Well yes, I guess it is true. I feel like I haven't been a very good blogger lately. I certainly have read many blogs, and have been impressed and inspired by oh so many profundities contained therein. So many talented and prolific writers. So many well thought out conclusions. But I haven't felt at all equipped to contribute anything meaningful to the electronic warehouse of homeschooling parental wisdom.

But today, that won't stop me from rambling about things that have mattered to me lately; and who knows? By the time I stop, I might even have something worthy of a post.

Recently I have written about our extreme weather event of the week, our camping trip, and about Baby Girl's birthday. And some of the posts of other blogger have gotten me thinking up potential posts (PPs). But it seems that many PPs end up becoming UPPs (un-published posts).

One thing I have always looked forward to, being a mommy of a daughter, was getting her interested in various handcrafts, like crocheting, knitting, needlepoint, cross stitch and the like. I only learned needlepoint and embroidery myself, and some strange little pastime with yarn that I remember being called "horse rein", but I never did learn to knit, crotchet, or even to make a latch-hook rug. While shopping for Baby Girl's birthday, I happened upon a latch hook kit of a 8" by 8" butterfly rug. Yesterday, I got a little time to teach Baby Girl how to do it (while I learned myself -- so easy!) and she really took to it. She has been happily working on her rug since yesterday, even getting up early this morning before church to try to seize a few minutes to work on it. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to see her working on a project of this size and complexity at her age. Hopefully it whets her appetite to learn more things down the road.We had family visit us last weekend, and stay at our home for three nights. That whole experience could be a post by itself. For now, though, I will just share that our children's lives were enriched by their visit, and one activity that was particularly exciting was the water rockets. I do have pictures of this. It took place in our pasture, and involved homemade rockets from 2 liter soda bottles, and a homemade rocket launcher. You filled 1/4 of the bottle with water, and pumped air into the remainder of the bottle up to about 60 p.s.i., then fired it off. The rockets probably flew at least 200 feet, but maybe I am a bad judge of that sort of thing. Might have been higher. Anyhow, Little Son got a kick out of it. Baby Girl ended up being the rocket retriever. She is such a good sport.



One thing I have been struggling with personally is a very acute sense of not having time to accomplish what I want to. Free time comes so infrequently, is so short-lived, and often arrives during such unexpected moments such that I never know what to do to best fill it. I am one who has a keen sense of my responsibilities, and a strong desire to always make the best use of my time. This is a blessing that can also be an annoyance. The frustration I feel over having "no time" is bringing out all my spiritual shortcomings. I get moody, critical, and resentful of ~~~ I don't know what. I get angry that I don't have the time to do everything I want to do. At the same time, ironically, I get impatient when thing don't happen fast enough. For example, I often feel impatient over the fact that Self-Reliant Man seems to be plodding along in his rebuild of our tractor engine. Yes, this is a big job. Yes, we really aren't the kind of folks that have time for this sort of thing. Yes, we really rely on this tractor. And yes, we have lost far too many precious Saturdays to other demands, and there are many similar Saturdays to come in the next month. Although I want to do the other activities that are "stealing" Saturdays away from this project, I resent them at the same time: simply because there is too much I want to get done on our Saturdays.

In a strange way, I have even resented our family camping trips, because even as we plan and prepare to carve out a few days of margin in our family life through camping, when we return, the old resentment returns as I realize how much I have to do to "catch up" again at home. It spoils my peace.

One thing we did for Baby Girl's sixth birthday in March was order her a complete set of bedroom furniture. This means a bed, bookcase headboard, desk, dresser, and nightstand. Four pieces showed up, and now I found out that the bed is on backorder until April 27, well past a month past her birthday. She doesn't seem to mind, but it really bummed me out for a time. I see it as another loose end in my life. So the boxes sit unopened while we wait. Like we even have time to assemble it anyway. Can you see my lack of peace and impatience?

Here's a trick of technology in my life. Ever since Self-Reliant Man and I both lost over 30 pounds each in 2007, we decided we could keep the weight off by weighing ourselves every single morning and writing the amount on a chart. That way, we knew if we were creeping up and could make small corrections. It worked well for over a year. Then about a month ago, we discovered that we were both losing weight without really expecting to. Our digital scale had been showing us to be steady for weeks, then both of us declining in weight. No way!

What we discovered was that we needed to change the battery in the darn thing. After getting a fresh new battery I discovered that I had gained about 8 pounds! I wasn't surprised, but I learned not to trust a battery operated scale anymore. Now I need to get my mind into weight loss mode. For some reason, that was easy to do two years ago; not so easy to do now.

And how has the NP (new plan to drastically reduce my computer screen time) been coming along you might ask? I have to say that despite my desire to limit the screen time in my life, I have not been successful since that first glorious week. It seems that there is always a need to go online for something, and then instead of walking away when I am finished, I decide to check this news website, then that weather website, then this homeschool website, then a little online shopping, and before you know it, a half hour has passed. And I am cranky that I have no time? I need to re-evaluate, rethink, and replan. I need self discipline. It is a spiritual issue.

One more thing is that our school time at home has been taking more time lately, too. I fully expected that it would with Little Son in 4th grade, and Baby Girl in 1st grade. Now that we are in the midst of our academic year, it is true, and it has been a big adjustment for me. I had dreams of doing other activities and find that I never get to any of them. I barely even have time to read a book some weeks.

There's that resentment rearing its ugly head again. I know it's a spiritual problem. As I reread this post, I think to myself "ah, the rants of a person who really has nothing serious to worry about". But that's real honest life in my little world. I said I was going to ramble, and I certainly did. Bless you for wading through it with me.