close, there are all kinds of things there.  I love these little lavendar colored butterflies.

 Last, but not least, was a kind of spider that I look forward to seeing each year.  It’s an argiope.  They are beautiful spiders with beautiful webs.

The spider has placed itself in the  middle of this mint.  There’s sure to be plenty of good meals here!

I’ll post more later.  For now, I am just overwhelmed with the thoughts of what to do.  What to do about school.  About work.  About everything.  I know for now that I start each and every journal entry with this:  take one day at a time.   It’s a message to myself each and every day, and I need it each and every day.